This is the new anxiety: my tween boy won't go anywhere in the car. He doesn't even want to take a ride to Starbucks for a soy latte. He certainly doesn't want to visit a friend or family member out of state. Playing with friends in the neighborhood? All good. Clean up his room or put away clean laundry? Not good at all. Ask him to do something he does not want to do, and you get a major stress attack, complete with rage and whatnot.
We decided that we would not take it any longer. My husband, who works from home and takes care of the not-so-little guy during the day, feels trapped. We are being ruled by a kid who not only has PANDAS but uses his PANDAS symptoms as an opt-out method.
After reading that giving in to anxiety (and OCD) only makes it grow stronger, like some Voldemort that grows on frailty and fear, we let our son know that he was going to a supermarket with us.
As the joke goes, and then, the fight started.
If you don't have an Hmart near you, you're missing out. It's a Korean Supermarket and I mean Super with a capital S. You can buy the freshest fruits and vegetables for decent prices. You can select a fish that is still swimming. You have a choice of many different brands of seaweed, rice, green tea, frozen dumplings (they're great, just not gluten-free.) You can also purchase Chinese, Japanese, Korean and French bakery food from the food court.
I needed to buy a bamboo mat so we could roll our own sushi, plus the ingredients. I also needed fish so I could make my own gefilte fish (gluten-free) for the Passover Seder. And if you've never had my husband's Brussell sprouts--purchased fresh from this store--you have yet to sample a fantastic dish.
Our boy curled up on the sofa and declared he wasn't joining us and that we couldn't make him. "Oh, yes, you are and oh, yes, we can," we told him. "If we have to carry you out to the car, you're going."
And that's what we did. My dear husband half carried him out to the car. I tossed his sneakers into the backseat. He did pull in his feet so we could shut the door, all the while yelling at us. He threatened to take off his seatbelt (and did.) I told him that if we were stopped by the police and fined, he would use his birthday money to pay. The seatbelt went back on.
"I'm staying in the car," he said as we pulled into the parking lot.
"You're coming with us," we told him. And he did.
"I don't feel good," he said. "There are too many people." So I walked down an empty aisle with the shopping cart, and he followed.
"I'm going to throw up," he warned.
"Then go to the cash register and ask for a bag," I told him. He didn't.
"I'm going to be sick," he said again.
I said, "If you continue to make this difficult for us, we're not making sushi tonight."
"Really?"
"Yes. If you throw up, I'm not buying the ingredients for sushi."
Well, didn't that just change things a little bit and for the better.
"I have to go to the bathroom," he announced. We threaded our way across the store and found the bathroom. When he came out, four minutes later, he said, "I feel ok now."
And from then on, he was great. We found gluten-free, dairy-free snacks (rice flour and sugar) that he could eat. He was smiling and sociable. Treated his sister kindly.
But today is another day and he's been dead-set against going horseback riding. What I would give to horseback ride! Oh, he's going.
We are putting our booted feet down once again. Time to shrink that Voldemort.