It is also estimated that during a 12 month period, as much as 10 % and perhaps all the way up to 26% of the population of the United States likewise suffer mentally in some fashion. (Understanding the Root Cause of Anxiety and Depression, Animals in Research and Teaching, University of Wisconsin ) That should give us pause to think about the people that cross our paths. Note in particular that ages 18-25 are the most prone. I often wonder, in my college classes, how many of the precious men and women who struggle through some of my gen ed classes are already on overload.
Ben is 18. He is in that category, and he has suffered significantly more with finding his purpose, identity and sense of belonging, since growing up and watching his siblings move out. (See my blog about Empty Chairs and Empty Tables).
Most specialists we consulted this year, as his mental health deteriorated, thought Ben was autistic -- certainly he had the circular, self-stim, self-talk, rigid approach to life, transitions, and change that one would expect from an autistic individual. All evals placed him on the autistic spectrum, except the last eval -- the augmentative speech evaluation.
The only psychologist in the state who specializes in Down Syndrome (and thank God for her!) established after 6 months of WAY too many appointments that Ben has OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder.
Because Ben has Down syndrome and because Down syndrome comes with its own peculiar coping mechanisms, OCD in Ben walks, talks, and quacks like autism. He obsesses over numbers, calendars, getting out the door on time, birthdays. Anything where he thinks he knows how it ought to go frustrates him when it's changed. Today when I bought pair of running shoes at the store, he was upset all the way out the door because the lid didn't properly fit on the shoe box (I had thrown the shoes in rather sloppily). We had to stop and readjust, and all became happy face :).
[Incidentally, the joke at my work-- as well as from my children-- has often been that I am/have OCD because of my meticulous labeling of my files, my orderly desk, my tendency to work ahead, and my never leaving my office or my lab without straightening it up first. I WILL NEVER consent to that label again, after witnessing how truly dysfunctional and debilitating OCD can be. It's a joke, I know, but those of us who are anal and get a lot done may be obsessive, but it's a functional obsessive -- not a compulsion.]
Ben is not autistic. Ben is social, he wants to connect, in fact, he loves people, but his limited expressive speech skills trap most of his thoughts inside his head. When in conversation, or when people ask him questions and expect him to reciprocate, he gets incredibly anxious trying to get the words out of his mouth (remember cleft lip and palate and an unusually large Down's tongue!) because most of the time the conversation has moved on and he never got one word in.
This year in the spring, I was called to his Sunday School which consists of a cool group of 6th grade kids. Suddenly in the middle of the class he just laid his head down on the table and wept because he could not keep up with the conversation.
Ben's coping mechanisms are self-talk and imaginary conversations in "Ben language" which is largely unintelligible to the general public. He has a stuffed bear named Ben who is a best friend and he processes stuff with Ben the bear. Ben is patient (Ben my son) but he does sometimes melt down. When his every attempt to talk results in nobody getting what he meant, he can go on overload like a circuit board. The switch just flips. In fact, when *I* misunderstand him, he gets down right angry. "NO, YOU'RE WRONG," he yells. But usually I cannot make amends right then and there because he needs time to process his anxious body down to its more normal state.
Ben's normal mode is to have chronic anxiety when out with people. After a misunderstanding -- if it is bad enough -- he will collapse quietly and withdraw to a safe spot, which is a good strategy. The problem arises mostly when folks insist that he stay and deal with the situation. That is when he may make a scene. The scene is simply signaling for people to back off and let him recover his energies as only he knows how.
I shared Ben's recent diagnosis with a wise Ukrainian lady from our church, and her comment was this --- that for every Ben out there, struggling to connect socially as he grows older, there are 10, perhaps 50 kids that walk and quack "normally" (whatever that means) who suffer the same degrees of social anxiety. Some of those kids grow up to suffer as adults too. It just breaks my heart, and it reminds me to be kind to kids, even kids who are difficult to love!!
Kids will act out and let you know they suffer. Adults do not. They hide, and Ben who is now an adult hides with them. He hides with movies, he hides by obsessively writing calendars that go all the way through 2019. On those calendars he writes birthday after birthday, his own, his mom's, his dad's, his brothers', his sister's, his teachers', his class mates' -- anyone he can think of -- and if he does not know your particular birthday, he might just make one up for you and give you one of his hand made cards anyways.
Birthdays are happy, they are safe. Everyone is accommodating on birthdays. They -- along with Christmas and Pascha (Orthodox Easter) -- are the safest, coziest, most loving days he can think of. So he creates them daily by writing calendars, imagining birthdays for his stuffed animals, and writing scores and scores and scores of birthday notes to all family members and friends.
Or as in this case, mimicking his sister's graduation by writing his own graduation invitations:
Ben goes through an amazing amount of paper during one afternoon when left to himself. He also plays Yatzee or does iPad bowling while meticulously recording each score for each roll. It is a world he can control, he feels safe, and he feels productive (even if he really isn't). But this is OK. It's one way for him to cope, and cope we all must.
I derail his circular behavior when it has gone on long enough, or when -- as is not infrequently the case -- it interferes with his getting ready for school, going to bed, or with his general self care.
For the school year, Ben and I operate with schedules. They do on the one hand feed his OCD --- but on the other hand they add to his functionality... i.e. he is productive when following them, so unlike his other dysfunctions (like consulting 4 calendars to make sure tomorrow is really Sunday, and really the 25th) which slow him down and get him stuck in circles, these PEC schedules help him get through his day.
[More sophisticated, perhaps, but we are all socially anxious at some level. We don't stutter perhaps. But we have encounters with people, and then we go home and obsess: "I shouldn't have told him that. I was too transparent. Or I dominated the conversation and I bored him. . Or what I said about my daughter sounded like I was judging the way he raised his own kids. Or when I said that I didn't care about that one issue, I didn't mean to come across callous. Or I never addressed what he said about this issue. He probably thinks I don't care.... etc."]
The good news is that knowing Ben has OCD, I am beginning to see his actions in light of that diagnosis, AND I am going to behavior therapy (me more than Ben it seems!!) to be equipped with strategies for helping Ben weather his days with less storms on the horizon. Not all days are good, but more days are good than used to be.
There is nothing so sacred we cannot joke about it, however. :)
So in the case of Ben, when you meet him, make sure to recognize him, perhaps compliment him on being such a snazzy dresser,
but don't converse in a way that puts pressure on him to recall answers, unless you have paper and pen and are willing to stand there and exchange notes -- or unless you have a lot of time to spare, engage him in a game of Sorry, Monopoly Jr, Uno, Yahtzee, Memory, or Jenga:
There is hope,when we remember to be kind, and remember that most people's battles are ones we cannot know of or even see.
“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
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