Category Archives: Depression/Anxiety/Bipolar

Timeframes, Challenges, and Disabilities

We are on Round Three at my Homeschooling Creatively list about the perspective on “disabilities”, particularly as it pertains to the right-brained learner.  This post is my attempt at clarity on my position in viewing differing abilities among people.

•  Right-brained dominant and left-brained dominant learners process information differently; therefore, each has a different timeframe and focus to acquiring skills that optimally captures the individual strengths and gifts of that learning preference.

Our current institutions of school favor left-brained processes.  They are part to whole (versus global thinkers) as they take a whole subject, such as history, and break it down into segments and spread it across many grade levels before achieving the whole.  They are product-driven (versus process concepts) so that they can sort and classify based on right and wrong answers, completed tasks, and defineable measurements.  They are word and symbol focused (versus image generators) with early reading acquisition, math fact drilling, and handwriting practice.   Thus, schools created a scope and sequence that reflects the strengths and gifts of a left-brained dominant learner.

Because of the many generations toward this focus, our society has come to believe that this scope and sequence in favor of left-brained thinkers created for our schools is in actuality the Norm.  It appears that we as a people now believe that this is the Proper Order of Things in learning.  It is no longer a Preference; it is Truth in Learning.  However, this is False!  There is a preferred scope and sequence that favors the gifts of the left-brained learner, but there is another equally valid scope and sequence that favors the gifts of the right-brained learner.    This involves a difference in resources utilized and timeframes toward the development of the various subjects honored.

Unfortunately, because the majority of mankind has been schooled, our society has adopted left-brained thinking as the measuring stick of intelligence.  The current scope and sequence declares that reading, for example, can be accomplished through phonics by age 6-7 years old.  Parents clamber around this timeframe with baited breath in order to discover if their child is declared “smart”.  If you read before the expected age timeframe of 6-7 years old, you are “smart as a whip” or “gifted”.  If you come to reading at the expected time, you are “average”.  However, look out if you read after that timeframe!  You are either “lazy”, “not living up to your potential”, or “stupid”.   But, no one wants to think any of these things about their child, so schools came up with a great reason to excuse this difference in intellectual ability and performance:  learning disabilities.

Why is it that behind every learning disability label (ADD/HD, dyslexia, learning disabled, dysgraphia, twice exceptional, dyscalculia, etc.) is a right-brained learner?  Where are the left-brained learning disabled children?  Why is it that I have never heard that a school has said that the learning environment is not a good match?  Can the learning environment found in school be 100% successful?  Why is it that the child is always declared “broken”, but not the environment or the expected timeframes?

These are serious questions that need legitimate answers.  The good news is that these children are not learning disabled; they learn differently.  Right-brained children learn on a different timeframe that is healthy and advantageous to their gifts and strengths.  There would be little to no “dyslexia” if the path to reading for the right-brained child was honored.  That does not mean following the current left-brained scope and sequence, and just waiting a little longer.  It means it looks totally different.  The resources the right-brained child would learn to read with will be different from what you see in school.  The skill development focus the right-brained child would learn to read from will be different from what you see in school.  And the timeframe the right-brained child would learn to read by will be different from what you see in school.  If all of that is honored, you will have right-brained children coming to reading, and other various subjects (such as writing, spelling, arithmetic, handwriting, and more), in as joyful and painless a manner as their left-brained counterparts.

Currently, we “fix” right-brained learners.  We medicate their behaviors (i.e., ritalin for ADD), we remediate when they do not meet left-brained expectations (i.e. dyslexia programs), and we even “jump start” natural biological occurrences through exercises (i.e., vision tracking).   I find many things happen as a result of this type of treatment:  some self-medicate through alcohol or drugs to ease the pain of not being good enough, some decide they are “stupid” and take that into adulthood, some decide that they “just don’t care” and “do the minimal” so it can appear that they are choosing to not live up to the left-brained expectation, and some will get a “learning disability label” and use that as their “excuse” for avoiding things while believing this means they are deficient in some way.   Though most will become productive members of society, how many wounded spirits still exist?  How many glass ceilings were created within their own minds that limit what they have to offer the world?  Maria Montessori has said, “Free the child’s potential, and you will transform him into the world.”  One important way to do this is to honor the path that naturally develops the strengths and gifts of the right-brained child.

•  Every person has strengths and weaknesses.  Strengths are meant to flourish in order to bless the world through us; weaknesses are meant to challenge us for our own personal learning and growing.

I just had an extended epiphany of my thinking on strengths and weaknesses by writing the above statement.  As humans, we like to belong and have value.  It is usually through our strengths that we recognize that we have something worthy to contribute to the human race (the belonging part).  As we share our gifts, we receive feelings of value from others as they appreciate what we have to offer.  Our gifts are also usually the source of pleasure.  We enjoy doing what we are good at.  It feeds our spirit as we discover more of what we are capable of as we explore our strengths to a deeper and more committed level.  Joy emanates from within as we unveil the full measure of our creation through our gifts and talents.  It is easier to allow our strengths to shine for the world to see and enjoy and benefit.

On the other hand, weaknesses and challenges are personal.  It touches our inner questions in understanding who we are, what is our purpose, and why we believe what we do.  It is the other half of experience in living life.  One is not bad and the other good; each provides information, learning, growth and understanding.  Strengths tend to emit outward; weakness gravitates inward.  I find when I have a challenge, I quietly seek out others who may have similar experiences.  This is a safe way for me to sort out what will be required of me in order to “get to the other side”.  Plus, by seeking out like-minded experiences, it “normalizes” the challenge and gives hope for living it.

