well, it's official - i have adhd. do you think anyone would notice if i added those after BSc? he also said he suspected that i am in a mild depression. interesting. i knew this winter was harder than it should have been. he said he didn't have a lot to compare to, since he's only seen me for 3 appointments, but he said to mention it to the treating psychiatrist he's referred me to. he also mentioned the term 'affective spectrum disorder' so i'm looking into what that means. new studies seem to indicate that there is a generational link that is possible. i know i've seen it in both liam's and my heritage, and poor pink and buck seem to be as similar to our afflictions too...
i'm excited to get into treatment. hopefully the woman he recommended will take me as a patient. if not my options aren't that great, so if you remember and have the time please pray i can get into the one he recommended (and that the medication and life management will help get my focus back).
thanks!
Showing posts with label ADD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ADD. Show all posts
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
out of the loop
well i now have access to my computer again, but no time. my bloglines are stuffed with what i'm sure are wonderful posts by you all, but i have no time to sit and ponder, enjoy and connect, let alone blog myself.
i've been sleeping much better and don't have the early morning solitude lately, and my days are a blur.
i don't even know what to type to catch you all up on my life this past month. all i know is that this pace is affecting me, i love the community part of it, but i really loathe the lack of contemplative time and serenity.
to that end i am headed to an OA meeting today, my first in years. my eating is out of whack again, and our recovery group at church isn't helping. i'm co-facilitating a group starting next week and i know if i don't get my act together i'm really going to fall apart.
how do you all do it all? my house looks like a cyclone has passed through (one that drops a granola-like substance everywhere...) liam is taking off the first week in may, and we're just hanging around here - i'm hoping that will smooth things out a bit for me too.
i can't remember the last time i've felt so overwhelmed by life. i have my first appointment today with the psychiatrist at the learning center to hopefully get a handle on a diagnosis for my learning disorder and possible add, adhd... that will bring a lot of calm for me, knowing i'm not going/have been crazy about my brain.
well ya'll, anybody got some cliff notes to catch up on blog posts? i can't see any time in the foreseeable future that i'll get some leisurely days to catch up on the people that i love, let alone the ones who challenge me or inspire me. (not that those of you i love are left out of the group of challenging/inspiring writers!) i know most of it will slow down in a short bit (couple of weeks) and i'm not adding anything new to the mix, it's just very overwhelming for this time.
have a great day! god's peace on us all!
i've been sleeping much better and don't have the early morning solitude lately, and my days are a blur.
i don't even know what to type to catch you all up on my life this past month. all i know is that this pace is affecting me, i love the community part of it, but i really loathe the lack of contemplative time and serenity.
to that end i am headed to an OA meeting today, my first in years. my eating is out of whack again, and our recovery group at church isn't helping. i'm co-facilitating a group starting next week and i know if i don't get my act together i'm really going to fall apart.
how do you all do it all? my house looks like a cyclone has passed through (one that drops a granola-like substance everywhere...) liam is taking off the first week in may, and we're just hanging around here - i'm hoping that will smooth things out a bit for me too.
i can't remember the last time i've felt so overwhelmed by life. i have my first appointment today with the psychiatrist at the learning center to hopefully get a handle on a diagnosis for my learning disorder and possible add, adhd... that will bring a lot of calm for me, knowing i'm not going/have been crazy about my brain.
well ya'll, anybody got some cliff notes to catch up on blog posts? i can't see any time in the foreseeable future that i'll get some leisurely days to catch up on the people that i love, let alone the ones who challenge me or inspire me. (not that those of you i love are left out of the group of challenging/inspiring writers!) i know most of it will slow down in a short bit (couple of weeks) and i'm not adding anything new to the mix, it's just very overwhelming for this time.
have a great day! god's peace on us all!
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
true confessions
i LOVE books. i spend any free money i have on them, surround myself with them and hunt for them in 2nd hand stores and garage sales. i love the way they smell, feel and open my world to everything possible.
i have a horrible habit. i love to start a new book. it's like meeting a new friend. i'm almost (well probably really) compulsive about it. to receive a new book and not open it's lovely well seems almost sacrilegious to me. i love books.
i have updated my sidebar, i hadn't changed it since i first installed it, so it was definitely time. but if i was honest there would be WAY more than 4 books that i am in process with right now. it's a horrible habit. i leave them scattered about my house, guiltily stealing a minute with a couple pages where ever i go. i tuck them into my purse in case there is a moment to spare waiting. i love waiting, it's a guilty pleasure, because i always have a book.
