Re: The Story of Me: LeonZeppelin

[Anonymous]

leon, i read your many posts here, and i just want to sit down and cry! your personal story has TRULY touched me. mainly because in how you describe yourself. i’m now 40 and a housewife. for me though i feel like materially i have what i need, i’m still unhappy, depressed, unfulfilled and have never lived to my true potential. i’m in no position to tell you what to do with your life. i’m not your parents. but i want to tell you about my own personal struggle and anguish and hope that it can begin to put you on a better path to self discovery. i have a feeling that i’m going to write a terribly long answer here but i hope i can help……also curleymoe115 has some good ideas here as well….

i can 100% relate to your story! your desciption:

“As a child, I always had my head in the clouds. I was always daydreaming. I remember when I was little my mum would send me upstairs to get ready for school, only to have to come up and check on me about half on hour later to find me sitting in my underpants, staring at the wall, obviously contemplating the many mysteries of life…” OMG, THIS DESCRIBES MY SON WHO IS NOW 9 YEARS OLD!!! he ends up playing with his Legos or writing stories or making up really cool games on scraps of paper scattered throughout his room…

“Not only did I have my head in the clouds, I was also ridiculously hyper. I was always the one that kept going when everyone else had stopped. I was always moving…” THIS IS ME when I was little AND MY BOY. He doesn’t stop, he is always occupied with something!

“Unfortunately, my constant state of hyper annoyed the children in my school. This resulted in me being bullied, a lot. I had friends but they couldn’t handle me anymore they would turn to teasing, and with my brain being in a constant muddle, I wouldn’t be able to find a non physical solution to the teasing. So I hit them. That made them stop, but made me feel awful. I never wanted to hit them, ever, I hated doing it. The sadness from all the teasing and the immense rage I felt, mixed in with guilt made my brain feel like it was going to explode. This happened at least twice a week.” THIS IS MY BOY NOW. He got suspended last year and the school tried to send him out of district…. I had to go to court to fight to keep him in school, long story…. but emotionally, I feel on some level exactly how he feels….he doesn’t know how to process THIS so he acts out.

I do not have to edit anything for content because your descriptions are so spot on! (I’ve experienced the same thing when I was in college-long time ago-but applicable here)

I do want to say one thing. Make sure that you get officially diagnosed, go to a specialist, neurodevelopmental or what have you. This will really help you.

You are 20? You don’t need your parents’ permission to medicate. I will explain my own situation here because I also want you to understand what I’m going through as well.

I’m going through a horrible time now with my own depression but I see my child going through what you are going through. I UNDERSTAND, I SO GET IT, but I feel so powerless because my husband won’t support me. Ok, just forget my own personal issues here, please make sure that you get the appropriate help. I just want to say this about the medications: not a magic bullet, they are not a miracle drug, but if they make your life better, if you can rise above and become better than yourself with them, you have my FULL support!!! Not to mention, after you realize that you are happier with them in your system, then it’s time….

I can understand from your parents perspective that they want to go “au natural” but it’s an immense struggle to keep muddling through life not living up to your true potential. My own teachers when I was in elementary would write things like “very intelligent, capable of doing better”. Socially, I never made a multitude of friends, I’ve only had 1 best and only friend in school and socially we were both made fun of. What torture that was! No, we were not nerds or anything but I think with my ADHD, it stood in the way of being socially active and accepted. Fast forward to today, my boy, kids DO like him, he’s a chick magnet, (yeah, i’m proud of that) but with HIS ADHD, it drives the other children away because of his lack of focus, hyperactivity, negative, attention seeking behaviors, he wants to make friends and be Mr. Popular but it kind of scares them… so they tease and the other boys get aggressive with him.

BTW, he got diagnosed through the school system with ADHD. He’s now in special ed, with his own paraprofessional and he has a behavior program. He’s got the full support system that the school now provides though before he did not. He was put on Intuniv (after we went thru 3 other meds which had terrible side effects). He finished out the school year doing really well. Then this summer, we gave him a med vacation.

I think when I saw how the Intuniv med has helped my boy last November (socially and academically he was much better – he had more play dates, etc.) but now that he’s off, we wanted to try to see if he could succeed without the meds. My husband thinks he’s doing better in school without it (he’s really NOT). I do see the difference with my child on and off the meds – we’ve tried both aspects and though I’m not into finding a chemical solution, I feel that given all these circumstances, it’s warranted…I’m very torn about it personally but I do not want my kid to end up like me with no friends, being ostracized and stigmatized, unhappy and unfulfilled when he has his whole life ahead of him! I can see THAT with your story, my heart goes out to you!

The only thing that truly bothers me is that this is a chemical solution and long term, I still have my doubts about putting him on the meds. I’m not trying to medicate him because I want to make my miserable life easier but because I see that it helps him to focus, to think before he speaks and acts, since he is not misbehaving in school while he had been on it last year, socially, he was much happier.He’s a lot less happier now and becoming more and more angry and frustrated – he’s starting to have trouble again socially as well. His teacher wrote me a disturbing email recently about his behavior and he’s now “messing up” in classes that he loves – ART AND GYM!

How do you convince your own family what the benefits are? I’m trying to actively read more on this, i’m trying to help my boy, so eventually, I will make my husband put him back on it but because he doesn’t believe in it, there is no support so I truly feel alone in this fight and I’m also depressed.

Oops, I’m digressing because the main point I’m trying to make here is this. Please do not look to your parents to make the decision of taking the meds for you. Please research your options for being on vs. off. Try to answer these questions: How does your life work with them vs. off? If you find that you can do better, think better, get more accomplished, personally and socially you are better with them in your system, you WILL find yourself being happier I think by being more productive. I hope that by putting in my own personal anguish as a a mom, and one who has never been diagnosed with ADHD (but I’ve known all my life that i’ve had it, because despite my depressions, I’m not organized, I daydream a lot, still a litle hyper, though with age, it seems like i’m now starting to slow down, i’m always late wherever I go, I’m always missing something, etc.) I took the test on this website and I’ve also answered questionnaires when I was in the doctor’s office for my son and though the drs. never told me so, i HAVE it. and it’s made my life SO difficult, i’m unhappy because I’m so frustrated with myself, I am not lazy but it feels like I’m spinning my wheels and I’m not getting anywhere.

So, please, do not wait another day. Try to get diagnosed, and try to medicate – it’s not too late for you, my young friend, and as a mom, I support you!! I hope that what I say makes sense, and that you do not get upset with what I have written because I speak from the heart though I hardly know you. You have your whole life ahead of you as well. FIND YOUR NICHE and be happy….DO NOT muddle anymore…..thank you for reading about me and my personal story… hope this helps….

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