Safe & Sound Protocol
On ADHD, Nervous System Regulation and Supporting My Son
“You’re so organized!”, a leader at my client’s company said to me the other day. All I could do was laugh. I’ve heard this before from other clients and co-workers and I laugh because it couldn’t be further from the truth.
In high school I was in an accelerated science class, the teacher, Mrs. Blatchford was the greatest teacher I ever had. I could write a whole other article on her, but to put it simply, she had the highest of standards, and she held herself to those same standards. She wanted us truly prepared for the world. We were required to keep a binder all semester that held all our notes, all our assignments, all our tests in a perfectly organized fashion. She would randomly ask us to find a specific assignment and if we couldn’t do it within one minute we would lose a point, and if we could we would gain a point.
I was her favorite target.
My binder looked like something straight out of the show hoarders. There were crumpled up papers falling out from every direction. There was no order. I even put my binder cover in upside down accidentally and never felt the need to change it. My best friend eventually wrote a sign that said “This side up” with an arrow pointing in the right direction because her Type-A-ness couldn’t handle it.
Yet, when she would ask me to find any given assignment, determined to stump me, I knew exactly where it was every single time. After taking her classes for 3 straight years, sometimes even more than one in a semester, she never managed to stump me. Not once. And it drove her crazy.
This is how my ADHD brain works. I’m able to hold a ridiculous amount of information in my head at the same time. Not because I memorize things, I actually am terrible at memorization, but because I form relationships in my head on how things relate to each other. I could find my papers, because I remembered I put my diagram of a cell behind the quiz we took last week and that quiz my dog bit the corner off of and I can see that wrinkle it caused in how the papers lay in the binder and so it must be right there. If anything, I could find it faster that way than going through and organizing things by date and type, etc. etc. etc.
And that’s why people think I’m organized when I absolutely am not.
Why do I tell this story? Isn’t this about homeschooling kids?… hold on, I’m getting there.
I was diagnosed with ADHD in my early 20s. Although I believe I was likely pre-disposed to it for whatever reason, I do think external factors put it on hyperdrive - a vaccine injury combined with utter chaos at home during my parents tumultuous divorce caused it to really impact certain areas of my life. Taking medication got me through grad school but I knew that wasn’t a long term option for me, so I’ve just learned to live with it and manage it as best I could.
When my twins were born I believed that if I could mitigate environmental factors that I could prevent it from being an issue for them. I micromanaged their diet, water, air quality, etc. with hyperfocus (another ADHD symptom, ha). I also tried to downplay “indicators” as normal toddler behavior and used all kinds of parenting strategies to manage it.
But here’s the thing, even in utero there were signs.
One of my twins kicked me all day everyday, the other one I constantly was using my portable heart monitor to make sure he was still alive in there. Nothing has changed.
One of my twins is a little quieter, is thoughtful and cuddly, sleeps in in the morning, colors in the lines and likes things to be “just so”. The other, not so much, he has always been a wild child, loves hard, experiences intense joy, tries new things without fear and has never-ending energy.
These are all things that I love immensely about both of them.
In a world where order, compliance and social norms are prevalent, it makes parenting a child with those ADHD-like traits difficult. How do we fit into society while still honoring who he is at heart? Many people believe he takes after my husband, who has a work-ethic like you’ve never seen and is constantly on the move, but I actually see more of myself in him. The chaos on the outside for him, matches the chaos I often feel inside my head.
Late last year, we hit a wall.
The tantrums were intense. The sleep was non-existent. He couldn’t manage classes and activities he used to love. He and his brother were fighting non-stop. Magnet towers were getting destroyed, toys were getting damaged. I was desperately trying to homeschool him and help him learn how to read and he refused to even try. He was frustrated because he was trying so hard to “behave”, but he just couldn’t control it and it was breaking my heart to watch him struggle and trying to figure out where I went wrong. We were fighting for our lives to get through each day unscathed and I knew we couldn’t live that way anymore.
A few of my friends had recommended play therapy and had great stories about it helping their kids. The one we chose offered a therapy called “Safe & Sound Protocol”, or SSP. The goal of SSP is to essentially use intentional frequencies of sound to rewire a brain that is stuck in fight-or-flight, which was believed to be the cause of the struggles. Now, what caused his brain to be stuck here is debatable, it could’ve been the NICU stay, it could’ve been his tonsil surgery, it could’ve been lack of sleep, it could have been things we can’t even comprehend but that’s where we were nonetheless. Whether or not this was actually ADHD is irrelevant to me, I don’t need a diagnosis, I just needed a solution and this felt promising.
So we tried it. And wow, I can’t tell you how much it absolutely sucked. His tantrums got worse, his sleep got worse, after all the struggles we had with potty training, he started having accidents again and it was a fight to get him to sit down for one minute a day to do the therapy. Apparently SSP came with side effects, and he was struggling. It had never occurred to me that merely listening to a song could have physical side effects. The vagus nerve is stimulated in this type of therapy and could cause things like a tingling feeling, headaches, sleep issues, frequent urination and accidents and….. dysregulation. The very thing we were trying to fix. I had spent all this time and money on play therapy and the SSP and things were only getting harder and he was miserable.
So we threw a hail Mary.
What if I did it too so I could understand what it was like, we could do it together so he wasn’t alone in it and I could support him better through the discomfort.
So I started listening. And wow. I could not believe how I felt after doing it. I wasn’t sure what it was doing but it was doing something. After one session I understood why it was so hard for him. I felt like motion sickness like I was riding in the passengers seat through a bumpy ride in the mountains. I got stuck in a dysregulated state when I experienced a stressful situation immediately after listening. I felt like all my hands and feet and arms and legs had fallen asleep. It was absolutely unbelievable.
But this therapy has been proven to rewire the brain, it just takes time. So we stuck with it. And boy, am I glad we did.
All of a sudden, I realized we were living with peace.
His accidents stopped. He started sleeping through the night again. His tantrums slowly lessened in intensity and frequency. He listened better than any other kids (including his brother) at t-ball practice. He’s reading his first words and excelling in math. And most importantly, my baby boy showed joy again!
And for me, I’m also more regulated. My energy levels are higher - I’m no longer exhausted by basic tasks. I can manage my thoughts better and keep track of my to-do list.
And we’re only 1/10th of the way through the program.
I’m not sure if my son has ADHD, but I certainly do and he certainly seems to have some of those traits. But I do know, like me, his nervous system needed help. It wasn’t a matter of will power, or discipline and maybe not even the environmental factors I obsessed over. It was teaching his brain to feel safe and sound.
And at 36, it’s something I’m finally able to find for myself, but at 4 years old, that’s the best gift I can give him to set him up for a lifetime of joy and success.
So if your child’s teachers are telling you to get him or her tested for ADHD, if you’re at your wits end trying to help your child excel and fit in to society, if they never seem to experience calm or rest, if you’re trying to homeschool and feeling like you’re failing, you might just need some nervous system support, your child’s brain might just need to feel safe.
Look for a Safe and Sound Protocol provider in your area. It just might change your lives.
Check this link for more information: Safe & Sound Protocol