Sunday, September 18, 2011

The Scorpion World

Apparently it's not uncommon for children who have psychotic disorders to come up with an elaborate fantasy world all their own. Korbin's has been building for years. Every day I learn more about the world of Scorpion. Some things are fairly simple. The people are called "the scorpions" even though they are not scorpions as we know them. They speak Scorpionese. The football team is the Scorpion Raiders (don't expect to see them playing with the NFL).

Korbin prefers to be called Empire, which is the name he's taken as the leader of the Scorpions. Most of the people in this land are friendly and helpful, but there are bad folks there too. He says that the Soviets in the Scorpion world are the bad guys, unlike those on Earth. Sometimes they fight or will send monsters to try and destroy Korbin (aka Empire).

This past week has been fairly rough. I'm finally seeing the classic bipolar pattern that the psychiatric nurses saw while he was inpatient. When Korbin gets upset or overstimulated he has a lot of trouble calming down. To often he will get to the point where he crosses over into a manic state and quickly begins a full psychotic departure from our world. One night, as I was having to restrain him for his and our safety, Korbin kept looking at me with fear. Every time he got to where he could see my face he would work harder to attack me. Finally he slowed down, physically and emotionally exhausted. Korbin turned to be and said, "There you are! I thought you were someone else." Ouch. I reassured him that I had been with him the whole time, helping him to calm and stay safe.

He had another psychotic rage at my nephew's birthday party. He was upset that he couldn't barge in on my niece's play with her friend and immediately began attacking me. Before I could turn him around safely Korbin bit me. Thankfully it was on my clothing so the damage wasn't as severe as in the past. Later when I ask him why he bit me, he said it was because he's a poisonous snake and he was injecting me with his venom. I explained that he is not as snake and has no venom. Yep, he was mad again. He began to act like he was pulling something out of the air and shoving it in his mouth to chew. He stopped, panicked, and started yelling, "My sausage! I can't taste my sausage!" HAHAHAHA! He said that he just ate a giant sausage, but couldn't taste it and was angry that it was all gone. Wow! I promised him that I would cook some sausage for him with his dinner so he relaxed again.

The people from Scorpion come and go. Sometimes they are part of a rage; other times they are playmates. Either way, Korbin's strange world is part of ours. Both places give us laughs and tears. They give us amazing experienced and wild stories to tell. As long as we can keep laughing along with them, I think we'll be ok.