I think my least favorite of all the food policies in the world is the one I discovered when I went to Potbelly Sandwich Shop.
Upon arrival at the made-to-order sandwich shop, I perused the menu. Since I am trying to eat well, and gluten is a huge factor in causing my ailments, a salad at Potbelly is a good choice for me.
And I was happy to learn that I had the option of having a monstrous, ridiculous salad that I can’t possibly eat, or half a salad: the perfect size.
“I will have the half house salad, please, with…” I began.
“You can’t get a half salad unless you get soup or a sandwich,” said the apathetic employee.
“But I don’t want soup or a sandwich. I just want a half salad.”
“The regular salad isn’t that much bigger,” he said, pointing to a giant plastic bowl that was clearly twice the size of the bowl for half of a salad.
“I have ordered that salad before,” I said. “And I threw half of it away.”
The employee shrugged.
And waited.
People mumbled behind me in line.
“What are my options again?”
“You can get soup or half a sandwich,” he said. He pointed at the board with all of my soup choices. They all had gluten or dairy overkill. He then pointed to my sandwich choices; there were a hundred.
“Do you have any sandwiches without gluten?” I asked, trying to save time.
“No…. I mean, you could get a sandwich without bread.”
“Well that’s not much of a sandwich, is it?” I was getting pretty frustrated. Soup was a lot less trouble. “Does your tomato soup have gluten?”
“Hey Charlie, does the tomato soup have gluten?” There was a long pause. “Yeah, it does.”
While waiting, I’d seen something that was just meat and mayo. “Chicken salad,” I said finally. “Just give me a scoop of chicken salad on a plate.”
He passed along my order – my salad and a chicken salad sandwich.
“No bread!” I nearly screamed.
“Oh right,” he said. “Make that sandwich with no bread!”
I love Potbelly salads. They are delicious. But is it really worth it?
Several months ago, my mother told me that Dylan could get accommodations in college.
“No,” I told her. “There’s no way! I’ve been researching it for years!” (Even at my advanced age, I think I am right about everything.)
“My friend’s husband does this for a living,” she said.
So I had to rethink. Maybe Mom was right after all.
Sure enough, Dylan could get accommodations for his ADHD at college. While on campus for orientation, I stopped in to see Student Support Services, the folks who handle such things.
“Sure,” they said. “He would just need to be retested if he hasn’t been tested in the past three years.”
Oh no, I thought. Dylan hadn’t been tested since the fourth grade. And even back then, it cost $2,300.
I broke the news to Dylan, and we gave up. This was long before he went to college, and we just figured he wouldn’t get accommodations. After all, we hadn’t been expecting them. He would have to survive.
Then Dylan got an email from the National Institutes of Health.
Dylan has been participating in an NIH study since he was in elementary school. Every couple of years, he visits them for a couple of days and they pay him a bucket-load of money to take quizzes and get an MRI.
So Dylan went back to NIH this summer, and pocketed some easy tuition funds.
A couple of weeks later, Dylan got a letter from NIH. It was a report, summarizing his visits – and announcing to the reader that Dylan definitely has ADHD, that he has been studied for many years, and that he still requires some accommodations with school work.
The NIH report solved everything. Dylan didn’t need to be retested. And his “recent report” came from the most prestigious research institution in the United States.
Dylan had to acquire his college accommodations on his own. He had to look through almost a decade’s worth of IEP paperwork, and was quite surprised at its relative uselessness.
“None of this even means anything!” he said. “And why would they need this? Or this?”
“You have no idea, Son,” I said. “I’ve been doing this for ten years!”
Eventually, Dylan got them what they needed, scanned it into the computer, and emailed it off.
A few weeks later, thanks mostly to my mom and NIH, Dylan had a letter assuring his accommodations.
All he had to do was go to a meeting on campus after he arrived – which he did – and have the documents signed by his professors.
My recent outburst about Shane and Dylan not having any meaningful memorabilia in their own homes was directed entirely at Shane, since Dylan is at college. They’d both been asked to do a school project about a meaningful item – and they’d both chosen food at their grandparents’ house.
“There has to be something in your own house that has meaning to you!” I shrilled.
