ADHD: It’s a Continuing Saga

Captain Destroy

Holding the boys back a year is not an option.

Because this would mean they’d turn 19 during their senior year of high school, repeating kindergarten would make them ineligible to play high school sports their senior year. Granted, they are currently terrible at said sports…

But it wasn’t a gamble I wanted to make based on giving my son an extra year for maturity. Especially when the issue wasn’t immaturity but rather a rapid-fire brain misfiring signals. Left to his own devices, he would be bouncing off the walls throughout the entirety of elementary school no matter how many years that lasted.

ADHD is a popular joke. We’ve all heard about it. But is it really just raucous boys being boys? Is there really an affliction or are some little guys just adventurous troublemakers?

ADHD is a neurological disorder. It is a brain-based medical issue that does not discriminate against age, gender, or intelligence. You do not “grow out” of ADHD, this one’s ours for life.

Talkative, fidgety, forgetful, impulsive, risk-takers, restless, procrastinators, willful, stubborn, frustrated, multi-taskers, danger-seekers. Always on.

Interested is witnessing the effects of ADHD first hand? Destroy is available for rent.

Behavioral color cards didn’t work. “I tried to be green, but then I wasn’t,” Destroy would explain at pick up each day.

If asked, why he did something, you would receive a genuine and honest, “I don’t know.”

All to often I would find myself trying to contain a tantruming boy so far gone into his fury that it was easy to physically see the disorder taking over. Synapses in his brain snapping like twisted rubber bands.

“So. How do you feel about medicating?” our pediatrician asked.

I didn’t hesitate. “Let’s do it.

I’ll get snarky about all the alternative treatments in a future post.

But as someone with a mental disorder brought back to life by medication, myself? Sold.

The medication for depression and anxiety that I take doesn’t make me less of myself. It gives me the ability to be myself. Destroy has a disorder that we can fix.

I believe in science. Because it works.

6 Comments

Filed under ADHD, Destroy

6 Responses to ADHD: It’s a Continuing Saga

  1. “Interested is witnessing the effects of ADHD first hand? Destroy is available for rent.” I’ve often said, when people ask me if he REALLY needs to be on medication….”Tell you what, I’ll drop him off at your house for the weekend unmedicated and you can let me know Monday.”

    • Even I wondered that when he was but a babe. I’ve since eaten my words. And that is a brilliant response for when I am asked that very question.

  2. My son was the same way and medication is a life saver. Started when he was 6, now 14 and the meds really made all the difference.

  3. Roxy

    I read both posts and I wondered whether to comment or not. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. Here’s what I can: coming from pediatrics rotations where I’ve seen countless children with various difficulties that receive no help because the parents refuse to aknowledge that anything may be wrong, I am glad whenever I see parents who are willing to face whatever it is and get their child whatever he needs. I am sorry Destroy(and you) have to deal with this at all. Also I am sorry that in the 21st century there is still stigma attached the people who need one medication or another in order to achieve their full potential.

    • Comments always very welcome. I’m just one parent trying to figure this thing out. I’ll get some right, and some wrong. And I’ll spend a hell of a lot of time on Google. Part of the reason I put this all out here is the community. I really appreciate all thoughts and opinions as long as they’re honest and non-hostile. (Have to add that last part because trolls. I don’t appreciate their thoughts.)

      • Roxy

        “Part of the reason I put this all out here is the community.” This is exactly why I decided to write the comment after all. I wanted to offer some moral support(considering how the above comment turned out, it’s debatable whether I achieved that or not).

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