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Alyssa Moore and Andre Moore

Alyssa Moore and Andre Moore were mother and son. Alyssa was the first person to read Andre’s distress accurately. She spent years telling school, probation, and institutional personnel that he was sick rather than defiant. His eventual diagnosis at Patuxent Institution confirmed what she had maintained throughout his childhood, but earlier systems had already converted his symptoms into a criminal record.

Childhood Care

Andre was the youngest of Alyssa and Derek’s six children and their only son. His contamination fears, sensory sensitivities, fixed routines, and distress over moved or shared objects shaped the household long before anyone identified obsessive-compulsive disorder. Alyssa learned the conditions under which he could move through a morning, eat, share space, or recover from a trigger.

She also recognized the change in his speech rate. Andre already spoke quickly; as anxiety rose, his words accelerated, collided, and became difficult to understand. Alyssa learned to distinguish his ordinary precision from the point at which his speech outpaced his ability to regulate. Her other children learned parts of the same pattern, but Alyssa remained the person most fluent in it.

That knowledge carried a cost. Six children needed her, and Andre’s needs repeatedly took more of her time and vigilance than the household could spare without consequence. She loved him without qualification and was exhausted by the work of reaching him, two truths that remained present together.

Advocacy and Criminalization

Alyssa brought her knowledge of Andre to school meetings, probation offices, and intake encounters. She insisted that panic and ritual were signs of illness rather than deliberate misconduct. Institutional records nevertheless treated refusal, missed check-ins, and objections to procedures as noncompliance. Being right did not give her the authority to change those outcomes.

Andre later concluded that his family was safer while he remained confined. Alyssa’s continuing presence contradicted his belief that his family wanted protection through his absence. She did not deny the damage, fatigue, or fear his illness had brought into the home, but she continued to claim him as her son.

Continued Relationship During Incarceration

Alyssa, Derek, and Andre’s sisters visited when institutional access allowed, called, and kept money in his commissary account. Their support let Andre buy sealed food and hygiene products he could tolerate, as well as supplies for other residents. Through those visits, Alyssa maintained her bond with Andre as an adult at Patuxent; she had first learned to read his distress when he was a boy, before anyone had clinical language for his condition.

At Patuxent, Dr. Shah worked with Andre on the belief that the people he loved were safer without him. Alyssa’s continued advocacy, money, calls, and visits formed practical evidence that family contact had survived both the disorder and the institution.

Relationships Family Relationships Parent-Child Relationships Andre Moore Moore Family (Baltimore)