Coming Up for Air by Sharon O'Donnell

I've been absent from writing for this blog since May; I wrote my blog for about 6 months and then in May, I decided I needed to take a break from it due to my middle son's ongoing battle with anxiety. He's had severe anxiety and OCD repetitive thoughts since late October of 2010, and after being somewhat under control with medication, it flared again in the spring. When he goes through these low points, it affects the entire family, especially me. He might be 17 now, but in my eyes he is still my baby, and I feel I have to protect him. Thus, when he has an anxiety flare-up, my world seems to stop as I focus totally on him: I do constant research on the Internet about his most recent flare-up, I'm on the phone with his doctors, I'm sending emails to coaches and teachers, etc., etc. For the most part, I can't write -- I just don't have it in me. Going through all this with my son drains me emotionally, mentally, and physically. It's exhausting.

When I feel sometimes that his anxiety is under control, I slowly start to once again get interested in the other things in my life like writing, getting together with friends, going to movies, and working on other projects of mine. Literally, it feels like I'm coming up for air after being under water for a long time. And then BAM! My son's anxiety will flare again, and I'm back under water. When he hits those low points, it totally overwhelms me. I've resigned myself to the fact that this is a pattern and that there will be a few weeks of 'being okay' followed by an anxiety flare-up, and then it will repeat again. We can't let the low points/flare-ups get us down too much because the pattern shows that things will get better again. But then they seem to get worse, and when my son nosedives, he nosedives quickly.

His anxiety, unfortunately, is not about school or performing on his high school sports teams; it's about life in general, and he constantly asks questions in his head about how life began, what more is there out there, why things in history happened as they did, etc. He comes from a religious home, he's gone to church and Sunday school, Boy Scouts, etc., but still these questions come because this is the way the OCD has chosen to manifest itself now. It's called existential anxiety, and it's awful. In middle school, the OCD showed up in milder forms like his getting indigestion a lot, but last year, it showed up this way, which is so much tougher. The trick is -- and it does seem to be a trick -- is for him to learn to manage these thoughts and not to let them take over his mind because when they do, he literally becomes unable to function. He can't go to school, he can't go anywhere with friends, he can't even make himself focus enough to play the games he loves (baseball and basketball). We don't know when the anxiety will worsen and he will suddenly become like this, and I am always feeling like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. It's an awful way to live, and I know for myself, for my family, and for my son, I have to get past this myself and not be so overwhelmed and emotional when these flare-ups occur. Easier said than done, though.

Over the summer, he spent a week having a team of doctors evaluate him, and he is now on a second anti-anxiety medication (the first one he was on in May led to a serotonin excess in his system which caused him to crash). Since he is evidently sensitive to these meds, they have to be regulated to the correct dosage because too little or too much can cause similar bad effects (we've also tried natural supplements that are precursors to serotonin but that didn't work). So doctors have gradually increased the new medication, and it's been doing well overall -- but still, there have been a few blips in the past few weeks where he feels bad. I'm hoping and praying that they will remain blips here and there that he will learn to manage (he has therapy with a psychiatrist/psychologist) so they will not become major flare-ups.

The junior year of high school (which he had last year) and his current senior year are very stressful for any student, but particularly for teens like him. Add in all the bad news they hear 24/7 like about terrorism, the terrible economy, the environment -- and then throw in how competitive it is to get into college these days - and wow, it can be mind-boggling. It's scary how many teens have similar problems with anxiety, and I fear that we are creating a society dependent on these drugs because of the anxiety and depression. I'm not sure what to do about it.

I do know that all of this certainly has put things in perspective. I really savor the good days and good times with my son -- and my two other sons, too. And I just hope and pray that as my son matures (which he has a lot in the past year with this anxiety), the anxiety will lessen -- and as the stresses of high school and getting into college decrease -- so will these OCD thoughts. In the meantime, we have to hold on and keep taking deep breaths even when we feel like we're under water.

Crazy Baby -- By Laura Houston

My youngest son Wyatt is a little weird. The kids on the playground are not always sure how to handle him. The other day he walked up to a seven-year old and took his hand. The boy thought it was cute. Until Wyatt placed the kid’s arm in his mouth and started to make strange noises. The kid pulled his arm away and recoiled while wiping the slobber from his forearm.

“Ewww,” he said. “That’s creepy.”

I wanted to say to the kid, “You have no idea.”

Wyatt has more than his fair share of peculiarities. He doesn’t like to transition from one surface to another when walking. For instance, when we go to the park, he will stay on the blanket because he does not want to cross over to the grass. He runs from one end of the blanket to the other – always stopping just before the edge. His precision on this is remarkable. Not so much as a toe goes over. When Wyatt is walking on the grass, he doesn’t like to cross over to the pavement. He doesn’t like it when the tiles in our lobby change color. He won’t walk on the darker ones.

