ADHD. Anger. Acceptance

I have mentioned before that my Tween boy has ADHD. I don’t think that ANYONE can fully understand what it is like to parent a child like this without having been in the situation themselves. Unfortunately you will only truly get it if it is your reality.

I had a normal, healthy pregnancy with my Tween. I ate all the right food, I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke. I gave birth naturally and without any drugs, I breastfed, I bought all the best educational toys, I read to him. I nurtured. In other words, I did all the “right” things. My child slept well and even though he was a poor eater I didn’t worry too much because he was thriving. I really enjoyed the new baby stage with him. He was so, so easy. He was emotionally secure and I could leave him with one of his Grannies and literally come and go as I pleased. His milestones were all earlier than normal and he was speaking in full sentences from about a year old.

At some point I felt that something wasn’t quite right. Call it a hunch, call it instinct or whatever. I just felt that something about him was a bit off. HE was exceptionally busy – I thought this was normal though and I didn’t have a child before so had no real frame of reference, and I noticed that he couldn’t hold a crayon properly. I noticed that his drawings were all over the place and when I asked him to draw himself one day it was clear to me that there was simply no order/structure to his thoughts. I think that this raised the alarm bells for me.

I raised my concerns with the people in my life who told me that I am imagining things and that I am expecting too much from him. Everyone told me that he was perfect and a typical little boy. Still I couldn’t let go of this niggly feeling that I had. I phoned an OT and explained my concerns. I told her that he seemed to be unable to complete tasks, he couldn’t hold a pencil etc and I also discussed other things with her that were bothering me. I was referred to an Educational Psychologist who after an intense assessment officially made the diagnosis when he was 4.

I’m not going to discuss in this particular post the steps that we took from that point – this is a whole series of posts.

I am however going to discuss how I came to the point of acceptance.

For a long time I was very, very angry about it. The more I researched and dealt with people who were ignorant and didn’t understand, the angrier I became. How could this be happening to me? I had looked after myself when I was pregnant and I had done ALL the right things. Little things started to annoy me. Things like seeing pregnant women who smoked and who used drugs during their pregnancies going on to have perfect children who didn’t need any form of intervention.

I was angry with God about it. I prayed for my unborn child throughout my pregnancy. I was very specific about my prayers for him. I didn’t ask for a child with blue eyes and fair skin. I didn’t ask for a Nobel Peace Prize Winner. I didn’t ask for an Actuary or a Scientist or an Astronaut with red hair. I very specifically prayed/asked for health for him. Health in body, mind and spirit. I felt like my prayers weren’t answered. Surely if he needed to be medicated in order to do something as basic as paying attention or to assist him to focus on completing a task then he was not healthy in mind? At the time, that was all that I could see.

My DH however felt differently. He insisted that our prayers were answered. After all, we didn’t have a child with Down’s Syndrome or Cerebal Palsy. Our child was not blind. Or mentally challenged. Our child was not terminally ill. Our child WAS healthy in body, mind and spirit. He felt that yes, there were challenges ahead but that it was like having a child with diabetes for example, and meant that we needed to make certain changes in our lifestyle. I find it amazing how completely differently we saw it back then. I love that he was always positive about it and that he ALWAYS looked for the silver lining throughout it all.

For the next few years I went through the motions. We all did. My DH and I got empowered. We studied. And researched. And spent serious money trying to figure this thing out. We learnt everything we could about ADHD – I still read a lot about it. We made the necessary adjustments to fit it into our lives. We figured out (all by trial and error) what worked and what didn’t as well as which types of situations were conducive to his issues and which were not.

And I prayed. All the time. Every single day I prayed for healing of this “thing” that we were dealing with. I saw this “thing” as my enemy and I wanted it out of our lives. All I wanted for my son was boring and normal.

Two years ago I saw a Psychologist for PND. We spent about 7 sessions discussing this very issue. I cried a lot (and yet I thought at that point that I had come to terms with it – clearly I hadn’t) and I spoke a lot. I went back and forth with it. After one of our sessions she gave me homework. I was to write my son a letter and list EVERYTHING that I loved about him.

Somehow this was a turning point for me. I wrote that letter with tears streaming down my face and finally realised that he was perfect in every single way. It finally hit me that we all have a form of disability and that not all our disabilities are obvious or of a physical nature.

I wondered if he would have the same sunny personality if he didn’t have ADHD. I wondered if he would be the innocent child that he was (the one who cried when we killed spiders) if he didn’t have ADHD. I wondered if he would be the same good-natured, compassionate boy if it wasn’t for the ADHD. I wondered if he would be as brilliant and creative and dynamic as he was if it wasn’t for the ADHD.

It was at this point that I finally realised something. I needed to stop praying for it to disappear. It is part of what makes him who he is. It is part of what I LOVE about him. It is part of what makes me love him the way I do.

Nowadays I pray for strength and for courage to stand up for him when I need to, and for wisdom to help him manage his condition into adulthood.

Because I realise that ultimately, he will be fine. He will be a fully functioning adult with a few challenges (like all of us) but he WILL be fine. He will cope. He will fit into society. He will contribute to it in a positive manner.

And he will love the way he is loved.

Completely.

Madly.

Deeply.

Unconditionally.

Of needing to control

Thank you so much for your beautiful comments on my previous post. I had such a good, healing cry when I read them.

