After Dylan’s success with L-Tyrosine as a daily supplement, I got a book called The Mood Cure by Julia Ross. I wanted to double check that Dylan was taking the appropriate dosage – which, happily, he was.
But The Mood Cure wasn’t only about L-Tyrosine.
It starts with a series of quizzes about the way a person might feel during any given day. The quizzes are titled things like “Are You Under a Dark Cloud?” and “Is Stress Your Problem?” The others asked, “Are You Too Sensitive to Life’s Pain?” and “Are You Suffering from the Blahs?”
I took all four quizzes, since I simply love to take quizzes.
I scored pretty high on the Dark Cloud quiz. I’ve always been a bit depressed, so I took the recommended amino acid – for two weeks. The book recommends stopping the amino acid if you have a hard time sleeping – which, after two weeks, I suddenly did. So I stopped. I can take it again if I get depressed again.
But first, I had to confront my real demons.
I scored very, very, very, very, very high on “Are You Too Sensitive to Life’s Pain?” Anyone who knows me will likely laugh out loud at the incredibly OBVIOUS FLASHING NEON LIGHT above my head on this one.
Am I too sensitive to life’s pain? Well, let’s see.
The first time I saw a dead dog on the side of the road, I cried for three days.
When Fonzie got a girlfriend on Happy Days (when I was 12), I became rageful and cried for another three days. I know, because I wrote about it in my diary. (For the record, I watched a movie with Henry Winkler in it last week, playing a happily married man, and I didn’t cry once.)
When a guy I liked – but barely knew – suddenly enlisted in the army and left, I crawled onto the floor of my closet, shut the doors and cried in the darkness for three days.
Actually, most of my life has been spent crying in three-day jigs – or raging at some imagined injustice – so scoring absurdly high on this quiz didn’t surprise me.
But the “essential amino acid” that was recommended tremendously surprised me. I wish I could tell you what it’s called, but I can’t pronounce it or spell it. You will have to read the book.
I took one tiny little tablet at 9 a.m. By 9:30, I felt … I would say I felt… I felt kind of …
NORMAL.
I called Bill at work. I was scared. I’d never felt normal in my entire life. These words came out of my mouth:
“I feel like I’ve had a screw loose for my whole my life, and someone just tightened it.”
I’ve never felt normal before. Ever. I don’t mean “high” on life, or happy or even calm. I mean NORMAL.
I suddenly didn’t feel like killing everyone who cut me off in traffic. I didn’t feel like I had to be doing something at every redlight. I didn’t cry when I remembered that the dog is 7 and she might die in seven more years. I didn’t even feel like I needed a nap or a chocolate bar.
I just felt like, Hey, this is life. It’s not as bad as it usually is.
And, like Dylan with his L-Tyrosine, the effects lasted all day – with no side effects. Interestingly, the amino acid I’m taking assists my body in producing … drum roll, please … L-Tyrosine.
So apparently, I’ve had an amino acid deficiency for my entire life. Too.
I still have emotions. But I don’t feel like crying all the time. I don’t feel absurdly anxious. And I am awestruck by my own ability to function like a human being.
So.
I think I’ll try this “normal” thing for awhile.
When I took away Dylan’s electronics – which happened in an instant and without any forethought – it never occurred to me that it would benefit the whole family.
Shane now tries to get in his daily hour of video time when Dylan isn’t around – usually early morning. He doesn’t want to “waste” his daylight hours, during which he could be playing with Dylan, on watching YouTube. That gives us the whole day to spend together! Shane usually spends his time with Dylan (and doesn’t clamor to spend it with me or his dad), but still.
Dylan’s punishment has also given me a new respect for the computer. I can easily spend a day on the computer, barely looking up – in spite of what doctors say this will do to my weight, internal organs, and eyesight. But now that Dylan isn’t allowed to use anything electronic, I’ve noticed that I am trying to stay off of the computer, too.
For one thing, we no longer rush in to watch whatever YouTube or Instagram video most recently made someone laugh. The kids have favorite YouTubers – Smosh and Unlisted Leaf come to mind – and they used to spend the majority of dinnertime replaying (over and over and over) whatever hysterical scene they’d seen that day.
