[Critique Group 1] Marcia's (almost late) March submission

[Marcia Wick]

Opposing Realities

Marcia J. Wick, The Write Sisters

March 2019

Word Count:  1463

 

 

 

 

I began pressing little blue pills onto my daughter's tongue at the age of
six to control her behavior.  Two decades later, I squirm as she accuses me
of turning her into a science experiment as a child. Seated across the table
from my grown daughter, it pains me to swallow the bitter pill she now feeds
me, although it is deserved. After all, I threw her onto the Ritalin roller
coaster when she weighed less than 50 pounds. The drug was popular in the
1990s for treating children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder). 

 

What might have been the outcome had I not drugged my difficult daughter for
more than a decade? We can't know. She admits to me that many of her
struggling friends ended up on the streets or in jail because their parents
gave up on them. She knows in her heart that I love her and never intended
to harm her. Still, she yearns for memories of a "normal" childhood which
she feels was stolen from her.

 

At age 27, she suffers gaps in her memory. She doesn't know if what she
remembers was real, drug dreams, or hallucinations; she suffers physical
issues with her gut, migraines, muscle aches, and frequent illnesses that
could be attributed to damage all those chemicals did to her immune system
and organs. 

 

Despite the uncomfortable conversation, I am grateful we can now share a
glass of wine and talk civilly about our painful journey through the mental
health maze, attempting to reconcile our opposing realities. Without
question, I acknowledge my daughter is entitled to blame me for many of her
current challenges, while I attempt to defend the decisions I made at the
time. I believed, of course, that I was helping my daughter. Her speech was
delayed, she was hyperactive and impulsive, often reckless. She tended
toward aggressive and destructive play, and she struggled to fit in with
friends.

 

At age four, my active child was staffed into a Headstart preschool where
she received speech and play therapy. Coupled with private therapy, her
speech normalized by the end of kindergarten, but she already had been
tagged as a troublemaker by teachers at the elementary school because of her
active behavior. For two years, I networked with other parents, consulted
with counselors, and defended my daughter.

 

"She's not hyperactive, she's only five." 

 

"She did her homework, but she lost it."

 

"She's not stupid. Find another way to test her," I insisted. 

 

The first grade teacher claimed my daughter was choosing to disrupt the
classroom. Although I believed that no child would intentionally look for
trouble or alienation from the other children, I also knew by then that
neither consequences nor rewards seemed to influence my daughter's choices. 

 

I was desperate to find help, so I turned to a medical doctor the summer
after our difficult first grade experience. Now I know I sound like I'm
justifying my actions, but I truly thought I was doing right by my daughter.
Truth is, I was drowning. I was a single mom with a disability. I wasn't
receiving child support, and I wasn't driving or working due to my
progressive vision loss. To me, it seemed an answer to prayer when the
pediatrician pronounced a diagnosis of ADHD and prescribed a "magic" pill. I
thought it could be that easy, that the stimulant would stimulate the
"thinking" part of my daughter's brain to kick in before the "impulsive"
part. At least, that's how it was explained to me. My daughter now accuses
me of taking the easy way out.

 

My girls' daddy also had struggled in school, ultimately landing in
vocational classes where the schools used to dump the "dummies;" he never
believed he wasn't stupid, and he suffered from alcoholism and homelessness
later in life as a result. I didn't want my daughter's teachers to typecast
my child or give up on her that way.

 

I simply wanted my "Energizer Bunny" to be able to sit still, focus on the
teacher, and learn instead of being sent out of class. Many days at the end
of school, I found my girl sitting in the "den" (the office), or at a desk
outside the class door in the hallway. Other days, the children parading out
of the room passed me tattling, "She got in trouble again today." They were
eager cub reporters.

 

I started my daughter on Ritalin before she began second grade. Fortunately,
her teacher was a precious gem, patient, Warm,  and kind. She approached my
child calmly and gave her space to move about the room. We were lucky to
work with this special teacher through two school years. 

 

It seemed my daughter only had behavior issues in class on days we later
discovered that a dose of medication had been missed. That seem evidence to
the teacher and me that the medication was effective. When I mentioned the
observation to her doctor, he blithely changed her prescription from three
daily doses of Ritalin to a single slow-release, long-lasting Adderall
capsule. This freed Maddy from making her mid-day trip to the office for a
pill, but the practice had already stigmatized her amongst fellow students. 

 

I was disappointed the doctor hadn't informed me sooner that a long-lasting
alternative was available. If I hadn't inquired, we could have remained on
the Ritalin wagon for years. However, in hindsight, I became my own worst
enemy when I decided to research the treatment of ADHD for myself. I ordered
tapes and books and videos. I also learned to surf the web, the
latest-greatest research tool. What I read was staggering 

 

According to the current edition of the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual)
and trending psychology articles, ADHD commonly co-existed with a long list
of other disorders such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD), Conduct
Disorder (CD), Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder (OCD), and other personality and social disorders.

Soon, it seemed each visit to a psychologist or psychiatrist resulted in a
new diagnosis and, along with it, a new pill. When the diagnosis of bipolar
disorder was added to ADHD, a mood stabilizer was combined with the
stimulant; when another psychiatrist decided that the correct disorder was
Asperger's, the class of meds changed completely; when my daughter began
self-harming in middle school, the drugs the doctors prescribed turned her
into a zombie. As my girl reach puberty, gaining in weight and height, the
mix of meds would seem to cease working effectively. The psychiatrist
(whichever one we were consulting at the time) would simply increase the
dosage or add another pill to the regimen. By age 13, my blurry-eyed child
was consuming a daily cocktail of five heavy-duty psychiatric medications.

 

Despite all the drugs, she fought to find her voice. In defiance, she began
cheeking and later stuffing the pills between couch cushions. She demanded
the attention of her doctors and mother with an attempt at suicide. She was
repeatedly suspended, and at risk of expulsion and legal trouble. None of
this justifies drugging my daughter; "I sought to temper her while she was
screaming out to me for help, she makes clear to me now.

 

By age 12, my daughter was in and out of the acute care unit at the local
mental health hospital after she began experiencing audible, tactile, and
visual hallucinations. In the middle of the night, when she begged me to
take her to the hospital because ghosts were telling her to hurt me or burn
the house down, I obliged.

 

At the hospital, the doctors threw drugs at her like darts. 

 Ultimately, no one could say if the pharmaceuticals were helping or harming
my child. Were the pills controlling or causing psychosis? I finally put on
the brakes when they suggested I consider a clinical trial of an
"experimental" medication because they didn't know what else to try. By
then, the only way to get my daughter back to a baseline safely so that we
could "find" her again was to admit her for long-term residential treatment.

 

With the help of my parents, we made a "field trip" to Denver to visit the
available facilities. We selected "The Children's Home," a former orphanage
with a homier feel than the other mental health institutions. It felt odd
when we posed on the front steps for a photograph, all smiles, as if we were
sending my daughter off to summer camp or college. She seemed anxious at
that time to tell us "goodbye."

 

I'll admit to my own sense of relief at my respite from daily drama, frantic
phone calls, and school suspensions. I slept well at night knowing my
daughter was secure in a place where she would receive therapy along with
academic instruction, supervised living, and a safe way to descend from the
pill mountain I had forced her to climb.

 

To be continued.

 

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