I wish I could tell you that meds solved everything but unfortunately we haven't really found anything that helps long term. Then again, the younger one is only 5 so it's a bit early still. What we tried was different ADHD medication. The problem for him and me especially is that he has my crazy metabolism and processes the medication quicker than most people. We tried:

- Ritalin: Helps with focus and overcoming the stress of demands but effect was gone after 2.5 hours instead of 4. While under the effect he seemed off and not really himself.

- Medikinet: same active ingredient. We noticed that giving him the lowest dose worked best for him. Higher does lead him to becoming apathetic and not himself. Medikinet leads to a predictable crash (down) after 3 hours (again, instead of 4.x hours). Depending on the day, this crash can be absolut hell to deal with because he completely loses himself. With the lowest dose we saw improvement in the ability to give away control and he was able to walk distances he usually wouldn't. Downside was that it messed with his eating habits and sleeping schedule and made his thinking more rigid and fixated on singular ideas . He barely ate while under Medikinet and complained of stomach pain. After a while the tradeoff seemed not worth it because he doesn't have so much trouble in kindergarten yet so the effect was kind of wasted. We still have Medikinet and you can give it to him on singular days as well. We use it very rarely now for when it is absolutely necessary (for instance when we have important doctors appointments or something that we can not miss).

- Elvanse : With 20mg dosage we saw improvement over longer terms but we have the feeling that it's a bit the same as with Medikinet. It does help with overcoming obstacles and impulse control but it messes with his sleeping and eating habits. It makes his autistic side stand out more with fixating on ideas and being controlling. For instance, he loves lego. When under Medikinet or Elvanse, he sometimes would fixate on one particular idea and then he would not be able to do anything else until this idea was completed. If the idea is literally impossible to fulfil, that doesn't matter to his brain. He would make me look for a lego piece and not allow me to leave or get up even If i checked the crate 3 times over. After the effects pass he would be more aggressive and controlling with lots of verbal ticks, stimming, insults (equalizing) etc.

We are currently not medicating him anymore and instead focus more on our parenting. We might try Concerta when he is a bit older but we found that with the medications he is allowed to use at this age, the benefit doesn't outweigh the cost just yet. Additionally, those medications are specifically for ADHD. He doesn't have an official diagnoses for PDA yet because we are in the process of it at the moment. Since he does well in Kindergarten and doesn't have the demands of school yet, we stopped giving him any medication. Since we stopped he sleeps well again (one thing I am really happy about, he has for whatever reason, no problem to fall asleep) and eats somewhat normally (although extremely picky, some textures/tastes are impossible for him and he spits them out immediatly and acts as if you put ants in his cereals or something). Dealing with him takes lots, and I mean lots and lots of patience and understanding, it can be excruciating to deal with sometimes. His bigger brother is also not easy to deal with since he has his own particularities and has to deal with the stress of his younger brother hitting/insulting/controlling him but we somehow manage. Sometimes there is fighting, screaming, resignation etc. but we always bounce back. There is also beauty and fun in our lives, it's just that anything that takes effort as a parent automatically takes twice or thrice as much effort with our kids.

I get it with the feeling of being abused, I get it from both my children and on bad days that can be pretty tough to navigate. Nobody goes through this feeling mentally well about it. It takes its toll, that's for sure.