I wrote a blog post here about how I view weaknesses through unschooling with my children.  I believe every person has weaknesses as it pertains to learning in some area.   I talked in my post that each child either had a subject that “they just weren’t that interested in”; therefore, it often didn’t come easily, OR they had a subject that “just didn’t come easily to them.”   These are weaknesses.  Each child needed to challenge themselves in order to improve in these areas, or learn a skill set enough to be able to do better.  My daughter’s lack of proficiency in math didn’t mean she was “disabled by math”.  She could learn enough to move forward with her gift in writing without it interfering.  She would not be choosing a career in math.  The same is true for my son and writing.  Over time, he was able to become proficient enough to not impede his progress with his talents in math and computers.

The strength/weakness paradigm in our unschooling learning environment supported the idea that these weaknesses would be viewed as such.  If my children had been in school, measured against the left-brained timeframe found there, there would have been labels.  At the time between 8-10 years old, my son, Eli, really could not figure out reading; he couldn’t hear vowels, he couldn’t decode phonetically, and he couldn’t even recognize similarities in symbols yet.  Yet, at 10 years old, everything came together and he became a reader painlessly.

Due to autism, what about Eli’s difficulty with language, thus, his inevitable struggle with spelling, writing, vocabulary, and comprehension?  We recognized the source of the challenge:  autism and language, but we did not then call it a disability.  A weakness in language will translate to a weakness in these areas of language subjects.  While continuing to honor the typical right-brained timeframe for the development of these subjects starting at 11-13 years of age, we simply took on the challenge of applying good skills and strategies in order to become proficient enough to not hinder his strengths.  This had nothing to do with the scope and sequence found at school.  It had to do with what he would actually need to know how to do in the strength-based career he had delineated as his goal.  We could adopt and modify a variety of tools and resources that would be most helpful on his learning journey.

Being blind is a challenge.  But developing other senses and skills minimizes the difficulty and may even create other areas of strength that could promote a new gift or talent unknown to the person originally.  If I had not had children with autism, I would never have known that I had a natural ability with structured behavioral interventions.  In fact, upon developing this gift, I was able to take other aspects of my strengths and experience and combine it to create something new.  For instance, I was implementing “errorless teaching” before it was “discovered” as well as relation-based motivation.

Having a memory difference is a challenge.  Maybe a child cannot for the life of him memorize his math facts with flashcards.  His memory will just not accommodate that goal using that strategy.  However, this same child is shown to have a musical inclination, and by creating math fact songs, he is able to reach his goal.  He has a different kind of memory that works for him.  At 10, Eli wanted to memorize some scripture verses at church, but was unable to through standard memorization strategies.  These same scripture verses were available through music and he was able to accomplish this goal.  At 14, Eli had another opportunity to memorize scriptures, and at that stage, he was able to use his strong visualization skills to memorize the verses in a seemingly more typical fashion.  Does he have a disability with his memory?  Apparently not.  But if he had been in school, would there have been labels to justify his lack of ability at the time?

It is only a disability if it is disabling.This behavior depicts that the mind is also a trigger to how and when males perceive levitra uk lovemaking.

When I received the first diagnosis of autism, I was knocked right off my feet.  The world stopped instantly in my mind.  My next reaction was “I’m going to fix this.”  With this resolve, those first couple months were a flurry of frenetic emotion.  I even experienced a week-long paralysis of moving forward due to creating my own debilitation due to guilt I heaped upon myself from everyone and nowhere as only a mother can do.  One day two months in, I received the shocking news that my dear friend and neighbor had tragically died in a car accident.  The world stopped again as I mourned deeply.  A 1-year-old girl was left in the world without a mother!  What was I thinking?  I still had my beautiful children.  The only thing that had changed about them was my perception.  My prayers changed that day from “help me fix this” to “let me help them reach their potential.”

I find it was my own insecurities that had me hanging onto the label “autism”.  I wrote about that time here.  The journey I traveled in releasing my need for that label took me to a deep and mindful place of self-discovery and self-disclosure, and that set me on a new level of confidence, peace, and mindful living.  I could then gift that to my children from the beginning.

Eli lives with autism.  He is not disabled by autism.  He is challenged by autism at times.  However, his view on himself is not through the label “autism”, but instead, he has always viewed his life through the lens of strengths and weaknesses/challenges.  He thrives and flourishes with his strengths.  He has chosen a career path based on these gifts.  He meets challenges head on.  He identifies what he is needing to accomplish and determines how he can best accomplish it.  As challenges arise to the goal, he figures out how to go around it, through it, under it, or simply switch gears.  If there are choices, there is life worth living joyfully.

Adam lives with autism.  He cannot live financially independently.  By all definitions, he is disabled.  However, from his perspective and cognitive understanding, he is not disabled.  He enjoys a full life that maximizes his abilities.  He is independent in determining his quality of life day-to-day.  I have learned enormous amounts of knowledge and growth through him.  His life has value.