Shane said repeatedly, while I was screeching, that if he’d had more time, he would almost certainly have been able to find something with value in his very own room.
Having seen Shane’s bedroom, and heard his excuses, I doubted he’d have found anything. But an hour later, I found a pile of stuff in the hallway, outside of my bedroom door. There were nine specially chosen items, with a note handwritten in pencil, in Shane’s unique scrawl. It said:
Stuff I got from you in this house that I would’ve totally picked over a gift card if I had more/any time to look
There was not just “something” with meaning. There was everything.
There was a poster with Shane’s preschool face enlarged in its center, surrounded by adjectives that described Shane: angelic, careful, lovable, fast, sweet, intelligent – and two dozen more. There was his all-time favorite book of bedtime stories, written so long ago that I’d read them when I was a child. There was an antique Fisher Price toy, a video game, a Gameboy, a CD set of his favorite Christian radio show.
Then there was a photo frame that said “Me and My Big Brother” – a gift to me when Shane was born – with their first photo together. On one end of the pile of stuff was his very first stuffed pug – the one he got in place of a real one – and on the other end was his well-worn ping pong racquet, rough around the edges from all the paddling.
I looked at the pile, so neatly arranged, and realized that Shane’s understanding of sentimental value is even better than mine. He not only has a slew of things he loves and values, but he found them from every chunk of his young life, and put them together like a work of art that described his very essence.
Sure, there’s probably plenty more in which he finds meaning. And yes, he did his creative writing paper based on a gift card because he forgot to think about the assignment when he was at home. But in a few short minutes, Shane showed me that he knows – he understands the value in his childhood possessions.
And he showed me that I should never have doubted him at all.
After a three-week wait, we went to see a new therapist for Shane.
Shane’s first therapist was fine. He took insurance, which made him free to us for a long while. That was a huge plus. But sometimes it felt like he was reading his treatment plans from a book – like he didn’t really know Shane. He just kept forcing Shane to do uncomfortable things related to germs.
The treatment concepts were correct. But OCD isn’t just about germs. In fact, while Shane does have some issues with germs, the entire base of his OCD is unrelated. Shane has an illogical sense that everything he does could inadvertently hurt someone else.
I scoured the internet trying to find information about Shane’s particular malady. The diagnosis of OCD definitely fit, but Shane isn’t all about hand-washing and checking to be sure the oven is off.
The OCD stereotype doesn’t fit Shane. That’s not his kind of OCD.
Shane feels guilty for things he doesn’t do. He feels guilty for things he thinks he might do. He feels guilty for things he thinks he might have done that haven’t even actually happened. And he spends a lot of time confused as to if he should feel guilty, because his brain is telling him that he is guilty as sin.
I found the term “scrupulosity” on the web. It’s a form of OCD where the sufferer believes he must atone for every sin in some sort of religious atonement. That was as close as I could get to “diagnosing” Shane’s particular OCD – but Shane really didn’t have a religious component to his thoughts. And his first therapist didn’t help when I mentioned “scrupulosity” to him. He changed nothing about treatment.
We spent two hours with the new therapist – not the old lady who didn’t listen to Shane, and not the writer of Shane’s prescription.
We spent two hours with a man who listened to Shane, who heard what he said, who wrote down appropriate notes, and who actually understood what Shane was doing. He understood what Shane was saying. He got Shane.
About 20 minutes into the session – which included me – I practically saw a light bulb go off above the psychologist’s head. I think the new therapist recognized that Shane was bright, and that he was going to understand more than some kids might. He started talking to Shane like the young adult that he is, and Shane responded in kind.
Sometime during that two hours, the new therapist said two terms that struck me: “hyper-responsibility” and “responsibility OCD.” I had never heard either, from any other licensed person, or in all of my internet research. So I typed those terms into my phone for further investigation.
I liked the new guy, but I wanted to see what Shane thought. So at the end of the session, I texted Shane when the therapist stepped away for a moment.
This guy? Or the one you’ve been seeing? I asked.
This guy, Shane texted. There was no hesitation.
As we were leaving, the new therapist said, “Sometimes it’s difficult to transition from one therapist to another, so…”
Shane – who rarely interrupts – interrupted. “I felt more comfortable with you in five minutes,” he said, “than I felt with the other guy – ever.”
