Eileen... thank you so much for sharing this. I have two young sons and one has been diagnosed with ADHD, the other bipolar, ADHD and possibly OCD or something similar. They are precious children and the decision to put them on medication was incredibly difficult for my husband and I. We truly believed that medication was a "last resort" and the day that the psychiatrist looked at us and said "I think we've hit the last resort" I felt like the biggest failure ever. We believed that ADHD was just an overdiagnosed disorder for parents who didn't want to actually deal with their kids. We were so wrong. In the two years since my oldest son was diagnosed with ADHD and has started meds we have seen amazing improvements but the best has been having "our" son "back." It felt like we were losing him... he was lost in a haze of impulsivity, emotional outbursts and an inability to focus on anything. He was making us nuts and you could see on him that he knew it and felt increasingly bad about himself.

Thank you for people like you who encourage the rest of us parents. Who have struggled and can say "hey, it's not been easy and it's still not always easy but it's worth it, hang in there!"

Faithfully yours,
Andie