childhood mental health Archives

My Son is Autistic and No, He Doesn’t “Look” Autistic

April 2, 2022 By Lindsay Gee

Last year, we found the piece of the puzzle we’d been missing for my son and I’m going to share that with you today, with his permission.

If you’ve followed our journey at all over the past 7 years, you’ll know my son manages severe panic disorder, social anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder. LIKE A MOTHER F**KING rockstar, might I add.

Last year, we were struggling. Panic attacks had come back full-force, my son started to miss more days of school and signs of depression were written all over his sweet face. Your neurological system can only be in fight or flight for so long before it shuts down and then – well – hello, depression.

We managed to get in to see our psychiatrist, as I thought “He’s grown A LOT the past few years, I bet he needs to increase the dose of his meds or maybe we need to switch them up or something?”. Bear with me, I’m still learning every day about mental illness.

Our psychiatrist is THE BEST. I’m so grateful. My son and I met with her, they chatted awhile, they agreed that he had grown A LOT since his diagnosis two years prior (13 and almost 6′ tall) and an increase is meds was definitely needed. My son was then asked to leave so the doc and I could talk.

The next conversation changed our lives.

Doc: Lindsay, I’m going to ever-so-gently float an idea out for you that I’d like you to consider.

Me: Um. Ok. Always. *gets nervous because…wtf*

Doc: Have you ever considered that your son may have Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Me: *jaw drops*

Me: No. Not at all. He’s social. He has loads of friends. He plays sports. He does well in school.

Doc: Oh yes. I know this. But, I’m wondering if we’ve been so focused on his anxiety that we’re missing a piece of his puzzle. I wonder if he may be on the spectrum?

Me: I really don’t think so.

Our psychiatrist then went on to ask me a list of questions like:

Does he focus on one subject for awhile and speak mostly on it for month or so? Yes.
Does spend time trying to understand why his peers are acting a certain way? Yes.
Does he often fixate on a problem he is having and is unable to let it go for weeks at a time? Yes.
Does he worry and wonder why he doesn’t “fit in” with his peers? Yes.
If an issue arises, does he fixate on that and does that cause him anxiety because he doesn’t understand what he did, what went wrong or why someone might be irritated by him? Yes.

Oh. My. God.

Wait. How could we miss this?

When I talked to my friends, his teachers, his counselors, everyone…and I mean EVERYONE had the same reaction. “No way”. I’d then ask the questions to them the psychiatrist asked me and everyone immediately changed their answer to “Oh wow. How’d we miss that?”.

And so it went. We went on to get him assessed and the results were that yes, my son has autism. And holy shit, looking back, of course he does.

How’d we miss this puzzle piece?

Simple. We’re not superheroes and we cannot think of everything. I berated myself for months for not seeing this sooner. I could have been more patient over the past years. I could have been less frustrated. I could have yelled less (you know – lack of patience and all). I could have been a better Mom.

But no. That’s not right. We ALL missed this. And that’s OKAY. We got that puzzle piece now and it allows me a new perspective. I see his beautiful mind and I also see when he’s now not understanding his social disconnect.

We call it his Greek brain when he’s not really understanding a social cue. I’ll say “O, your Greek brain is on, you might just have to let this one go” and sometimes, that’s the permission he needs to let that go and not fester and worry on a situation. This has exponentially decreased his anxiety – at least I believe it has.

My son is also very open about his autism. As he is with everything about his mental health. Again, he’s a F**KING ROCKSTAR.

I do have to say though, he gets a lot of pushback from his friends when he shares that information.

“No, you’re not.”

“Shut up. No way.”

Mostly, people don’t believe him or they think he’s joking.

We were driving in the car a few weeks ago and my son made a comment about his autism and his friends said “Wait, you weren’t kidding about that? You really are?” and I confirmed with the friend that he wasn’t kidding and we all had a little chuckle. His friend then said “Huh. Cool. I thought he was just really funny”.

I saw this quote the other day:

If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.
-Unknown

I like that. Because autism has a spectrum of behaviours. No one autistic person is the same. What I would like to do is encourage you to continue to learn, as I am, about autism. I’d like to encourage you to teach your kids to not judge or refute a diagnosis when a friend shares this information. Teachers, too. We’ve had pushback there, too.