So Shane got a new therapist.
When I went home, I studied Responsibility OCD online. Everything I read about Responsibility OCD describes Shane’s ailment impeccably. It’s exactly what Shane has.
And it’s exactly – now, finally – what we’re going to treat.
My mother makes a fantastic chocolate pudding-based delight that wows the grandkids for every special occasion. So Dylan wrote a five-minute speech about the special meaning of Mimi’s Oreo dessert in his life.
At virtually the same time, Shane had an assignment for his creative writing class.
“We had to write about an object that meant a lot to us,” he said. “But I just looked in my backpack and saw a Ben & Jerry’s gift card. So I decided to write my paper on how we eat Ben & Jerry’s at Mimi’s house on Christmas.”
And that’s when I started to feel … hurt. Mimi’s Oreo dessert, and now ice cream at Mimi’s house. We have ice cream at our house!
After 19 years of desperately trying to provide everything my children could ever want or need – not one single thing matters to either of them from inside our own home.
To be fair, I loved my grandmother’s M-n-M cookies and Lemon Blennd, so I should have been more understanding.
Instead, I laid into Shane.
“It’s not really about ice cream,” Shane said in his own defense. “It’s about spending that wonderful holiday with all the people I love.”
“But you’re telling me that there is absolutely nothing in your own home that means more to you than a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!”
“What would you have said?” Shane countered.
I looked around. There was the orchid that Bill got when we were first dating – a once single-stalked plant that grew into a monster over 25 years. Nearby is a photo of my children watching fireworks at Disney World; that photo’s story is a full book waiting to happen. On my desk sits a stone rabbit that is profoundly meaningful to me.
“The orchid,” I said, and told Shane the story.
“But what about when you were a kid?” he countered.
I thought back to my childhood: the myriad of stuffed animals, some of which were made by my own grandmother; the baseball cap I got during my first season of softball; those black, leopard-print pillows on our couch; my first camera; the picnic table in our breakfast nook; my butterfly collection; my rock collection; my banana-seated bicycle; my purple velour jacket; our giant spool-style tables; even the green plastic cup from when my parents worked at a plastics factory. I could have written essays on all of those, and then written a hundred more.
Shane pointed out that it was his family that mattered, not the material possession he chose. But I guess I see things differently.
To me, everything I keep, even only in my memories, represent more than just “stuff.” They represent my family – who we are, who we were, who we want to be. Through them, I can tell the stories of how we lived, who we were, what I love most about my life. It’s not about the objects, but I find value in what so very many objects represent.
It’s all tied together – for me, at least.
For my kids, apparently, there’s no value in the things around them. And probably, that’s my fault. Maybe I never showed them how much they can appreciate things for what they say about us as a family.
Or maybe they just never learned to connect emotionally with stuff because they were too busy connecting emotionally with people, especially their beloved grandparents.
During that time, I researched medication. I learned more about side effects. I kept thinking, Gee, this is for depression. Why are they using it for OCD? Is it the only thing they have?
Of course, having gone to the nightmare nurse practitioner who didn’t care at all about Shane, and who didn’t impress me as “knowledgeable,” I had no one to whom I could direct my questions.
Meanwhile, we started looking for another therapist. The search for medication had inspired me to look for an OCD expert, not just a therapist who put it on the page as “something he treated.”
Having been to Shane’s original therapist several times, including during the group family session, I felt a bit like Shane was receiving treatment from someone who had never treated OCD before. All of the answers he gave me were identical to the things I’d read on the internet – nothing more. So after a recommendation from a friend, and another recommendation from a psychologist, I made an appointment – three weeks in the future – for Shane to try a different therapist.
The pharmacy called me last week: “You have a prescription waiting to be picked up.”
“Sorry,” I said. “That’s my fault. I will get it.”
Then I waited another week. When I showed up, finally, on my way to somewhere else and in a rush, the prescription had been cancelled.
“Cancelled?” I fumed. “I said I was going to pick it up!”
“We’ll fill it,” said the very pleasant pharmacist. “Just give us ten minutes.”
I waited three weeks. I’m not waiting another ten minutes, I thought. So I left.
“We’re open until 9:00 tonight!” they yelled as I left.
