With Gratitude: Patient Stories

Ten-year-old Nathan felt like he was constantly getting it wrong. His jokes didn’t land the way he intended, and classmates didn’t understand him. School wasn’t a place where Nathan felt like he fit in; it was a place where he felt alone.

 “Nathan just wasn’t happy,” Nathan’s mother, Amanda, recalls. “It wasn’t just school—it was everything. He felt different, and he didn’t know why. And the more he struggled, the more it seemed like nothing was working.”

Thirteen-year-old Paul Doyle’s world had shrunk to the size of his bedroom, where his battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) kept him isolated from the people and activities he loved. For months, he avoided any contact, gripped by overwhelming fears of germs, meat, and dairy. His parents, Tom and Bonnie, felt helpless watching their son struggle.

“It all happened kind of quickly,” says Emilie's mom, Kim. “Things just grew into kind of an acute anxiety/OCD situation. She’d stopped eating, and really wasn't drinking. And lost quite a bit of weight. She couldn’t really get through the day without having extreme anxiety and fear that something bad was going to happen to her.”

Many kids are picky eaters. But Kim and her husband, Felix, grew alarmed when their six-year-old’s behavior around eating became extreme. Their daughter Shea would regularly refuse food, saying she was afraid it would make her sick.