So if it wasn't obvious to you already- in our pre-oxytocin life, we had to lock the fridge and all cabinets in our house containing food. We had to stand within one meter of Sasha at all times when he was in the kitchen with an unlocked refrigerator (we permitted him to prepare his lunch and to help make other meals with supervision). It was hard to cook in the kitchen with Sasha in the house because he almost always insisted on helping. He was actually a great help but it was also risky because he would find ways to sneak food into his mouth or pockets if we blinked or were distracted for a second or even when we were watching! When a person is hungry and dealing with what feels like survival, one can be very bold in one's actions and Sasha would take full advantage of whatever food he could sneak when it was available to him. I did NOT like managing him in the kitchen and this is why I gave myself the nickname of "Kitchen Bitch" (or KB, for short) whenever I had to prepare meals with him in the house. It was really sad sometimes, too- if I was extra tired or irritable and I didn't want him to help me cook, I would order him out of the kitchen and he would stand just at the periphery; unable to move, just standing there watching and unable to tear himself away from the opportunity to scrounge a few morsels of food into his hungry self... so sad... but it was SO draining for me to have to manage him around the accessible food that I would angrily order him out of the kitchen...see why I called myself the KB?
A photo of the lock on our fridge:
As we begin to trust Sasha more, we will be unlocking the fridge and cabinets on a gradual basis. Perhaps we will keep the fridge unlocked for a few hours a day, to start. We have discussed giving him this freedom in a gradual way because we don't want him to feel unsafe. The locked up kitchen has historically been a way for him to feel more secure because any and all available food would have typically drive him to distraction.
The other lifestyle change will be allowing him back into grocery stores. As a rule, I stopped allowing him to go grocery shopping with me because I caught him shoplifting food and I couldn't manage him in the stores AND get my shopping done at the same time. Just today we went to Trader Joe's and I felt much more relaxed. He told me that he didn't have urges or temptations to steal food- when he has told me this in the past, I didn't believe him. Today I did.
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