Teenage Intermission...

I must admit, this one came totally out of the blue for me! My handsome, intellegent, sweet, popular, gentle and kind "Straight A Student" totally derailed..... I was heartbroken but determined to help sort out what was happening to him. I was put on the swift upward learing curve of self harming, abusing alcohol and occasionlly indulging in the wacky bakkie to mention a few! I felt I had lost my Elder Lemon somewhere along the way when I blinked for a nanosecond. I spent months crying in bed worrying about how to help him as I couldn't just stand back and hope for the best! This is when we became aquainted with Child and Adoloscent Psychiatry Services who I must say are fab and very helpful (just a shame theres are stupidly long waiting lists to access them!)

After several visits and evaluations Elder Lemon was diagnosed with ADHD!! You could have knocked me over with a feather as had not seen that coming! In hindsight, it did explain a lot of things that he had done but I still had not expected that as in my limited experience thought that ADHD kids were disruptive in class, getting into trouble a lot and that didn't sound like my Elder Lemon.... Once again, I was wrong lol. A lot of his ditsyness could fit in with what they were saying... the incessent tapping and clicking, his total overwhelming energy... I would have accepted the diagnosis earlier. It didn't help that he has a photographic memory and a very high IQ which apparentely makes the diagnosis harder as he was coasting school.

We went to assessments and reviews every few weeks and they recommended Concerta to start. Wow the difference was amazing and I started relaxing about Elder Lemon :)