Those with bipolar have made great contributions to our society through their strengths.  I see bipolar as a challenge, not a disability.  Those with Asperger’s have made great contributions to our society through their strengths.  I see Asperger’s as a challenge, not a disability.  Those who are deaf have made great contributions to our society through their strengths.  I see deafness as a challenge, not a disability.  Those with muscular dystrophy have made great contributions to our society through their strengths.  I see muscular dystrophy as a challenge, not a disability.  Aimee Mullins would agree with my perspective as she shares her story here.

All of this said, I understand that our society requires the label “disability” in order to obtain services or accommodations.  Adam will need to be declared “disabled” in order for us to get guardianship, or for him to receive some kind of monetary opportunity.  A person who figures out they live with bipolar may need to declare themselves “disabled”  during the worst part as they take the time to figure out a successful treatment plan.  Eli was required to have a “disability plan” in order to have “permission” to take another type of reading placement test at the community college.  I always say that I don’t talk about this topic “in a bubble”.  This means that although I recognize its existence, and accept that some people need “more” in order to function in the world, overall I view differences as just that, through a weakness/strength paradigm, and as people who can contribute to the world just the way they are.  I am careful to remember that in our quest to normalize, we may erase the very distinction that will evolve into greatness.  So, I remain ever mindful of my perspective and perception of different as I live my role of facilitator.

•  I view a child as a whole entity, with a preferred way to process information, with strengths and weaknesses unique to their creation, and a path individually created for their own growth and learning.

In order to support this premise, I:

•  support effective communication in any form (2-4 years);

•  encourage strengths, gifts, and talents as the foundation (5-10 years);

•  build emotional, social, sensorial, and behavioral needs (5-10 years);

•  mentor goal setting strategies (11-16 years);

•  collaborate holistic skill sets to increase weaknesses (11-19 years); and

•  counsel a balanced adult lifestyle (17-19 years).

In conclusion, I feel most school-inspired labels (at least 75%) would not exist at all if not measured against an inappropriate and inaccurate timeframe measuring stick as found in schools.  One cannot be deficient if the expectation is not there.  Because of premature and traumatic birth experiences prevalent in a technologically advanced society, chemically-altered and pollution-based changes in our environment, and traditional sickness-based incidents, there will be some children who have more challenges.   No matter the etiology, I prefer to view these challenges as personal opportunities to grow and learn through weakness.  It’s a personal journey each travels in reaching their own individually unique goals based on one’s strengths and gifts.  Finally, although disability certainly exists, I prefer to believe in the power of our divine natures and individual worth.  As Aimee Mullins stated, “You only need one person to show you the epiphany of your own life.”

Book Review – The Up and Down Life

After reading any of my books about any topic, I want to write down my immediate feedback about the book.  I am into researching bipolar in order to help my oldest son, Eric, learn how to manage the condition.  This is the first one I read aloud to him so that we can learn together, since I am his support person.  It’s called, “The Up and Down Life:  The Truth about Bipolar Disorder – the Good, the Bad, and the Funny”, by Paul E. Jones.

This is an account of Jones’ own story about coming to terms with the knowledge that he lives with bipolar disorder.  Because he had classic manic ups, he is probably diagnosed with Bipolar I.  Jones is a comedian by trade, and he also dabbled in music.  He now advocates for fighting the stigma of a mental health disorder, and bipolar in particular, “a mind at a time”.

There are two main things I liked personally about this book.  Because it is coming from someone who is living it, Eric seemed to take his advice much more seriously.  Each time there was a section on something a person with bipolar needs to do in order to manage the illness effectively, Eric wanted to create a goal about it.  That is a good thing.

The second thing I liked about it is that Jones believes in getting the topic of bipolar out in the open.  He believes in disclosure and being a strong advocate so that the negative stigma of this disorder can be minimized through positive education and knowledge.  So many don’t seek help because they don’t want to be considered “nuts”.  Yet, drug and alcohol abuse are prolific among those who do not seek effective treatment.  There is anywhere from a 20-30% suicide rate among those diagnosed with bipolar as well.  It’s a tough illness!  I’ve always been one to believe in talking about the tough issues.  Luckily, upon discussing this with Eric, he feels the same way and has given me permission to blog about it.

What I didn’t like about the book is the same reason I liked it:  because it is a personal account, and Jones’ bipolar is not the same as Eric’s bipolar.  First of all, Eric is Bipolar II, which means he more experiences what they call hypomanias.  That means his ups are more “productive” in that he tends to go into creative projects or will spend money in order to entertain himself (though luckily he keeps this within limits).  He spends more time, like 80% of the time, in a depressive mode.  Though this is the “better” form of bipolar, it is also the harder one to treat because of the depression aspect.  There are more effective treatments for classic manias.  That said, so much of what made Jones’ life difficult as it pertains to bipolar were his manias, and the opposite is true for Eric.  So, we weren’t able to pick up a lot of good information about managing that side of things.The Browns became the levitra 40 mg Dosage and Prices Baltimore Ravens in its new locale.

We both liked Jones’ “tell it like it is” attitude and humor he uses in telling his story.  The one thing that is the same for most people with bipolar are management tools needed for sleep patterns, eating habits, and exercise.  Being aware of what triggers are part of what makes things better or worse is also universal, as well as keeping track of moods in comparison to these things.  Jones talks about all these things in this book.

