Thoughts on Thursday

 

I know that my kids issues are not my fault.

I know that Child1 is genetically predisposed to ADHD.

I know that Autism is a spectrum disorder.

I know there is nothing that I could have done to prevent these issues.

I know that their issues can be managed and in some instances, certain behaviours can be corrected.

I know that they will both be fully functioning adults.

And yet.

I find myself wondering if there is ANYTHING that I could have done to prevent this.  I wonder if it is something that I ate when I was pregnant. I wonder if  I should have breastfed for longer. I wonder if I should have refused pain meds during labour. Intellectually I know that there is nothing that I could have done to prevent any of this. But I still can’t help wondering.

I cannot fathom that there are these problems and that there aren’t really any solutions except to just continue to contain/manage the problem. I really battle with this because I am generally very practical. I have always believed that for every problem there is a solution and now I am in a situation where things simply don’t work that way.

And I wonder about my wonky genes.  Although our Neuro thinks that I’m not a candidate, I’m going to have myself tested for Fragile X syndrome in the next few weeks. Maybe I’ll be able to make peace and finally move on once I have some form of result?

There is definitely ADD on both sides of the family. I have 2 older cousins who are mentally challenged – though I don’t know any details about the full extent of their challenges.

I wonder about what the future holds for kids like mine. Will they forever be boxed? Will they forever be labelled by society? Will they be thought of as “less than?”

I wonder what they will be like in relationships. Child1 is battling at the moment with social skills. There is only so much I can do to help him – the rest is up to him. Child2 is anti-social and if he didn’t have this diagnosis – this label, then I would have assumed that he was a loner or an introvert. It really wouldn’t have been an issue to me because I get that we are all different.  He can handle having people in his space only up to a point until he needs a timeout.

I wonder what kind of partners they will get. I wonder what life will be like for my grandchildren. I know that this is not a very pc thing to say but at this point in time  I would be happy if my children don’t have any kids of their own. Surely the wonky genes need to be stopped in their tracks somewhere along the line?

I wonder. I wonder if. I wonder when. I wonder how. These are thoughts that are constantly swimming in my mind.

I know of adults with ADD who cope really well but I must be honest, I have never ever met an adult with Autism or Aspergers or any form of spectrum disorder.

Do you know of any adults who cope with ADHD or Aspergers or Autism? Is there really a place for my children in this harsh world that we live in? Am I going to have to manage them until I die?

Sigh. I really need a holiday from my brain that is working OVERTIME with all this stuff.

 

 

Random updates on a Spring Day

Happy Spring Day!

As is tradition in Cape Town, it rained today! Showers of blessings are on the way and we will probably be getting more rain. I really hope we get lots and lots of rain this month. We have had the most brilliant winter ever (cool and warm, sunny days) but this does present the possibility of water restrictions in summer. Not ideal at all.

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I have written a number of posts these past few days. Six in total. I believe that the posts that I wrote are well-written and VERY diplomatic. I haven’t published any of them as they have the potential to become offensive and inflammatory and I am not in the mood for people who are going to take things the wrong way and leave explosive comments. In other words, I am avoiding conflict because quite frankly I have enough drama in my life and I am feeling a bit fragile at the moment. Do you write posts that you don’t publish for fear of it being misinterpreted?

************************************************************************************I I was incredibly moved by this post that Cat wrote. PLEASE consider yourself extremely blessed if you don’t have to deal with a child who has challenges because it is pretty damn challenging and fulfilling and just KAK all at the same time. When I was done reading her post,  I wrote up something on how I eventually accepted my sons ADHD. I had tears streaming down my face as I realised how far we had come. Will publish it early next week because it simply doesn’t work for Spring Day.

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Remember this post where I mentioned how I thought that magazines were a waste of money? Well. I bought a magazine the other day. For the crafts. And the recipes. For the first time EVER in the history of me buying a magazine, I feel that I have received my money’s worth. It took me hours to get through that magazine and I have looked at it every single day since then. I am trying not to feel old and weird about the fact that it was a YOUR FAMILY magazine

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I had planned to buy myself a Kindle or some form of E-reading device this year as my birthday gift to myself. For the moment that’s on hold, because I have no idea how I am meant to buy books without a credit card. Any ideas on this? Anyway. I have decided instead to buy myself a laminating machine. I have seen many crafty projects that I want to try which require laminating and I will probably laminate/label every single item in my house! You cannot begin to imagine how excited I am about this purchase. My entire family are shaking their heads and don’t know what to make of me. First knitting then running now laminating? I am either going off my rocker or getting so very old…

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I have struggled with my running. My body feels heavy. My legs feel heavy. I feel so thirsty ALL THE TIME! Yesterday I finished a full bottle of water (500ml), not even halfway into my run. I am not sure what to make of it. I wondered whether it could be my new running shoes? It could also be because I haven’t been vigilantly watching what I eat. It could be because I am PMS’ing. For now I am playing it by ear.

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Remember this post where I spoke about how tired I was ALL THE TIME? Well, I figured that it was part of PMS. After I had that time of the month I was fine and my energy levels were back to normal. I have felt THAT fatigue for the past few days again. I still haven’t bought the vitamins but I am considering an iron tablet with that multivitamin in the Clicks range.

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I had a horrible morning with my Tween boy. On Spring day! Ugh. I was just nasty and told him that he is a filthy pig!  Isn’t it wonderful that I don’t allow any form of name-calling in my house and yet I call him names? What a brilliant example I am. Such a fish wife Mama. He couldn’t find a certain item of clothing and was making us late. I walked into his room (to help him) and wanted to VOMIT! All I could smell was socks. Is this an ADHD thing or are boys really this filthy? He was in tears and I felt really bad. I did apologise to him earlier. And I made him clean that room.