Dinners are a bit more pleasant now – for everybody.
Television is no longer taken for granted. If the TV is on, Dylan isn’t in the room. We can’t even watch home movies together. We had to grant a “special occasion” to watch the DVD of the play in which he starred at school.
After a couple of weeks, I allowed Dylan to contact his friends – using that old-fashioned device, the telephone. NOT the cell phone. An actual land line. (We still have one.) There is still no texting allowed – so Dylan gets on the phone in the evenings (after Shane heads off to bed) and sometimes chats for more than an hour.
Our house is a bit like The Brady Bunch, except without all the siblings clamoring for the phone. It’s like The Brady Bunch with maybe just Peter on the phone, and Bobby having some milk and heading off to bed.
The kids – particularly Dylan – spend much of their time on music. Dylan plays the piano. The keyboard. The guitar. The drums. He sings. A lot. And if there are no instruments to be found, Dylan is making his own instruments out of anything that makes a sound: a ball, a rubber band, a pen, the table, the floor, the wall….
And while we’ve gone a bit back to basics here, the only issue that has surfaced is the inconvenience for me. I am no longer able to say, “Go play Wii!” and expect the boys to simply disappear for an hour. I can’t say “Free computer time for one hour while I work!”
In the summer, that was always an important way for me to get some peace.
But for now, our peace is coming in the form of fewer electronics, less noise, and fewer distractions from the real world. And it’s actually kinda cool.
Writing a blog about parenting – or, for that matter, any subject – leaves a writer open to comments from all walks of life. While so few people read my blog that it even warrants comment, I am always amazed by the comments I get.
Mostly – and quite surprisingly – my readers are worried.
They are not worrying along with me, which is what I would have expected. They are not concerned for the well-being of my children, or Dylan’s success in algebra, or Shane’s remnants of vision processing disorder that won’t allow him to spell properly. In fact, they’re not worried about my children at all. Not directly, at least.
They’re worried about me.
To be fair, the people who read my blog are almost exclusively people who care about me. I mean, why else would anybody read this thing every couple of days? I know why I write it – but I’ve never understood anyone’s propensity to actually read it.
Some of this stems from my insecurity, I realize. And some of this is just common sense.
Regardless, I have had more outpourings of love and compassion since I started writing this blog than I have in my entire life – with the possible exception of love from my parents, who have been compassionate since the day I was born.
My “sick” brain thinks that I should continue to be anxious and upset and worried all the time, so that I can continue to get attention from those who love me.
But the rest of me – the vast majority of me – would like to get better really fast. And while I’d like to say it’s partly for my readers and those who love me, I’d actually like to get better fast for the sake of my kids.
The stuff I do – inappropriate yelling (followed by very appropriate apologizing, for example) – keeps me up at night. I don’t think I would do these things if I weren’t always wound tighter than a top. I keep reading books – book after book after book – hoping to find “the answer” that I seek.
I don’t want to be a control freak. I want to have more faith than fear. I want to be a kind, loving, caring human being.
I really do.
And I think I am heading in the right direction… one day at a time.
Which, quite honestly, is much too slow for my tastes.
In our household, in spite of my best efforts to the contrary, Shane has a tendency to be … overlooked.
Shane is brilliant, funny, creative and incredibly sweet. But his laid-back demeanor means that he also flies easily under the radar. Sometimes this means that he gets away with things he shouldn’t. But because Shane is a very serious rule-follower, it mostly means that even his most amazing accomplishments can go unnoticed.
So when Shane’s youth music teacher at church asked to meet with me, I was quite surprised. Shane had been in the church group for two years, singing and playing drums and ukulele. And until now, I’d never heard of anyone being called in by the teacher.
What on Earth did he do, to warrant a meeting with the parents?
Miss Margaret came to the meeting with note cards, and an obviously prepared speech. Having been through many, many teacher meetings, I recognized that she was prepared for some sort of battle.
Shane and I sat quietly across the table. She started very slowly, looking at her note cards.
