`From the moment Cormac was born, I knew that there was something different about him. I was afraid to touch him because I knew that he would hate to be touched. He could not bear his nappy being changed, or to be dressed or undressed. I could not leave him with anybody else for a moment. He spent the first two years of his life on my hip.
He had a squint in his eye and was very long-sighted, which meant that he did not see his surroundings properly until he was 16 months old. I though this was the reason he was so clingy. So we got the glasses and that was fine, but I still knew that something was different about him. I knew I would always have to be there for him. When he started in school at the age of five, it was clear from the outset that he was different. He couldn't sit still, he was always sticking his nose into everything, but still not taking in very much. He could not concentrate on the work because he was distracted by every single sound in the small classroom, with 34 other kids.
His behaviour at home was erratic. If it was to be spilt, he spilled it. If it could be tripped over, he tripped over it. He had a very high pain threshold so nothing would faze him. You had to watch him every minute. You couldn't sit and relax and have a cup of tea. If everything was quiet, you immediately had to dash and see what he was up to. You couldn't tell him not to pour syrup into the video-player; he had to see for himself.
Some children with ADD can be violent, but Cormac never was. He never intended to do any harm, it was just the way he was. Sometimes he would cut-out into a world of his own and get a glassy look in his eye, something which I later learned is called hyper-focusing. He would never go to the toilet. He would hold it in until it was running down his legs, which is a feature of ADD.
In the five years before Cormac was eight years old, he was seen by a total of 13 different professionals who would have been used to dealing with children and their problems - psychologists, speech therapists, the whole range. Not one diagnosed him. They would see him for one hour and get an angle on it, then give me instructions on how to deal with him. As I went out the door, I'd be thinking, 'this isn't going to do anything'.
The professionals all said things like "he's a lovely boy, he's just a bit immature, he's a bit slow, he's working at his own pace, he's beating his own drum, hasn't he a great sense of humour?" Other people just could not see what I could see. My own mother, who reared 10 children, would say, "he's grand - just a bit stubborn". I began to feel as though I had Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy.
I felt powerless to get help for Cormac. It was like watching your own child starving to death for want of food. By the age of eight, Cormac could still not add two and two together, could not focus, could not read or write. He was severely depressed, because he knew that there was something wrong with him. He was as confused as I was. He used to raid the medicine cabinet looking for some relief. I too was feeling very isolated and depressed. The only thing that kept me going was my job and my employers were, and continue to be, very supportive.
One day when Cormac was eight, I was in bed with the flu and my husband bought me a British women's magazine. It had an article on ADD. I read it, and it could have been written about Cormac. That night I called the support group in the UK and by Monday I was talking to a specialist in ADD. It was such a relief to finally meet people who understood. In April 1996, we spent 10 days in the UK with Cormac seeing a psychologist and a neurologist specialising in ADD. We were told that he had ADD, that he was dyslexic and that he had features of Asperger's Syndrome - a cocktail of different conditions.
In years to come, we will not be talking about ADD or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) but about an individual's own DNA package of neurological symptoms, each with its own spectrum ranging from mild to severe. Asperger's Syndrome, which Cormac has features of, is often described as a mild form of autism. Sufferers tend to take things literally and develop "obsessions" - Cormac's being modes of transport, especially trains. For adults to engage in "trainspotting" is quite acceptable. But when children do it, it's considered strange. My son spent a whole weekend in London watching the trains coming to and from Victoria station and had figured out within two hours when the next train was coming, how many carriages it should have and whether it would stop at Wandsworth Road.
When he was diagnosed with ADD, Cormac was prescribed Ritalin (the most used drug for ADD in the US and the UK) and since then, his behaviour has been transformed. I'll never forget when he had his first dose of Ritalin - after about 15 minutes, the house was quiet. I panicked, went to look for him, and he had a set of headphones on, he was sitting quietly, singing The Song of Angry Men from Les Miserables. The hair stood on the back of my neck because he was an angry man, and singing the music of a people who will not be slaves again. And I thought how can an eight-year-old boy have such a good understanding of himself? I've been told since by a musical therapist that he's a musical genius.
Cormac attends a special class for children with Asperger's Syndrome at St Peter's in Walkinstown, where the principal, the staff and the children have made him feel very welcome and he is extremely happy. When children are treated for ADD early in life, the outcome is positive. But when left untreated, many sufferers become depressed and suffer low self-esteem due to a lifetime of "getting it wrong" and "putting your foot in it".
Suicide is something I would have feared for a gentle boy like my son if had he not been treated and had remained depressed. The wilder boys with ADD who have remained undiagnosed and untreated may, I suspect, end up in St Patrick's Institution - which is full of very, very talented people who are just "different". Adults with ADD can be very successful. There are people with ADD who are millionaires and can't read and write, but they have ideas and behind them they have people who organise them from one end of the day to the other.
In the past 30 years, the world has become harder for people who don't fit in. When people had very little materially, they were more tolerant and willing to help rather than to criticise. Today we are materially better off, but we seem to have lost our humanity. For people like Cormac, life is very tough. I am helping him to learn that he can cope with ADD and that he must never feel ashamed or use it as an excuse to misbehave. I'm worried about what might be in store for him during his teenage years, both educationally and emotionally. There is nothing worse than seeing your own child not fitting in. We don't want sympathy, just a little understanding.
The next monthly support/ information meeting will take place at 3pm on Saturday, March 27th at the Teacher's Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. For further information about ADD, send a 9"x6" SAE, enclosing £2, to the ADD Adult/Family Support Group, 11 Summerfield Green, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15, phone/fax (01) 8222059.
In conversation with Kathryn Holmquist