For me, it is not the type of book I like to begin with because it doesn’t necessarily give you a good grasp of what bipolar is and how it is treated medically.  Jones steers away from this because he understands the importance of a competent medical professional being involved with effective treatment.  But, it is a great book from a personal experience with bipolar and living with it well.  It offers hope to those of us wondering what the future holds.  And I like his open attitude about not hiding it, yet being smart about how you portray it in your life and to whom.

I asked Eric what his view on the book was.  His answer:  it was comforting and amusing.  It made having bipolar feel like less of a curse.  The negative for him was that when Jones brought up the management tools aspect of what he needed to do, it wasn’t specific enough.  For instance, it is brought up that having an appropriate and healthy sleep schedule is important, but it didn’t really share how to do that.  Same with eating or exercise.

Overall, it appears we had a similar reaction to the book.

Update in our Household

As a blogger, I find that I go through life after an experience saying, “That would make a good blog post”.  And then it passes me by and I’m sad that I’m not capturing the moments or the perspective on paper.  (As a side note, I’m using my blog as my journal.  Every year or two, depending on how much I wrote during that period, I print everything off into a large binder, putting everything in protective sheets, and labeling the front.)  So, to try to get going again on a consistent basis, I’m going to update everything happening around here in synopsis format, or better yet, in hopeful blog post options, and hopefully I will blog about each individual thereafter over the next couple weeks.

Cindy (that’s me!).  I’ve been continuing to work on my right-brained book.  I carved out time this summer to finish it, but worry it won’t happen.  I also worry that I’m my biggest enemy to completing it.  How do authors do it?!  I’ve been a support person to my oldest son, who seems to suffer from bipolar as we now see it.  At times, this has brought me to the edge of cracking under the pressure of doing all that I’m supposed to do as the center of this family.  We’re currently in a good place.  I am in the middle of organizing this coming year’s family focus for everyone.  My plate definitely runneth over in that category, but it should be an exciting year of growth for many!  So, at least three posts there.

Weston (my hubby).  I’m blessed to have the husband that I do, who learns and grows with our family, and supports me as best he knows how.  We both know in our particular family that we had to divide and conquer.  I take the emotional, educational, and therapeutic roles; and he takes the financial role with key support positions in the home, with particular children for certain areas, as parenting relief for me for high time consumption children, and overall involved father, particularly with community activity involvement the children are in (like coaching soccer and leading the youth group at church, etc.)  He is also the one in charge of beautifying our home front and keeping track of our overall vision for it.  He’s also a great father who shows our boys how to be men of substance, and show our daughter what a husband can be for a woman.  Staying on top of things with his job in this economy takes a lot of stress, and we have had our adjustments in that arena over the past  year.  Also, this is a creative man who has always needed to be challenged intellectually, so he has discovered an excellent match for him to continue some education.  This looks like another three posts!

Eric, Age 22.  We have partnered together to continue to understand his anxious and depressive state from the time he was 16.  Since my last post, I have come to realize he is battling bipolar.  So, that is definitely several posts right there.  Anyone who lives with bipolar can attest to my statement that it is the center of his life right now as he figures out how to effectively manage it.  When he can be plugged into his life that he desires as well as consistently engaged in his creative outlets and life’s passion, I will know we are on the right track.  Baby steps at this point; hopeful progress with our current knowledge.

Abbey, Age 20.  Big changes for Abbey as she has left to live out in Utah at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo starting this summer.  The first weekend of orientation was evidence to her that she would learn and grow tremendously in this new venue she has chosen for her next stage in her life.  She has already had many ups and downs that has provided growth opportunities for her.  It has been fun to discuss how her unschooled life impacts her life at college, both academically and socially.  That should be several posts and more.

Eli, Age 18.  Has this young man ever wowed his mother this past year!  In his “senior year” of homeschooling, he wanted to start attending community college in order to grow more in his passion of math and computers.  He also wanted to face his weak areas and discover what he may still need to do in order to succeed at his life’s plans.  Eli is diagnosed with high functioning autism and could have had many other “learning disabilities” attached, such as ADD (big time), CAPD (big time) (central auditory processing disorder), as well as how his ASD (autism spectrum disorder) affects his ability to speak, read/comprehend, and write English well.  Eli is also a strong right-brained learner, a builder with a specialty in spatial awareness.  Many of you know my passion about the right-brained learner and that there is another legitimate, valid path to how they learn.  It is not uncommon for a right-brained person to not prefer auditory input as well as have a difference in attention factors.  Many also know I have a particular perspective on how these learners should be valued for how and WHEN they approach learning.  I believe in a strengths based foundation and coming to formal academics and learning starting at 11 in order that they can understand the need to build weaknesses as it effects strengths, as well as being able to be truer collaborators at that stage.  Well, Eli has shown how well all of this has worked out for him!  He is truly coming into his own and flourishing.  I have also had an opportunity to work with someone who attended public school who is “ADD” and how that impacts him.  I want to do a whole set of posts sharing Eli’s journey to give hope and insight to all the people who have young people with “learning differences”.