“The kids have been writing music,” she said. “I asked the group to just sort of sit and strum their ukuleles and see what they could come up with. And every week, one student performs a song he or she wrote. You know, it’s usually something like, I like pizza; I like Oreos…. And they strum along. Then last week, I don’t know if Shane told you …”
“No,” I inserted. I glanced at Shane, who hadn’t told me anything, ever, about any week.
He was stoic.
“Well, Shane performed his song for us.” She smiled at him across the table. “And I must tell you, all three of the teachers – our jaws were just … on the ground. His song was incredible. He used his ukulele as a drum for the first part, and did kind of a rap. And then he turned it over and started strumming when the melody changed. And the lyrics were just … beautiful.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. And then tears came to my eyes. Shane is a great songwriter, I thought.
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” I squealed. “He does write some very nice songs!”
But there was more.
“I’ve been teaching music for 30 years,” Miss Margaret said. “And for his age, what he has accomplished is really quite incredible.” She stopped, searching me, still somewhat ready for battle. “I’ve heard a lot of children write songs, but with Shane…” She paused again. “I really think it’s a gift from God.”
She was allowed to say that, since we were in church.
Ah, I realized. She wants us to nurture this gift. And she’s afraid we won’t!
“So what can we do to nurture this gift?” I asked. Finally, the teacher relaxed. She had a plan – several people she wanted to contact, so that Shane could get his music written down on staff paper. As a graduate of one of the most prestigious music colleges in the country, Miss Margaret knows a lot of people.
She outlined her plan, and I cried a little more. I had heard plenty of Shane’s songs. And I’d clapped, and hugged him, and then pretty much ignored them.
“He’s been writing songs since he was a toddler,” I told her. “I had no idea that his talent was unusual. I thought it was just … Shane.”
“It is unusual,” she assured me.
And then we went to work on our plan – for nurturing Shane’s gift, and for finally giving Shane the recognition he deserves.
The algebra tutor visited three times in a week, for two hours each time.
Dylan had a test coming up on Chapter 9, and he wanted to be ready. Meanwhile, the class took three quizzes, so that the teacher could see if anyone was having trouble.
Dylan got a 1 out of 11 on the first quiz. That should have been a clue. His overall grade was a low D.
His behavior chart at home called for “No D’s or F’s as final grades” – a goal that Dylan had to attain in two weeks’ time. If Dylan didn’t get a star on every category on his behavior chart, he wouldn’t be attending the extremely fun church event at the end of the school year.
When the tutor first arrived, Dylan had very little knowledge about factoring polynomials. Near the end of the second visit, Dylan realized that he’d been doing something wrong all along – and knew that he had not (as he’d hoped) aced the second quiz. In fact, he got a 63%.
When the tutor wasn’t around, Dylan was still working on his problems. By the third quiz, Dylan had a grasp of the material. The third quiz was a binder check, whatever that means – and he got a 16 out of 17.
Then, the night before the test, he called the tutor at home – twice – to get some clarification on how to do something. The tutor’s patience was endless.
Meanwhile, his other grades steadily went up. He had to get rid of that D in algebra in only four days!
On Monday, Dylan took the test. He took it during algebra class, and worked on it some more during lunch time. He went back and worked on it again at lunchtime on Tuesday. And then he went in again and worked on it during lunchtime on Wednesday. Three days (five school hours) later, he finally finished the test.
On Thursday, I went out of town. It was Dylan’s last chance to raise his algebra grade – and I was almost glad that I wouldn’t be home when the deadline hit. If Dylan didn’t substantially raise his algebra grade, he didn’t get a star on his chart – and until now, he hadn’t missed getting a single star.
So I was more than 200 miles away when the call came. Dylan was calling on my husband’s cell – in a moving convertible with the wind whooshing. I could barely hear him. “Phlmbtpt bluk algebra!” Dylan yelled over the wind.
“What?” I asked. “What about algebra?”
The windows in the car went up. “I have a C in algebra – 73%.”
“Holy cow!” I said, finally hearing him. “How did that happen?”
Then he dropped the real bomb.
“I got a 94 on my test,” he said.
