We got through it... sort of... he's 28 now.

Hi. I started taking my son to psychologists and psychiatrists when he was three. None of them diagnosed him with SPD, but that is the correct diagnosis. Perhaps people weren't as aware of this, 25 years ago?

I feel so sad that he wasn't correctly diagnosed. His behaviors drove me crazy, and I was so often so angry at him. If I had understood what was going on, I would have reacted very differently.

Here are some examples of his behaviors:

- threw up on the table once because he didn't like the texture of some food; took scissors and cut up a lot of new shirts I had bought him for school, because they had collars and he couldn't stand the feel of the collars on his neck (but, he didn't explain this to me until years later),

- would turn up the A/C because he had to have many blankets at night even though it was summer (and, we couldn't afford the extra cost of the A/C);

- wouldn't let anyone cut his hair; couldn't stand having his nails trimmed;

- had to sleep with a light on;

- tripped over every bump in sidewalks, frequently fell for no apparent reason, yet, could thread a soccer ball through multiple players to pass it to the teammate in the best position to score a goal;

- couldn't read a word he wrote; was captain of the academic bowl team that beat all of the other schools in fourth and fifth grade; was in the gifted program starting in second grade;

- couldn't stand tags and seams in clothing; sucked on the bottom of his shirts and sleeves; hated dressing himself and when he did, often had his clothes on inside out and backwards;

- is extremely sensitive emotionally, and can go from happy to extremely angry in seconds..... there's lots more,but if you've made it this far you've probably had enough.

At one point, when he was in high school, he told me he thought he would wind up being a homeless person.

Here's the great part... even though he was eventually diagnosed with double vision, and had eye surgery on both eyes when he was 20, he graduated from college with a double major (history and political science) and has been living on his own now for about four years. The sad thing, though, is that my husband and I have been estranged from him for a year. Oh, well.

I really do regret that even though I took him to psychologists, psychiatrists, and a neuropsychologist,he was never correctly diagnosed and didn't receive the help he needed, and I didn't receive the help I needed to know how to interact with him.