i am horrible at finishing books. it's like saying goodbye to a friend. i plow through fiction, that's never a problem, but non-fiction really feels like a deep conversation with a calibre of people that i rarely have in my life, so i cherish each moment (page) with them.
i guess i shouldn't feel so guilty, i do eventually get around to finishing them, but it can take up to a year because i have so many on the go. but that time spent with my author friends is sacred to me. it fills me up with knowledge, information and encouragement just at the right time i need it. it never fails.
when i pick up a book that i have set aside, or misplaced under a stack of other books and papers, it re-engages me at exactly the right place. i probably wouldn't have been ready for that gem if i had plowed through it non-stop. sometimes it's only a paragraph, but it's exactly the RIGHT paragraph, at exactly the RIGHT time.
so, i confess, i'm a messy reader. i regret the sad parting of a finished book like the wave to a friend i don't know if i'll ever see again. i know i can go back and re-read, but it's just not the same. i love books.
i have a horrible habit. i love to start a new book. it's like meeting a new friend. i'm almost (well probably really) compulsive about it. to receive a new book and not open it's lovely well seems almost sacrilegious to me. i love books.
i have updated my sidebar, i hadn't changed it since i first installed it, so it was definitely time. but if i was honest there would be WAY more than 4 books that i am in process with right now. it's a horrible habit. i leave them scattered about my house, guiltily stealing a minute with a couple pages where ever i go. i tuck them into my purse in case there is a moment to spare waiting. i love waiting, it's a guilty pleasure, because i always have a book.
i am horrible at finishing books. it's like saying goodbye to a friend. i plow through fiction, that's never a problem, but non-fiction really feels like a deep conversation with a calibre of people that i rarely have in my life, so i cherish each moment (page) with them.
i guess i shouldn't feel so guilty, i do eventually get around to finishing them, but it can take up to a year because i have so many on the go. but that time spent with my author friends is sacred to me. it fills me up with knowledge, information and encouragement just at the right time i need it. it never fails.
when i pick up a book that i have set aside, or misplaced under a stack of other books and papers, it re-engages me at exactly the right place. i probably wouldn't have been ready for that gem if i had plowed through it non-stop. sometimes it's only a paragraph, but it's exactly the RIGHT paragraph, at exactly the RIGHT time.
so, i confess, i'm a messy reader. i regret the sad parting of a finished book like the wave to a friend i don't know if i'll ever see again. i know i can go back and re-read, but it's just not the same. i love books.
Monday, August 02, 2004
i learned something about myself yesterday
whoa. ever have a realization that is so big it takes you 2 days to absorb it?
i was just reading jen's blog posting about parenting madeline and i realized that the 'part one' that happened yesterday at the baptism was only 'part 1' and the 'part 2' just hit me. i marked her blog post unread and have started to type.
my eyes are closed as i type wanting not to miss any of the thoughts that have just opened up before me.
yesterday i was explaining pink's dyscalculia to a friend and how it effects her in other ways than just math. i started to tell of the difficulties with fingering on an instrument, dance steps, mixing up names and faces, being unable to make change (money) and other social difficulties. i bemoaned the fact that buck is able to follow directions, even complicated ones, and he's entering first grade this year, but pink just can't seem to grasp even simple 3 part directions.
cleaning her room ends up looking like play, and it gets me so frustrated. i come back and it's still awash in toys, books and mess. i think 'oh, you're so a.d.d., when are you going to figure this out?' i say 'pinkie, we need to do one thing at a time. first, pick up all the polly pockets and put them away'...
even accomplishing this is a struggle. she's a bright, capable girl, why is this so hard? and then it hits me yesterday - oh, this is the dyscalulia. this is why - she is overwhelmed and it affects her so drastically that she feels frozen. spinning.
then i realized 'like me'. i too can't seem to maintain a complicated mental list of things to do, it escapes me, my mind seems to have holes where the information just drops out, and so i spin around mentally trying to find the information, instead of completing the task at hand. so i've learned new ways of living, written notes, lists and check boxes. i never realized that i was doing this to compensate for the dyscalculia. i just thought everbody did 'lists'. i hadn't a clue that they were my lifeline.
