My Son From Another Planet

My son, Michael, is 14-years-old, but I am convinced he is not of our world. I remember distinctly giving birth to him, holding him, feeding him, and going through all of those rites of passage every mother does up to this age, but the way he views the world has me skeptical. Instead of agreeing with me, the team of specialists and therapists call this phenomenon "PDD-NOS," Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified." In other words, Michael is on the autistic spectrum, but its not really straight out autism, but we'll call it autism because, frankly, we just could not come up with anything else to explain what he is.

Until he was 3.5 years old, Michael could barely speak a three-word sentence. Expressing himself was a tough job and an even tougher one for our family to understand his wants and needs. I only wished I had the ability to translate those grunts, groans, and screams, but there was no dictionary of his then native language available. During quieter moments, he would spend hours repeatly lining up his Matchbox cars and blocks and looking at picture books as if trying to understand the ways of our world through them. It didn't take long for Michael to become a certified Matchbox hoarder. I was cursing the company under my breath for having the audicity to design and market literally thousands of toy cars, trucks, buses, SUVs, and other modes of horizontal transportation.

What really stood out, however, was his fascination with automatic electric eye doors, the ones that every supermarket and several malls use. He could stand there entertained for an hour watching people go through them, flapping his hands in excitement. My mother-in-law's apartment building had one of these which pleased Michael to no end. The true thrill, however, was going through them himself. I had visions of him being a quality assurance tester, constantly opening and closing them to test the stresses of each circuit involved in their operation. These doors would continue to become his endless source of entertainment for years to come. Needless to say, the stares we get as he trots ahead of everyone so he can open them are priceless. While my friends were making weekend pilgrimages to Disney, Sea World, and Universal, we spent our weekends watching the electric doors at our local malls.

Another passing fascination began with hoarding of the daily newspapers. While we had always subscribed to the delivery of our local paper, he often had to have both that were available in our area, especially on Sundays. This, however, was not an easy feat, because Michael had to get the papers out of one of those newspaper machines. It was the mechanics of inserting the money, opening the door, taking the paper, then watching the door slam that was the real thrill in this activity. We became very well aquainted with the strategic locations of newspaper machines in our neighborhood, often venturing to the next city to find a paper if it was late in the day. Our recycle bin on garbage days would weigh close to 60 pounds. I feel personally responsible for any low back problems our garbage men might have experienced.

When Michael turned 10-years-old, we noticed an overwhelming increase in obsession-compulsion types of behaviors. He hoarded Matchbox cars, jigsaw puzzles, and Spiderman related items and could not leave a store without them. He would also be outside attempting to catch dragonflies with a butterfly net and not come inside until he did so, crying and screaming that he just had to get one to put in a jar and adore in the house, not that these things are so beautiful enough to be adored. This was when we knew things had gotten out of hand. A consultation with a psychiatrist resulted in starting a low dose of Prozac with an amazing degree of success. However, since Michael would never touch a pill or liquid medicine fearful of taste, I had to crush it and disguise it in his cream cheese he eats on soy bacon every morning. Thankfully, you can disguise just about anything in Philly Veggie cream cheese. Gone or markably diminished were the electric door obsessions and the overwhelming need to catch dragonflies until he dropped. Life had some sembalance of normalcy, whatever that was. However, it was the words of the psychiatrist that I kept in the back of mind. "This will get worse before it gets better as he gets into puberty."

At some point on this journey into the surreal world of Michael's brain, I began to look at my husband in a different light. His extreme fascination with history, current events, and weather took on a whole new meaning. That, combined with the fact that he always seemed to insert his foot into his mouth when conversing with others along with just being too damned organized clued me in. Now it had a term, "Aspergers." He would laugh at me until the day he took a self assessment online and it came up in neon lights. He tested more Aspergers than Bill Gates himself. Now I had someone to blame for Michael's problems. This, however, was a positive thing because my husband began to seek treatment for what was discovered to be OCD. He still gets on my case when I don't put the blanket on straight on the bed or the foods in the freezer are not symmetrically stacked. Our local pharmacist knows us all on a first name basis now.

Fast forward to today, the age of 14.5 years, after being on trials of several medications, Michael's obsessive-compulsiveness has reached all new heights we never thought possible. These days, his obsessions range the gamet from elevators and escalators, to hoarding scented candles and soap dispensers. With the wide array of soaps and scented candles, our kitchen counter resembles a shelf at the local Bath and Body Works.

The overwhelming fascination with elevators, is what has really peaked this past year. Michael has discovered a small group of others on YouTube.com who upload, view, and comment on one another's videos of elevators from their respective cities. And here I used to think as elevators as just a means to get from one floor to another. When he got his own camcorder for Hannukah, he began filming and uploading his own videos. However, needless to say, having an obsessive-compulsive teenager film a video is like putting together a Hollywood studio production. It has to be perfectly done to his specifications or be done over again, and over again, and over again. Dare someone cause the elevator to stop midway to our floor and enter, the video had to be canned and the process repeated from floors 1 to 5 (or however many floors there were. Thankfully there are no high rises in our neighborhood). I got a sense of what it must be like having Spielberg as a director, but without the Oscar nominations.

Thus,I begin this blog as a way of documenting our adventures of living with not just one, but two family members with OCD. Thankfully, our younger son has no signs of this disorder, but I AM watching the dog alot more closely now.