Assessments are there for a reason – for diagnosis. So, if someone has been through an assessment and they are on the spectrum, please don’t refute that with them. If someone is diagnosed with ASD, maybe just say: Cool. Is there anything you need in support or how does your autism affect your life?

Truly, it’s that simple.

Autism doesn’t have a “look”. I stared at my son’s beautiful face for 12 years. I knew him inside and out. Until I didn’t. Until we found that missing puzzle piece. I’ve always had a son with autism but now I know it and now I can honour that.

I hope you can do the same.

My Child Has Mental Health But He Also Has a Mental Illness

June 24, 2019 By Lindsay Gee

When my child was diagnosed with a mental illness I was constantly talking about mental health. I was confusing the two terms and replacing “illness” with “health”, mostly because I cringed every time I used the term “mental illness”.

You see, there’s still a stigma around those words, even for a Mom who has been advocating for her son for years and years. I just couldn’t seem to easily say the words “my son has a mental illness”. It was easier to say “I’m raising awareness for mental health” or “I’m pushing hard for my son’s mental health to be taken care of”.

Until one day my son corrected me.

We were talking about the campaign we are doing called #PushingForAwareness where we committed to completing 50 pushups for 50 days to raise awareness for childhood mental illness. BUT…when we first started the campaign I kept saying we were “raising awareness for childhood mental health”.

My son asked, “Is there a difference between health and illness”? I paused, because in that moment I realized I needed to get over the stigma and educate properly.

I told him that we were raising awareness for childhood anxiety and depression.

“And those are illnesses, right? So we should say that we’re raising awareness for childhood mental illness because that’s what we’re doing”, he said.

“You’re right, buddy. You’re 100% right. We’re raising awareness for childhood mental illness.”

You see, everyone has mental health but not everyone has mental illness.

Your mental health slides on a continuum – some days you could have good mental health and other days you could have bad mental health. Stress, sleep, nutrition, life, in general, all lend a hand in dictating your mental health. But mental illness? Well, that gets diagnosed by a professional.

You may notice now that in the live videos we do for our daily pushups that my son introduces it as “raising awareness for mental illness” and after a few weeks, I no longer cringe at those words. I’ve grown accustomed to them and appreciate the power behind them.

I was feeling pretty baffled by my reaction to the words mental illness, but I’ve accepted that it was all based around the stigma we are currently battling. Even though I’ve been battling and I’ve been fighting for my son, I needed to wrap my head around the terms. They’re just words, but wow…words hold power, don’t they?

The more I’ve used the words, the easier it’s gotten. It’s not that I’m ashamed of his diagnosis at all, it’s not that I felt the need to hide it (obviously…sheesh we’re running a whole campaign on it), but I did need to address my cringey reaction to those two words.

And, the answer truly was stigma. It’s a long battle ahead of us to de-stigmatize the word. I know this because even as a true and huge advocate for mental illness, I shirked away from using the correct term for my son…and that’s the problem.

I realize more than ever that the work we need to do to help in the area of destigmatizing (is that even a word?!) the words “mental illness” is massive. However, I also know you can get the heck over it because I have done just that.

So, say it with me “MENTAL ILLNESS”.

My child has a mental illness.

I can say it now and I actually stand a little prouder. I may even throw a shoulder shimmy at you because it’s not scary at all. It’s actually pretty damn empowering.

My son called me out on not addressing the issue and using the incorrect term and I couldn’t be more proud of him. He’s not embarrassed by it and he continues to have the amazing conversations about mental illness with adults, friends and random people in the grocery store. So who am I to stand in his way?

If you haven’t checked out his campaign to raise awareness for mental illness, please do so! We have ONE WEEK left and we’re about $1300 short of our $5000 goal.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE!

#PushingForAwareness – Update on Our Campaign to Raise Awareness for Childhood Mental Illness

June 10, 2019 By Lindsay Gee

We’re over halfway through our campaign to raise awareness for childhood mental illness and we’re still pushing away. Today is Day 30 of 50 and we’ve completed 50 pushups every single day so far.

