​Ben's Story​​
 

In a fleeting moment of despair, on April 16, 2009, six days after his 18th
social, academic and emotional. Benjamin was a deeply loving young
man; he carried a bright light of compassion combined with a
sometimes excessively strong will.

Benjamin had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder (OCD) early on in his life. From the beginning he
was given medication to attempt to manage his behavior to fit him into
our current education and social systems. Due to this method, Benjamin
received the message early on that there was something wrong with
him and as a result he experienced much ostracizing and bullying. As his
parents, we did our best to find alternative ways to work with Ben and
over the years we had learned many tools to deal with this bright,
sensitive, intuitive, and energetic child.

Ben was also a child who “brain-locked”, a term used by Ross Greene,
PhD, the author of “The Explosive Child.” Dr. Greene is the Director of
Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology at the Clinical and Research Program
in Pediatric Psychopharmacology at the Massachusetts General
Hospital. This book describes “brain-lock” as the clinical and physical
response to the ability of the OCD brain to process immense
frustration. Brain-locking adequately describes the thousands of times
when Ben would come up against situations where he couldn’t get wha he wanted and acted extremely inappropriately. He would literally fight
to his death in opposition to controlling forces. Those of us around him
had to find creative, innovative approaches to move through whatever
issues arose on a daily basis. He wanted things to be fair and just.
Whenever something came in the form of force or “power over”, he was
a counter force to be reckoned with and would push back even harder.
It was very difficult for Ben and us as his family unit, stress-filled and
intense on a daily basis, but we had made great strides by the time his
18 th birthday arrived, so much so that Ben was finally making and
holding onto friendships, getting better grades, and holding a job. He
didn’t really care much about academics. Even though he was extremely
bright, articulate and creative, studying was difficult and painful for him.
His learning curves were huge but, despite that truth, he showed up at
school everyday doing his best. Socially he succeeded in becoming a kid
everyone loved after many years of “not fitting in.” He was on top of the
world. Afr years of hard work overcoming indescribable odds, he had
been invited by 35 of his peers to join them in a limousine ride to his
11 th grade prom.

On April 16, 2009, Ben arrived at school with the smell of marijuana on
his clotng. He was brought to the “powers that be” who proceeded to
search his car where they found a small amount of marijuana and a pipe.
Ben had been using marijuana to self-medicate for some time. We and
his therapist were aware of this. Marijuana did seem to be the only thing
that helped his OCD symptoms – and several weeks prior to Ben’s death,
marijuana s voted decriminalized in the state of Massachusetts. Ben
was very aware of this.

The school administrators proceeded to hand over their punishment to
Ben – he wagiven 3 days suspension, $100 fine and suspended from
attending his prom. So here was is sensitive boy, who had overcome
so many social obstacles, having the rug pulled out from underneath
this one success in his short life - social acceptance by his peers. On the
day he took his life, we believe the loss of his prom caused him to brain-
lock.

The school had witnessed brain-locking in Ben just months before when
they wanted to give him detention for being late. He had brain-locked
on his belief that his reason for being late should have been excused. At
first, the school therapist was not willing to shift the rules to
accommodate Ben. After my explaining brain-locking to him, we came
up with a solution that helped Ben come out of the brain-lock. He was
still held accountable for his actions, but in a different way that made
more sense to Ben. He was then able to shift.

I wish on the day he died the school had paused and considered their
actions. Had we met with his team collectively before handing down his
sentence, I am sure Ben would still be here with us now. Instead, they
made a quick decision to suspend him for three days, take away his
privilege to attend his prom and send him home.

Ben’s last message to us included the line “I just don’t see the point.”
Resignation at so young an age, after 18 years of pushing against an
antiquated system; and we currently have an epidemic of suicide
amongst our young people. Since his death, Ben has been speaking
louder than words to me, his mother. It is time to take a stand and find
better ways to support these gifted, sensitive, and exceptional children.