Lonely Boy

The school called and the secretary said " Richey has been sick all day we could not reach you, could you please come and pick him up?" . "Of course, I will be right there." We only live down the street so I picked him up within minutes. He looked so scared. " What is wrong ?" I asked. Richey said, " I don't feel good and we couldn't find you" From that day little Richey was not the same.

He became withdrawn, and began having physical symptoms that we could not understand.There were many more calls from the school that year. They were all pretty much the same, "Richey is ill can you please pick him up?" We took him to doctors, counseling and psychiatrists. Richey was diagnosed with a heart defect and clinical depression.

Richey had always loved school but now, it was becoming a battle every day to get him to go. He always had abdominal pain or chest pain he became very phobic, I mean he was scared of just about everything. He was combative and cold, not at all like our sweet little boy. The internet became his best friend and that scared me. Something had changed my precious little boy into a complete stranger.

"Richey, c'mon it is time to get up for school". Richey's reply was always " No, I don't feel good, leave me alone." Sometimes we would have to drag him out of bed, dress him, put him in the car and drive him to school. One day after one of these mornings, on the way to school, Richey jumped out of the moving vehicle because he did not want to go. I was never so scared in my life! I was at a total loss. I had no control over my son or his emotions and neither did he.

The school psychologist of course thought that we let Richey run the household and that we were just bad parents. She did not believe that he had depression. Her diagnosis, ODD, oppositional defiance disorder. If she was as smart as she pretended to be , maybe she would have known that ODD is a sub symptom of clinical depression in children along with anxiety and several other disorders that Richey was suffering from.

We tried several different medications before finding one that seemed to help.Before we reached that point though, the court stepped in because Richey was missing to many days at school. They took Richey from us and put him in foster care. They had to put him on suicide watch because he said that if they took him away he would kill himself. After a few weeks the new medication was working and he was doing better. His probation officer recommended letting him come home.

Richey did do better when he would take his medication. We ended up having to get him into a home schooling program so that he would get his education without all of the turmoil of his fears.

Richey went on to graduate from high school and taught himself how to repair computers and other electronics.
He still suffered from agoraphobia for about two years. I was able to get him out of the house to help me at my job one day. He is a big NASCAR fan and we needed to get cars ready for the drivers. I asked if he would like to help. His first response was the usual "no", but after awhile he came to me and said " ok, mom, I will try". I was so happy.
Richey was very nervous and shy but he did it. I left the company long ago, but Richey is still there. He has blossomed like a beautiful flower in the sunshine.
I am so proud.