Make mine a grande
God, help me to hear you today, help me to listen, stay beside me and keep safe. Help me to know what is right and help me to do what is right. Be my strength, my love and my friend.
It's 8:15 and the kids are off to school. Monday is upon us. I need some coffee. I really need to view that video about how to operate theAthena Barista we got last year from my mom as a birthday/housewarming/birthday/anniversary gift. My husband can use it but I am intimidated , I once exploded chestnuts in the oven, I know how WRONG things can go when you don't know what you are doing. As much as I love a good latte, any coffee maker that requires a manual, video, traning class or which could kill you if improperly operated is porbably a bad idea in my hands.
I am pondering the great imponderables today. My daughter has been recently diagnosed with ADHD. I know that most people think that's a catch all diagnosis, that it's a scam by educators to medicate our kids into oblivion, but those people probably have not really watched someone suffer with this problem. I have seen a bright and outgoing young lady become withdrawn, depressed, angry and progressively more beaten down every day with failure. It's hard enough just being a kid but being a kid who never gets a break, never wins, never even gets ahead, that's terrible to watch. I did not really want to see her on medication, but we decided to try and see how she responded. It's not a miracle but she sure is better than she was. She could not sit down to finish one single assignment, now she does her schoolwork of her own volition. It's not that she wouldn't, she couldn't. We tried for 6 years to make her want to do it, thinking she was just being lazy or stubborn or whatever. You keep thinking, at some point the price will get so high, she'll have to decide to get her act together. When the cost becomes so high that you aren't willing to pay it, never mind what she is willing to pay, that's when you say, there has got to be something deeper going on.
I am certain that just like any other treatment, some people will misuse it, abuse it, but don't let that become a reason to avoid treating a problem that can be treated. Especially with mental and emotional health. I have watched famly members run their lives into the ground because neither they, nor their caretakers knew or wanted to address their problems. Things may get better but sometimes they don't and when they don't , more lives that just one's own are affected. Physical health is easy to see, especially when we lose it, but mental health, that we hide away, like the closet of stuff we all have (except for those perfect people who have no closet crammed with stuff). Hurrah for the people who don't have any issues. For everyone else, look inside once in a while. examine what crap we carry around, if it's really ugly, get some help getting rid of it, if it's just out of date or doesn't fit, take it to Goodwill, burn it, whatever works. We cling to these attitudes and opinions as if they were jewels, sometimes they are, but if they are not helping you to get healthy, stronger, kinder or more than you are right now, are they worth carrying around? I read in the Sunday fishwrapper, (in Margie Boule's column I think), about a woman with "issues" whose therapist suggested she carry around a chair to represent the chair of anger she had been sitting in for years (her description and quite justified in her own words). This chair was helping her to decide if what she was hauling around was worth the effort it took to haul. She is still working that out. I like that, a concrete way to clutch the less tangible emotional luggage in our lives.
I did not want my daughter to be medicated, to be ill, I really wanted her to fix it, with my help. That was not working. I hope that the next time a problem comes up, I don't walk around with a stick beating it to death before I go ask for help.
Ask your doctor, as a friend, educate yourself. Ask God, if you know him, he will help you find out what you need, if you don't know him, ask him to make himself known.
It's 8:15 and the kids are off to school. Monday is upon us. I need some coffee. I really need to view that video about how to operate theAthena Barista we got last year from my mom as a birthday/housewarming/birthday/anniversary gift. My husband can use it but I am intimidated , I once exploded chestnuts in the oven, I know how WRONG things can go when you don't know what you are doing. As much as I love a good latte, any coffee maker that requires a manual, video, traning class or which could kill you if improperly operated is porbably a bad idea in my hands.
I am pondering the great imponderables today. My daughter has been recently diagnosed with ADHD. I know that most people think that's a catch all diagnosis, that it's a scam by educators to medicate our kids into oblivion, but those people probably have not really watched someone suffer with this problem. I have seen a bright and outgoing young lady become withdrawn, depressed, angry and progressively more beaten down every day with failure. It's hard enough just being a kid but being a kid who never gets a break, never wins, never even gets ahead, that's terrible to watch. I did not really want to see her on medication, but we decided to try and see how she responded. It's not a miracle but she sure is better than she was. She could not sit down to finish one single assignment, now she does her schoolwork of her own volition. It's not that she wouldn't, she couldn't. We tried for 6 years to make her want to do it, thinking she was just being lazy or stubborn or whatever. You keep thinking, at some point the price will get so high, she'll have to decide to get her act together. When the cost becomes so high that you aren't willing to pay it, never mind what she is willing to pay, that's when you say, there has got to be something deeper going on.
I am certain that just like any other treatment, some people will misuse it, abuse it, but don't let that become a reason to avoid treating a problem that can be treated. Especially with mental and emotional health. I have watched famly members run their lives into the ground because neither they, nor their caretakers knew or wanted to address their problems. Things may get better but sometimes they don't and when they don't , more lives that just one's own are affected. Physical health is easy to see, especially when we lose it, but mental health, that we hide away, like the closet of stuff we all have (except for those perfect people who have no closet crammed with stuff). Hurrah for the people who don't have any issues. For everyone else, look inside once in a while. examine what crap we carry around, if it's really ugly, get some help getting rid of it, if it's just out of date or doesn't fit, take it to Goodwill, burn it, whatever works. We cling to these attitudes and opinions as if they were jewels, sometimes they are, but if they are not helping you to get healthy, stronger, kinder or more than you are right now, are they worth carrying around? I read in the Sunday fishwrapper, (in Margie Boule's column I think), about a woman with "issues" whose therapist suggested she carry around a chair to represent the chair of anger she had been sitting in for years (her description and quite justified in her own words). This chair was helping her to decide if what she was hauling around was worth the effort it took to haul. She is still working that out. I like that, a concrete way to clutch the less tangible emotional luggage in our lives.
I did not want my daughter to be medicated, to be ill, I really wanted her to fix it, with my help. That was not working. I hope that the next time a problem comes up, I don't walk around with a stick beating it to death before I go ask for help.
Ask your doctor, as a friend, educate yourself. Ask God, if you know him, he will help you find out what you need, if you don't know him, ask him to make himself known.
posted by madmom at 8:14 AM
1 Comments:
Sweetie, I know, I know the pain that you and your hubby have gone through. You know that I'm not a proponent of drugs until and unless all else have failed and we were at that point. So far, all I've heard are glowing reports, out of the many, many kids that are diagnoised, your child was certainly a textbook case.
You know my prayers go with you and yours, your child is now getting some praise instead of nothing but negative attention. In the overall scheme of things, it will all work out.
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