16 yrs. Grade 11

When he was just a baby, my second-born did not like crowds. At family functions, he would go to the quietest spot until he just could not take it anymore and would beg to go home. He was always anxious as a child. He began saying he was quitting school when he was 9 years old. At 11 years old, he was diagnosed with diabetes; this did not help his anxieties, as he was the only child in our school with this disease at the time. At 12, he told us he was gay. I had hoped that this would make him feel better, knowing that his secret was out and that he had our full support and love, but he just seemed to sink into a deeper depression and an anxious state. He soon began self-harming and stating that, at 16, he can quit school and we couldn’t do anything about it. We sought help from counsellors, but the anxieties continued to get worse. By the end of grade 8, he had quit all sports and clubs he had been involved in because the panic attacks had taken over. Our family physician was adamant that he did not need medication and that skipping school was not ” cool”. In his 10th year, he missed a total of 86 days of school, with our family doctor telling me that I had to force him to go to school, even though he was having severe panic attacks and extreme pains from anxiety-based IBS. He passed his year because he had wonderful teachers who cared about him and sent his work home along with the instructions. During the summer, we changed doctors and got him on anxiety medication. It’s been a long road and, although he still has some bad days, when he needs to stay home, this year has been much better, and he has rejoined the sports and clubs at school. He’s even talking about what he wants to do after grade 12. We were lucky, I know, but we are taking it one day at a time.