About a week ago I was on twitter as I normally live on and saw some posts that my good friend @Optimom was discussing about your children and anxiety with the hash tag #ourkids. At first I just followed, but after 10 minutes I jumped in and asked this question first as a joke, but then realizing I really wanted to know the answer “Is there a difference between a mama’s boy and anxiety?” Well what happened after that started a slew tweets and comments, tears and emails.
Let me tell you a little about my son Joseph (aka Jojo). He can walk into a room and everyone will have some kind of complement on his appearance or his personality. He is FULL of life and energy, and will melt your heart. He is now 6 years old and I come to realize that my little boy isn’t a mama’s boy at all but may be gifted. From when he was three he started collecting things and putting them in safe places for no one to touch, things like books, backugans, pens, sticky notes and anything small and collectible. He would have the biggest tantrum if anyone touched or moved even one thing. Currently he won’t sleep at anyone’s house, he won’t sleep in his sheets for fear of messing them up, and he cannot mix his foods during dinner and changes his clothes 3-4 times a day. With all of these little quirks and many more I always had this mother’s intuition that something was not right with him. OCD and ADHD always cross my mind, and I have taken him to the doctor to see, and discussed my concerns with family and my husband, but I always get, “ Oh, he’s just a typical boy” or “ He’ll outgrow this” or “look and you and your husband”. So until this twitter chat I’ve always had that gut feeling but never acted on it due to fear of my own.
So back to twitter, as another friend of mine that was in that twitter conversation, @ChickyMara started telling me about her children and their issues, other moms were telling me to go with my instincts and follow up. As all these tweets were streaming in I felt so overwhelmed that I started to cry, and not just tears, but a hard cry. It was as if I was losing my son to this new thing I had no clue about, but it was a relief cry that I knew I was right all along. It was all making sense, but more than anything I felt such support from Laurel (Optimom), Mara (ChickyMara) and other amazing moms it was something I never had before because no one understood what I was feeling.
