The Letters We Live With

Our last few years with Brandt have involved a lot more than simply learning about the ABCs. We have also had the blessing/opportunity/trial of living with his ADHD and OCD and we're working hard every day to learn how to cope with it in the best way possible without letting it take over our family. Since the snowy day he was born on May 4, 2007, Brandt has been the most active, high maintenance, hyper, impulsive, exasperating, smart, funny, cute little boy I've ever known.  He has kept us on our toes every second.  We had to fence him in both in the house and in the yard and could never take our eyes off of him for even a moment when he was only a few months old, and since he was walking and very tall for his age at 9 months old, we had to put child locks on the doors by the time he turned 1 year old because he would escape otherwise.  He's always had his funny little quirks, like lining up his toy cars and animals since he was old enough to grasp them, but we started to notice problems when he would freak out if his lines were messed up or changed in any way.  He was unable to share toys well-to the extreme-and he couldn't stand it if someone altered what he was doing or tried playing with something in a different way than he was used to.  Although it seemed contradictory to his nature of needing that obsessive type of order in a lot of the things he did, he often would tear toys out of the toy box and throw them everywhere without ever playing with them. Most of the time he couldn't sit still to play with his toys, read a book, or watch cartoons for more than a minute or so-if that.   He would make the hugest messes and leave them everywhere throughout the house and in a matter of minutes it would look like a disaster area.  When he was 3 years old we finally decided we needed to do something more about it than work on our parenting skills because it was next to impossible to go anywhere as a family and it was causing a lot of safety (and sanity) issues, especially with his baby sister.  He was officially diagnosed at that time with ADHD and OCD and started on ritalin for the ADHD.  We also enrolled him in the Paris preschool which was a lifesaver for helping us learn to cope with his behaviors in a better way.  Now here we are in 2013 and he's one of the smartest and busiest little 6 year olds we know.  In some ways we have come so far, while in others it seems like we've gone backwards.  We now deal with a lot scarier impulsive behaviors than climbing on the cupboards-like running across the busy highway, playing with guns, trying to start the house on fire, wanting to "practice driving the car", etc.  Thankfully we have a wonderful support group including our counselor, Shaun Tobler, who connected with buddy very quickly and has helped us so much!  There are still other letters that are tossed around by our psychologist, family members, friends, counselor, MD, and often me, such as RAD, Asperger's, ODD, GAD, but the letters that really matter the most at this point are LOVE.  "Unseen illnesses" are so hard to live with at times, especially when others around us aren't tolerant or understanding of them, but love continues to get us through.  Love from God, love from family, love from friends, love from teachers and church members/leaders, love from co-workers, and the list goes on.  No matter where our journey with Brandt leads us and no matter what "letters" we end up with as far as "diagnosis" goes, I will continue to give all I have to love him with all my heart and help others to be able to do the same.