That night, Bill picked up the prescription. He put it on the top shelf, with all of the old ADHD supplements that haven’t been discarded yet.
And that’s where it will stay, probably. Because Shane doesn’t need it anymore.
Shane had a few friends over last week, and he was responsible for all of the host duties.
“Get your friends something to drink,” I said, as I left the teens alone with their pizzas. I went to my computer, and they went out to our garage refrigerator, where the soda is kept. Moments later, they were back in the kitchen.
I heard Shane say, “Do you want a breakable cup or a non-breakable one?”
There was a pause; I couldn’t hear the response.
“Do you want a big cup, a small cup, or a medium-sized cup?”
Another pause. Then: “Do you want ice?”
Pause. “Okay, do you want cubed ice, crushed ice or a mix of cubed and crushed ice?”
At that point, one of his friends laughingly said, “Shane, why are you so specific? Why don’t you just get a cup and put some ice in it?”
And while it was funny… from the other room I thought, Because he wants to do it right.
I totally understood why he was asking all those questions; he wanted his guests to be happy. And because Shane cares about the little details for his own cup, he asked his guests about details for their cups.
I think there are a lot of people who wouldn’t understand this tactic.
But I do, because I care about my cup, too. In fact, I drink almost exclusively out of a water bottle, even when I go out. I carry it with me everywhere I go; I feel naked without it. It’s not breakable, which means I can toss it around without worry. And it’s just the right size.
I absolutely detest ice, but if I have to use it to make something sufficiently cold, I prefer the crushed style.
But my point is: Shane grew up with someone who is particular. And he’s always enjoyed even the smallest opportunities to choose what he likes best.
So of course, when his friends came over, he treated them the way he wants to be treated. Shane lives by The Golden Rule.
Best of all, his friends were laughing about this peculiarity. They weren’t laughing at him; they were laughing because they understood that Shane is just … Shane.
That’s when I realized that he has some good friends. They totally get Shane; he gets them. And that is what matters the most in friendship.
Still on the hunt for medication for Shane, we realized that he was doing way better.
During the weeks I spent trying to find the right doctor for Shane, some of life’s stressors had changed. Dylan had gone to college – and we’d all survived it.
And Shane was improving. He was following his prescribed course of treatment – basically, going against whatever the OCD said and “proving” that the OCD was full of crap.
For example, if the OCD said he was going to get sick because he ate an expired salad dressing, Shane would eat another salad with that same expired dressing. And the treatment was working.
But none of us forgot how awful it was, when the OCD was terrorizing Shane and he didn’t know how to handle it. So we decided to continue to pursue the medication idea, just in case he needed it again.
A friend recommended a group of psychiatrists who – surprise! – were also “in network” and took our insurance! It wasn’t nearby, but it would be worth it if we could – preferably quickly – get a prescription for anti-anxiety medication.
While we waited for our appointment day, I scoured the internet. I learned that there are four types of medication available to adolescent OCD patients. Then I did some additional scouring to learn the side effects. Of the four, I thought Prozac seemed the least harmful.
There were no appointments available with a “real” psychiatrist for months – of course – but a nurse practitioner saw us. We signed into a very generic, rather crowded waiting room, an hour from home, and waited.
The nurse practitioner was a man with a permanently furrowed brow. He spoke with a very heavy accent, and we had to ask him to repeat most of his questions. But Shane did the best he could to answer them. They were the same questions he’d answered a million times – mostly, “What thoughts do you have?” and “What do you do when you have those thoughts?”
The nurse practitioner looked very, very concerned for the entire fifteen-minute session. He typed and typed and typed on his laptop.
Then he looked up, folded his hands, and suggested Zoloft. I thought it had too many side effects, and suggested Prozac instead.
“It’s basically the same,” he said. And he called our local pharmacy and ordered a 30-day supply of Prozac.
Then he stood up and shook my hand. “You won’t know if it is working for about six to eight weeks,” he said. “I will see you in three weeks to make sure it is going well.”
Shane was surprised when I didn’t stop at the window and make another appointment. But I felt like a complete stranger had just ordered poison for my son.
Even though I’d been hunting it down, it felt wrong somehow to force him to take a pill every day for six to eight weeks – just to see if it’s working.
