Let me start by saying that I feel really blessed to be Drake and Addison's mom. As Mother's Day approaches, I am first of all thankful for my own Mom and the strong support and influence she has been in my life. But as a Mom myself I feel more honored to be a Mommy to my two beautiful children. With so many bad things going on all around me, I am surrounded by the unconditional love of my children and that makes life worth living. Now on to my reason for blogging. It has only been 6 weeks since my son was diagnosed with OCD/TS. Since Drake was around two years old, we noticed that he seemed to have a high level of anxiety and frustration but we also noticed that he was a very active little boy. My husband has ADD so we were very aware that he might have the same but noticed that he didn't really have all of the symptoms. When we went for his first conference in K5 his teacher said that he doesn't stay in his seat, he doesn't complete his work, but he is very bright. We told her that we would monitor the situation and do everything we could at home. At his six year old checkup his doctor saw the level of anxiety firsthand and thought that anxiety/panic disorder was more fitting. And that could explain the lack of focus. She thought it best to monitor and not to seek further help until it became a problem with day to day life. Well that happened in December 2008. Things seemed to fall apart all at once. He didn't want to sleep, he didn't want to eat because he would be sick or have bad thoughts, he was terrified of going to school. I have never felt as helpless as I did at this time, I could see the terror in his eyes and he was begging to go to the doctor for help and we couldn't do anything about it.
We finally got in for an evaluation and he opened up to the doctor and told her things that he was going through and we had no idea. A lot of the fear that drives his OCD is that something bad will happen to him or his family. The "OCD" tells him that he has to do certain things to keep us safe and he can't tell us about them because it will be too scary for us. It absolutely breaks my heart that he has carried this burden and didn't tell anyone until that day. We were shocked to say the least when the doctor told us what the diagnosis was. It has been a lot to process and a lot to research and so our journey begins.
I have always been very proud of you, your heart, your sensitivity, your creativity, your intelligence and those are just a few of things I am proud of. Of all those things and many more, the thing I am most proud of is the mother you are to my two precious grandchildren. Drake has an incredible advocate in you. I wish he did not have this to deal with, but he does. Because you are so proactive in your parenting with both children and with Drake's OCD, I know they both will grow up to be the best they can be.
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