My beautiful son. He's an old soul who has been around a few times. His little 11 year old body & mind just cannot take it. He's tortured inside.
The man-child cannot focus. Nothing worked. Things were getting really really bad for all aspects of his life. He is miserable and feels like a failure. Grades are ok in school but behavior is not.
I finally broke down and the dr. filled out the prescription. Yep. He's got ADD to add to the SPD (sensory processing disorder). The SPD seems to be improving. No, it never goes away he just simply learns more appropriate reactions to stimulants. I didn't believe anyone when they told me that would get better but hey, it is!
We started him on a low-dose, extended release ADD med. So far so good. No bad reactions other than he gets a little sleepy in the afternoon. He's focusing better. I ask him to do a task and OHMYGODIONLYHAVETOASKONCEORTWICE.
The letters don't end there.
Oh no. Let's add a few more. How about OCD? Granted it seems everyone has a touch of OCD, right? This kid has it big time. If he wants to tell a classmate something it CANNOT WAIT. He cannot concentrate on anything else until said comment is told to classmate. He cannot go upstairs to get dressed before school until he pets the cat. The list goes on.
Now let's add some depression why don't we? So off we go to a psychologist. The kid is SO SAD. He has so few friends. Kids simply do NOT get him. He uses big words. He dreams of amazing inventions. He studies the periodic table and chemical reactions. He can tell you just about anything you would ever want to know about severe weather, specifically tornadoes. He would rather watch Planet Earth, How it's Made, Wild Weather or a host of other science shows than any fiction movie like Spiderman or Iron Man. He enjoys going to sporting events, can't play worth a darn and doesn't care to watch them on TV. Kids his age just think he's weird. He's smarter than they are yet school is just not his thing. They tease him, pick on him, bully him. He doesn't get invited to sleepovers or birthday parties. He isn't asked to come over to hang out. No one searches him out on the playground. No one picks him as a partner. The kid is sad.
He had his first appointment yesterday. He really liked the psychologist. I did too. I was STRONG MAMA until the Dr. sent DS out of the room and I LOST IT. I don't know a mother who can sit there and listen to her son talk about how he's thought about ending his life and the way he would do it. The kid is 11. He first mentioned it at 9. Fucking bitch of a 4th grade teacher. She let the bullying go on. I would go so far as to say she even initiated some of it. I thought we were doing what we could for him up until yesterday. When I heard him talking about how he planned to sit in the car in the closed garage so it wouldn't be painful I felt like a failure. We talked to the school immediately when that was first mentioned when he was 9. We set up sessions with the school counselor. We had an open conversation with him. But yesterday I felt horrible. I didn't do enough. Why is he 11 and he's talking about things he felt at 9? What kind of mother am I? FG told me I am wrong. We didn't ignore it. We were as proactive as we knew to be. Still, I am dealing with the mother-guilt. All of these letters behind his name and not until he's 11 do I really dig deep. I've spent years being frustrated and making his self-esteem worse when he couldn't always help it.
Now I get to go back to the school and adjust his 504 plan to add a few letters after his name for now. I am confident that one day those letters will drop away and be replaced with much more socially impressive letters.
Posts