Did I hear him correctly?! He got a 94! A 94! I wanted to jump up and down screaming! HE GOT A 94!
Instead, I started to cry. I tried not to let Dylan know, since he was on the other end of a telephone.
“Oh Dylan, that’s great!” I said. Then I started to say, “I’m proud of you!” But long ago, I read a book that said you should not tell your kids how proud you are, and instead point out how proud they should be of themselves. It’s a good way to raise self-esteem.
“You should be really proud of yourself!” I said. “You worked really hard for that grade; congratulations!”
“Yeah, thanks,” he said, cool as any teen can be.
Aw, to heck with that book.
“And I am so proud of you!”
The following is not an advertisement. It is my real-life experience. Just like all these other blog posts. But there are links herein, if you have ADHD and want to try this. It sure beats the heck out of taking stimulants.
After Dylan started taking L-Tyrosine, as recommended in books by ADHD expert Dr. Daniel Amen, I noticed a real difference. It didn’t “cure” him by any stretch, but some of the craziness stopped.
There is less shrieking at the dinner table. Dylan doesn’t spin as often when he walks. The incessant tapping isn’t completely gone, but he sometimes seems able to focus without tapping. (Sometimes.)
He is still quite brilliant, but less … bouncy.
Recommended dosage is 1 to 3 capsules daily. Dylan takes one per day, and we all agree that it’s sufficient. The bottle calls L-Tyrosine “neurotransmitter support” that you should take as a “dietary supplement.”
“L-Tyrosine is a non-essential amino acid that plays an important role in the production of neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine. In addition, because L-Tyrosine is necessary for the synthesis of thyroid hormone and epinephrine (adrenaline), L-Tyrosine supports healthy glandular function and stress response.”
In other words, it helps your brain produce dopamine and adrenaline.
My guess – from watching both Dylan and my husband (who has ADHD but has never been diagnosed) – is that they were born lacking in the ability to produce sufficient quantities of either dopamine or adrenaline, or both.
That’s why they spend so much time obsessed with fast-moving vehicles. But I digress.
L-Tyrosine gives Dylan just enough help that he is now able to do anything he wants without having to move, bounce, kick, tap, sing, hum or spin to stimulate his brain.
And best of all: he is on absolutely no other medication and there are, therefore, no side effects whatsoever!
Two things: Dylan needs to eat plenty of protein for the Tyrosine to be effective. And he produces less (but not significantly less) melatonin now – which means he wakes up (then goes right back to sleep) sometimes.
It’s a wonder to me that the pediatricians, the psychiatrists, the neurologists and even the school staff don’t seem to have any idea that this exists. We went through prescription after prescription of pills and more pills, all with horrific side effects. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, got too wired, became lethargic, got moody and irritable – and finally almost suicidal – before we finally stopped trying those “recommended” medications.
We’d gone through years of fighting the “controlled substance” law and desperately searching for a pharmacy that carried the right medication. We spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on pills.
L-Tyrosine costs about $10 for four months worth of “neurotransmitter support.”
So now Dylan takes vitamins instead.
They help. No side effects. And he’s able to function – finally – in a way that helps him to succeed.
On “Take Your Child to Work Day,” Shane went to work with his dad. Conveniently and somewhat coincidentally, Dylan was also out of school. So I decided to take the boys to see a movie.
At 2:15 on a weekday, we had the place to ourselves. “These are the best seats,” Dylan said, leading us to the middle of a row about ten rows from the back.
“We got here before the commercials!” Shane exclaimed, thrilled with our good fortune. The kids sat for about two minutes, then Dylan got up and went to the front of the theater.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” he said, standing on a pseudo-stage.
“Sing the National Anthem!” I bellowed from our seats in the back. Dylan made some lame excuse about not being able to sing, and was still yell-talking to us when the commercials started.
Within minutes, Dylan was doing shadow puppets on the screen. He’d gone to the back of the room and was creating some pretty convincing animals. Shane went back to join him, sitting on Dylan’s shoulders, making some shadow puppets of his own. Mostly I just saw the shadows of two heads and listened to the laughter.
