Non-Profit organization Dedicated to helping the neurodivergent

My Neuro Divine

My Neuro Divine founder, Sheri Yamada’s testimonial

Our non-profit organization’s leader, Sheri Yamada, has a passion to help others from her personal experiences, challenges and difficulties to get a diagnosis and treatment for her own son with autism with comorbidities of ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder and Anxiety.
Because of this she has an underlying drive and personal life goal to take what she learned and find out more to help others.

In her quest to raise her son she often felt like she was on a non-ending hike up a steep mountain scurrying around in the dark reading every publication, researching websites, going to support groups, figuring out how to get him an ideal Individualized Education Plan(IEP), constantly working with doctors, therapists and administrators and teachers at school, and learning from other parents to search for answers.

Diagnosis and treatment is a tough road. Her son tip toed when he started to walk and also spun his body around almost constantly. His pediatrician knew he needed Physical Therapy. It was at Physical Therapy, the therapist told her that he spins because he doesn’t know where his limbs are and he is spinning to get the sensation of them. She mentioned that being a premie he didn’t develop the neurological connections to have the awareness of his body.
Also a visit to her son’s preschool revealed everyone else was in circle time except him as he was upside down on a chair. Also seeing him as he rocked belly down under the table as the other children started to play and make noise. Luckily the preschool Director, was an “angel” in her son’s life and helped her with his first psychiatrist and psychologist.

The under the care of a great child psychiatrist, her son was prescribed medication at the start of kindergarten which made his illegible writing legible. He was also diagnosed with ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder and Anxiety. In elementary school, we tried things to help him fidget but at the same time concentrate. He would bite pencils, have to have fidget toys, seat pads that gave tactile feedback, and weighted vests so he could focus on school work. Interesting enough it was keeping a smooth rock in his hand and stroking that rock all day that seemed to give him the most relief. She found that it was so interesting meeting several parents who were so opposed with medication when she knew very well that it made a large impact in her son’s life. She wondered if those parents were in a bit of denial so they were holding back care inadvertently. She knew sadly there was some of that.

Treatment for these disorders was like an educated guessing game. Constantly monitoring his behavior and performance at school and to give back feedback on behavior alone and responses on what meds were best available to treat that behavior. Each medication her son took had to be tried for at least 2 weeks to a couple of months with having only subjective verbal feedback on his behavioral response to the meds, then if the dosage or medication was not effective, a trial was repeated for new dosage or another set of meds. Every one who touched his life had to act as a coordinated team.

Many of which the medications that prescribed had severely behaviors such as aggression and low blood pressure which caused him to collapse when getting up. Other medications were prescribed to counteract the side effects of his other medication. It took many years and it wasn’t until around he was 16 that the “recipe” was fine tuned and he could function at his best.

Back when her son was 12 yrs old she asked his psychiatrist, “Why, in this day and age, we can’t simply run a blood test, perform a brain scan, and use other neurological tools to determine what he has—instead of prescribing a single medication and waiting two months to see its effect. After all, this country spends more money on figuring out male baldness because that is where money is made!” She researched this but they were cost prohibited. She still thinks traditional psychiatry still doesn’t look at the person as a whole. She is a believer in alternative medicine and knows there probably are treatments out there that most are not aware of that are helpful to the development for a neurodiverse individual.

This journey is difficult and is still continuing as he ages into early adulthood. She has always been his primary support and she has been the sole provider since her ex moved out of town several years ago, both emotionally and financially. She knows very well that time is clicking down as she ages and is faced with the realism that he needs help for care after she leaves this earth. She continues with the challenges to get him to be independent and realizes that he will need the government support to do so with at least medication and housing support. She is currently overwhelmed with the long process of getting him that help ironically because he has been identified as having this life long disability throughout his life. So one would think this process would be easier.

On the road to independence she has taught him to learn to cook and he shops for groceries. He also holds down a full time job. Unfortunately it doesn’t provide medical insurance support and won’t support him financially through full independence. He has chosen never to drive a car because he is aware of his limitations and uses a standup scooter to get around. Unfortunately his room has remained an unorganized mess with clothes on the floor and trash not taken care of even he is constantly reminded. This has been the case of his entire life and she has been criticized for not teaching him but she has tried many times to help organize to relieve his living anxiety and stress unfortunately with little improvement

Regardless of all of this, he is the most loving and compassionate person because of the life he has had to experience. He has helped homeless people get a meal and get to a homeless shelter late at night. She feels great that he has the most golden heart because this is something you can’t just teach a person.

