I couldn't sleep most of the night. I couldn't shut my mind off. So many questions, too much information.

Am I up to the task of doing what's best for Ryan? I don't even know what's best for him....so how can I do it? I try to research it, and at times nothing seems relevant to my situation with Ryan. I've had the same problem with researching SPD. What I find are forums and articles about kids who are deep into these disorders, whose lives are greatly affected by them, hour by hour, moment by moment. We are just not in that situation (praise God). He's so borderline on everything...Asperger's is borderline (actually AS or just some quirky behavior...who's to know?), his SPD is borderline (hits a bunch of the delays and behaviors, but nothing that holds him back all that much).

I joined an SPD forum only to discover it's primary focus is "recovery"....they believe a lot of SPD is caused by yeast overgrowth in the gut, heavy metal poisoning, food allergies and sensitivities. All fine and good, but the recovery process is highly detailed, time consuming, expensive and difficult. I can see it being an option for an SPD child who can't stand to be touched or has to have the lights at dim levels all the time or absolutely cannot function in a noisy environment. Ryan is not that severe by any means. Many of the kids on the group who have gone through the recovery process were brought up no higher than the level Ryan is now, if that makes sense. I'm just not sure that process is relevant to our situation. I mean, we might see a little bit of improvement, but would it be enough to justify the expense (both monetary and life quality/convenience)?

I'm having the same situation with researching Asperger's. So much of it is geared towards much more severe situations. Trying to weed through all of the information is so frustrating.

I have to make a decision on whether to let StMM know about Ryan's diagnosis or not. The psychologist said it was totally up to us, she'd rewrite the report to gloss over that part if we wanted. There are pros and cons to it, especially in a situation like Ryan's, which is so borderline. When I say borderline, I'm saying that it's mild enough that he won't qualify for services through the public schools. Same with his SPD. Anyway, until I find a good school fit for Ryan, I'm thinking I need to leave him where he is. He loves it there, he has friends there, he's happy, doing very well academically. I don't want to move him until I'm sure we've found a place that will do well by him. I'm afraid if I give his current school the diagnosis they will decide they can't deal with it just because it now has the name "Asperger's", and not give me the time I need to find the right placement.

That sounds kind of bad, doesn't it? That a school would let the term Asperger's scare them away from a child? I thought so too. Until I realized I am doing the same thing. I get the diagnosis and I'm immediately terrified and angry and frustrated. I wonder how am I going to handle this? How is he going to deal with it himself? And then I realize....this is my child. The same child I've loved and handled for 6 years. He's no different today than he was yesterday, just because he now has a label. It's not as if he just suddenly "caught" it, like the flu. My biggest struggle right now is to make sure I don't use this to define him...and that no one else does, either. But does that mean keeping the diagnosis under wraps?

I don't know.