Opposing Forces

It's an interesting place to be, somewhere wedged between two walls - limbs outreached to hold you there - your adherence to hope and resolve that it will all be ok is fighting the opposing force of fear for the kind of life ahead. I was, at first, despondent. I would later learn that this battle is always going on in the background and my days hang upon which side is winning, which hinges on what kind of day she is having.

I learned right then that I will stop at nothing to get my dearest Abby help. I started searching and searching and calling and leaving messages - so many messages. I would also learn that you cannot just simply call a psychiatrist. You leave a message for their assistant and wait for them to deliver the message and then wait for the doctor to respond to the message and then wait for the assistant to return your call.

What I was able to FINALLY figure out is that nobody is accepting new patients at this time... or they don't help children so young (Abby was in first grade at this point, so 7), or they could schedule a consultation but didn't accept my insurance.. or finally, if they could get her in and accepted my insurance, it would be sometime next November. We needed to get a diagnosis now. The absorbingly expensive private school with the tiny chairs, totally gave up on her, like she wasn't even a person. It was recommended that we "find a school with the kind of resources to support a child as complicated as Abby - like public school with governmentally funded programs." Which I would later learn is true but in that moment I was really hurt. SO we had to transfer schools in the middle of the year and if we wanted all those resources a public school had to offer, we had to have a diagnosis.

I was somewhat floating in the abyss of the unknown

Now anyone with children with ADHD knows the difficulty in transition. You can't just drop them off somewhere new, pat 'em on the butt and say, "good luck out there kid." I and Abby's dad - with whom I am separated but co-parent better than most you've met - were really scared. We lost the school we were so excited about AND had to hurry up and get a diagnosis STAT.

It took some extremely persuasive and desperate pleading to make this happen. I found a doctor that sympathized with our situation and relented to squeeze us in. It wasn't a doctor I would later decide to keep but could do the psych eval. The whole process was cumbersome. Abby sort of understood what was happening and seemed to be hamming it up a bit for the doctor. She wouldn't sit still and mildly acted like a child-like lunatic "all hopped up on Mt. Dew!" It wasn't an easy process for the doctor. We had a diagnosis before he could even finish the test. We were able to rule out any serious cognitive brain functional disability, in fact her IQ is fairly high. It was decided she wasn't on the spectrum but would forever be labeled ADHD. Why do they refer to people as ADHD? As though it is something they are as opposed to something they have... I digress.

For some reason it made me feel better. At least now I could place my foot on the threshold of our journey. Where before I was somewhat floating in the abyss of the unknown. I had a path and a direction and a diagnosis! Bring it on. ....it did.