Here’s a little background on #PushingForAwareness:

My son battles severe panic disorder, generalized anxiety, social anxiety and depression. He’s 10 years old and he’s been battling for a good 4 years now. Over the past year (before psychiatric diagnosis), he had to battle harder than I’ve seen anyone battle for anything.

After being on multiple waitlists and months and months of asking “Can I get help today, Mom?”, he was finally seen by a psychiatrist and diagnosed with his mental illnesses. He was prescribed medication to help him battle and he’s been rockin’ his meds for six weeks now.

We have great days and we have terrible days, but at the end of each day, I know he’s getting better. Although the hard days are extremely exhausting and heart-crushing, the good days are more frequent and help to restore our energy and our broken hearts.

While we were trying to get my son help, I found a serious lack of resources. No, that’s untrue. There are loads of resources, but I had no idea where to look. I had no idea how to help my son and I truly didn’t want to simply take advice from Dr. Google. This was my son we were talking about, he deserved real medical help.

I also found that supporting my son through the dark, dark times was extremely lonely. I often felt judged, alone and terrified. I didn’t know where to turn to get support. I was unaware of the resources available to families fighting for a loved one with mental illness.

But, we fought daily and while we fought, I found my son wanted to talk about what was happening to him and learn as much as he could about his brain. I also discovered his desire to educate.

One of the cool things about my son is that he is very, very open about his mental illness. If you want to talk to him about it, all you have to do is ask. He also loves to educate people on it. His teammates, his coaches, our family, his friends, etc. He wants people to understand what mental illness can look like and wants people to not be scared of it. He wants people to talk about childhood mental illness.

So, we created #PushingForAwarness to not only raise funds for organizations dedicated to raising awareness for mental illness but more importantly, to ensure the conversations about childhood mental illness are happening. We committed to 50 pushups for 50 days to help raise funds to support organizations we love that help kids and their families battle mental illness.

The Update:

As of today, we’re on Day 30 of 50 and we’ve crushed 50 pushups for 30 days. The goal is to continue on for 20 more days. We have raised over $3000 so far, but we have a ways to go to meet our goal of $5000.

We’ve done pushups at baseball practice, in the early morning, late at night, and this weekend, with the Victoria HarbourCats.

We’ve also talked and talked and talked about childhood mental illness and I’ve gone Live on Facebook almost daily with current stats on people battling mental illness around the world and the lack of funding, support and knowledge.

I’ve been criticized for being so open about my son’s illness but I find that one of the most empowering pieces of feedback. I ask for my son’s approval for every piece I write and he approves all of it. If he terrifies others by being so open, then I think we’re doing something right. People are scared that he talks about this so openly.

Let them be terrified. We will continue to talk. And me…I will continue to be the most proud of all the Mama Bears out there.

I’m beyond proud of my son for the effort he puts in every day with this campaign. He’s inspired so many. And, he supports others raising awareness for mental illlness. This past weekend, we met up with an Oak Bay Councilor who rode a stationary bike to promote Ride, Don’t Hide. It was great for my son to see that others are also working hard to raise awareness and funds for mental illness.

He’s the reason elementary school kids started randomly doing pushups on the playground and having a conversation about childhood mental illness. He’s the reason I’m writing the scary truth about mental illness day after day after day. He’s the reason so many people have donated to our campaign, or become fundraisers themselves.

He’s the reason for all of this and is kicking some serious ass.

We have 20 days left. 20 days to raise another $2000. 20 days to do 1000 more pushups. 20 days to talk and talk and talk and talk about childhood mental illness.

But…if you think we’ll be quiet about it after the campaign is done…you’re wrong. We’ll continue to talk. I hope you will, too.

Where does the money raised from #PushingForAwareness go?

As we’ve gone through the campaign, we’ve found four organizations that support mental illness and feel are a good fit.

They are:

Buddy Check for Jesse
Head & Heart SK
Stigma-Free Society
FamilySmart

Once the campaign is finished, Owen will decide how much money will go to each organization and present his donations to each. I can’t wait for that.

