We didn't jump into medication very easily...if you read my last post about my experience with medication and doctors you understand why that is. Hubby's parents are also Organic Produce Farmers in PA and don't agree with most of what modern medicine has to offer as there is always organic ways to take care of what ails us in most cases according to the way they philosophize. We did try coffee as a stimulate only as well as coffee first. That helps a little, but not as a long lasting affect and not as a way to help facilitate understanding and learning.
As soon as our beautiful daughter started taking the medication, I saw a difference. All of a sudden she was no longer driving me insane every moment. She wasn't twitchy and could actually handle being still for more than 5 min as a time. My daughter could hold a conversation with me and used really words verses grunts and weird form of sign language. The biggest difference was with potty time. She had a really hard time potty training. She did great at night, but the accidents came during the day.Our daughter is filled with so many thoughts she doesn't have room to pay attention to the signs her body was giving her. It didn't really matter how many times we went through the potty process it didn't stick.
This was the same with school. It didn't matter how many hours we spent reading or working on writing or math it wasn't sticking. There just wasn't any room outside of the thoughts she was having. My daughter lived in her own head and in stories that she couldn't tell anyone about or articulate well enough to let anyone into it. She struggles in school and I have done all I can to be on top of what I see she knows and what she doesn't. How she learns is unique and time consuming. It is constant effort on our part as parents. Once we had our son we saw him acting in similar ways, but as a learned behavior. Once he was away from our daughter he was a different person. A few months after our daughter started on medication my hubby was started.
All of a sudden my marriage wasn't so much work on my part. I could relax the schedule of structure I had created to try and maintain balance. I shop off a weekly menu I create to help us save money and to help provide the structure hubby and daughter desperately needed and still do to this day. Before medication, if I had veered from the menu a bit emotional melt down would soon be followed. As broken as I was I took it as a personal attack every time. I think I have said this before, but I think we yelled at each other in every conversation we had for the first years we were married as we struggled to figure out how to be One like the bible talks about. Hubby had his idea of how a woman was supposed to be, the roles she was to fulfill, and how she was supposed to talk to her husband. I didn't fit into most of those ideals and was rebellious, and hurting. Today, when we have a difference of opinion we are able to stop, pray, take turns talking, and continue the conversation without raised voices, most of the time. I am able to recognize the difference between an attack on my character and an explanation of feeling...again most of the time. It is still work, but it is about 10 times easier than ever before.
I recently started looking for a book to help me be even more empathetic with my husband's and daughter's conditions and found I Always Want to be Where I am Not by Dr. Wes Crenshaw. I am so lucky to have found this book. He helped me understand my role with such detail that it left me little doubt as to what he ment. How to work through problems that come up. The story of the teens and early college age kids gave me a hope for my daughters future than I had had before I read the book. We are currently working on getting our daughter an IEP or Individual Education Plan to ensure she doesn't get 'Left Behind' and is able to fill in some of the holes she has in her education from K-3rd grade that she missed because of the lack of medication, but I am more hopeful that she will be a productive thriving member of society, be able to hold a job, and find the love of her life.
This fall, our daughter will be starting Middle School and our son Elementry school. I am anxious, but also excited for all that is to come. I feel like God has prepared me and set me up for successful family adventures that I get to give my kids despite all that I have gone through in my childhood. God has taken my mourning and turned it into gladness, my hurt into lessons, and my joy is being made complete!
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