Adam, Age 16.  Adam is now my TALL young man, as he has reached about 6’1″ on his tiptoes.  He lives with moderate to severe autism (moderate because he is partially verbal and can learn to a certain level, and severe because he battles extreme sensory bombardments on a minutely basis and it’s hard not to be consistently agitated and on guard) and he has always toe-walked to some level.  Well, it caught up to me and now we are scheduled for foot surgery this September.  I’m committed to making sure it doesn’t happen again because I expect this recovery to not be easy based on his limited cognition.  However, Adam also had his first emergency room trip this summer after putting his hand through our front window which required 40 stitches.  He was amazingly calm and cooperative, so backward blessing as it was, it gives me hope for his recovery from surgery.  In NC, the compulsory age for school is 7-16, and because Adam will not ever drive, he is no longer legally required to school.  Of course, he enjoys being mentally engaged and loves math and spelling and books, so we do as we want in that arena.  With Abbey going off to college, he has lost his therapeutic tutor from the past 1.5 years and transitioned quite well to Ashley this summer.  I knew this was temporary as she is a school teacher, so Adam will once again transition to someone else soon, probably a man named Russell.  Adam enjoys working with his tutors!  So, there are definitely some posts here on behalf of Adam.
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Alex, Age 14.  Alex has really matured this past year.  He has successfully navigated the stage of my Collaborative Learning Process by the same name; the collaborative learning stage.  He is fully independent with his formal academic work, and actually reminds me to get it for him!   He has a system that works for him, and me, and this year I want to start challenging him subject by subject past his comfort zone, but still embracing his learning style.  He also has incorporated daily chores into his life that he, once again, ASKS every day which part of it he should do.  I definitely want to use my recent foray into this stage with Alex to share with readers how this stage looks and what and why I do what I do.  There is often MUCH resistance in this stage, but it has to do with being gently, but firmly, guided into the arena of  self-awareness, self-determination, and a solid work ethic in order to translate toward the ability to set one’s own goals to achieve purpose with one’s passion.  Once they get through this first stage of shifting by collaborating with me in what works for them and what doesn’t, it always amazes me what awaits on the other end of this stage:  the Gift Focus Stage.  And the independence and self-initiation that occurs is phenomenal!

William, Age 10.  I forsee big changes for William this year.  Since turning 10, I saw the beginnings of the 11 year old shift in that, for him, it is more that he may be able to cognitively make strides.  This is another son with many, many labels attached, and would create much worry if I didn’t know better.  We have dabbled here and there, but he is now ready to make some leaps.  I am fortunate to have helped him qualify to receive CAP services here in NC (a Medicaid disability waiver program), so I will be training a therapeutic tutor for him soon.  Up to now, William has been learning where his strengths are, and for most people, looking at someone like him would be hard pressed to feel he has any.  But, if you ask him who he is, he’ll let you know that he is the best pretender there is, he loves to cook and to garden, and he generally wants to learn how to be in control of himself.  In fact, last night, Weston, William and Joseph watched Merlin on recorded TV (William LOVING soldiers and knights and swords and weapons), and my husband actually thought he could then put him to bed.  But, as I know SO well about William, right after watching the show, he was in costume within seconds and prepared to go into his imaginative place.  I corrected my husband as it pertains to this child and William was given space to expend his need to process what he saw through role-playing, and ending with some drawing at the table (which he would be considered to be “dysgraphic”).  I suspect William will be reading in his 11s somewhere, maybe 12.  Same with math.  It’s all good.  It all works out.  William is much more capable of putting in effort and understanding at his stage now, and he has a solid foundation of his strengths, which we will continue to grow and nurture 60% of his time.  Lots of posts with this child pending!

Joseph, Age 8.  He is one of my most naturally social children of all my children.  Interestingly, he also cares deeply about what others think of him, and he is my first child who cares what he is wearing and looking like.  It’s really interesting and fascinating to me.  The YMCA in which we attend holds a summer day camp each year, and William and Joseph both wanted to attend last year (I had them go half of the time), and this year (they went almost the entire summer).  For Joseph, it starts off fairly well, but by mid-way, trouble starts a-brewing.  He is easily offended and hurt by typical child playground tactics as well as typical adult punitive, rule-based consequences and interactions.  When Joseph gets hurt, he gets physical.  We’ve been working on that a lot.  I definitely want to write a post about how the way I parent affects their ability to interact with “schoolish” types of interactions successfully.  It’s tricky when my child wants to be part of this type of thing for a season.  Usually when we hit this point, though, he’s ready to be done.  We both recognize the limitations of his expectations and understandings with the environment and how people behave from those settings.  Joseph is also showing that he is more than ready to tackle reading and math things, so we have already somewhat started, and he should be able to finish the process of starting and going by the end of the year.  At the beginning of this year, I started William and Joseph in group activities, especially because Joseph is so social.  They have done swim team two times a week, karate one time a week, and YMCA sports year round.  Joseph is a natural at most things he does, though being small, he probably should concentrate on areas he could continue to progress in to the level he would probably want to later on.  Karate is a good fit for him, as is soccer.  We think wrestling would be a great fit as well, so we’re working on that.  We still encourage all things, naturally, like swim and even football, which is what he is wanting to do as of late.

Pets.  At current count, we have 8 cats (indoor/outdoor):  Socks/17, Belle/12, Sunflash/11, Xena/9, Ellie, Hanabi, Wally, and Sammy (brothers and sisters)/all 1, two dogs: Spencer/9 and Precious/7.  Abbey lost her tree frog she handraised from an egg from the wild, Tasolen/5; and the boys lost their three rats: SugaBuga, Stripe, and Squeeker/all sisters/3.  We still have our large fish tank, but our pets are diminishing all and all as to variety.