They sat for the trailers – sometimes – and just before the movie began, Shane’s favorite part – the Regal Cinemas’ roller coaster ride – started. Before the launch, the kids raced down to the “stage” area and sat on the wall in front of the screen.
That’s when I had a moment.
It was the kind of moment I try to have often, but have less than I would like – where I am able to take a mental photograph. It was a moment when I could appreciate the incredible joy in my life, feel nothing but joy in my life, and not jump straight to worry because it’s so beautiful, I am overwhelmed by it.
It’s the kind of moment that gives my life real meaning.
I captured that moment in time, using only my memory, and was able to fully enjoy that on-screen roller coaster ride almost as much as the kids did.
The boys leaned and swayed as the coaster made its turns. And when it reached the giant popcorn kernel, Dylan “fell” off the wall, as if the popcorn had knocked him off. In the dark theater, he seemed to just disappear, making me laugh out loud. Then he jumped back onto the wall, and they “rode” to the end.
Dylan and Shane raced back up to their seats as the movie was starting, laughing and excited.
Then, the moment was over – for them. But that moment will last, for me, forever.
After Dylan started buckling down on his homework, and started diligently trying to bring up his grades, he seemed to be having a little trouble with one subject.
Algebra.
This is Dylan’s second year taking Algebra I. He took it in 7th grade and struggled mightily. His teacher kept telling him (the kid with the ADHD) that if he would just “pay attention” he would know the answer to his question.
She didn’t answer his questions, such was her frustration. If Shane gets this teacher, I will petition madly to move him.
So we got a tutor, and paid him for months to get Dylan through Algebra I. He passed the requisite exam for graduation, but only got a C in the class – and was therefore required to take it again in 8th grade.
And now, after another full year of algebra, under practically private tuteledge with only 8 kids in his class, and mostly B’s and C’s on tests, Dylan said he was having trouble with Chapter 9.
“What are you studying?” I asked.
“We’re factoring the square roots of polynomials or something,” he said.
“So specifically, what are you having trouble with?” I asked – as if I remembered any algebra from high school.
“Well first,” he said, “what’s a polynomial?”
(sigh)
It occurs to me – again – that Dylan’s issues with school have nothing to do with his inability to control his behavior – and everything to do with his personal frustration with school and learning. ADHD makes every class into a major challenge – unless it’s hands-on learning (which none of them are).
So we’ve hired a new tutor for Dylan. He’s an engineer by trade, a relatively recent college grad who has only ever tutored his 15-year-old brother in math. The new tutor’s email just sounded like he’d be a good fit for Dylan – the way he talked about working with his brother.
Probably not completely coincidentally, we later learned that the tutor’s brother has Asperger’s Syndrome, which falls right there in the autism spectrum next to ADHD in the brain. Three sides of the same coin.
So Dylan is learning. And he’s trying to learn fast and well – and bring up those grades.
After already spending hours on algebra, he was in his bedroom working on problems after 9:00 at night. I went in and kissed him on the head, and started to walk out.
I stopped, and turned around.
“You’re doing this because you’re really a good kid, right?” I asked. “And not just because you want to go to King’s Dominion?”
“No,” he said, although he clearly meant “yes” – and then explained. “I mean, it’s a good incentive, but that’s not why I’m doing all this.”
I knew that.
But still, it was nice to hear Dylan say it.
Dylan wants to go on the class trip – with his old, public school – at the end of the year. With the loss of electronics, the lying, the grounding, the suspension… we still think he could go.
If he earns it.
We went to a play at the old school, which Dylan earned by getting all of his zero’s “erased” from his record – and bringing up his grades substantially. We thought he earned the right to see his friends in their production of Fiddler on the Roof, Jr.
During intermission, however, Dylan ran off with Shane and one of Shane’s friends to the basement of the school – which was off-limits to the public.
“I just wanted to show them the rooms down there. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with that,” Dylan whined, after we finally found them.
Later, Bill suggested that we needed to be more specific about the rules. I am not sure how this would have stopped Dylan from going to the basement, but he suggested that I make a chart for Dylan, so that he could visually evaluate his progress toward the goal of going on that end-of-year trip.
