Ok, here's the update. By yesterday afternoon, I was close to full-fledged panic. I really felt as if history was repeating itself and that he was on the verge of another multi-year severe depression.

The big difference between the last time and this time is that we now have a team of people who are familiar with my husband's issues and all who care about helping him.

We had an emergency meeting with his ADD coach, and I wanted to cry with relief. She took charge, and convinced my H that this is no more catastrophic than if he caught a flu for a few days and missed school. Her confidence gave him some renewed hope, which was a joy for me to see. Several years ago, this would have been the beginning of a downward spiral, because he didn't 'buy' my attempts to soothe him when he felt as though he had failed

She was convinced that the problem was due to a med change, and so was I until I had dinner with one of my best friends this evening, and she reminded me that I was sensing something going wrong a few weeks ago. She said that I had brought up quite a few "what ifs", as though I was not feeling secure about the state of our relationship, and she said it was kind of unusual for me. She was right - this started a while back, not just while I was gone, and maybe NOT due to the med change.

Maybe it's due to the fact that we're getting toward the end of his school term and the pressure is mounting. Going back to school was a very bold step for him in the first place -- failing out of engineering school was what triggered his last massive episode which lasted for two years. He tends to isolate when he feels pressured, and never ever reaches out for help, which as you can imagine doesn't usually work well in an academic environment.

She set him up with recovery tasks, and is checking in with him frequently for the next few weeks. She also recommended an immediate med change back to Strattera, which is fine because he had stopped taking the Ritalin early last week. She also wants to schedule his Neuropsych Evaluation review for all of us (my H, the coach, me, our T, and his pdoc) sometime this week, and for my H to consult a naturopath. We have a good friend who is a child psychiatrist but is very well-researched and passionate about homeopathic treatment, so he is giving us some consultation as well. I need to call him back to find out what has decided about this, and if he can refer us to a like-minded colleague. He's really cool, with a great heart.

In summary, I am really really grateful for the support system we've developed over the past few years, including PC