I know I hadn’t mentioned on here before that my son was diagnosed with ADHD-Inattentive Type. I was keeping it under my hat for several reasons.
First, I don’t “get” how you can have the H for Hyperactive when the Inattentive Type usually means lethargic, daydreamy and very UNhyperactive. When I said “oh, isn’t that just ADD then?” The fancy-shmancy psychiatrist shot me down with a “ADD is an outdated term”. Really? Cause people still use it. Doctor people still use the term. Book authors with many letters after their name still use it.
Second, I wasn’t sure I agreed with the psychiatrist. There were some comments in the report (that I paid $1800 for) that were just flat out wrong. Like, I’d been there and they hadn’t happened, wrong. Not just “I disagree with your interpretation” wrong.
Third, the only time my son manifests these sort of daydreamy, lack-of-focus behaviours is at school. The rest of the time I see him as a bright, imaginative, creative individual that requires a little extra support in the praise and reminders department.
But recent events (the suicide of a colleague) had me questioning my ability to be objective. What if the young-psychiatrist-without-children is right and my son is at risk for depression, drug use, poor school performance and suicide? What if this medication they talk about really is the wonder-drug they say it is?
So we tried it. Last week we got the prescreption and on Sunday morning he managed to swallow the pill.
And pretty much all hell broke loose.
Depressive state. Facial tic. Stomach aches. Crying jags. Zombie-behaviour. Grumpiness.
And the, at the wonderful hour of 8pm . . . totally awake child who talked to me from 9 pm to 11 pm.
Still, I thought maybe we need to keep going. Even though every little cell in my body was saying “no! stop! no more!” I thought, he needs to have some for Monday so that the teacher can see … or maybe it works better when he’s engaged all day at school.
But my son had other plans. He refused to take the pill. He tried. He gagged. He choked. He cried. Then he said “I don’t want to take it mommy, I don’t like how it makes me feel.”
Enough said.
I know that we could play with the dosage. But this matters not when he won’t swallow the pill. Heck, I couldn’t swallow a pill until I was in my teens!
And you know what? I don’t care to put him on this medication. I don’t care to put him on any medication. In the last two months I’ve learned two very painful lessons about listening to my intuition. Two times when I ignored that small, still voice and did something I didn’t want to do. Or didn’t do something I should have.
Right now, every mother bone in my body is saying no to medicating him. (Note: I’m in no way saying that medication is wrong or doesn’t work, I’ve heard some great stories about how much difference certain medications have made.)
In fact, I’m going to get all Jesus Freak on you and tell you that I distinctly felt God saying “this is the child I gave you, you are the perfect parent for this child, I gave him to you with this special gift”. I laughed a bit, thinking “gift? which gift?”
Then today a friend sent me this article.
Did swimmer Michael Phelps succeed at the Olympics in spite of having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — or partly because of it?
Olympic champion Michael Phelps. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
That question is at the center of a debate among doctors, parents and educators in the A.D.H.D. community. Mr. Phelps obviously has physical talents that propelled him to become a world-class athlete. But A.D.H.D. success stories like Mr. Phelps are behind a push for a new view of A.D.H.D. that focuses not just on the limits of the disorder, but its potential.
And my entire body resonated with that message.Yes, said my mother bones. This is not a curse, it’s a gift. Our family doctor said it’s entirely possibly that I have this as well, especially after I read my son’s report and said “this? this is me.” And I happen to like how I am. I see my daydreaming “lack of focus” to be the way that my mind organizes itself. It needs downtime. Like a screen saver for my brain. Lalala… just thinking for a minute here, chillin’, breathing. But my mind is reorganizing, replaying, reshaping, reforming.
I mutter to myself a lot. I find just thinking about emotions immediately causes a body reaction and many times I can’t control it. I lose things. I am oblivious to other people even when they stand next to me and talk (hey, it’s how I write with kids at home!) and I am inherently lazy. (Really.)
But I’m also very ambitious and driven and can focus on something that offers a great reward. That’s key to the ADHD-I, they focus when there’s a big personal pay-off.
We’re still going to look at some homeopathy and possibly visit a naturopath. I’m not denying that he needs extra help focusing in school. His teacher has been wonderful by helping him learn organizational skills. She’s awesome. When I told her that the trial was abruptly stopped before it really began, she was more concerned about his well-being than how he might be “managed” in the classroom.
