52) A meta-examination reveals a major flaw in the experiment- working on fixing the flaw!

The presidential election has been a very divisive and upsetting time for most, if not, all Americans.  During the week leading up to the election, either I've been too distracted by it to pay attention to Sasha's issues, felt his problems pale in comparison to what has been going on in national politics, or Sasha has actually had a better week!  I think all three are true.

We have continued with the 6 iu daily dose of oxytocin.  At my last report, he was still engaging in food sneaking behaviors and we had some meltdowns and tense moments with him which was discouraging and not making me feel safe to do exposure work with him.  We have since added 50 mg of Naltrexone to the mix and it SEEMS that he has had an easier time resisting his temptations. Again, all I can really say is that we have not had any fights between Kitchen Bitch and HO Monster this week and there have been no signs or reported incidents of sneaking/stealing. Due to the difficulty of getting accurate information from Sasha (low accuracy due to his faulty memory and his conflict of interest with admitting the truth), I have grown very weary of trying to determine if his appetite was larger or smaller or if he was having more or fewer cravings and incidents of food sneaking. It was impossible to do with any degree of accuracy without treating our home like a prison and Sasha like a prisoner.  No kid wants to be treated as an imprisoned criminal and no parent wants to feel and act like a prison guard!

Since we have insufficient guidance from research literature about how to manipulate our independent variable (including proper dosage, frequency of dose, interaction effects, etc.) at the VERY least, we need to figure out the dependent variable...what the heck is the effect of the treatment?!  I'm frustrated as I write this because I am realizing that the only accurate information I can glean about treatment effects is his weight whereas I was started this experiment in order to see behavioral changes in him (decreased food seeking). After nearly 6 months on oxytocin (I can't believe it's been 6 months already!), I think I am finally accepting, for real, that it simply doesn't work to get Sasha to turn himself in to the food police (which is what my demand for truth from him really amounts to...)

Instead, we are trying out a new system in which Sasha keeps track of certain variables on a daily basis at a regular interval (we are trying to have him do it before dinner).  I have told him that he is to keep the record private and that it is a journal for him to track level of food intensity (frequency of food thoughts, intensity of hunger), level of appetite, temptations to take things (food and non-food), and whether or not he did take something (food and non-food).  Although I have told him on countless occasions that I am NOT interested in punishing him for any food or non-food sneaking, our reward system contradicted this message.  Up until now, we had been promising him a reward after having a "good week" (a week without evidence of sneaking/stealing).  Of course, if he is still sneaking food, this reward system only motivates him to (1) hone his sneaking skills and (2) become more adept at lying about it.

Duh... how dumb am I?  Why has it taken me this long to realize that our reward system was actually REWARDING him to improve in his abilities to sneak and lie about it!  As his mother, my blind spots (aka my judgment of his behavior and my desperate concern for his future-can I keep him out of jail for theft?) have kept me from seeing a rather obvious mistake in the experiment.  Despite my good intentions to try to glean accurate information from him (does nagging at him for the truth count? LOL), I inadvertently did the opposite.  If we really want him to be honest about his observations of himself, we will need to remove "abstention from sneaking" as a condition for a reward.  Instead, we can reward him for keeping his daily log on his observations, irrespective of its content.  Hopefully, Sasha's daily log (whose content does not result in our reward or punishment) can result in attaining more accurate data and prove useful for the conduction of this experiment.

I'm going to ponder a bit more about this insight and let you know how it goes with the new reward system.  After discussing this insight with Sasha, he readily agreed with me and was enthusiastic about  keeping his private log (to be shared with me only at the end of the week and to be rewarded with a prize irrespective of how many times he reports sneaking behaviors).

As far as the week has gone, according to Sasha, he has had "temptations" to sneak food/non-food but reports that he has found it easier this week to resist his temptations.  His weight (dropping to the lowest it has been since the start of the 6-month long experiment) helps to support his claims. Maybe the addition of Naltrexone is doing something beneficial? If his reports are really true, I sure hope it continues!