Adam Dowey

Working on this story was extremely important to me and I hope I have the opportunity to go back and do more shooting for it. Even though, visually, this my not be my strongest work, Adam’s story is so eye-opening and important. I urge my viewers to read his story. 


Paper Labels: Keeping Adam Secure And Drug-Free

The Relationship Between Diagnoses, Pills, and Therapy for Troubled Children

Adam Calms Down.

Adam is NOT CALM; He is SCREAMING, STOMPING, and NOT LISTENING. How is Adam FEELING? STOP and THINK; CALM DOWN. Is Adam SAD? Is Adam ANGRY? Is Adam SCARED? When Adam is NOT CALM his body shakes. His HEAD HURTS. He feels DIZZY. Adam needs to CALM DOWN; He can count. He can TAKE A DEEP BREATH. He can USE HIS WORDS; And ASK FOR HELP. He can STAY QUIET until he is READY TO TALK. Now Adam IS CALM; Good Job Adam, you did it!! Adam Calms Down is a cardboard-paper book designed for four-year old Adam Dowey, who lives in Barrie, Ontario with his mom Christine Bell, half-brother Ben McCarthy and step-dad Dan McCarthy. During the year of Junior Kindergarden, Adam began experiencing severe anxiety attacks, and Kinark, a mental health organization for children, developed the social story Adam Calms Down. It gives Adam instructions of how to deal with these attacks and shows him through pictures how to positively control to his emotions. 

(Full Story Below Pictures)

After weekend visits with his father, Adam would frequently come home late and an emotional mess. He started having anxiety attacks where he would throw himself into the floor and walls while screaming ‘help me’ or ‘get me out of here’ over and over. 

During Adam’s Junior Kindergarten year, Bell had contacted Kinark services and their psychiatrist identified Adam’s episodes as legitimate anxiety attacks. Alongside the anxiety, Adam had also grown very concerned with his daily schedule and he demanded to know what he was doing at every second of the day.  
“He’d get really upset in the morning and need to know where everyone was or what he was doing next” Bell says.  
Adam was concerned about knowing every last detail and, because he would break down if he couldn’t find out, Bell mapped out a visual schedule for him to follow, equipped with drawings that described where or what he was doing throughout that day. 

Around this time, Adam also conjured up an imaginary friend-- a boy named Karen. Bell and Dan thought only child-like play of Karen until they realized Adam fought with Karen and spoke to him like he was causing Adam grief. He would ask Karen questions like ‘Why are you talking to me like that?’ or ‘Why do you have to work?’ Adam’s worker initially told Bell and Dan to accept Karen into their lives because the imaginary friend was clearly a coping mechanism he needed. It came to a point where Karen got a bed in their house, he had a booster seat in the car and they were late for appointments, waiting on Karen. Finally, it got out of control and Bell and Dan had to limit when and when not Karen could join them.

Meanwhile, Adam was struggling in Junior Kindergarten. He was having anxiety attacks and Bell was being called every other day to pick Adam up from school. Bell became frustrated with the school because she had given the teachers paperwork and instructions for dealing with Adam’s episodes and yet they were continued to take the same approach: sitting him in a chair, facing a wall. Even though Adam’s psych doctor at Kinark had defined his episodes as true anxiety attacks, Adam’s school was also not willing to work with Bell until there was a ‘paper label’ involved.  Unfortunately, it took all Junior Kindergarten year to get a spot with pediatric care. After meeting with the developmental pediatrician, Adam’s diagnoses were anxiety and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Developmental Pediatrician recommended a brand new medication, Strattera, which is a reuptake inhibitor that is commonly prescribed for ADD. However, the doctor told Bell it would help with Adam’s anxiety and compulsive behaviours as a result of PTSD. The Developmental Pediatrician assured Bell the medication would be a crutch for six weeks until Adam’s spot in play therapy came around.

Bell was torn about what to do; she went home after the appointment, prescription in hand, and ‘cried for probably three hours’. Bell says she also experienced anxiety from three years old and had been on a mess of drugs for a large part of her life, including before she had Adam, when she actually had an anxiety attack behind the wheel, passed out and drove into a ditch. 

‘The ambulance thought I was doing drugs, because my pupils were dilated from the ridiculous amount of Prozac I was on’.

Bell was taking the medication Celexa, a new drug for depression, when she became pregnant with Adam. When Bell consulted the doctor about whether it was safe to continue taking the medication while pregnant, the doctor could only reply with ‘there’s been nothing proven to tell you not to take it.’ Thankfully, Bell made the decision to discontinue the medication, because the following year it was proven to cause birth defects.

