WtFW - What the Fuck Wednesday - No 1

In the spirit of Wordless Wednesday and Thankful Thursday, I’m starting a linky thingummyjig.

OK not in the spirit of those because THOSE linky memes are sweet and nice and wholesome and don’t include swearing.

Let’s try that again.

In the spirit of Lose Your Shit Friday (thank you Miss Cinders for that wonderful chance to rant and generally SWEAR AT EVERYTHING THAT’S SHITTING YOU RIGHT NOW let your hair down), I’m starting a linkfest of epically snazbig proportions.

It’s called What the Fuck Wednesday (WtFW) and it’s your chance to share moments from the week that have made you:

 

Or

 

Or generally throw your head back and cry out in a desperate plea to the universe – WHYYY??????

Here’s my first What the Fuck Wednesday post.*

What the fuck was I thinking?

This week I may or may not have risen from my bed without first inserting my brain. Yes, I am the winningest at putting half a face full of blusher on before I realised. I thought I was putting on mineral foundation. Further proof that I’m not a beauty blogger, and that I shouldn’t be allowed out. Of bed.

What the fuck were they thinking?

 Hedge trimming; you’re doing it wrong.

What the fuck colour was I supposed to wear this week?

This week saw several extremely worthy causes request our participation in a variety of colour-themed clothing days. Actually that should be day, because three happened at once.

There was white for survivors of child abuse, purple for LGBT youth and green for bilbies. All these causes are meaningful to me (I love those long-nosed furry little fuckers**) but if I wear all these at once I'm going to end up wearing the colour "vomit".

I can't see any cause wanting to claim that one.

Cause organisers: please check what else is happening on your colour day, or choose something else.

Like "wear blusher as foundation" day to support adults with ADD. (Cough). Problem solved.

What the fuck is he holding?

This photo appeared on my screen a couple of weeks ago. I have a small screen, and the photo is clearly designed for a larger screen. I think it's an ad for furniture. Is it just me, or does it look like he’s cheerfully holding a gun to her head?


Let me know if you own this image.
Note to ad agency: FAIL

Just me?

Alrighty then.

Here are the rules for What the Fuck Wednesday:

1.       THERE ARE NO RULES***

2.       On Wednesdays****, blog about what’s made you go What the Everloving FUCK???? discombobulated you that week.

3.       Steal the What the Fuck Wednesday button from my sidebar, and stick it on your sidebar or in your post.

4.       Use the link below to link up to your What the Fuck Wednesday post (not just a link to your homepage).

5.       Pop over to everyone else who’s linked up, read, and go WTF! with them in their comments.*****

 

* Yes I KNOW it’s Monday today. What part of Rule 1 above did you not get?! Oh wait, you haven’t read that far yet. As you were.

** Bilbies. I’m referring to the bilbies. WTF were YOU thinking I meant?

*** Actually there are 5 rules. Maybe 4. WTF?

**** For Wednesdays, read “whatever day of the week it lands on the blog”. See Rule 1 above.

***** Have I finally managed to make the footnotes longer than the post? WIN! 

 

A love letter to my brain

Dear brain,

I love you.


It’s true, we’ve had our differences with ourself over the years. You’ve often let me down – sometimes horribly.

It’s taken me almost 44 years to fall in love with you, and it happened – unlike shampoo promises – overnight.

I’ve been finding things a bit tough the last few weeks. (See when I Lost My Shit). Things culminated in last Thursday’s Bingle.)

Last night I felt quite low. I’ve been trying to kick start you to get writing again but I was feeling seriously intimidated by my worldly, educated writer friends.

I remembered watching the radiant, charismatic Professor Karen R Brooks talking on film about her favourite books. I tried to picture myself answering the same questions the interviewer posed.

My favourite books? Umm. Doctor Who when I was a kid. Sara Douglass and some other fantasy writers whose names I can never remember. Some great books I’ve read. That I can’t remember. A book I read last week. No, can’t remember who it was by. It was about… something.

My answers wouldn’t be erudite, witty, full of wonderful examples of timeless classics and newly found wonders of the literary world, because I have a dysfunctional memory. How then, can I ever be a writer?

My darling brain, you have, at any given moment, at least four subjects of thought happening. Let’s call them tracks. Sometimes it’s more like eight tracks, but not in a cool-alternative-look-at-my-retro-stereo kind of way.

In a holy-god-how-can-I-keep-everything-in-my-head-at-once-and-not-have-a-melt-down kind of way.

And then I have a meltdown.

