Power Ranger with ADHD

And continued and continued… And he wasn’t always just destructive. He was also self-destructive. He had a permanent bruise on his forehead until he was at least 3. Then his sister, Peyton, had a bruise on hers, repeatedly actually. I remember it well because with it comes a story. When he was in preschool I stayed home with the kids during the day and worked part time at night. Doing so, I was able to do a lot of volunteer work at the school so the teachers and administration knew me well. I helped with field trips and parties. I tutored older students. Because I always had Peyton with me, the teachers and administration knew her too.

Peyton is Jay’s polar opposite. She’s outgoing. She’s outspoken. She talks to everyone who will listen. This was as true then as it is now. Whenever we were at the school, though she was too young yet to attend, she would draw attention to herself. One afternoon when Peyton and I went to pick Jay up from school Peyton ran up to talk to Jay’s teacher. She had a big goose egg smack dab in the middle of her forehead. The teacher asked what had happened and I explained that Jay had slammed the bedroom door – or tried to – when Peyton was standing in the doorway and popped her in the forehead with the door. “Oh, no!” she said.

A week or so later, before Peyton fully healed, I was getting ready for work and the very same thing happened again. Yes, I do know the odds of her being hit in exactly the same place the same way again, but do you know what happens when a knot is hit before it heals? It swells. It swells quickly, and it swells more than it originally swelled. When Jay’s teacher asked the next day what had happened she must have been hesitant to believe the odds because the following week children’s services showed up at our house to investigate. Yes, really. I was mortified.

I had never been so thankful that Jay misbehaved as I was that day. While the caseworker was there, he was a power ranger. Yes, you read correctly. A power ranger. He jumped off of the back of the couch knocking Peyton down in his path. He put the cat in the oven. He microwaved a soda can. All this happened with two adults present. The boy was quick.

Needless to say, the interview ended quickly. Once the social worker inspected Peyton and found zero bruises on the rest of her body, only the fading bruise on her forehead, she told me that she could see exactly how that could’ve happened and was recommending no further investigation. She suggested that I go through the house and make sure there are no protruding nails or loose woodwork that could cause injury. (I call it the padded room effect.) She also referred Jay for a neurological evaluation. An office interview, EEG, Cat Scan and MRI later, we had an overly simplified ADHD diagnosis.

With the ADHD recommendation came the recommendation for medication. I declined. I had heard horror stories about overly medicated children. Best case being a child that never learns to compensate and function as an adult. Worst case being a child that is stripped of their entire personality or zombie-fied as I call it. I wanted neither for my son. I believed that if I showed him enough love and attention we could work through any challenges without medication. In hindsight, I don’t know if that was the right decision.  

How Did We Get Here?

How did we get here? I do not know exactly when I lost him. He was always such a mama’s boy. Though I am quite certain he would deny as much today. I remember his staying right by my side at the park, too timid to play with the other children. I remember his still hugging and kissing me goodbye in front of his friends through middle school and high school. Were there signs? Did I miss them? Did I see them but excuse them for something else? He was always a difficult child, but he was sensitive and emotional and impulsive and reactive. Aren’t these traits that could make him difficult, or at the very least temperamental? And temperamental he was.

Looking back, Jay threw fits and tantrums from the time I can remember. He screamed for hours on end before he was old enough for tantrums. Babies cry. He was my first. How was I to know that screaming for hours on end was not ok if the doctors perpetually justified it for me. When he was a newborn it was colic. When he was a toddler it was my fault. “Just ignore him,” they’d say. “Walk away.” Well, that was much easier said than done. I remember it like it was yesterday. He was about a year and a half old. I was walking from our living room through our dining room to the kitchen stepping over him all along the way. He’d throw himself down at my feet. Nearly tripping, I’d step over him and start to walk again all for him to double-step to drop down in front of me again. This happened over and over and over before I reached the kitchen. It’s a wonder neither of us got hurt. Another day around the same time frame, it seemed that he did nothing but scream… nothing… but scream and scream and scream… all day. I changed him. I fed him. I bathed him. I played with him. I even tried to bribe him with cookies. Nothing. Finally, when I broke down and cried too, I called my mom. “Is he wet?” “Is he hungry?” “Is he tired?” Gee, Captain Obvious, I didn’t think of those things before I broke into tears.

As Jay got a little older they decided it may not be my fault after all. He was late to walk and even later to talk. They came to decide that the tantrums were not, in fact, tantrums at all, but frustration because he could not communicate; though when he began to communicate, he was hesitant to. He would fumble with his words and he would mumble. He would mumble a lot. You could see his mind working but it was as if his mind was working faster than his mouth and his mouth could just not catch up. You could see him getting frustrated, so it stood to reason that they were right and his frustration was at the root of the outbursts. They tested his ears thinking that maybe he had a hearing disability that was making it more difficult for him to articulate clearly resulting in the mumbling. Nope. In preschool they had him meet with a speech therapist twice a week. In time he was able to communicate much more clearly when he was prompted to, but he often still chose to avert his eyes and mumble. You had to encourage him to look at you and to speak up, but he would communicate without getting frustrated. However, the outbursts continued.

A Child Lost

Parker, Jay Mitchell, age 20, passed away unexpectedly on April 11, 2013. He was survived by his grandparents, parents, sisters, brother, nieces, nephew and son. He was an incredibly bright and talented young man who had yet to find his direction and leave his mark on this world.

Okay, so Jay didn't pass away. He actually walked – or rather he ran as fast as he could. I remember the grief all the same. There were many days it felt as if he had died. In fact, he told us that he was dead to us. "You no longer have a son." “I am dead to you.” The emptiness deep in my heart and the ball in the pit of my stomach ache as if that were true.

Everyone has words of wisdom for parents who have lost a child to injury or illness. No one seems to have any answers for parents who have lost a child to the world. "Your job is done." I disagree. Once you’re a mother, you’re always a mother. Is that not right? My role in his life may have changed, but I am still his mother all the same. "Let go and let God." That is so much easier said than done. "You've done all you can." Have I? Have I really? There must have been something I missed. There has to be something more I can do. There has to be a better answer. That one just simply will not do. How, then, does one deal with such a great sense of loss?