He isn't depressed. He usually bounces back to normal where he sees humor in life events rather than tragedy.
Most of his anxiety now has to do with wondering how he will deal with the pain and discomfort when he starts wearing the brace, but he is trying to deal with it by looking for solutions. He wants to learn more about Shaolin monks and their pain management techniques.
He convinced me to let him try Lumosity so that he can work on improving his speed and learn to tune out the pain and discomfort that sometimes distracts him and causes fatigue. I was surprised to see that he chose to work on brain training exercises for ADHD when he was not diagnosed with ADHD. He thinks pain and anxiety are causing him to have some problems focusing sometimes. He thinks Lumosity is helping him and it tracks his progress, unlike the physical therapy that cost a lot in time and money with very little improvement to show for it. He thinks what we are doing at home and at theater class, which includes dance, works better for him him than picking up marbles with his toes in a room full of older adults and high school cheerleaders and football players with injuries. I don't think the physical therapists had any experience working with a bright kid with motor dyspraxia. He did enjoy talking with them. A retired teacher who heard them talking asked him his age and told him he was really smart. People tell him that all the time and I think this helps him avoid self esteem issues. He does not feel that bad about being verbally gifted in a family where all his cousins seem physically gifted and not interested in the things he is interested in. He just doesn't have anything in common with them. He sees that his highly gifted half-brother, who has no physical issues, doesn't do sports either and spends a lot of his free time on the computer doing things that he enjoys.
Instead of being upset and embarrassed by his new dance partner's comments when he couldn't lift her (she was bigger than his last dance partner) he imagined her reaction if he had told her why he wouldn't do it in front of her friends who were watching them. He knows from his sister how sensitive girls are about their weight and he wouldn't dream of saying something that would hurt her feelings.
He copes by imagining humorous scenarios with things he could say but won't because he is a really nice kid. I think he copes with most things better than a lot of people. We just had a lot of bad things happen in a short amount of time and he lost a little of his bounce.
As for me, I do feel bad that my child has to deal with more pain than the average kid and there is only so much I can do about it.