You’re filled with any number of internal conversations at once at any given time. Like now:

• Trying to focus on this post so that it doesn’t suck too much.
• Lamenting the tiny missing diamond in your ring.
• Wondering when you’ll get to see the next Game of Thrones episode and whether Tyrion will be in it and OMG WHY DID THEY TAKE THE KHALISI’S DRAGONS?
• On the alert for the sound of thumping feet as The Child comes storming in to demand food/drink/cuddles/help with Paper Mario on the Wii. (Ah yes here he comes. Writing about him must cast a Summon Sprog spell).
• Considering whether to wash clothes, given the craptastic Melbourne weather.

(And don’t think I didn’t notice that you made me open up the GoT Wiki to have browse in the middle of writing this post. Yes I know you needed to check the spelling of Khalisi but that doesn’t take 20 minutes.)

No wonder you go a bit funny when I add external conversations to these multiple internal ones. No wonder you often start one conversation and skip tracks during and end with a completely different conversation, giving everyone the shits confusing all and sundry.

Brain, you can’t learn in-depth information. You’ve made me a dilettante.

Or maybe a fairly rubbish polymath.

A half-arsed Renaissance Woman.

I know a little about a hell of a lot. Look up Jill of All Trades in the dictionary, my picture would be there. If I’d remembered to send it to them.

Looking back I see a lifetime of Anxiety Disorder and depression. You, my brain, have been on high alert in case you forget something for as long as I can remember.


I see difficulties with the most mundane domestic crap. I see the light, noise, frenetic activity of Saturday morning grocery shopping. I see the stress of keeping all those balls in the air while having four internal conversations, two external ones, filtering out all the other conversations around you and remembering to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I come home cranky, overstimulated and exhausted. Yay for weekends.

So here’s the deal. I forgive you for the challenges you’ve given me over the years.

The way you’ve left me feeling like an idiot, somehow different to everyone else. Somehow sub-standard.

Somehow not in the SMART PERSONS’ CLUB.

Somehow unable to do basic stuff everyone else finds easy.

I forgive you for being a disappointment compared to my highly educated, intelligent and spectacularly qualified family.

I forgive you because finally, I get it.

In the middle of the night, I had an epiphany. I realised that, well, actually, you’re my brain. My answers to those literary questions would be crap because I can’t remember anything. But they’d be my crap, in my voice. With a little dose of batshit crazy self-deprecating humour in there.

If I come across as a scattered, batshit crazy person instead of an intellectual, professional, intelligent individual, so what? Maybe THAT’S my brand. THAT’S my voice. Batshit crazy person with no memory.

A while ago I wrote about being truthful (and warts).

My truth is scattered across a canvas of chaos, anxiety, and unhealthy doses of Shiraz.

And that’s OK, because a four track mind has to be better than half-track one, right?

Brain, I love you because of all the things you do that make me different. I love my batshit crazy, convoluted, crowded internal landscape, and I’m going to embrace it.

I love you because you finally found my – our – voice. I don’t have to compare myself with anyone else anymore, I’m free. Free to be my dippy, hopeless, forgetful self.

I get YOU.

Which means I get me.

Love,
Me

PS – I tried to find photos for batshit and crazy but Microsoft clipart let me down. I think that's discriminatory. I blame the Republicans.


Have you told your brain you love it lately?

ADHD and other acronyms...

My son has ADHD. Or maybe High Functioning Autism. Or maybe he's just him.

This Easter has been challenging. His behaviour has been pushing me to my limits. So I thought it might do me some good to revisit something I wrote for another blog I tried to start but gave up on.

If you share your life with a child that has different needs, read on. You'll probably recognise yourself and I hope you can gain a bit of comfort from knowing you're not alone. Ever.

When The Child (TC) started school, he hadn't been exposed to a lot of kinder (pre-school) so we knew it would an interesting time. His experience in kinder was OK, although his carers had mentioned that he didn't seem to understand directions at all. He was already developing coping mechanisms, such as waiting to see what other kids did and copying them, rather than listening and following verbal instructions. Clever boy.

His confidence was terribly low, he hated even attempting new tasks and had regular meltdowns about them. He hated trying to learn his alphabet, or going anywhere near writing. I was concerned, but not worried.

So Prep year began. Along comes his first report.

TC is a quiet child in class.

I'm sorry, which child is this? Not mine? Did his report get mixed up with someone else's? He's many things but quiet isn't one of them. In fact, I'll be blogging very soon about just how much of an UN-QUIET CHILD he is.

We met his teacher and she mentioned concerns about his ability to take direction, to finish tasks, his confidence, his reading and writing, relating to other children, and so on. How interesting none of this ended up in ANY of his reports for the year. He was just "quiet in class".

