Deamons of Anxiety

I had originally intended to write this as a forum for the discussion of stress and anxiety yet life often takes many twists and turns and the genesis of this blog is certainly no exception.  In the weeks that it has been fomenting in my mind the anxious demons of a young man have evolved into an indictment of our educational system and one pissed off father.

My son is exceptional.  I know every parent feels that way but for me he is a treasure.  When he was a newborn I held him to the sky and then I looked into his eyes and I told him it didn't matter what he became in life, just be an honest, good and kind man.  I placed him in his crib and like a fertilized plant with lots of rain watched him grow.  Before my eyes he changed and became a young man.  His brain blossomed in the colors of creativity.  Every day he proved himself to be becoming everything I wished for when I held his new born body in my arms.  More than I wished for.  Every day I am with him and every moment when I am not I tell myself how lucky I am to have such a wonderful son.  How fortunate I am to have an honest son with an impeccable character.  To have a child that I love and who loves me.  To have a child that respects me and values me as his father.

For some reason my son ran into a speed bump of life this year.  He is a sophomore now and continues to challenge his mind with the hardest courses he can.  He works diligently and does his best to listen, to learn.  Yet somewhere in the mix like a boiling kettle with steam forming the pressure started to build.  He grew anxious and each day it became harder for him to finish.  Issues of the mind are scary.  As a parent you don't know what to do.  When your child breaks his arm you take him to the doctor but when it is his mind you feel helpless.  Even the open and trusting relationship we have always shared wasn't enough to compensate for the feelings that absorbed him.

With my son's nerves in the balance I developed a plan of attack. I took him to our family doctor and she prescribed some medication to get him over the hump when his stomach began to thrash and his mind began to lead him down the path of irrationality where everything seems like a ghost drifting on a wisp of wind in the night.

In my mind I remembered friends from my youth that suffered.  Friends that that I loved and yet failed to make them understand how much.  Friends whose inner daemons ultimately claimed them stealing their friendships, stealing their love and ultimately stealing their lives.

I sat with him and together we worked through his assignments and started to program them.  I wanted to help him catch him up so that he would feel the weight had been lifted and lead him forward down a path illuminated by the sun.  He was grateful for the effort, grateful that I cared, grateful to have parents that didn't yell and punish.  Parents that simply looked for solutions as opposed to retribution.

Things were getting better.  Days had passed without the need of any medication and my son looked so much happier.  In his wallet he kept a couple anxiety pills, just in case he needed them.  The other day at school was a heavy test day and he felt some of the anxiousness returning.  He took a pill with the hope it would steady his nerves.  Instead, it made him feel ill.  This was probably a reflection of not needing the medication for several days or taking less than was prescribed.  He visited the school nurse and told her about his prescription.  He was doing what he has always done, be honest and trustworthy.  In reward for his honesty the world fell on him like a hammer at a forge.  The nurse ran to an assistant principal and despite the efforts of his mother to comply with school policy he was immediately suspended and assigned a date for an expulsion hearing.

The result was a torrent of emotion and stress.  Suddenly a good student with severe anxiety issues he was struggling to come to grips with was being punished for being honest.  Over the next few days my son did his best to keep up with his school work in absentia and we all nervously awaited the hearing.  When the time came we assembled before the assistant principal and the designated hearing officer in a conference room.  A recorder was placed on the table and as if we were facing a criminal tribunal the case against my son was read.  This included the presentation of a plastic evidence bag with two pills.  We spent the next hour telling our side of the story and describing my son's anxiety issues.  We presented all the required administrative documents for his prescription and a note from his physician.  A series of letters written on my son's behalf by his teachers were read and they literally brought tears to my eyes.  Each described the most wonderful young man and one of the best students they had ever had.  After reading the letters even the disciplinarian had tears in his eyes. 

When the hearing came to an end I felt like we had been well received.  There simply had to be a place for a smart honest kid who broke no law.  His only crime was that his parents had failed to file the correct paperwork with the school.  We were told to wait for a letter and when the time came for him to go back we still had nothing.  I called the district and was eventually called back by the head of the hearing officers.  He asked us to come immediately to his office and my son and I did as requested.  In the meeting that followed he explained how he had just overheard people talking about the case by chance.  The hearing officer had recommended that my son be expelled and sent to an alternative school.  The wisdom of this decision was to punish him by retarding his education, marring his future transcripts when it came time to go to college and surrounding him with the truly addicted and troubled in society.  Perhaps in a year he would be allowed to return.  The administrative officer held the hearing officer's letter in his hand.  After asking for my son's version he stated that based on his previous experience he felt there was some wiggle room that his officers were not aware of.  He decided to overrule her decision and allow my son to return to school. 

I was thankful and still furious.  Thankful that the man had taken an interest in my son's case and proved to be rational, furious that this entire situation had been allowed to develop in the first place.  My anxiety filled son was silent on the way home.  I asked him if he was happy and he just started to cry.  I knew that he understood as I did that this entire situation had done nothing to resolve his issues, in truth it made them worse.  A dear friend of mine in France invited Noah to just come and live with her.  He could finish school there.  In my anger I wanted for him to do that yet I was also furious that the stupidity of an educational system could deprive me of the last few years of my child's youth.  My son on the other hand simply wanted to escape.  Resolution of the matter for him simply meant the doors of escape had all been closed and locked shut.  He was destined to return to the school and environment causing him so much grief.

Issues of the mind are so complex.  We often don't understand what generates them.  They bubble up from our psyche, from our soul like tiny bubbles bursting in a glass of carbonated water.  Our minds filled with logic and rationality want to find a simple cause and effect but often it is not there to be found.  For a parent with a child in pain it is a maddening experience.  We want a simple pill to make the pain go away but often the pill only masks the issue, it doesn't solve it.  The most difficult thing of all is not having an answer.

One of my best friends has a son that is simply brilliant.  He is a prodigy, a one in a million, a genius that has the ability to reshape the world with his mind.  I was telling him about my son and his troubles and then paused to say watch your boy Dave, watch him for signs.  I firmly believe there is a fine line between brilliance and insanity.  When you go through the list of the world's greatest minds almost every one of them balanced on a ledge as they walked through life.  Like a high wire walker each step they took was perilous in its own way.  Genius can be defined in so many ways.  At the root of it all however is the thoughtful and creative mind.  While my son is not Albert Einstein, Mozart or Nikola Tesla he is a sensitive and creative person that has the ability to see the world in many different ways. 

Each day continues to be a struggle for my son as he weaves a course through his own anxious mind.  I do what I can.  I talk to him and I hug him.  I try to be there for him whenever he needs me.  The other morning before school we sat at the kitchen table and he started to cry.  He told me he didn't know why.  The demons of his mind seemed to be poking their heads out.  I reached over and picked up an old forgotten screw.  I invented a story about how I used to carry the screw with me in school and it would make me feel better.  Whenever I became anxious I would clutch it in my pocket and say "Screw you anxiety!"  I gave him the screw.  He knew it was a fairy tale but he carried the screw with him to school. He later said he wanted to make it into a pendant.

This week will bring a new chapter.  We have chosen to reach out for a therapist that hopefully can help him with some coping techniques.  Maybe they can find the source of his anxiousness or at the least convince him that he can control it.  It isn't easy to ask for help.  I have always wanted to believe I could solve every problem myself.  It is hard to reach out but I have to do it.  This is my son and he is my life.  He has to be well if he is sick than so am I. 

Being a parent is never easy but sometimes being a child is even harder.