She learned a lot over the last 28 years and would like to share hoping others can benefit from this. This has lead to the following list which could be taken as so called wisdom:

Diagnosis takes many years to unfold if there are many simultaneous neurodiverse issues. During those years figuring out the diagnosis, precious time is also lost where the brain has the best neuroplasticity so that one can get better long term improvement. Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life which involves changes in both the structure and function of the brain, allowing it to adapt to new environments and experiences.
Diagnosis and treatment needs to start as early in a child’s life as possible in order to impact them in the long term.
Traditional psychiatry uses educated “guesses” for medication by the Psychiatrist based on behavioral feedback, which often have to be fine tuned over months. Medications often have severe side effects. Other medications often have to be given to counteract these side effects. And as a child develops through adulthood, this “recipe” has to be constantly fine tuned.
Lab tests are given post medication to monitor side effects and not given initially to determine any underlying problems.
Traditional psychiatry does not look at the person’s biology and does not look at the person holistically as a whole. There are no brain scans, DNA or blood tests given to diagnose. They are not part of the regiment that is supported by insurance.
Psychologist support is crucial for treatment to support the critical times where emotional support and personal development is needed through the life long journey. Ideally this counseling needs to be done in close conjunction with Psychiatry, but coordination between providers is almost next to impossible even with release of information in place.
A person’s overall health is closely driven by the inter-relationship between the Mind, Body and Spirit. This is even more critical when someone is neurodivergent.
The parents of a neurodiverse child go through much emotional and physical stress in figuring out how to get the best care for their child. They often forget about themselves when things are the most stressful and when they need the help most. They also need support of their Mind, Body and Spirit.
Good child psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists were difficult to find or get into see. She wanted to take her son to the best doctors and therapies but often times they would not take insurance and were private pay, so they were not accessible to those who don’t have the financial resources.
The school system had its short falls to support her son. Teachers and administrators were not educated and did not understand the mental health diagnosis so she had to coach them through every step of the way. She encountered prejudice even from a school principal stating that “Life isn’t fair sometimes and he will not get the support he may need”, even though she very well knew that there was federal law for “No child left behind”. Special education class was basically study hall and not customized education which was required to take by the rules to maintain an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) and he was not able to take other elective classes instead of this because of these rules. He was discriminated and almost prohibited to take shop class because he would fidget with paper clips that he would make into pointy things. She fought with the school principal to get him into the class. This shop class ended up being a life changer to him because his teacher was amazing in helping him realize his strengths beyond the traditional curriculum.
Society is not kind to those with neurodiversity. Most hurtful of all was that her son was confronted with bullying from the time he was in preschool all the way through high school. Kids were mean because he was different. Sadly because of this he had only a few friends. He would get strange looks from other parents and strangers. Most people didn’t know anything about the illnesses he had. And most of all those who didn’t understand lacked compassion for the struggles both he and his family were facing. To help breakdown the barriers of prejudice, she envisions education programs to improve basic awareness of neurodiversity. She would share stories with a dear friend that his son had schizophrenia that people don’t realize how lucky they were to have “normal” children.
Traditional psychiatry is aligned with behaviors identified in the DSM-V. Medical coverage is tied to the DSM-V. Medications are given based on primarily behaviors in the DSM-V. All psychological tests and education questionnaires to establish better educational support align to the DSM-V. There are still neurodivergent illnesses not identified in the DSM-V.
Autism and other neurodivergent disorders are one of the least studied and understood. The brain is the most complex organ in the body that we have the least understanding about when it comes to neurodiversity.
Autism is on the rise with 1 in 36 now being diagnosed. Autism is a spectrum and not a clear diagnosis. There are not a lot of medications available to treat autism. There is still not enough known about what causes autism.
There are very challenging illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia that don’t show up most of the time until early adulthood and can impact lives tremendously. It is a shame testing and diagnosis can’t be done earlier in life so that this can be avoided.
Our schools lack the ability to teach life skills for the neurodiverse, such as raising your own food, shopping for your groceries, cooking, managing financially, and maintaining a place to live. It would be great if there were classes for the neurodivergent in school that supported this as well.
She had him in martial arts classes. First Tae Kwan Do, then Kendo, which taught him respect and discipline. He had excelled at Kendo to become part of the district’s kendo team. These achievements outside of school made his self esteem excel. It was extremely important to get his self esteem kept in check to counteract the bullying.
Our society is ill-equipped to support those with severe neurodiversity. There are a lack of services to provide housing and continued care. Many group homes which were established to support the livelihood of the neurodiverse are being dissolved. There is a lack of Federal funding to maintain hospitals for the severely mentally ill.
Our legal system doesn’t know how to treat and support those with mental illness especially those who are not criminally insane, and are not suicidal and need help with medication to get them off the streets. If one says they are not suicidal or are not a danger to others, care can’t be administered. We use our jails as open turnstiles instead of administering treatment.
Many homeless are neurodivergent but we have yet to identify and deal with this as a society.
Washington state has it where a person from the age of 13 can choose to with hold information about their mental health to their parents, so their parents are left powerless to help and support their child.

Because of these lessons learned, she has a passion to help neurodiverse individuals and their families to make it easier to uncover the “jewels” every neurodiverse person possesses which she considers “Divine”.

If she had her way, she would snap her fingers and it would be done in a day, but she realizes that it will take a “village” to make this a reality so “My Neuro Divine” was created.

She has dreams that one day this list will get addressed so that life for a neurodiverse person is much better than it is today. One of these dreams is to have a care center and even better yet a community which one can receive the support they need and flourish. This is why My Neuro Divine needs the support of many that care.

Made with love in Washington, serving families nationally.

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