For the most part, Halloween was terrific.  I got to go to my preschool's special carnival and that was really fun.  It was a little confusing because there were some kids and teachers with really amazing full costumes that covered their faces and everything.  I wasn't scared, I just thought I was in the presence of Spiderman and Wolverine!  I was talking to them and trying to show them things and I was a bit starstruck.  When the teacher took off Wolverine's mask and I saw that it was my friend, I was amazed.  When Spiderman revealed his true self to be Teacher Tia I was flabbergasted!  Such clever costumes!  Batman was also there and he made me a balloon pirate sword.  I ate a snow cone, played in the Spider House (our playground converted), and I won the cupcake walk.  It was really fun.

The rest of the day was dicey for me but I pulled it together in time to go trick or treating with Logan, Zoey, an Josh and it was absolutely the best!!  The Super Seiferts all wore our capes and we just had the best time ringing doorbells, laughing with friends, and gathering treats!  When we got home we had the best time ever handing out candy to trick or treaters.  I was extremely liberal with the candy and the kids loved me!  Before bed we picked our 10 favorite pieces of candy to keep then left the rest out for the Candy Witch!  The next morning our candy was gone and we got witch bucks to spend at Big Lots, a stuffed black kitty, and a PEZ dispenser!  It was so cool!

I had a really rough time going to bed that night.  All of the excitement of the day caught up to me and I was hallucinating big time.  It was terrifying and Safi got upset, crying to mom "Help Nixi, she's scared."  Bittersweet end to a great day...both of us kids crying and the adults not far behind us.  It is quite common for hallucinations to be worse at night when there's less outside stimulation and distractions.  Mom bought me  a projector thing made for babies.  It has soothing sounds and projects one of three different scenes on a wall or whatever.  Its something for me to focus on because for 3 night this week I would just scream and mom would come in and find me staring at the side of a black file cabinet sweating profusely and terrified.  The projector, most of the lights in the room on, and the door open with the hall light plus a dose of Benadryl has made it a little better.  Its hard on everyone.  Its scary for Safi, mom and dad need a break, and I haven't been getting one so they don't either.  Rough stuff.  So that was Halloween.

Mom got ahold of the people at UC Davis and they said they'll see me mid November of early December.  UCLA wasn't taking patients out of their system and the referral that Children's gave mom said they wouldn't see me because I'm too young.  Mom was horrified.  She asked them what she was supposed to do because I'm obviously not too young to be going through this and they said, "Yeah, but she's too young."  Really?!  At least Davis is willing to try to help me.  So, mom and I will be making a trip up there sometime soon, hopefully.

On a positive note, I've had two pretty good days with minimal hallucinations and delusions.    Hoping it stays like this so I can enjoy school picture day and so Safi can have a more mellow week.  She has a firehouse field trip coming up and she's asked dad to go with her so that should be fun.  Mom and dad are trying to keep the stress down, because that's the number one precursor to a worsening of symptoms an it seems like its working pretty good so far.  This is just all really confusing an new to us all so I can't wait to get up to Davis to get this all figured out.

Anyhow, I'm pooped so I'm going to try to get some sleep.  For some reason mom is having a hard time pasting links to web pages that she wanted to include so do an internet search for "autism and schizophrenia" to see the information she's been reading.

Again, we have no idea what's going on with me other than that I'm experiencing symptoms of a psychotic disorder but its interesting to look at the connections between autism and schizophrenia and its implications.

Peace
Nixi