Why I've Never Been So Happy to be So Wrong
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| Gutsy, enjoying the cottage life. |
I used to be that person who was firmly against medicating children with anxiety or depression. It seemed like a good stance, because who wants to mess with a developing brain? They're all spongy and still learning words and manners and shit.
And then there's all the side-effects, such as how a drug that might help a child not feel suicidal can, like, possibly make a child feel suicidal. What's that all about? Then there are the less frightening, more common things like dizziness and nausea and fatigue. Maybe some spots or a lizard tongue or something.
That opinion seemed like a pretty good one to have: kids' brains are vulnerable, medication can be dangerous, therefore, childhood mental illness should be managed in more natural ways. In my mind, it was a safe opinion like anti-apartheid is a safe opinion, or how there never should have been a Ghostbusters 2. And it feels good to know you opinion is right.
I knew I was right.
Ghostbusters 2 should have never happened. (Oh, and I felt very right about the anti-depressant thing, too.)
And then my kid got sick.
Really sick.
He could not cope with life and we didn't know how to help him.
I figured we were doing something wrong. I figured we were parenting poorly. We were clearly missing a dietary sensitivity, or he was being bullied and not telling us, or he had low B6 or B12 or B52's, or he needed more sleep or less sleep, or more therapy or less therapy, or we were making too big of a deal out of things or not enough of a big deal.
I even tried hiding the Ghostbusters 2 DVD.
We really didn't know how to help. Feeling helpless is pretty much the worst feeling a parent can have, by the way. It's like finding out you're out of coffee on a Monday morning after the baby was up all night times a thousand. And while crying.
I've written a lot about our journey with Gutsy on this blog, most recently
here and
here. In the last post, I talked about how we were choosing to try medication and how hard that decision was for all of us. I wrote about my fears of side effects and judgment. But mostly I wrote that, at this point in the game, we are willing to try things we never would have considered in that safe place we used to be in before our child became unwell.
When you're in the eye of a hurricane, you most definitely see things differently than when you're looking at it on radar.
I have been dying to write this post. Like,
dying. And yet I've held back because I wanted to be sure before I said anything. I'm now ready to say it:
You guys, we have our son back.
(Ouch. I teared up when I wrote that and my new mascara dripped into my eye and holy mother does this stuff hurt. When I pick up the kids from school later I'm going to look like I have pink eye. which is only slightly better than having two irritated eyes and going for the crystal meth look.)
He is on the lowest dose of the first drug we tried, and he is doing remarkably well. He's had no side effects whatsoever. His body has taken beautifully to the medication. I know this can change with time, but for right now, it's working.
We had our very first wonderful summer. We took two mini weekend getaways and had no meltdowns even with some big scheduling changes. Given that the boy used to lose it on the daily just a few weeks ago, this is nothing short of a miracle. Normally, by summer's end, I'm dying to get them back to class and end the constant fighting and chaos. Not this year. This is the first year that summer went by all too quickly and I was (almost) sorry to walk them to school this morning. I now know how the other half lives.
As the layers of worry and sadness have peeled back, we're finally starting to see the amazing ten-year-old Gutsy is. He smiles and laughs those big belly laughs daily. He tells great jokes. He has a calm yet powerful energy to him and oodles of creativity. He's sensitive and inquisitive and kind. He's good to both his brothers now that he's not lashing out under stress all the time. He does his chores and helps out whenever I ask - and sometimes when I don't. He never used to have the mental or physical energy to do much of anything.
He tells me all the time that he loves feeling good in his skin again. He takes his medication religiously because he knows, more than anyone, how much it helps him.
Gutsy has an illness and, like many other illnesses, sometimes the body needs a hand to get better. I'm not ashamed or upset that he takes medication. On the contrary, I'm amazed and grateful to see him bloom with the right chemical balance in his brain. The depression seems to be gone completely. The anxiety is still there, but at a very manageable, more typical level. Now is the time when cognitive therapy might become more effective. We don't have a longterm plan yet, but I know retraining the brain to deal with stress more effectively will be a big part of it.
It took five years, lots of researching, advocating, learning the system, and even an inter-provincial move in search of better services to get our son the help he needs, but it's been worth every step. He is such an awesome kid and I think he's going to have an awesome life. This is the beginning of something wonderful.
I'm going to sit back and enjoy the wonderful for a little while. It's been a long time coming.
We have our son back.
Shit. There goes the other eye.