“Did you talk to him?” Helen asked.
“What do you think? He won’t open his door; won’t answer my voice messages or texts. He just doesn’t want to talk,” Andy replied
“Why does he hate us?” Helen wondered aloud.
“It’s not just us. He doesn’t talk to anyone. Even Billy’s dad – you know, the guy who never makes eye contact with anyone – noticed there was something wrong,” observes Andy. “When guys like that think something is wrong with your kid …”
“… there probably is. What are we going to do? He just seems so angry and cut off,” asked Helen.
“Angry at this age, I can understand. But cutting himself off from everyone? That really scares me,” Andy agreed
“I feel like I lost my little boy … forever.” Helen said, close to tears.
“What happened to the kid who used to bring us all those cool Lego monsters he’d spend hours building; who wouldn’t stop asking “Why” about everything he saw; who could spend a whole day in the driveway with duct tape and cardboard,” Andy reminisced.
D.J.’s parents are worried sick about him, but feel powerless to help. He won’t come out of his room or respond to their knocks, texts, or calls. Even though he is wearing headphones, his parents can hear his pulsating music all the way downstairs. D.J. is doing fine in school. In fact, he’s probably getting straight A’s again in all of his college prep classes. He’s a wiz at math and science. It’s the isolation and lack of friends that worry his parents.
If we asked D.J., he’d tell us he could care less about friendships, especially at his school. He thinks they are just a bunch of lemmings and suck-ups, willing to do whatever it takes to fit in. The only time someone talks to him, it seems to him, is when someone wants something from him, like tutoring in Calculus or a ride to the mall. He has no idea that his anger and mistrust contribute to the rejection he feels.
Safe within his own world, D.J. is quite creative and ingenious. He builds the most elaborate robots and writes quite sophisticated computer code. He would claim that he is not sad or lonely. He would also claim that he is not a fake like most of his classmates. He refuses to compromise himself to fit in.
The truth is, D.J. is a master at staying busy and distracted. Immersed in his projects or music, he is less vulnerable to the pain of his alienation. He is a very angry young man. And anger sure beats depression.
Fortunately for D.J., things go better for him in the future, as well as in the “starting over” scenario. There’s a theme that seems to work for D.J. who refuses to compromise. He finds ways to connect with “his people”. He finds that he is not the only geeky kid into robotics, programming and edgy music. He finds settings where his interests and talents are valued, and he can form relationships starting with those shared interests.
In the “starting over” section, his parents are no longer clueless and paralyzed. They understand their son better and find ways to help him to do justice to his interests and his need to engage with others. That doesn’t mean the music volume got any lower, though.