I Read, Therefore I Am

I’ve always suspected I was different; different in that “special” sort of way. Sadly, my superpowers don’t qualify me for even a guest appearance on Heroes, and you won’t catch me saving the world with my talents.

My secret ability? I am part human, part reptile.

Call me The Chameleowenstein.

It seems I’m genetically predisposed (if you know my family, you know exactly where this comes from) to absorb any identity by simply reading about it!

Give me a book on ADD and before the author finishes thanking his wife, dog and publisher, I am convinced I must have the worst case of ADD ever. I mean, did this guy write this book with me in mind? Its so uncanny and unnerving how dead-on every line is.

Same is true for depression, Aspergers and basically any other debilitating condition that explains why, given all my “gifts,” I feel like my life is going nowhere.

Of course, the truth is I have none of the above and all of the above.

Mental health after all is not a point in space, but a dot on a continuum. It is a fragile balance between having just enough anxiety to get out of bed and to work, but not so much that I collapse under the strain of my own imagination.

The trick is knowing when to access a “touch” of a disorder, and when to keep it under wraps.

Sounds straightforward enough on paper, but this simple understanding has taken me the better part of the last twenty years to begin to grasp.

At one point I just stopped reading anything on the subject of personality disorders. You know, that moment when “Self-Help” becomes “Get-Help!”

I had to, since each reading session left me feeling guilty, like I was the sole source of my kids’ problems. Admittedly, this made it very difficult doing the work of reading up on their handicaps and getting them help.

Depression? Me

Sensory Integration? Sigh… Also Me

ADD – (I begin to fidget) That sounds like Me as well

And so on…

I credit the turnaround to my wonderful life partner who is also my best critic. I mean it with the highest level of respect and endearment when I say it takes a lot to impress her (Wow! I must have really been something special at one time to win her heart).

Even as I write this piece and pause to share the “Chameleowenstein” crack, I get a stone-faced: “Is that supposed to be funny?” look.

Boy can she be tough.

But she has saved me from plunging into the deep-end after every trip to the library.

Her mantra? A steady diet of: “There is nothing wrong with you.” And: “This is just some phase; I am sure you will feel better after a hot dinner and a good night’s sleep. Here, have a cookie.”

Meanwhile, sometime in the middle of the night, the book would suddenly vanish.

After twenty years I am finally believing she is right and, as the saying goes: “When the pupil is ready, the master will appear.”

Last week I discovered a great book that we are both finding helpful.  Looks like I’ve laced my superhero boots for the last time.

Finally, an author who doesn’t feel it necessary to devote the first thirty pages to “explaining” what Aspergers is or helpful checklists to see if “your child might have an issue.”

This book is blunt and to the point:

“Hey, if you are reading this, your kid has problems. Face it. You might too, but what’s the point talking about that? It’s the kid we want to help. So sit down, shut up and read.”

Here it is, for anyone else who is looking for straight talk about a whole range of issues.

I especially love the “and More!”  tribute to Billy Mays. Now if there was ever a guy with ADD…

LJ

Our NLD* Son

Its been a while since the whole steroids controversy was the most important subject in the land. While it made absolutely no impact on our family at all (my boys hate sports and everything they stand for), we’ve got our own internal issue with record keeping that has shaken our game to the core.

But first, a brief history:

It was six years ago when his then second grade teacher approached us with her concerns about his classroom behavior. Back then he was the most lovable, mushy boy with a mop of hair and a song always on his lips. He was a ray of sunshine and a bright spot in our lives whose smile would push back some of the dark clouds surrounding our then fourth grade Asperger son.

She began: “I am concerned about A. He’s clearly a bright young man, but his moods swing in all directions.”

“Well, yes” I said, “We’ve been dealing with some challenges with an older brother and I suppose that could impact him in some way.”

She pressed on: “What worries me is how he can be so happy one minute, and its like a storm cloud has rolled in the next. Its like he is two different people.”

“Mrs. S.” I replied, “Are you trying to tell us that you think our son is Bipolar? Because if you are, I don’t know what qualifications you have to be making that assessment.”

Now I was getting annoyed and angry.

Eventually she backed down from some of that language, but did not back away from getting the administration to push us into having him receive a psycho-educational evaluation.

One month and $1500 later our son now had a new label to go along with his name: NLD.

Much as had happened with our older Asperger boy, there simply wasn’t that much the psychologist could recommend about his condition. She gave us a  one page photocopy of ideas and instructions, the most useful of which was to tell his teachers that he needs to sing and mumble in class because this is part of how he teaches the material to himself; which, by the way, they did not happily accept or easily accommodate.

At least I could rub the “no signs of depression” diagnosis in his teacher’s face, and bury that suspicion.

Time and again, when things began to unravel with him, we would dutifully whip out this sheet and consult it for ideas and suggestions. It became somewhat of an oracle. We began to believe if we stared deeply enough at the seven hundred some odd words, the gods would fill our heads with inspiration. Truthfully, it wasn’t at all useful.

We did not have the funds to continue seeing the psychologist; I am still paying her off $25 or so every month, and it was either pride or plain stupidity (what’s the difference?) that kept us from asking our parents to help with the cost.

So we convinced ourselves we knew something about this condition, and tried our best to understand and figure him out on our own.

But we were not alone. Smelling the opportunity to make a buck on someone else’s misery, there finally began to appear books in the library on the subject of NLDs.

About three months ago we checked out what looked like the most promising ones and set aside two days to pour over them together. Not only did we not complete any of these books, we didn’t make it out of the first thirty pages.

Over and over again we began running smack into descriptions that simply did not make any sense.

“Poor fine-motor skills”

“Clumsiness”

“Inability to organize thoughts”

None of these describe our little whiz who transposes his favorite classical piano tunes from major to minor chords with no effort, draws intricate pictures of dragons and cartoon characters and has written between twenty to thirty pages of several books (he loses interest somewhere after the prologue or chapter one) complete with distinct characters and locations.

This time we took the lead to figure out what is really going on with him. He’s in the middle of being re-evaluated, this time by the county on their dime (I have learned a thing or two) and the preliminary reports are turning our lives upside down again.

“He does not have an NLD,” says the chief psychologist who is leading the team.

“He might have a touch of Aspergers” (oy vey) and, get this, “he might actually be depressed.”

Like they say in baseball, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”

Hang on there Mr. Bonds, your name might not be the only one getting tweaked.

LJ