I have come to the conclusion that  Mom & Auntie & I are having issues with depression. All three of us have other factors that make us unhappy with the way ours lives are going but the unifying factor is that King Ben has been extra agitated and extra difficult. He’s having daily meltdowns. Sometimes several a day. It breaks my heart to not be able to prevent them. For him. I hate seeing him so frustrated and upset. It’s also very very difficult for us to handle the frustration we feel with him when he’s hitting us and kicking us and biting us. Not to mention throwing things and knocking over chairs, trash cans, whatever catches his eye.  We saw his Dr today and she added new med. That brings the total up to 5 different meds he’s taking. He’s 7. This is scary. The servers of The King are exhausted. I’m sure The King is too. Exhaustion, stress & getting physically assaulted daily is a great big flashing neon arrow that points down the depression road. Against our instincts we’ve decided to try the ABA. We have no other options. This can’t continue. It’s bad for him and we’re no good for him if we get sucked down the depression vortex. We’ll try it for 6 months. I’ve read too many statements from Autistic adults describing ABA as toture to be fully on board but we have to say we tried…

(Update February 4, 2020: We decided against ABA, he has never had ABA)