Unfortunately, this story is much more fact than fiction. I don't have a Jerome or (alas) a Clark in the picture, but Todd's behaviours were drawn from those of my own son who is a teenager chronologically and hormonally, but who has reached at most the toddler level in terms of cognitive, social, and emotional development. I'm always sporting bruises these days, and I am praying that I will survive the next few years. (And I do mean "survive" in the literal sense.) It had gotten so bad that I had even looked into the possibility of alternate living arrangements for him -- either at a residential school or a group home -- but he is meeting his academic goals as specified in his Individualized Education Plan and he is a minor, so neither of those possibilities panned out. We're together until he turns 18. The medicines I mentioned in the story have definitely helped out a lot -- his aggressions are less frequent and less intense than they had been -- but each time he has a growth spurt, we go through another rough patch until we get the right dosages again.
I realize that the ending of the story wasn't all that satisfactory, but just as I can't come up with a satisfactory solution in real life, I couldn't bring myself to synthesize a happy ending for the story -- it would have felt like a cheap cop-out to do so. As it was, I left it with as hopeful an ending as I could muster.
As always, all feedback gratefully accepted.
Joy,
Lynn
