Emailbag: Guest Post.

I received a lovely email this week from B., a woman who was raising an ADHD child before there was a diagnosis for it. Forty years ago, children with behavioral disorders were just considered bad kids, and of course mothers got the blame. Autism was blamed on "refrigerator mothers," a label pinned on my friend Lisa's mother when her younger brother was diagnosed. Doctors assumed that she withheld affection from her youngest child, causing him to retreat inward. As absurd as the idea is that in a family with six kids, one could be left alone long enough to regress totally inward (I have two children and each of them is always loudly complaining that they're being annoyed by the other one), the fact is that these women were blamed by the medical community, and these mothers, who were struggling as hard as they could anyway, had their jobs made even more difficult by a derisive and unhelpful society.

B. wrote to me, telling me that her daughter had sent her the essay I wrote about our decision to put Alex on Ritalin. At first I thought her daughter had sent her a link to the blog, but since the subject heading of her email is the same as the title of the essay in the book the essay is in, The Elephant in the Playroom, now I'm not sure. But it doesn't matter where she read it, I'm just glad she did. I asked her if she would let me post her email about what it was like to raise a child with a behavioral disorder forty years ago, because I thought people would find it as fascinating and touching as I did. She graciously agreed, and so B. is today's guest blogger.

Take it away, B.

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The Story of B.

My daughter sent your article to me. She is walking in my footsteps of 40 years ago. Like her, I sobbed when I finished reading. I identified with you totally as she does now.

Go with your instincts all the way. I am speaking from the long road of experience coming from the dark ages of 1967 when the problems of ADHD children were unnamed and they were considered "bad kids" by all those people who thought they could do better if they had control. Back then I knew his problem as Hyperactive Impulse Disorder.

My son was on Ritalin from the age of 3 until he was 14. After that he was better able to manage himself but never totally lost the hyperactive tendancies that had plagued his younger years.

THERE WAS NEVER ANY LASTING SIDE EFFECTS TO HIS BEING ON RITIALN FOR 11 YEARS. He is smart and an achiever. He graduated college with his teaching credentials (two specialties), has his Masters Degree and National Teaching Certificate and has taught at the same middle school for 17 years and heads his department with leadership. He is a hard worker, kind, considerate, has a lot of good friends, hobbies and is very stable.

My son was born in 1964 and after 5 months of age stopped naps, walked around furniture at 7 months and was walking/running at 12 months and climbing out of his crib, went to sleep finally at 9 o'clock and woke up at 5 AM. I put aluminum foil on the windows to keep them dark, a netting over his crib to keep him in...finally after his climbing out and foiling me in every endeavor, he was put in a double bed to sleep at 12 months of age. He went to nursery school at 2 and a half years and by the time he was three, the teachers and I agreed that he needed special attention and was active to the extreme. I thought he would be dead by the age of six if something wasn't done to slow him down and give him direction.

I knew in my heart that his problems did not stem from me and it was obvious that his actions were different from other children. In those days the family doctor blew you off as a "over-protecting mother". The medical profession as a whole did not recognize nor identify ADHD yet. Recognition was in its infancy. Diagnosis and treatment formed from experience gained with children who in essence were guinea pigs for the medical profession. Finding a sympathetic teacher who would work with us was not
an easy process through the school years.

I found a doctor in Los Angeles, Dr. Podison, who began to specialize in the "problem' child after he had two "normal" boys and the third was uncontrollable. He had to know why. He was a pediatric neurologist who began to specialize in these children and he became our doctor. We were lucky.

Everything in those days was experimental including the drugs to try. We went through a lot of testing to see if his problem was emotional, mental or physical....as it was termed then. His father and I were evaluated to see if we were the problem. There was no network of help and only one study that I could find from UCLA and it came to no conclusions or reasons why this was happening .

There was a very telling incident at the first meeting with the doctor that showed him more than I could ever have explained: We came in for our first appointment and the nurse was at a desk directly opposite the waiting room chairs. I was called in first and I told the nurse to watch my son very carefully. She said she would. I went in to talk with the doctor. Within three minutes the nurse rushed in and said that my son was gone. She had turned around to file something and he disappeared.

We rushed back out to the waiting room and the doctor told me to stay and wait in case he showed up, while he and the nurse conducted a search. A few minutes later, they found him one floor down in another doctor's office. He was sitting and sucking on a lollipop while their receptionist tried to locate his parent. He was smiling and happy and not at all concerned when he was found.

Dr. Podison and the nurse walked him back up stairs and when he saw me he just smiled and showed me his candy. As we walked back down the corridor to the doctor's office, my son casually flipped out the little white identity cards in the front of six file cabinets. When we sat down in front of the doctor's desk, my son stood up and closed the blinds, then opened them and started to pull them up. Bent over the desk and blew into an ashtray and scattered cigarette ashes all over the desk then sat on it. All the while he was smiling and happy and just being himself. I said nothing and did nothing during this time so the doctor could observe. It was very telling behavior for a three year old.

I could go on with how we handled the situation for the next 11 years. I have lots of stories and methods I used to handle different situations. I think I just want to say that situations are different and the same in so many ways. We have to find our way with what ever tools we have at hand and use our common sense and instinct and then just follow through. I also recommend a scream closet. I would go in there and close the door and scream out frustration and stress into our clothes until I felt control and could laugh at myself. Sometimes it took only one scream and/or up to four to get release. After all, you can't ignore your own needs!

Ignore those that would condemn you for what you are doing. They are not worth knowing or listening to.
Trust yourself and your child. Let them know you love them no matter what even though you do not like the behavior at the time. Surround yourself with a good support system of understanding family and friends. it is a lot easier to do today than it was 40 years ago. Common sense prevails.

Good luck and keep the faith....been there and done that...and everything worked out!

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P.S. - I don't know about you, but my favorite part of the whole email, aside from its overall encouraging message, was the bit about the full ashtray in the doctor's office.