Victories big and small…

There’s been a lot of talk about defeats lately, but I want to pause and mention some victories instead.  They won’t seem like much to you, but to me and my family, they mean everything.

My son with OCD-anxiety has been in therapy for four years and on medication for three of those years.  He has come a long ways, but every now and then he makes a leap.  He made one this summer attending a wedding out of state that was a long hard drive for him, and was attended by 500 people, and 1,000 at the reception.  It was completely out of his comfort zone, but he pulled it off.  Such a victory!

There have been a few assorted victories the last few months.  Sometimes when he sees a creature from a video game or cartoon the ugliness of that creature sticks with him.  Thus his difficulty with things like Ben 10.  He is not very tolerant of grossness – aliens, creepy creatures and down right ugly monsters.  His psychiatrist is working with him to desensitize himself to these things so that *if he has exposure he won’t ruminate over and over with it.  His medication, in fact, is for the ruminations.  Sooo, recently, he did see something that a few years ago, while he was in the midst of his horrible mental breakdown and the OCD had total grip and control of him…totally freaked him out.  Recently, he caught glimpse of it while shopping on the front of a DVD cover…and while he mentioned it, and it still troubled him…he never mentioned it again, he slept and didn’t get nauseated over it.  Another victory!

And then yesterday, a very good victory.  He went to a different dentist after 12 years of going to the same pediatric dentist.  The new dentist was much closer by (very close, just on our corner), and my son had never had dental work done with a shot before.  Well, this time he needed one – and the dentist is so swift my son didn’t even know he had given him the numbing.  I could tell he was a little nervous, but he did absolutely beautifully, and he goes back next week for another filling, and then later for a couple sealants.  This is truly a victory!  And I gave our son the choice of where he would like to go – back to his pediatric dentist for the work, and to the local dentist.  He chose, and he was victorious in handling it.

All these things make a huge difference in a child the suffers OCD.  He is improving, re-training the brain, and moving forward with his life and our family is progressing also.  At one time we were at a total standstill due his disorder taking over.  Now we have wonderful breakthroughs to report and hurdles that have been made successfully.

I am grateful.

Next post, my son with autism.