We are still living on our 15 acres in the log house and loving every minute of it.  We finally found a renter who contracted to buy our other house, though it will be a 1-3 year contract period.  But, with this economy, they were good renters to find as they repair all things and take care of the house as if it is theirs, which is what we wanted.  It will still be nice to have it sold.  I guess that could be a post.

Now, I need to commit to posting as indicated in his post.  Lots of good stuff happening!  Oh, I’m going to try to get a new family photo when my daughter comes home at summer break!

Sleeping and Depression

I mentioned in a previous post about my oldest son’s journey with understanding his anxiety and depressive nature.  About a year and a half ago, it escalated into a full blown crisis.  Ever since then, we’ve partnered together as I support him as he tries to understand how to get it under control, first of all, then learn to understand it, and finally how to manage it.  We finally got the “under control” part accomplished just this past December.  Now, we’re at the understand it stage.

One thing we discovered at the same time everything else came together was how his crazy right-brained sleep patterns negatively impact his depression, anxiety, and mood.  A right-brained person tends to be a night owl.  This is because creativity often is heightened in the evening hours, for some reason.  However, when puberty hit for this young man, his traditional night owl sleep patterns didn’t seem to follow his normal predictability.  At the same time, puberty is when we first noticed his mood differences at a larger scale.  Now, I see the correlation.

To describe how my son’s sleep patterns didn’t follow a traditional night owl pattern, I will delineate.  I am a night owl.  I enjoy staying up until about 1:00 a.m. and sleeping in until 9:00 a.m.  Over the last five years or so, my oldest son would stay up until 1:00 a.m. one night, 3:00 a.m. another night, stay up all night yet another, and back to any ole time he felt like.  Waking up was the same.  One day it might be noon, another 3:00 p.m., and yet another he might sleep the entire day away.  That was red flag number one.

Red flag number two was his inability to wake up when he wanted to.  I remember for the year he was 17, he joined a Kendo class that met two days a week.  This is a Japanese sword fighting martial arts, and it was something he had thought of doing for some time.  One class time was in the evening on Wednesday.  That was never a problem.  But, the other was a Saturday morning, at 9:00 a.m., and the class was 1.5 hours away.  As much as he wanted to participate, half the time, he just couldn’t get himself functioning to awaken.  This part of the equation particularly started at 16-17 years old and continued until now, at 22 years old.

The last red flag that got him wondering what was wrong with him was the fact that he was tired all day long.  He might sleep 13-14 hours, and he would yawn all day and feel wiped out.  He suspected sleep apnea, so we had him tested.  Although he did test as mild, and we were able to obtain the machine, he quickly realized it was not impacting how tired he felt all the time.

I had tried to encourage him to create a predictable sleep schedule for his body in order for it to function properly, but he just hadn’t developed a testimony of it yet.  Frankly, I thought it might help a bit, but didn’t think too much about it.  However, when depression and anxiety hit so hard that he had to be hospitalized, it was time to get really serious and do anything and everything I could think of that might impact him positively.Post-bariatric surgery patients regain confidence and ability to perform are hindered by the tension that they feel on a daily basis when great store on line viagra it comes to unrelated issues.

The first thing I did was ask him to trust me for at least a month with his sleep patterns.  That included first moving him up out of the complete blackness of the basement and into a well-lit upstairs bedroom.  Once I committed him, he has really enjoyed it now, and the natural light from the four windows helps his body’s natural “feel good” chemicals emit from exposure to light.  Step Two was to collaborate with him about what time might be best.  We decided 2:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m., but then switched it to midnight until 10:00 a.m.  Sometimes he fluctuates to 2:00 a.m., but shouldn’t go past it.  But, for that month, it was midnight until 10:00 a.m.  Step Three was taking melatonin.  My oldest son always had a harder time falling asleep, but it escalated to 2-4 hours during his depression/anxiety times.

It seemed to help along with everything else we were doing, so we didn’t think a whole lot about it.  That is, until he decided to do what he used to do, and that is take 3-4 days in a row and keep pushing the bedtime and the awake time.  Suddenly, his difficult mood appeared, depression kicked in seriously, and he became very tired again.  It became evident that his sleep patterns effected his body negatively in a serious and immediate way.  What was more important is that he “got it”!

Interestingly, one of the main things he likes to do in the middle of the night is his art.  A right-brained learner is usually engaged in one or more creative outlets in a big way in their lives.  My oldest son’s choice is drawing.  If he is not engaged in his drawing outlet in some way in his life, then he only half lives.  In fact, it was by his renewed interest in drawing, which had been dormant for a year or more, that prompted us to realize he was becoming more healthy.  He decided since he was actually feeling like drawing again, that it was a positive sign, so he could do more of this good thing late into the night.  Not true at all!  What I helped him understand is that even a good thing has to be put in balance with everything else.  In other words, drawing is a positive thing in his life.  But his sleep pattern is an important balance need in his life.  One good thing cannot override the importance of another thing.

So, my son is taking his sleep pattern needs seriously these days.  Sometimes, for one reason or another, he starts to push it.  Midnight is ideal, so finding himself near 2:00 a.m. means he will start to feel the effects.  He is now taking responsibility for the consequences of these choices.  He understands it is not fair to those he lives with, and he certainly cannot complain about being tired or not feeling well emotionally if he chooses to alter his healthy sleep pattern.  He now has full knowledge of its importance in his life.