I spent a lot of time this past weekend  thinking  about how and why it is that I am struggling to accept that this is a part of who I am and I realised something very profound.

It is essentially a control issue.

I am struggling to accept that there is so little that I can control in my life due to variables beyond my control.

I am struggling to accept that something as basic as my emotional state is something that I need help with managing. It freaks me out completely that I am generally afraid of death but when I am an un-medicated state for too long then it just seems like the most beautiful, appealing thing. It freaks me out that I can completely lose perspective when I am in this state.

I am struggling to accept that managing emotions is something that plenty of people do with relative ease and that I need to medicate in order to be able to do the same and yes, I know I shouldn’t compare myself with others. We all have some form of “disability” and depression happens to be mine.

I think that a huge part of me feels quite stupid about all of this. I think that a huge part of me feels that I have failed and somehow I can’t help but take this very personally.

I am struggling to accept that this is actually a part of who I am and that it’s OK.

I am struggling to accept that certain things just are the way they are and that it’s nobody’s fault or not because anything that I’ve done or not done.

Intellectually I know that depression is a chemical imbalance.

Intellectually I know that it can be managed.

Intellectually I know that just going off meds is a really stupid and highly irresponsible thing to do.

Intellectually I know that I do need help managing this part of my life.

Yesterday I felt more human than I felt in an entire week and I feel even better today. I think my meds are taking a bit longer to work but I believe that I will get there.

I spent my weekend reflecting and sleeping and reading and eating and loving and I realised just how incredibly Blessed I am.

My cup runneth over. And for this I am so very grateful.

 

Of stupidity and picking up the pieces

So I recently did a very stupid thing.

After I wrote this post I decided to stop taking my AD meds. I published that post and then reread the introductory paragraph. It struck me that I had possibly come to a point of acceptance. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I wondered if I was OK accepting this.  I decided that I wasn’t.  I wondered if I really needed my meds anymore. I know that it wasn’t the cleverest thing to do and I would have discouraged that type of action if it was someone  I knew who was contemplating something similar. However, I figured that I was doing OK. I was watching my diet, I was exercising and drinking lots of water. I was happy. I was floating. I was feeling confident in my ability to manage my emotional self. I felt that I was ready to manage my life without medication.  So I stopped taking them. And for a while I was fine.

Until this past Sunday when I crashed and burned. I don’t want to bore you with the details of what happens when I experience the crash.  What I will say is that on Monday I woke up quite literally without the will to live. I will say that the sadness was completely overwhelming and that I don’t know how else to explain it except to say that it felt like I was suffocating.

My DH sorted the kids while I stayed in bed trying to decide if it would be a good idea to go to work. I ended up staying home. My husband was not happy with me but did what needed to be done. After he left I decided that perhaps I should go to work as I really didn’t want to go and pay for another sick note.  It took every bit of self-control that I had to take a bath and get dressed. He dropped the kids and came back to fetch me. I didn’t even call my Dr. I just decided that I need to take my medication again.  I have been back on it since Monday but somehow it seems like it is taking longer to work this time around. I think that if I still feel this way next week then I’m going to go back to see my Shrink (whom I have not seen for the longest time because I am really tired of talking about this).

I have battled with depression for a very long time. I remember feeling “sad” even as a teenager. As I got older I found it relatively easy to manage the sadness. I kept myself really busy because being busy meant that there wasn’t time for me to think and reflect on my feelings.  Then last year it all came crashing down. I cried one day. All day. I couldn’t stop. I feel terrible when I think how that must have affected my poor children who couldn’t understand that it wasn’t them. I then went to sleep and woke up after something like 19 hours. Still so tired. My husband climbed into bed and spooned with me and told me (in the most gentle way) that this needed to be dealt with. Today. So I went to Dr and I could barely speak because I was just so emotional. And he put me on medication. And it was the best thing ever. I felt a difference almost immediately. There were no side effects whatsoever. I was thrilled to still have a proper libido. My meds and I were literally a match made in heaven. I was grateful that it worked immediately and that I didn’t have to live with 6 weeks of horrendous side effects before I could see a difference in my emotional state.

For the first time ever I felt so normal – there’s that stupid word again. There was no sadness. Not even lurking in the background or hiding around the corner. I felt like  a better version of myself. I felt that I liked myself so much more. I felt like I loved everyone else so much more. I still got angry and annoyed from time to time but I was just able to manage it so much better. My meds somehow just made it easier for me to not take every little thing so personally.

I don’t know what point I am trying to make here. I guess I need to express how angry I am that I am unable to control my emotions without being medicated. I am angry that I let this thing take over my life. I am angry that I can’t speak to my parents about it because they are like all the other Church people who judge and believe that I WANT to feel like this and that I am not trusting God to heal me.  I am angry that there is still so much stigma around being depressed and using medication as part of ones treatment. I am angry that people don’t understand something and yet have so much to say about it. WTF is it with people who like to do that?

All that I know today is that my children need their Mommy and my DH needs his wife and that I really need to get my act together and stop taking chances like this.

All I know is that I actually need my AD’s (to help balance the chemicals in my brain) and that these babies unfortunately have to stay in my life.

All I know is that I never ever want to feel sad again. It’s just too painful for me. And my family. They deserve better.