Bell has been drug-free for fours years and alternative therapy plays an important role in her life, so she was heart-broken at the thought of medicating her four-year old son, and spent three weeks researching the medication, which is not approved for children under six. Bell tried to remind herself that the medication would simply be a crutch.  She observed how Adam was seriously not managing or coping, and, because he was being called home from the school, Bell spent all day with him as he acted out. Bell says that she did all she could for him, but it just wasn’t enough.

The medication helped curb Adam’s meltdowns, but it brought out other aspects of his behaviour that were present but latent pre-medication.

Adam displays typical OCD behaviours, not only with needing to know when and when everything will transpire but he also picked up a habit of checking light-bulbs. Bell and Dan stopped bringing him grocery shopping because if there was a burnt-out lightbulb in the store, Adam would make all the employees aware of it and would need to wait until he actually saw the bulb getting changed.

Adam also has developed a habit of hoarding different things. The newest was his water-hoarding, where he stole plastic baggies, filled them with water and hid them in his drawers. Bell only discovered this habit when one baggie burst and Adam was frantic and crying and revealed the mishap to her. Bell found about 16 other baggies of water in his drawer. When she asked Adam what he was doing with the baggies of water, his replied:

“I was keeping them safe, these are my babies, and the water has to be safe.”

Bell negotiated the water hoarding with Adam until he settled for a small container of water in his room instead of the baggies. Bell put a small plastic shark in the water tank because, even though she admits Adam doesn’t care about the shark, it has to be appropriate for her and Dan. Bell also knows if Adam is in the bathroom by himself for more than two minutes, he’s filling things up with water.

Alongside the water hoarding, Adam becomes attached to arbitrary, household objects: “Adam also grows attached to weird things; RCA cables, spatulas, whatever.”

His newest attachment consisted of an elastic band which had fallen out of a pair of sweatpants. Adam would hide it in his shoe or under his shirt to make sure he had it close at all times.

Aside from the increased OCD behaviours, Adam was calmer and hadn’t been experiencing meltdowns as frequently. Bell can’t solely attribute his improved behaviours to the Strattera, however, because two weeks into the medication, Adam was in a more consistent therapy program, had developed his social story and was doing play therapy. Adam was responding well to the play therapy, which involves professionals setting up situations with toys, and observing, through play, how children respond.

For the last while, because Adam had been doing so well, Bell was making up excuses for Adam not to go on overnight visits with his father-- and he didn’t leave again until Easter weekend. Adam returned from the visit with high anxiety again, a black eye and a fat lip that his father couldn’t explain. Finally, Bell had enough physical evidence to stop the overnight access. Bell never fully found out what happened on these overnight visits that caused Adam to react the way he did, and therapists told Bell she would have to come to terms with the fact she may never know what occurred that triggered Adam’s anxiety attacks. 

Two and a half weeks later without overnight access and a month into play therapy, Bell felt that Adam’s behaviour is noticeably improving. Contrary to this, Adam’s Developmental Pediatrician suggested that Adam should not only stay on the medication but also increase the dosage. His argument was that Adam needed more time because they were on the verge of moving from Keswick to Barrie and the transition would be tough on him. He also stated that 10 mg is a very low dosage, and even though it was effective for the time being, a 16 mg increase would be needed. 

“Initially when he said he thought Adam needed more time and that he wanted us to consider increasing the medication, I was angry. I was really ticked off because this is my kid. I’m living with this kid everyday, I know what’s working, I know that for the past two and a half, three weeks since the overnights have been gone, that he’s been a lot better, so why am I going to continue to put chemicals in my child?”

On top of being shocked and angry at of the doctor’s suggestion, the med company called to say they were cutting him off Strattera, on the basis that many children with his diagnoses develop bipolar when they’re older, which isn’t covered by their benefits. Meanwhile, Bell was fighting to keep Adam in play therapy.

Bell says that teaching Adam to swallow a pill was the most heartbreaking thing she’s ever had to do and she’s ‘experienced a lot of heartbreaking things in her life.‘

Bell finds it ‘really really disturbing’ how quick the doctors are to push pills on their patients, and likewise, how difficult it is to get other forms of therapeutic support.

“I know that med companies need to make their money, and the doctors need to make money too, but do they want the entire world to be medicated?”

Bell reiterates on how important it is to research anything that a parent gives to their child; not only do the parents owe it their child(ren) but it will also come back to bite when the child is older if the reasoning behind the medication cannot be sufficiently supported. Bell says that she never wants to medicate Adam again, unless she knows, through extensive research that it was absolutely the only option.

Bell ‘would rather work with Adam on a therapy level than a chemical level’-- and she made her point clear, much to the disapproval of Adam’s Pediatric Doctor.