Moving swiftly along …
I read this excellent article yesterday in the G&M, which gave me a sense of validation as I looked back on a very unhappy childhood.
Was I abused? No. Was I bullied? No more than the next kid. So what was it? I was afraid.
In the waiting room at the anxiety clinic at Montreal Children’s Hospital, Cory cheerfully draws, hums and skips like any other preschooler.
But when he is led into an observation room and spots 10 strangers - a team of doctors, medical students and therapists here to assess him - he squeezes his eyes shut and ducks behind his mother, pressing his face into her back.
“It’s the beginning of, hopefully, treatment,” says veteran child psychiatrist Klaus Minde, the clinic’s director who will assess Cory and attempt to treat him with some combination of medication, therapy and family counselling. It’s help the Merciers have been seeking for almost two years.
I remember the child psychologists, the school counsellors, and the bloody art therapy. I remember the days when no amount of cajoling, threatening or even striking me would get me to leave the house. My mother the housewife would call my father to come home from work - that was the big threat. Ooohhh, was I gonna get the belt? Frankly, I didn’t care if I did. Beat the shit out of me if you want to, but don’t make me go out there, into the world.
Some can’t sleep because they are tormented by phobias. Others are carefree kids at home, but are mute outside it - too afraid to speak to teachers, other children, even grandparents.
By the time they arrive at his clinic, many will have already been “through the mill,” as Dr. Minde described it in Cory’s case -cycling through family doctors, pediatricians, psychologists and social workers in a quest for the proper diagnosis and treatment.
Assessing whether a child has an anxiety disorder is often more art than science, with professionals relying on observations, clinical guidelines and interviews with parents and caretakers to try to distinguish odd or difficult youngsters from those with debilitating problems.
The Merciers began their quest for answers the summer Cory turned 3. He had been in daycare almost a year when his caretaker revealed that he never spoke while in her care.
Then came the crippling fear. “He’s even thrown up before daycare because he doesn’t want to go,” Ms. Mercier said.
Yes, I’ve been there, too. Throwing up on the bus almost every day only made them give me Pepto every morning. My murky pink breakfast. It was horrible.
As I grew from a child into a tween into an adolescent, the problem didn’t go away. It just changed. It became something different. Instead of shyness, it was anger. Instead of fear, it became wrath. There were more and more counselors and shrinks, especially when my mother was sick and dying. Mercifully, there was no more art therapy!
But once she was gone, we stopped. It wasn’t helping. My father and I just kept the struggle to ourselves. So if I didn’t leave the house for 5 or 6 months, that was nobody’s business but ours. He helped me keep my secret, even though we didn’t know what to call it.
Things may not have to play out that way for Cory and his family. He will have something important that I did not: He will have someone telling him he’s not the only one. It’s a stupid chemical imbalance, and it really can be treated. Maybe not during the developmental phases - hormones can really mess with the best intentions - but eventually.
I grew up with a secret, because we didn’t want to tell others. We kept it to ourselves. Other families did the same. We were all individuals. I know now that we weren’t, and we didn’t have to be. Cory will grow up with others who actually understand what he’s going through.