Ok, Let’s Talk About It…OCD & ADHD
I am turning forty this week, and my six year old with OCD will not under any circumstances stop talking to me, or at me. He is a verbal processor so ALL the words and thoughts need to come up and out whenever I am around. This makes writing, thinking, going to the bathroom, even just simply listening to another sibling of his, hard. Processing how I feel about turning 40 might not even happen today. OCD is hard. REALLY hard. Of all things I have faced down in my last decade of motherhood, wifehood, going back to work-hood, ADHD in my oldest and ex husband-hood, obsessive compulsive disorder is by far the hardest.
When my youngest came along I already had two boys who were three and five. The three year old (who is now eight) was and is the easiest, sweetest guy on planet earth. Being polite, being kind, doing the right thing, obeying the rules, staying inside the lines are not challenges for him. He is an introvert through and through (meaning he gets all his energy from long periods of time in solitude) but still has this bubbly happy personality that scores him the “teachers pet” and his friends attention. He is kind and needs to be shown love through physical affection, and goes the distance in our home to keep the peace. He takes it on himself to carry my stress at times by helping with the little brother and it matters to him that we are all happy. My worry for him will always be if he is giving himself space to feel the hard things and deal with them in a healthy way.
His older brother, my first born, came out with a fire under his tail. He. Never. Stops. Moving. He was diagnosed with ADHD around first grade, is full of charm and charisma, has a natural athletic ability that will carry him far in life, and the way he thinks and problems solves is extraordinary, and outside the lines. To know him is exciting and sometimes probably dangerous for his pals. Because this now ten year old has ADHD he will continue to struggle with his impulse control. This not only affects his life at school and home, but also his relationships. He feels deeply, just like his mama and wears it all on his sleeve. If I had a quarter for every time he recounts the way an adult has looked at him and why he assumes they now don’t like him I would be rich. My worry for him will always be his relationships, and that he learns how to protect his own ‘feeler’ from himself and the world around him.
When the last little dude in our tribe showed up I thought I would have it on lock. I failed to get the memo that having three is akin to a full blown circus act. There is never a moment when something is not happening. With two, I learned how to get them situated and then you could actually hear a thought, or on good days get a half cup of coffee in without interruption. Not the case with three. As soon as you settle it with one or two of them, then there is unwaveringly that third with his problem or need. You fix that and start back at the top. Going back to work was my only saving grace. Of course I waited far too long to do that because raising my boys at home was not only what I wanted to do, but I knew the art of laying myself down to raise them up was meaningful, though it be mundane, exhaustive and well isolating if we are going to tell the truth.
When my youngest turned two I called what I was noticing “being the last of the siblings” syndrom. I figured he was trying to find his voice, fighting for attention, the right to finish a sentence. By the time he was three it was just the tantrum stage. By four and five it was the divorce and the idea that he was born into stress and the beginning of his fathers and my end. By last summer no one could ignore the behavior anymore. I was out of justifications and his little struggle had wave like impact effects on the rest of us. Just like with the ADHA, I felt that little whisper float into the house one day from heaven, except this time that whisper made its way to three of us, not just me. Simultaneously all of my son’s caretakers were echoing the same question, “could this be a form of OCD?”
Que the testing. Results; ‘Just Right’ OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a severe anxiety disorder in the brain. There are different types, most commonly known, the ‘need for cleanliness’ or obsessive cleaning/washing but that is not what our little man has. Our little guy suffers from a plaquing voice in his mind telling him (which probably feels more life forcing) that something or someone has to do it or say it in a very specific way. When this powerful voice gets interrupted, stopped, or forced itself to not be allowed to follow its pattern, world war three breaks out. Obviously, my son, my baby, suffers the most as this monster in his head rules by way of fear and panic, but my other children, his father, my partner, we all have suffered too.
BUT. There is always a but with me (because life is not dualistic friends and we gotta stay in the grey) There is hope on our horizon. Not only are we all learning in lightspeed just what our littlest warrior faces every day, we are learning that there are a lot of tools we can implement into our family and daily life to start helping him learn about his own brain. Talk about the power of speaking to yourself kindly! (See Instagram video on pinzydoesbrave where Drew practices speaking kindly to his mind). Over the next week or two I am going to focus us towards learning about things like ADHD, and OCD on the blog. I will cover signs and symptoms and treatments we have ourselves begun using, including medications that have worked.
Before I go headlong into our experiences and what I have found with OCD and ADHD, I wanted to take a minute and give you more of our back story- so thank you for baring with me here. One of the therapies I am so excited to talk about is the mindfulness practice of just speaking to yourself in a way that promotes not only healing, but actual change in behavior, thought, and feeling! I have touched on this a little bit on the Instagram TV Channel connected with the Pinzydoesbrave page there, but it’s high time we go deeper into this meaningful practice. This practice has not only been my saving grace in forgiving myself, its changing my little dude too! If you have someone or know someone who deals with one of these disorders keep coming back, there is, as always, space for ALL.
See you next Monday,
xoxo
Pinz