Lesson No 1.1 - school reports are total bullshit. Don't believe anything they say.

Some internet research later and my partner (R) and I wondered whether TC had auditory processing issues. His behaviour fitted and he also fitted a probable clinical background for it - a child who had impaired hearing during language development (deafness due to glue ear). Off we went to a centre that assesses these things.

The assessment centre assessed him, did loads of tests on him, and generally enjoyed the $550 it cost us. When we met up for the feedback session, we got a bit of a shock.

Nope, no auditory processing issues. Perfecto in that department.

Oh, really?

Yes, but it looks like he has ADHD (Combined Type).

Oh, really? (Quiet weeping from me).

So here's a plan for how we'd like to treat him (feel free to mortgage your house again now to pay for it all).

Lesson No 1.2 - get a referral to a paediatrician before going to anyone else.

We were unimpressed by the response from the psychologist at the centre and even more unimpressed with the report. Unimpressed with a diagnosis given by someone who makes a shedload of money out of treating people with learning issues. Why had we not gone to a paediatrician first? Because we had no clue that was the process. I'm betting this isn't unusual. Off we went to the GP for a referral.

The paediatrician is an angel. She is totally wonderful. She confirmed the diagnosis.

Shit.

ADHD with a few autism spectrum behaviours on the side. Could have been worse. Could have had comorbid conditions. Ewww. Comorbidity is a terrible term and always makes me think of death. Actually they're just co-existing conditions that relate to each other. In the case of ADHD, it might be Dyslexia, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Conduct Disorder (CD)... you're getting the acronym idea now, right?

TC has ADHD Combined Type - so that's Attention Deficit Disorder, Hyperactivity Disorder (both together). This means that, compared to other children his age, he cannot concentrate, cannot sit still, cannot take instruction, constantly interrupts, cannot control impulses, has uncontrollable rages , talks constantly, cannot stand loud noises, must touch everything around him, forgets and loses everything, has hyper-focused periods, and so on.

At least now we know why as parents, this job seems harder for us that for others. I keep remembering snippets that now make sense.

Wow, he's the Energizer Bunny, isn't he?!

TC was about two and a half. Yes, he IS the Energizer Bunny.

Gosh, he's quite full on, isn't he?!

Ha! Yes.

Here's one thing I've learned in the last year and a half. When people stop, stare and point at you while your child bashes the crap out of you at SeaWorld...

Lesson No 1.3 - you are neither a crap parent, nor alone.

So then came Grade 1. We were dreading a new year. TC kept telling us how much he hated school. I told him not to peak too soon and wait till he’s 13 or 14 to get his hate on.

And then we were blessed with the most awesome teacher in the world, who we’ll refer to as Saint Mary. Saint Mary turned him around completely WITHIN THREE WEEKS. Saint Mary somehow got TC into Reading Recovery.

Holy crap my child can read!

Lesson No 1.4 – communicate with your child’s teacher at every opportunity and give them a chance to do right by your child.

Saint Mary got him talking in front of the class so well that he’s now a star example of how to do it. It was about time we managed to find a way to use his constant talking for good rather than evil.

We received THAT call: “Your child has been touching other children inappropriately.” I panicked and had a “shit my child is a sex offender” ten seconds or so.

Then I realised I know my son – he would have thought touching up another kid was HILARIOUS. Like a bum or poo joke in 3D. Thankfully that hasn't happened again.

Thanks to the gropeage we were asked to take TC to a shrink. More money... and now this expert disagrees with our paediatrician, and has diagnosed him with High Functioning Autism with a side salad of ADHD.

One good thing the shrink visit did - we found out that his IQ is normal. TC’s been told he’s not allowed to call himself stupid anymore, the doctor said so. Ha!

Lesson No 1.5 – don’t assume your ADHD kid is dumb just because they can’t perform tasks the same way as other kids.

By some miracle (and the grace of Saint Mary) TC completed Grade 1 almost on par with his peers. Big frigging sigh of relief. He's in Grade 2 now and has another good teacher so far. Phew.

This is the short version of life with a child with ADHD. It's really just the start of the journey. I hope it gives some hope to other parents of kids with different needs. It never gets easy but it often gets better.

One last thought – Jamie Oliver, amazing chef and TV personality, was in special needs programs at school and has ADHD. Awesome, huh?!

Ask me about my Attention Deficit Disorder. Or pie or my cat or a dog. I have a bike. Do you like TV? I saw a rock. Hi.

Squirrel!