Wahid Leeman was born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), a condition that happens when an unborn child is exposed to opioids and becomes addicted to drugs.
Leeman is currently 20 years old and has faced numerous difficulties, such as ADHD, sickle cell anemia, and bipolar disorder, as a result of drug exposure during pregnancy.
Tammy Cutchen and Steve Leeman, a lobsterman who lives with their eleven children in a village off the coast of Maine, adopted Leeman when he was two years old. Leeman and one of his siblings have the same NAS diagnosis.
Tammy described Leeman as being quite disruptive as a toddler, knocking down doors, punching through walls, and shattering windows. Leeman once attempted to jump out of the car when he was seven years old because Tammy wouldn’t stop for fast food.
When he was fourteen, his birth mother passed away from an unintentional overdose. She was in and out of his life, bouncing between addiction and rehabilitation.
He told People, “I wish she wouldn’t have done it. But I feel like she was doing the best she could at the time.”
According to Tammy, Leeman’s path to adulthood has been rocky. He has “a lot of anger around his mother’s choices,” she said. A volatile combination, he also had reactive attachment disorder, which impairs his impulse control.
In retrospect, Tammy admits to escalating some of Leeman’s tantrums since “I put him in situations and places his system could not handle and then blamed him for that.”
This understanding informs Leeman and Steve’s parenting of their 8-year-old son, Cruz Leeman, who shares his brother’s behavioral characteristics.
“Like if someone did one thing wrong, I’m cutting them off,” Leeman explained, describing how his impulsive conduct can affect his life, even his relationships over time.
Even with his challenging diagnosis, Leeman continues to live life to the fullest, pursuing his passions for swimming, fishing, and reptiles, particularly his day gecko Lizzy.
He also thrives at his food-service job, “because I like money as well as the next person.”
The young visionary is also enrolled in a nearby community college to study to become an EMT, with the goal of finishing his coursework the following year “to make myself fully employable at one of the major fire departments.”
He told the network, “My goal is to be a firefighter-paramedic.”
His mother believes that a future as a first responder would be advantageous to her son, allowing him to highlight his diverse qualities.
She remarked, “He’s very focused on situations at hand and doesn’t get distracted by emotion and chaos. In an emergency, he would do what’s right to keep people safe.”