There’s the update, my friends.

1500 pushups done. 30 days. $3320 raised.

All to support and initiate conversations about childhood mental illness.

If you’d like to donate, please CLICK HERE. We’d appreciate any and all donations. Any amount helps and we’d be incredibly grateful to you for your support.

And please…share this campaign on your social. Please help us keep the conversations going and the donations coming in.

Thank you for your support, your kinds words and all the love you’ve sent us along the way. My son continues to battle daily and I stand beside him, sword drawn, battling his demons for him on the days he can’t. I’m proud to do it. I’m honoured to do it. But, he’s the real hero. He overcomes daily. He fights harder and has more grit and determination than any adult I know. He’s the coolest 10-year-old out there…and he’s the reason this campaign is going so well.

Thank you. Truly. Thank you for all of your support. xo

5 Emotions I Felt When My Child was Diagnosed with a Mental Illness

May 16, 2019 By Lindsay Gee

The battle to get my son into the mental health system seems like it lasted years. Because…it lasted years. From trying to manage his panic attacks and anxiety with books, online strategies, Dr. Google, school counselors, psychologists and waitlists up the wazoo (yes, wazoo), we fought for over 4 years.

He fought for four years. And, there’s guilt there – but I’ll get to that.

I learned a ton. I still need to learn a ton. But, I’m constantly asked why I’m so public about the process and why I share as much as I do.

Why? Because…how else can we create change? How can we force people to pay attention to the mental health epidemic (yes, EPIDEMIC) that is waging war on our kids? How else can I force the difficult conversations that I know need to happen?

I’ve always been authentic and true and brutally honest in my writing, so why would I start sugar-coating something as important as childhood mental illness?

The day my child was diagnosed by a psychiatrist with panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety and depression will be forever engrained in my soul.

Here’s what I actually felt:

1. Relief. We’d been battling for so long and the relief was visible from my son when he heard his diagnosis. When he heard the words, he exhaled deeply and his little shoulders, that had held so much tension and stress for so long, relaxed just a little. His relief is my relief.

I was relieved not only for him, but because having a diagnosis gets him “in the system” and finally, finally, we were going to get the help and care he needs. Relief was a strong emotion, but not the strongest.

2. Sorrow/Anguish/Sadness. I group these words together because they relay the overall grief undertone of my reaction. I felt sad. Sad for my child. Sad for what he’s had to endure. Sad for the years he’s battled and won but that had caused his little body to shut down and let depression in. I began grieving the moments he didn’t have because anxiety held reign on his brain for so many years.

3. Dread. I was filled with dread. 100% dread. I wasn’t terrified for the medication the psychiatrist wanted to put him on. I was filled with dread for my son because I know the hard work real counseling involves. I know how draining it can be and I was so scared of the things that were to come for him. I wasn’t wrong to dread this. It’s been really hard. And, to be honest, being in the middle of it now, it hasn’t gotten better. I dread the sessions every week because I hate putting my son in a place so raw and scary for him.

And yes, I know they need to uncover and heal and dig in to the sensitive areas, but I can still dread it. I can dread walking into the room after his session and seeing his little face exhausted and sad. I’m allowed to dread that. You never, ever want to see your child suffer. And yes…I realize…short term pain, long term gain. I can still dread those moments. And I do. 100%.

4. Guilt. If I had pushed earlier. If I had not yelled at him on this day. If I had just a little more patience. If I had protected him a little better. If, if, if. Those if’s are going to get you. Hard. While I realize I’ve been a pretty okay Mom, there’s always the guilt of “maybe if I had _________, we wouldn’t be here”. For years my child battled. For years he suffered. And I wasn’t able to help him the way a Mom should help. Guilt. It’s a real bitch.

5. Anger. My son and I often talk about how much we hate anxiety and depression. We hate it. It takes control and we haven’t learned to tame it just yet. We hate it. So, when my kiddo was diagnosed, I was pissed at anxiety. I was pissed that these were the cards he was dealt because mental illness sucks and why, oh why, did my son have to get it?! Why him?