Wyatt also likes to make the same noise over and over again, whether it’s bodily noises such as vibrating his lips together, or by throwing a plastic toy down on the wood floor repeatedly to listen to it reverberate, or by banging on aluminum bowls with his bottle. If I study him rather than go insane by the noise, I can see he is processing. He doesn’t hit the bowls in the same spot. Sometimes he doesn’t hit as hard. And when he notices a change in sound, he gets excited.

On the playground he prefers to find the girls. When he sees pink, he’s on it. Yesterday he walked over to a couple of very polite four-year olds who were playing catch. He came up to them doing his “wubba-wubba” serenade where he plugs his mouth with his fist while humming. They laughed, so he immediately tried to steal their sparkly ball. They started playing keep-away from Wyatt, and he walked back and forth doing his wubba-wubba and trying to touch their hair or get the ball. It was fun for them at first because they thought he was cute, but after about ten minutes of trying to enjoy their game and avoid Wyatt, one of them asked: “What’s wrong with him?”

My husband often asks this, too. He wants to have Wyatt tested. Me? Not so much. I think he’s fine, and if he’s not fine, I don’t want to know. Not yet. I am enjoying motherhood right now, and I don’t want to discover that my child has a development disorder or a learning problem. Or a tick. Or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Or any of the other things the DSM manual will say is wrong with him. Right now I want to live in ignorant bliss. Even if it’s just for a little while.

We named Wyatt Mark after my brother. We want Wyatt to have some of Mark’s traits. My brother is a rare, wonderful soul. Both my husband and I have great respect for how Mark carries himself through life. He is happy with very little, and he won’t compromise his happiness. Mark doesn’t seek status in possessions or a big house. He waited more than 40 years to find the love of his life because he was not willing to settle for anything less. He’d rather live alone and happy rather than securely coupled with the wrong person. He loves dogs, books, music, movies, and the great outdoors. These are all things my husband and I wanted our kids to know and love, as well.

And Wyatt lives up to his namesake. He is happy with very little. Twin bother Lyle prefers to play with the big Elmo airplane with all of its lights and noises or my giant fitness ball, and Lyle tires of these toys quickly. Wyatt, however, can sit in the corner with a ping pong ball for a long, long time before deciding it’s time to move on to a pair of socks or the dust pan. He also loves books. Unlike his brother, he doesn’t tear them up right away. He carefully dissects the fuzz, fur, and reflective surfaces off the page and lays them in a neat little pile at this side. He also loves to turn the page over and over again to discover that they’re not the same color from one page to the next. With one simple flip, everything is different. How great is that? He laughs.

And if there is one thing Wyatt loves, it’s women. He flirts with Melissa, Kate, Alison and Lili like a pro. He loves their jewelry, their lips, and their hair. He loves to make them laugh. And he especially appreciates it when they make him laugh.

I find all of this to be wonderful and endearing. However, I can’t help but sometimes worry. As I type this, he is walking from one corner of the living room to the other and stopping to lick the chair in between. Sometimes he’ll stop and press his forehead to the floor before getting back to one of the corners. Over and over again. I’ve never seen or heard of a toddler doing this.

New York City has great services. We can call and someone will come out and give a free assessment. They can watch Wyatt play and determine what’s “wrong” with him. Then they can give me a plan to help him. Things to watch for. How to handle the little ticks. That’s great and all, but I think I just have a bizarre little kid who is extremely tactile. I tell myself that he is really a genius, and that his growing brain is simply collecting data about his environment, and someday he will use this data to spring forth and let his brilliance come radiating through. That’s what I say.

However, deep in the back of my mind the little scares pop up like dandelions on the lawn. They are the weeds of fear the doctors planted there years ago when they explained that older women have a greater risk of having a child with Down’s syndrome or a child that has developmental disorders. Hard to shake those fears. Hard to trample them back down. Hard to think how to handle it should they be real. I do look for clues that it’s all OK. I look for connection. I look for eye contact. I look for language.

This morning I dressed Wyatt on our big bed, and when I was finished with the tugging and wrestling, he stood up and put his hands on my shoulders. Then he buried his head in my neck. I rubbed his back, and he hooked his leg around my waist so I could carry him to the kitchen for breakfast. When I asked him if he wanted some milk, he gave an enthusiastic scream in my ear. I gave him a long, deep hug, and he hugged back. We understand each other. That’s all a mom can ask for. For now.