As a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a nurse. However, I never expected to need that training to care for my family, especially my child.
I knew my firstborn would be a handful before she was born. That baby never stopped moving the entire time I carried her. She continued to move non-stop after birth. She was advanced in all her growth and development targets and began talking very early. I knew we were in for a roller coaster ride with this one.
Anxiety Become Noticeable
However, I never imagined what type of ride it would be. I thought she would excel in school and maybe go to the Governor’s school or do special projects. She was very bright. However, when she turned three, I noticed something was off about her. Her dad worked in northern Virginia, and she and I were home alone for over a year. I saw more anxiety in her during that time.
When she turned three, a little brother came along. An event occurred involving him that made her very anxious that he or others might get ill and make her sick. She became obsessed with getting sick. Her fear was manageable before she started school, but when she became exposed to so many new “possible germ sources,” her anxiety level skyrocketed. I became very concerned and mentioned her behavior to her pediatrician during her annual physical. He said she was just adjusting to school and precocious.
When I mentioned my concerns to her father, he said I overreacted. When I told him what the doctor said, he jumped on that explanation and refused to consider anything else. He strongly felt she was attention-seeking and needed greater discipline. He blamed the attention I gave to her as the reason for her symptoms and insisted I administer stricter discipline. Unfortunately, the more stringent the discipline (isolation), the worse her symptoms became.
By third grade, her teacher expressed her concern about her behavior to me. She said that when my daughter arrived at school, she crawled under a table and hid there for the day, afraid to come out and be around the other children. She also cried most of the day. She was no longer able to function in class.
Her behavior at home was also worse. Her obsessive behavior increased. She often erased holes in her paper to make a perfect printed letter. One day, she removed a butcher knife from the kitchen drawer, held it to her wrist, and said she didn’t want to live anymore. I took the knife away from her and began my search for mental health care.
Caregiving Affects the Family
When I told her father what happened with the knife, he was angry and felt I should have punished her for getting the knife out since it was a dangerous object. I disagreed and told him she was in serious trouble and that I was going to take her to a psychiatrist for evaluation. We had a severe disagreement. Since I would not back down on taking her for treatment, we compromised on who I would choose for her care.
I found an excellent child psychiatrist who diagnosed her with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a simple phobia (meaning she focused on one thing, not many), and a pseudo-maturity (her actions and her development were not in sync). Most of these issues stemmed from a chemical imbalance, which became better with medication but did not entirely go away. She needed constant reassurance. Her ways of coping made her a challenging child to be around. She often was not likable because she needed constant control over her environment, making her very bossy and demanding. Our home life was chaotic and dysfunctional.
Our daughter’s need for constant attention led to our son fending for himself. I often let him spend nights with his friends. He was into sports; therefore, he spent much time with his teammates practicing and staying at their homes to prepare for the following games. I didn’t realize he felt neglected and was getting into trouble at these other houses. He started acting out as he got older, drinking, experimenting with weed, and getting into other trouble. At eighteen, he moved in with his girlfriend, barely seeing us for several years. He felt that his sister got all my attention. Unfortunately, he was often right. Our relationship is better now, almost thirty years later, but he and his sister remain distant.
My husband never entirely accepted that his daughter had a mental illness. He continued to believe that she made up a lot of her symptoms for attention. He thought my lack of discipline was the main issue causing her behavior problems and that she would be fine if I made her face her fears. He asked me for a divorce when she was eight and attempted to get full custody when she was twelve after I asked for an increase in child support, saying I didn’t discipline the children well enough. He was very convincing, and I almost lost custody, but the judge let them remain with me as his final decision.