The chart includes everything from taking vitamins in the morning and going to bed before midnight, to having no zero’s or final grades of D or F on his school’s online system. He has to bring his grades up in 10 days and keep them up until the end of the year.
It’s amazing how much homework he suddenly has – and how much more he is doing.
Best of all, I put a disclaimer at the bottom of the chart, which says:
In addition to doing these things for yourself, doing anything that shows incredibly poor judgment for the safety of yourself and others will immediately take away ALL of your rights and privileges.
While this currently includes using electronics, it also includes lying, cheating, stealing, cutting, smoking, drinking alcohol, using drugs, breaking the law in any way, driving a car, bus or plane without a proper license, leaving home without permission, jumping off a cliff, diving out of a moving vehicle, touching or using a handgun or other deadly weapon, attacking, raping, molesting, abusing or murdering anyone, including yourself, or jumping out of a plane, off a bridge, off a cliff, or off the roof of any house or building.
Sad that we need to clarify, but this list is not all-inclusive and there are other things you could do that would be equally stupid that would cause you to lose your privileges. Suffice it to say, you know right from wrong. DON’T DO ANYTHING MORALLY WRONG – including anything STUPID, MEAN, RUDE, HARMFUL, HURTFUL OR ILLEGAL!
We have great hope that he will stay smart, be healthy, and follow the rules. He’s always been a good kid. But for teenagers, sometimes we have to be very specific in laying out the guidelines.
Once a year, our church scatters itself throughout the community, spreading goodness wherever we can. It’s not a promotional thing, since we don’t even mention where we’re from. We are told to “just give” and not entice people to our church.
The church provides materials for a variety of activities: a car wash, wiping windshields, collecting food for the homeless, cleaning up garbage, passing out flowers to people and dog treats to pets. We can choose to march in the annual parade, write letters to various people, do crafts and sing with nursing home residents, make crafts for local preschools or make goody bags for shelters.
It’s a big church.
Last year, Shane and I arrived late and we did the only thing left: handed out flowers in front of a grocery store. On our way to the store, Shane was very concerned about exactly how to give someone a flower.
He was, of course, the cutest flower boy ever.
Some people didn’t take a flower, but most were gracious and happy to get a flower.
One man almost cried. “Today is the anniversary of my wife’s death,” he said with tears in his eyes. “This means so much to me; thank you.”
It was a no-brainer what we would do this year. Shane wanted to hand out flowers. He also wanted to hand out dog biscuits, so we signed up for two shifts. Meanwhile, Bill and Dylan went to wash windshields – but their reception was underwhelming.
“We washed like ten windshields,” Dylan said, “in two hours!” Their customers didn’t believe it was a free service.
Meanwhile, Shane and I had similar issues. After the first few people rejected Shane’s offer of a carnation, Shane said, “Maybe I should say, ‘Would you like a free flower?'”
After he added the word “free,” a few people took flowers. But traffic was slow – so we went across the street to Starbucks. On such a nice morning, people were sitting at tables outside, and the place was hopping. We gave flowers to all five people outside.
But nearly everyone else rejected us.
Shane, his too-long hair in his eyes, walked right up to people with his arm outstretched. “Would you like a free flower?”
“Not right now,” some said.
“No thank you,” most said.
“Well at least they’re saying ‘no thank you’ and not just ‘no,'” Shane observed.
I’d estimate that two out of every three people said no. Some people offered us money – which, of course, we refused.
A woman who was sitting inside Starbucks saw how Shane was struggling to give away the flowers, and waved at me through the window. She wanted a flower! Shane went in – and I could see the woman reaching for her purse. I shook my head outside the window; Shane shook his head inside. She could hardly believe her good fortune – we gave her two free flowers. And all she did was ask.
She was Shane’s favorite customer.
Eventually, we gave away all the flowers. Those that took flowers were quite gracious and kind, and we were glad we’d done it.
But we had the same experience at the dog park. No one wanted free dog biscuits, either. It’s sad that we are so conditioned to feeling obligated that we can barely accept anything for free.
Not even simple human kindness.
