My Children Made me This Way

I have no idea where to begin. None what so ever. I have tons and tons of information. Maybe too much of it, I don’t know. What I do know is that I need to start someplace and I haven’t a clue where that place is.

I think for one thing for us, or me at least, even what is likely behaviors that are part of F’s Aspergers are just part of her personality to me. They are things that have been part of her since..well..forever..and so I have learned to cope with them. Learned to compensate and handle. Maybe F would have been diagnosed earlier if I hadn’t used the idea that all kids are diffrent and she was just my Wild One.  I think I am worried that because I have learned to handle her behaviors for the most part inside our family that maybe those things are actually hindering her. Maybe I haven’t given her the tools to cope properly. And in all actuality I don’t think we have been coping well. I think we have just been getting by.

We started her on Concerta last week for the ADHD, and the change has been immediate. A huge diffrence in her ablity to focus and pay attention in class. So much so that she missed her dose yesterday and her teacher wrote a note asking if she had. My mother however says F has lost her sparkle. I think my mother has lost her mind. I see a little girl who is far more focused and calm. I think she might understand it more if she saw how F struggles all the time, something she is not privy too. Living near someone, taking them for overnights is not living with, and unless you are living with it I don’t think you can see the entire picture. Their are a lot of things that no one else see’s.

F is high functioning and that makes me wonder how hard it is going to be to get her help once I know what help I need to get her. Everyone focuses on the more profound cases. And I can understand that, those kids are so hard to reach. Those families need so much support. Add to that that here I am at the begining of all this with a 7 year old. Almost all the focus for beinging treatment is on toddlers. Under fives. Yet another reason to feel like I screwed up. And anothre reason for me to be angery. I have been fighting for this for her since she was 3. Four years. Time wasted? Opportunities lost for her? Will it be harder to teach her coping skill and thearapies because she has already started the foundations, even if they are wrong ones. So many things to relearn. It’s about reteaching her to think, to learn.

And finding where to start. I feel like I am looking for the start of a thread in a huge tangled ball. 101 possablities and nothing is familiar. Nothing at all.

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