I Feel More Brain-Dead.

Dylan and I were riding in the car, discussing his friend who had invited him to a birthday party.

“I guess he’s talking to me again,” Dylan said when he got the invitation.

“So,” I asked him on our way to buy a birthday present, “do you think his friendship has anything to do with your being off medication?”

“I dunno,” he said. “Just one day he told me he wasn’t going to talk to me anymore. He said I was annoying and he didn’t talk to me for like three months.”

This happens frequently in Dylan’s world. Then, for whatever reason, the friends come back.

I can’t tell if this is typical of middle school, or if Dylan is just completely unaware of the people around him.

I remember when Dylan first went on medication in fourth grade. He was playing basketball with the guys at recess every day. A few days after he started taking pills he said, “I noticed that people throw me the ball more now.”

I still can’t determine if this was a result of Dylan being aware that he was getting the ball more often, or if he was just more aware of the game itself. Or if the guys had noticed that Dylan was more on task, and they actually trusted him more.

Now, in seventh grade and completely off med’s again, I asked him flat-out: “Do you feel any different now that you’re not taking anything?”

“I feel more brain-dead,” he said.

That was a shock. I expected him to say he felt more alive, more like himself, more the person he wanted to be. For all those months, Dylan said he didn’t want to take a pill. He said things like, “You don’t want me to be who I am. You just want me to take a pill.”  He spat the word “pill” at me.

But now he says he feels brain-dead.

“We’re going to the neurologist soon,” I told him. “Do you want to try another stimulant?”

“I guess,” he said.

“If you really want to try another stimulant, we can,” I told him. “I just need to know what you want me to fight for.”

“I said ‘I guess,'” he repeated, probably not wanting to admit – any more than I do – that it’s our best option.

So I am going back to researching – to the book I adore, Straight Talk About Psychiatric Medications for Kids, and the saved email messages from the GT/LD group that I got back in October, recommending a variety of medications.

We are starting over, again, to see if there is some miracle pill that will allow my child to focus on things that don’t interest him – so as to someday graduate from college and do a job that does interest him.

I don’t feel delighted by this option. I don’t feel hopeful. I don’t feel like it’s a good – or a bad – choice.

I am simply taking the next step – again. And while I probably should be praying, I am instead holding my breath to see what will happen.

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