case and point - yesterday our church had it's normal services and then we all headed out to a friend's lake for a picnic and a baptism (33 people were baptized, it was glorious). getting out of the house yesterday was hell for me. i can manage this poorly on regular occasions, but add 2 potluck items, swimming clothes and towels for the whole family, sunblock, picnic chairs and my sunday school lesson and i am a raving lunatic. character flaws... that was all i saw. i am lazy, incapable and just not as good as all of these other women who can pull this stuff off with grace and aplomb. i'm a sweaty, swearing, exhausted mess before the day has even started. how does this happen?
that ah-ha moment began yesterday at the picnic and has grown into the one that i had this morning reading jen, hearing myself in her words about mothering daughters, and then i have the next wave of the lightbulb while thinking about parenting pink.
i realize 'oh my gosh - it's me. this affects me this way too!'
i am a horrible housekeeper, overwhelmed and so distracted. i can't clean if someone else isn't around to keep me motivated. it's so immature, so broken, so childish. i never realized until RIGHT NOW (as i weep) that the spinning frozen feeling that i have, being overwhelmed and discouraged is part too of this baffling disorder of dyscalculia.
i've blogged before of the ah-ha experience i had in figuring out that i had a learning disability. i always just pegged myself as lazy and inept. figuring out that it's the way my brain works/doesn't work that has given me so much freedom, redeemed so much of my past scholastic shame and disappointment with myself.
this new realization is redeeming my inability to give myself a break with some character defects i have abhorred about myself. whoa. i can barely type for the weeping. i am awash with healing, redemption and grace. i can feel it pouring over me.
this is another reason why i isolate myself. to leave the house has so much involved in it - it's so mentally exhausting that i truly can't see how it's worth the effort, so i don't bother. i can manage myself, but managing others too is truly overwhelming, and leaves me screeching and giving orders. knowing now why that happens is so freeing. so fixable - so completely and utterly redeemable.
i also isolated by not having others into my home. i tell my friends that they can either have my house clean and a good meal, but me looking sweaty and bedraggled, or a good meal, and a sane host, and my house looking bedraggled... to get all three of them 'together' is such an enormous feat that i truly am amazed at those women who do it so well, and actually enjoy it! it has been a great source of shame for me. enormous confusion and something i laid at the feet of my parents so many times for their inability to prepare me for life.
today i have hope. i am a bright, capable woman. i now can lick this. i now can give myself some grace. explain to those around me who always looked at me kind of sideways when i'd complain about the overwhelming feeling i had in just 'getting there'. whoa. i'm still amazed and trying to get my head around this.
i realize that my mother (the other bobbie) and my grandmother probably both had this unidentified 'curse' too. it was isolating and baffling. THIS IS HUGE. it explains so much. it's like 6 pieces of the puzzle of my life have fallen into place this morning. i hope what i'm writing is even coherent. i know it's been so good for me to process this, i'm exhausted! :) wow. this is gonna change my life.
if you are having any 'ah ha' moments as you read this you might want to do some reading on dyscalulia. i think it's far more prevalent than anyone has ever acknowledged before. i truly think it's a major cause of much childhood/teenage angst and poor self confidence, and possibly a doorway to many addictive, comforting and consoling behaviors.
here are some links that i've found. if you find any more PLEASE email me - for myself and my daughter i'm trying to find out all that i can. great britian is farthest ahead in the research field, and i'm praying that more funds and research will be going into the works stateside soon. thank you!
dyscalculia symptoms
dyscalculia.org - best information available online
great britian Research and publishing on dyscalculia
dyscalculia interest group (great britian)
recognizing dyscalculic problems
learning disabilities online
assessment and testing materials
the mathematical brain
i will add any and all links that you know of, so please email me at emergingsideways at gmail dot com thank you!
i was just reading jen's blog posting about parenting madeline and i realized that the 'part one' that happened yesterday at the baptism was only 'part 1' and the 'part 2' just hit me. i marked her blog post unread and have started to type.
my eyes are closed as i type wanting not to miss any of the thoughts that have just opened up before me.
yesterday i was explaining pink's dyscalculia to a friend and how it effects her in other ways than just math. i started to tell of the difficulties with fingering on an instrument, dance steps, mixing up names and faces, being unable to make change (money) and other social difficulties. i bemoaned the fact that buck is able to follow directions, even complicated ones, and he's entering first grade this year, but pink just can't seem to grasp even simple 3 part directions.
cleaning her room ends up looking like play, and it gets me so frustrated. i come back and it's still awash in toys, books and mess. i think 'oh, you're so a.d.d., when are you going to figure this out?' i say 'pinkie, we need to do one thing at a time. first, pick up all the polly pockets and put them away'...