Mental Health Providers

Just when I thought I was finished having to learn more than the average person with the children I have been blessed with, I got to continue learning over the past year especially.  Because we are finally at an uphill place, I wanted to take the time to share some of what I have learned as it pertains to anxiety and depression.

Since puberty, my oldest son, Eric, has been prone to depression and anxiety.  Because of the strengths based environment he was raised in, it was fairly easy to manage.  However, at 19 years old, he decided to pursue a full-time mission for our church.  It would encompass many of his weakest areas, and he needed to be prepared to manage everything.

In retrospect, anxiety to a higher degree emerged first, with depression a close second as he approached his mission report date.  Eric was so out of balance that a week before departing, he postponed because we all realized he just wasn’t ready to successfully navigate what would be expected of him.  I believe that he had his serious doubts deep within himself, and it emerged through this anxiety and depression to deal with it (because he wasn’t dealing with it).

Up until now, we had worked through our amazing pediatrician.  This health care provider knows exactly how to balance caring, empathy, respect for parents as partners, and trust in parents to partner.  This is way more huge than I ever realized when I always had it and had to find adult providers in the various forums.  Anyway, Eric was ready to figure out what was “really wrong with me”, so I had to find a psychiatrist able to take new patients and our insurance.  I got referral names from our pediatrician, and tackled the first few to no avail.  In the meantime, we got a name from a friend to a therapist to start things rolling.

Eric quickly connected with this man and felt comfortable sharing his difficulties with him.  However, over time, I realized that the therapist was too empathetic.  He seemed capable of pulling out minutae details from Eric that made him and Eric begin to think he was more crazy than he was.  In other words, there is a level of pathological viewing of details that can warp one’s perception of things.  I didn’t realize this until going to the psychiatrist I was finally able to procure.

The psychiatrist is a very laid back man who speaks softly and slowly.  He had Eric fill out a bunch of questionnaires to determine probability of “disorders”.  He then spoke with Eric about various details and gathered additional information.  He then had myself and Eric come in and he proceeded to go through each “disorder” and rule it out.  He then concluded that although Eric may have “mild depression”, it was more that he was “comfortable” with his lifestyle and that he simply needed to get out of the house and move forward in life.  I know, it sounds maybe bad, but in the case at the time, I think it was exactly what Eric needed to hear.  Of course, with Eric’s typical straightforward nature, he looks at the psychiatrist and states, “So, you’re saying I’m spoiled.”  We all laughed, but it was his general opinion at the time.

So, we had one therapist who concluded that Eric must be full of psychosis, and then a psychiatrist who decides that he’s spoiled.  What a pendulum to choose between!  On the other hand, Eric is prone to being easily influenced about these types of psychological fears, so I think he needed the exact opposite extreme to balance out an unfounded perspective from the first therapist.  This was my first foray into mental health providers.  Because Eric was not at any serious mental state yet, it was easy to take what was useful and throw out the rest and not think too much about the lack of consistency in the field.

It seemed the “spoiled” conclusion catapulted Eric forward and he went from weekly meltdowns up to six months prior to this (again, I think in anticipation of the mission call), to being more himself again from that moment forward.  About a month later, he also went off his SSRI medication (which had been prescribed for “black clouds” beginning at puberty).  In one sense, we thought this was our “mission miracle”.  From time to time, Eric and I would talk and he would bring up his anxiety over the mission, but moving forward into adulthood generally speaking.  I found focusing on it worsened things, so I began to validate quickly and move on.  It helped at the time.

Now, I see it as the bandaid time it really was.  Eric will always have a depressive and anxiety nature, and he had yet to really confront, as none of us had, the reality of its true existence.  Neither had the mental health providers yet discovered the extent he endured.  Fast forward to his second start date for his two-year full-time mission which began positively enough.  Eric had to face anxiety-producing activities such as talking on the phone at a call center, to once out in the “field”, switching companions anywhere from 6 – 12 weeks as well as areas.  In hindsight, the most difficult changes were in companions.  He realized that he used people that he formed trusting relationships with as a support mechanism, and every time he had to change, he was thrust out in the abyss again for a while.  And not every companion would be worthy of his trust to depend on.  Nine months into his mission, the anxiety exploded and he was experiencing consistent panic attacks; something he had never had before.  Thus began the process of trying to get him mental health support far from home with wheels that seemed to turn interminably slow for someone who is suffering considerably today.

At 11 months, we all realized it was time for him to come home and work out the anxiety and depression from the support of home and trusted relationships.  The thing is, Eric needed to travel a path of self discovery, so it wasn’t the straightest route to help.  But, I will fast forward to the mental health provider portions for the sake of this post (though I will be writing a few more posts about the other things we found useful on this journey).ED patients can easily improve their condition effectively. 100mg sildenafil citrate lets the generic levitra online find over here patients get a rock hard erection during the intercourse.

