Pick a title any title. This post is going to hopefully be about the fact that I actually think I have adult onset ADHD (is there such a thing? If not I'm makin' it up dangit!!). But it also will trend largely towards covering all the reasons why I am a crappy mom.
Let me be VERY clear up front. This post is not a plaintive cry for assurance. I do not need a good Stuart Smalley intervention (confused? think "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone-it people like me). No need to send a helicopter team of mental health professionals rapelling onto the roof of my house to slap me around and make me feel better about myself - is that even possible? Not the helicopter team, the slapping around and feeling better. I need to believe its possible for a Chinook to appear in the sky and silently drop professional help onto my doorstep. Its kind of a long running fantasy of mine. I think it started in Clarksville where many nights the fly overs were so close and loud I was sure the soldiers were checking out our new gas grill or making sure my lawn was trimmed to the proper height.
Do you see the direction of this post? No? That is because I have ADHD!
Last month I had a meeting with Jake's developmental pediatrician up at UNC. That woman is amazing and a genius. If I ever win the lottery I'm going to hire her as my personal on call expert for all things Jake. Seriously even if I won the lottery I probably couldn't pay her what she is worth. She was on the board for the DSM V if that gives you any idea. And if you don't know what the DSM V is don't worry, we can't all be married to psychologists. Just trust me - its a big deal.
Soooooo, as we are sitting there talking she asks me where I think Jake got the ADHD from because, as she is sure I know, its usually an inherited thing. Well of course I acted like I knew that (just like I acted like my kids never jump more than one at a time on the trampoline or jump without my direct supervision ... as they are doing at this very moment... when she was concerned about our trampolining habits). And I thought for a split second and considered blaming it on Ryan, but honestly, if you've spent 5 minutes around him that is a tough sell. And she has. So I think she was just being nice when she asked me that.
So I have thought about that comment a lot since my time with her. And honestly it totally makes so many things fall into place. Like the constant state of near hysteria I live in when I have more than a few things on my to-do list because I am incapable of juggling many balls at once without dropping one. Or the fact that some very important paperwork that will make sure we have somewhere to LIVE in Kansas is sitting on top of my scanner ready to go, yet unsent. Or the fact that I started the year gung-ho to help get Reid ready for kindergarten with great plans that I even went so far as to develop and carry out for 5 days before I promptly forgot all about it (until today when his sweet teacher asked if she could meet with me next week to discuss, uh, I forget. But I bet it had to do with kindergarten readiness). Or the suggestions Dr. Awesome gave me for helping Jake that looked pretty much exactly like the list of ideas that she gave me last time that I had 100% forgot about until I referred back to my notes from that session (1.5 years ago!). Or that no matter how many books I buy for family devotions or alarms I set on my phone to remind me to do them I cannot for the life of me actually remember to do them. I could, seriously, go on and on.
And you are probably thinking "I do stuff like that all the time". And I'm sure we all do but I honestly think there is maybe a bit more to it for me. Or you are thinking "you have 4 kids" or "your husband is deployed" or "look at that another person that wants to have ADHD". Still I know lots of people who have 4 or more kids, who are often single parents and who are capable of carrying on a conversation and making dinner at the same time. Or remembering from point A to point B what the purpose of that 30 second walk across the house was. And its not like I'm NOT a total mess-o-rama when Ryan is home. In fact a couple weeks ago Jake's cub scout leader needed marbles for a den meeting. She was texting all the parents to see who had marbles. The fact that I was the only person who had some - and who had not in fact lost her marbles - was a major source of amusement for all of us. Talk about the least likely to succeed in keeping her marbles!
At this point my only plan when it comes to how to deal with my total scatter-brainedness is that I'm going to look seriously into some essential oils that will help with focus. I am 100% sold on the effectiveness of oils for treating a myriad of issues and I know there is something that can help me. I'll be sure to keep you posted. Well, if it works I will. If it doesn't I won't remember that I ever even wrote this post or that I had planned to do something about it. Until I sit down to write a very similar post 6 months from now and it all sounds eerily familiar.
But before I go let me tell you what I really want to
No comments:
Post a Comment