even accomplishing this is a struggle. she's a bright, capable girl, why is this so hard? and then it hits me yesterday - oh, this is the dyscalulia. this is why - she is overwhelmed and it affects her so drastically that she feels frozen. spinning.
then i realized 'like me'. i too can't seem to maintain a complicated mental list of things to do, it escapes me, my mind seems to have holes where the information just drops out, and so i spin around mentally trying to find the information, instead of completing the task at hand. so i've learned new ways of living, written notes, lists and check boxes. i never realized that i was doing this to compensate for the dyscalculia. i just thought everbody did 'lists'. i hadn't a clue that they were my lifeline.
case and point - yesterday our church had it's normal services and then we all headed out to a friend's lake for a picnic and a baptism (33 people were baptized, it was glorious). getting out of the house yesterday was hell for me. i can manage this poorly on regular occasions, but add 2 potluck items, swimming clothes and towels for the whole family, sunblock, picnic chairs and my sunday school lesson and i am a raving lunatic. character flaws... that was all i saw. i am lazy, incapable and just not as good as all of these other women who can pull this stuff off with grace and aplomb. i'm a sweaty, swearing, exhausted mess before the day has even started. how does this happen?
that ah-ha moment began yesterday at the picnic and has grown into the one that i had this morning reading jen, hearing myself in her words about mothering daughters, and then i have the next wave of the lightbulb while thinking about parenting pink.
i realize 'oh my gosh - it's me. this affects me this way too!'
i am a horrible housekeeper, overwhelmed and so distracted. i can't clean if someone else isn't around to keep me motivated. it's so immature, so broken, so childish. i never realized until RIGHT NOW (as i weep) that the spinning frozen feeling that i have, being overwhelmed and discouraged is part too of this baffling disorder of dyscalculia.
i've blogged before of the ah-ha experience i had in figuring out that i had a learning disability. i always just pegged myself as lazy and inept. figuring out that it's the way my brain works/doesn't work that has given me so much freedom, redeemed so much of my past scholastic shame and disappointment with myself.
this new realization is redeeming my inability to give myself a break with some character defects i have abhorred about myself. whoa. i can barely type for the weeping. i am awash with healing, redemption and grace. i can feel it pouring over me.
this is another reason why i isolate myself. to leave the house has so much involved in it - it's so mentally exhausting that i truly can't see how it's worth the effort, so i don't bother. i can manage myself, but managing others too is truly overwhelming, and leaves me screeching and giving orders. knowing now why that happens is so freeing. so fixable - so completely and utterly redeemable.
i also isolated by not having others into my home. i tell my friends that they can either have my house clean and a good meal, but me looking sweaty and bedraggled, or a good meal, and a sane host, and my house looking bedraggled... to get all three of them 'together' is such an enormous feat that i truly am amazed at those women who do it so well, and actually enjoy it! it has been a great source of shame for me. enormous confusion and something i laid at the feet of my parents so many times for their inability to prepare me for life.
today i have hope. i am a bright, capable woman. i now can lick this. i now can give myself some grace. explain to those around me who always looked at me kind of sideways when i'd complain about the overwhelming feeling i had in just 'getting there'. whoa. i'm still amazed and trying to get my head around this.
i realize that my mother (the other bobbie) and my grandmother probably both had this unidentified 'curse' too. it was isolating and baffling. THIS IS HUGE. it explains so much. it's like 6 pieces of the puzzle of my life have fallen into place this morning. i hope what i'm writing is even coherent. i know it's been so good for me to process this, i'm exhausted! :) wow. this is gonna change my life.
if you are having any 'ah ha' moments as you read this you might want to do some reading on dyscalulia. i think it's far more prevalent than anyone has ever acknowledged before. i truly think it's a major cause of much childhood/teenage angst and poor self confidence, and possibly a doorway to many addictive, comforting and consoling behaviors.
here are some links that i've found. if you find any more PLEASE email me - for myself and my daughter i'm trying to find out all that i can. great britian is farthest ahead in the research field, and i'm praying that more funds and research will be going into the works stateside soon. thank you!
dyscalculia symptoms
dyscalculia.org - best information available online
great britian Research and publishing on dyscalculia
dyscalculia interest group (great britian)
recognizing dyscalculic problems
learning disabilities online
assessment and testing materials
the mathematical brain
i will add any and all links that you know of, so please email me at emergingsideways at gmail dot com thank you!
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