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How has your week been so far? Did you have a good Spring Day?

On being conspicuous

I have always been very conspicuous.

When I was a child/teenager, I stood out because I was nothing like the other children around.

I listened to classical music, I was into art and poetry and I spent my money on books instead of clothing.

I hated sport. I played musical instruments. I watched independent art films. I was interested in much older men. When other teenagers were drinking beer I was having red wine.

Thinking back, I would now be considered eccentric (well, according to today’s teenage standards).

When I had passed the child/teenage phase I was conspicuous again, this time for very different reasons. I had my first child at 22 and was always the youngest Mommy at the PTA’s and at children’s parties etc. Then I got a bit older and I became conspicuous because my child was very loud and clearly hyperactive. I was embarrassed. It’s like Marcia says in her post. Who wants to be part of the statistics? Who wants to be the one  with THAT child?

Then I became conspicuous AGAIN. Because I had researched, sought help, prayed, meditated and finally decided to go against the grain (and the You and People magazines) and medicate my child. Then things settled down for a while. If I was conspicuous I wasn’t aware of it and learned to ignore.

I had a second child and then became conspicuous AGAIN!  Firstly because my kids have a 7 year age gap between them – something which people find fascinating. I was asked the other day if I have them both by the same man!  And secondly,  because my 2^nd child appeared to have developmental delays. He only walked when he was 16 months old. He has only just started talking (he’s 3.5 now). He still wears a nappy (hopefully we can finally get rid of it now that he can tell me that he needs to poo or whatever). He is eccentric in his own way (will do a post on this soon) and this is something that I LOVE about him. Anyway. People comment. They ask questions. Some know exactly how to do this – let’s face it, being diplomatic is a skill and some people need to fine-tune their sensitivity gland. Some of them mean well. Some of them pass nasty comments. Some of them are downright ignorant. And nosey.

To be honest, when it happens I don’t think anything of it. It simply is what it is. I embrace it and may actually revel in it if I am being conspicuous in a good way. It is only when I sit down and think about it that I realise just how much I loathe it. It may not come across this way on my blog but in real life I am very shy. I don’t like unnecessary attention – especially for the wrong reasons.

I have learned to deal with it. If I am comfortable being conspicuous in a particular situation, then I go with the flow and embrace it. If I am not comfortable, I withdraw. I no longer take my Toddler to birthday parties or gatherings where there are children of the same age (unless it’s family) and I don’t take my ADHD boy to places which clearly don’t work for him and his personality. I don’t want to make my children the centre of attention for the wrong reasons and I don’t want to have to answer questions about them ALL THE TIME.

For me, the interesting thing is this:

My kids don’t realise that they are conspicuous. They are VERY unaware of the fact that they are indirectly drawing attention to me or to themselves for that matter.

Which brings me to a conclusion of sorts:

Grownups are the problem. They have issues and they need to get  a life. They look for drama where there isn’t any. They bring the issue of being conspicuous to the fore and need to either learn to mind their own business or fine-tune their sensitivity gland.

That is all.

I am linking up with Claudia on this post.

We need friends

My DH and I don’t really have many couples as friends. I think that a number of factors have contributed to this – I’ve even created a list:

• We have had a difficult few years and some people (people who you think are your friends) can’t cope with it when you are feeling too low to party with them so they stay away. And once things get better and they start coming back then my DH and I prefer to not worry with them because they ran a mile when we really needed SOME kind of emotional support.
• Many of our party soldier friends don’t have kids so they can’t understand that we are not available at a moment’s notice to go out. I don’t have a shortage of babysitters but that doesn’t mean that I want to take advantage of their kindness and saddle them with my kids at the last minute. Besides, weekends are the only times when we have block periods of quality time with our kids so we actually prefer to plan our lives around this.
• Some of our friends can’t cope with my Tween boys ADHD issues. I get that, so I tend to invite them to our place instead of going around to their houses because I do relax more and find it easier to manage him in his own space. The problem with this is that things tend to start becoming one-sided and I eventually stop doing this because surely if they are our friends then they will at least try to learn something about ADHD and try to understand why we do what we do?
• Our lifestyles have changed. We no longer enjoy going out at night and prefer to do stuff together with other families – usually during the day. We want to do braais and long lunches and things like that. We are done with clubbing and all nighters.
• Family life and working full-time does tend to keep us and everyone else VERY BUSY.
• I find that we have unconsciously “broken up” with a number of our friends because our value systems have changed over the years. We have grown and it just seems like some of our friends haven’t (or maybe we have all grown in different areas of our lives) so we end up having very little in common and having very little to talk about.
• Some of our friends live far from us so it is not logistically possible to socialise more than once a year or whatever.

There is another big reason but I prefer to discuss that in a post tomorrow.

My DH and I don’t really need people to have a good time. We have a lot of fun together and enjoy one another’s company, but it would be nice to go out on a double date or whatever at least once a month or so. We were talking about it and we kind of miss having other couples as friends. To be honest, I have no idea how to even begin to make other “couple” or “family” friends.  I must actually ask him what he would suggest in terms of us making new friends. Where does one even start?

Do you and your partner socialise a lot? Do you have many couple or family-type friends? How on earth does one make friends at this age without going through the motions of “do they like us and will they call again”?