I’d done enough research to know that only about half of the people with OCD actually get relief from medication. And I also knew enough about the side effects to think the benefits might not be worth the risk.
I remembered the years of medication we gave to Dylan, only to end up with him in agony, and finally giving up and trying supplements.
Plus, Shane really is getting better with therapy alone.
The prescription for Prozac is still at the pharmacy.
Dylan is interested in music, and wants to work in the music business. But Dylan has decided he doesn’t really want to take any actual business courses.
He doesn’t like the idea of taking six hours of Accounting. He would rather not take Macroeconomics or Microeconomics, and both are required for the major he selected. He signed up for a Bachelor’s degree of Business Administration – a B.B.A. – but he is really only interested in the music part, not the business part.
For those trying to keep up, Dylan dropped out of the School of Music during his college orientation. He then registered with the School of Entertainment and Music Business.
But he has a point: he is not interested in business courses. He was also not interested in music classes.
Conveniently, Belmont University still has the perfect major for him.
I told him to look at the lists of classes, rather than the list of majors – which he did. He saw that one of the majors had a ton of interesting classes, nearly all of which he wanted to take – and within that major, he could have a music business concentration.
It is a major called Creative and Entertainment Industry Studies. Under this umbrella, Dylan can have a Music Business concentration.
And he can take a whole slew of classes he will enjoy. Instead of the more general business classes, he will be focusing on the business aspects of entertainment: TV, film, books and music. And in Dylan’s case, he will get plenty of additional music-focused classes.
Plus, if there were ever any doubt, Dylan will continue singing at college. He is already part of the University Singers choral group (a one-credit class). He also wants to start a band, of course, and everyone else at Belmont wants to start a band, too. So that could actually happen.
I do wonder when he’ll find time to study. But at least, now, he wants to take the courses in the list of requirements for his major.
In other words, Dylan has changed his major again. It’s his fourth major in nine months – but at least he feels good about this one.
I went to visit Dylan this weekend at college. He’s only been there two weeks, but my husband had a work conference near his school, so we both flew out to see him. (Bill had to work, too, poor guy.)
We waited a long time at the curb for Dylan to come out. I’d already forgotten how often Dylan was late. In fact, Shane and I have been on time to school every day since Dylan left – with a good 15 minutes to spare. We barely squeaked into the parking lot before the bell rang last year.
When he finally emerged, Dylan was more radiant than even I remembered. He trotted down the dorm steps, pushing his long hair back from his face, and I momentarily felt like I was watching a slow-motion shampoo commercial.
I leaped from the car, and ran to hug him, squealing Dylan-Dylan-Dylan-Dylan in a high-pitched voice I didn’t even recognize.
I hugged him.
“Hey, Mom,” he said as he hugged back. “What’s up?”
Dylan has always been cool. It’s a tough feat for someone as sensitive and intelligent as Dylan is, but he’s pulling it off.
We went out for dinner, then to lunch and dinner the next day, and we took a wonderful, woodsy walk, far away from the city, for more than an hour.
The only time I really felt like I was with Dylan was during that walk.
The rest of the time he seemed distracted, like he was supposed to be somewhere else but he was with us instead. He wasn’t rude by any stretch, but he was on his phone constantly – just like he was when he was at home – and we were never able to connect in any meaningful conversation.
Except on that walk. On the walk, Dylan was free. He was happy and enjoying the gorgeous summer day. He seemed to be part of the world, part of our world, part of everything. He didn’t seem distant or distracted. He seemed like Dylan.
Dylan’s classes are going well; he likes his teachers. He’s turned in assignments, done his homework early, and knows what he needs to do and when to do it. He’s getting things done, with no help from me.
But Dylan is new to living alone, unsure of what to do with us, as a unit, coming to peer into his new life. Yes, it was too soon to visit campus, to ask about anything social, to care what he was doing with his free time. It’s too early for him to be involved enough in anything to give a solid answer.
Still, it was wonderful to see him, to notice the process, to get the feel of the campus with my son as a real part of that community. And while it’s going to be awhile before “family weekend” happens, I’m already missing him – almost more than I was before – and I’m kinda sorry I visited so soon, if only because it just emphasized the distance between us.