He’s a rockstar. Smart, kind, caring, sensitive. So I was pissed that this had to happen to him. That he had to battle the way he does. I was pissed because I knew the stigma associated to this and I was pissed because NO ONE was talking about it. NO. ONE.

So, what does one do when they’re pissed off and angry at a thing they have no control over? They create change. They ban together, with one another (mom and son), and go public. A decision made in the vehicle after diagnosis. A decision made because my child was relieved and overjoyed with being diagnosed.

My emotions were NOT his. I don’t think he truly knew the work he had to do to “get better” and I think that now, after some of that work has taken place, he may not be so thrilled with the diagnosis…but, I still believe his #1 emotion would be relief.

My #1 emotion? I couldn’t possibly say. All I knew was that I was going to have to be stronger than ever before…and I wasn’t at all wrong. If I thought panic attacks were hard…they aren’t anything compared to healing and working through the “stuff” my child needs to work through.

To all of you out there reading this and who have a child with mental illness, I guess I write this to say to you: embrace your emotions. Use them to fuel change. Use them to support, advocate and persevere through healing. Because this road is treacherous and you’re going to need any and all emotions to get you through.

They key? Any negative ones? You MUST turn them to fuel for change and you must somehow find the positive. You must. For yourself. For your child. For your family. They all need you.

We’ve funnelled our emotions into a campaign to raise funds for raising awareness for childhood mental illness. My son will help allocate the money raised and present it to organizations he believes are doing great work in the area of childhood mental illness. If you’ve yet to donate, please consider doing so. We’d be forever grateful. If you have donated already…THANK YOU!

Please continue to talk about this. It’s more important than you could possibly know.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CAMPAIGN to raise awareness for childhood mental illness. Thank you.

#PushingForAwareness UPDATE – And a Favor from Local Businesses, First Responders, Sports Teams and Families…

May 14, 2019 By Lindsay Gee

Our #PushingForAwareness challenge is going full-swing and currently, on Day 3 of the challenge, we have 48 people participating. We’ve raised over $2000 for organizations that help raise awareness and/or support childhood mental illness. With every pushup we do, my son seems to be just a little more proud of the work he’s doing.

We are far from our goal of $5000, but I am totally confident that we will get there. CLICK HERE to donate.

Owen and I after DAY ONE of 50 pushups for #PushingForAwareness

What do pushups have to do with childhood mental illness?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But, it’s the conversations that we have while we post about the pushups or the daily facts I discuss live on my Lindsay Gee FB Page that help raise awareness.

It’s my son doing pushups at his baseball game and being supported by not only his coach, but by multiple teammates and having them ask why they’re doing pushups.

It’s people reaching out to me telling me that it’s because of something they heard during the campaign that a lightbulb went off and they realized that maybe, just maybe, their child is experiencing anxiety and it isn’t just “bad behaviour”.

We’re making a difference. And, the conversations are starting.

So, there’s the update. 48 people participating and fundraising for #PushingForAwareness. $2090 raised. $5000 is the goal.

How can you help?

Well, if you’re a local business and you’d like to sponsor a day’s worth of pushups, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! We will tag your business on FB and if you’d like, we’ll come to your business and do the pushups WITH YOU on a day that works for you.

So? Fire departments, RCMP, grocery stores, clothing stores, local spas and ANY local business who would like to sponsor a day for #PushingForAwarness…we’re game. We challenge you to 50 pushups. We’ll go live and support your business for helping us support kids and families battling childhood mental illness.

Please share this with any local (Victoria, BC and area) business, first responders, sports organizations or even families that you think could sponsor us and that you think would fun “pushing” with us. We’d love to learn more about you so people can learn more about childhood mental illness.

Please email me at lindsay@lindsaygee.ca more more info!

To all who have donated…thank you. Thank you so very, very much. We are humbled by your generosity. So far, the money raised will be allocated to Buddy Check for Jesse, Head & Heart SK, Stigma Free and Family Smart. The more money we raise, the more help we can give.

If you’ve yet to donate, there’s plenty of time! CLICK HERE to donate to our campaign…and thank you in advance!

xoxo

Linds