Eric wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to either the original therapist or psychiatrist, because they obviously didn’t understand what he was enduring.  But, I encouraged him to go back to the psychiatrist because it was still difficult to find someone quickly, and because we had seen him before, he would be considered a “current patient”, so we could get an appointment quickly.  What is the most frustrating thing about mental health providers is the slow process of finding answers.  I think it is slower when the provider doesn’t trust parents or supports to be effective partners.  To give some credit, apparently I am not your “normal” parent, so they react based on statistical experience.  I feel partnering is so important because what can you learn about someone in a short appointment?  And Eric has always been excellent at presenting himself as a “with it” individual.  He is well spoken, good looking, tall, and charming.  It infuriates me in these circumstances because it isn’t helpful.  What I learned through encouraging him to go back to the psychiatrist is that they are people, and depending on each situation and current circumstance, they can be helpful in different ways.  Slowly, over a nine month or so period, we would become partners with the pyschiatrist and he became useful to us on this journey.  But, it took my research and advocacy abilities to get to this point with him.

Some of what I did to get where we are were:  first, Eric would go into his sessions alone with the psychiatrist.  The problem with this was that Eric usually had to be at a good place to even get to the session, so he presented well enough.  I finally was able to drag Eric into an appointment when he was at a really bad place so that the psychiatrist would “get it”.  He did.  From then on, I went into every session with him because together we were able to share the best picture of what was going on.  Luckily, I think our homeschooling relationship that was developed came into play here.  I have a close friend with a daughter of the same age going through a similar thing.  Her daughter wants her mother to have nothing to do with anything that she needs to do to get healthy and balanced again.  Eric is very open and even wanting me to be part of the process because he accepts his need for effective support.  (That’s another post to ponder over . . .).  I started researching myself the medications being used and really asserting myself during the sessions about what was working, what was not, and what we felt we wanted to pursue.

In the most difficult moments, a psychiatrist can only do so much.  I greatly appreciated that this provider encouraged our calling him if we needed anything, and I did have to do this a handful of times.  He always made me feel completely comfortable and at ease doing so and as I was in that moment.  He seems to totally embrace the “emergency aspect” of mental health, which I greatly appreciated.  In those difficult moments, I had to trust myself though, and what I knew of my son.  I didn’t always feel comfortable about changing medication and such with this provider.  But, I did it anyway because when you are in the moment, and there are no other choices, you do what you have to do, but I didn’t like having to defend my choices or feel like I was going to be berated over it.  With time, I think he now “gets” that I don’t do these types of things lightly, and that I respect the traditional protocol for doing so, but having to take care of the situation in the moment and go forward with hope was essential and the psychiatrist had to trust me to be a partner he could trust as well.

During this timeframe, we have also used two therapists who use cognitive therapy.  I wrote a comment at Woodstone Prairie about a month ago when Maura talked about her dread of seeing her son’s pdoc for various reasons.  Those comments reflect some of my experiences with what one can gain from a therapist, so I will share that here:

What I have realized is that you can really like the person as just that, a person, but they don’t work at all as your provider. That’s kinda what I got from your post in the middle . . . you like her as a friend, neighbor, etc., but not as a provider. You have to sift through that and recognize why you feel a need to stay with them . . . you like them . . . but that has nothing to do with the effective care or not.

The thing I realized is that a provider may be just what you need, until they aren’t what you need anymore. Again, it sounds like this provider may have been good at the front end, but is no longer working for you. Sometimes a provider has only so much to, well, provide, and then their effectiveness is satiated. It’s then time to move on.

We’ve moved on from a therapist that wasn’t working for us, but we hung on for quite a time because “we liked her.” A situation forced us to consider someone else at the same time, and he was the best thing since sliced bread. Luckily, not only was I going to drop the first one, but she initiated it as she really did want what was best for my son. But, though the next therapist has been fab, I know his effectiveness may diminish in time. As long as we gain one good piece of information at each session, we’ll stay on. Once a couple sessions come and go with no benefit, then I know to move on now.

The last mental health providers we have experienced over this past year is when we hit our worst:  hospitalization.  We expected big things from choosing to go the hospitalization route when we were at our wit’s end, but it seems to be more of a holding tank and a “safe house”, if you would, than a place to move forward.  On the other hand, it certainly created credibility for everyone involved in his recovery, and there are some amazingly knowledgeable employees there who are really passionate about educating those with depression and anxiety, if you can seek them out individually.  Again, I was disappointed that the support persons were not included in our particular place of hospitalization (and I realized through my friend that different hospitals provide different things, but one doesn’t have time to “shop around” in the middle of the crisis that sends you in the direction of hospitalization).  However, I took the opportunity to approach Eric’s nurse who took a half hour to educate me.  It was extremely important and part of another post I will be writing.  What was SO frustrating was that he was describing Eric to a tee when he was talking about depression, and yet no one had really given credibility to the idea that he was in major depression before then.  Ugh!  Like I said, that’s another post.

Bottom line when it comes to mental health providers, I had to educate myself once again.  I had to research and advocate.  I had to develop a mutual trusting and respectful relationship with the providers in order to achieve optimal effective care.  That required me to keep pressing myself into the picture by proving I could be trusted to understand their protocols while sharing valid research and information that was pertinent to the individual circumstance.  I had to recognize when to move on from each provider, understanding the limitations of each role in the holistic picture of my son’s management of his depressive nature.  There are stages to understanding and self-awareness and management, and it simply takes time and a variety of insights from diverse mental health providers.

I had to trust my instincts more than ever before.  And I had to help the primary mental health provider trust me. In the end, it is Eric’s personal journey.  I have to support him where he’s at and offer good information when he is ready to receive.  It’s a tough balancing act for everyone involved.  I feel it took a tenacious and faithful approach to get where we are today.  We are still on the journey.