Jonathan does that almost on a daily basis, only with him its anger. Ginny will do it occasionally. What I tell them is that either the CAH is making them feel angry or sad, but that doesn’t mean they have to respond to it. How they behave is their choice. I was prescribed prednisone for foot inflammation once, and for several days couldn’t understand why everyone was trying to make me angry. hen I realized that the prednisone was another form of the medicine my kids were taking. I also found out that it wasn’t supposed to be taken with the medication I already take for seizures, so the doctor had me slowly go off the prednisone. What I learned, though, was that once I realized what was making me angry, I could control it. When I felt angry, but there was nothing there to actually make me angry, I dismissed it as a side affect, and it soon went away. Anger and sadness have a tendency to feed on themselves. Once you start feeling it, you naturally coddle the feeling and it grows. But if you can say to yourself, "I have no reason to be angry/sad, it’s just the medicine." And make a conscious effort to not let it control you, it goes away. The problem is that, whether we are willing to admit it or not, deep down, we like being angry or sad. Anger can be emotionally cathartic. So can sadness, which is why wallowing in a self-induced pity-party is something people find themselves doing. We may desire happiness, but there are other desires that can outweigh that, like validation or affirmation. Being angry can generate feelings of validation, while being sad, and the attention it inevitably brings can generate feelings of affirmation.

I like watching those shows on Discovery health channel that show people going through all kind of weird and horrible conditions. I always turn to my kids and ask, "So would you rather have CAH or a 468lb tumor dangling off your earlobe?" Not to diminish the suffering those people go through, but it helps my kids put their own situation into a better perspective. Yes they have to take medicine every day, but they aren’t covered with long dark fur over every inch of their body. (We saw that on an episode of CSI)