I am well aware that all moms say this, but my Julie has always been one of the cutest kids the world has ever seen, without a doubt. When she was little, she was a cross between Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and that girl from My Girl, you know the movie where Dan Akroyd is her dad and the kid from home Alone is her “boyfriend”. So yeah, my Julie has always been such an angel that I couldn’t even imagine something going wrong. Ever.
However, I did start noticing stuff when she was about 4. She somehow couldn’t find a place where she could be still and quiet for a second. She would always go here and there, looking for stuff, only to leave them behind after ten seconds. She was always full of questions and her questions came in piles, one over another. And being parents that could never find a fault with their daughter’s behavior, my husband and I thought that she was just very intelligent and that this erraticness of hers is a product of that.
And then she started school. She started coming home with bad grades and we were lucky enough that her teacher noticed that Julie could do much better, but that she just seemed uninterested in anything that goes on at school. The teacher also told us that Julie has troubles making friends. Once again, we thought that they might be overreacting and that there is nothing wrong with Julie. We started thinking how all other kids are mean and jealous of her.
Still, when things didn’t change and when the teacher insisted that we go see someone, we decided to do the smart thing and an objective thing. We went to a child’s psychiatrist and after less than an hour spent with Julie; she came with a diagnosis that was a definite one. Julie was suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We didn’t want to start Julie on any drugs and so we tried all kinds of therapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, you name it, we tried it.
After half a year or a whole year, it was a long time ago, Julie showed no progress. She had the same problems at school and she was getting more and more erratic and impossible. We decided it would be best for Julie if she started taking Ritalin, which we heard was the best medication for ADHD. She started taking it and after less than a month, we could see the progress. She would sit still and talk with us for hours, paying attention to what we are saying for the first time. The teacher was also thrilled with Julie’s progress; she said she did much better at school. And then, one day, Julie came home with a friend, Patsy, her new best friend. We were too happy to describe. To this day I cannot thank enough people who came up with Ritalin.
