Discovering What Has Been Hidden

We are now five weeks into Micah’s S2C journey. If I had not been sitting behind him to witness Micah’s abilities, I would be skeptical to believe what he is proving he is capable of, thus I understand those of you who want to believe, but are having trouble doing so. I have been so thankful for the wisdom of his S2C practitioner, Beth Frede, as she gives me insight on Micah’s compulsive behaviors, describing them as a terrible itch that he is trying to scratch. She continues to read the educational articles to Micah in her quiet voice, despite his movements to pick up items from the floor etc. Micah appears not to be listening at all, then she starts to ask him to spell out answers to questions from the articles and also asks questions for which the answers were not in the article. And he is proving that he was not only listening when not appearing to be, but that he is a wealth of stored information;

Just a few examples from this past Saturday: one of the articles was on the Statue of Liberty. Micah spelled words like clairvoyant, torch, Frederic Auguste Barthodi, Libertas, prototypes, and asbestos after Beth asked questions such as ” The Statue of Liberty sculptor was”? and he spelled Frederic Auguste Barthodi. I listened to the same lesson and all I could come up with was Frederic! What is even more astounding is his ability to answer questions not in the lesson. Beth asked him “When copper turns green, what’s that patina called?” Do you know this answer, as I surely did not…the answer is Verdigris?! Then she asked him what word means something is cancer-causing? I was struggling to come up with the word while Micah started in spelling Carcinogenic correctly. I was blown away. It was like watching an episode of Jeopardy where, I might need 5 minutes to possibly come up with an answer, (if I could come up with it at all), while Micah has it right there in his mind. The last example I will share today was his responses when she asked him to spell our military branches in alphabetical order. Again this information was not part of what was read to him. Micah starts spelling AI and I am thinking that is not how you spell Army….while he was correctly spelling Air Force before he spelled Army (Sorry Jamie and Chris, I totally forgot Air Force comes first). Lastly she asked him what next after Air Force and Army were spelled out and he spelled out Marines. Micah was clearly pleased when praised, yet throughout the lesson he was struggling to maintain focus as he was fighting impulsive behaviors.

This is the paradox with Micah. His doctor is trying a new medication to try to help him better control his compulsive behaviors but thus far, it appears that the new medication is not even as helpful as the one she is tapering him off of. This led to a challenging weekend behaviorally as he bolted to consume items that are not edible. How I hope that in time, and it may take months or years, he will finally be able to say how the meds are making him feel, what helps, and what does not. Now we just guess based on his behaviors.

Meanwhile, we grasp onto the reality that Beth is not exaggerating when she says that Micah is brilliant. I remember years ago one of his therapists told me that he was not making progress because he can’t as sadly, he is retarded. Yup, she used the R-word and I was speechless. Our family has always thought that he was understanding a lot more than he could show us and we were right, only we had no clue that his mind is filled with information like the Masters on Jeopardy.

Micah’s brother Scott bought the book “Underestimated ” in audio version and asked if Micah might like to listen to it. I was uncertain so I asked Beth if she thought it was a good idea and she said “absolutely” so we will have him listen to it soon. Hopefully he will be encouraged by hearing the words of his peers who have become “open” in their communication via S2C. How we long to hear his voice at last. Please continue to pray and stay tuned as this S2C journey is just beginning.

Jan Lessard Peightell May 21, 2024