You've Come a Long Way, Baby - Happy 16th

Oh Mary,

I can't believe that you turned 16 years old today.  My mind is filled with snapshots of all we've been through together.  You have been my greatest adventure, sometimes my greatest trial, always my greatest joy, and watching you continue to overcome the trials you've faced fills me with more pride than you will ever know.



You have taught me so much about parenting and life. How else would I know how to get royal blue fabric paint out of cream carpet. How to identify the sounds and smells of danger from across the house. How to listen to that mother's voice within just in time to catch a child who has decided to make a tightrope out of a bathrobe tie and traverse the distance from the crib to the bunk beds. How to unlock almost any door in record speed to stop you before you got into too much trouble.

You may be the most fearless person I know!

You taught me that while I may be a fearful person at heart, content to hide and operate in my little circle, there are things in this world worth fighting for. You, my dear, are one of them.You, facing your struggles, awoke the mother bear in me. Pushed me to be better, more dedicated, more courageous, persevere, fight both for you and for me.

Without you I would never know the power of a plastic pair of preschool scissors and that they could cut dollar bills into tiny strips or perfect squares out of metal mini blinds. For that matter I would never understand the value of your fierce independence.  Independence that made a little girl "problem solve" by taking those same scissors and cutting a huge strip of hair right off the top of your head to remove a comb that was stuck in it, giving yourself a reverse Mohawk.

I can see now that you needed that fierce independence. I can see now how that quality has served you in facing the litany of learning disabilities that you have had to face. I can see now how it helped you and continues to help you conquer them.

When we were doing the test shots for The Mighty Kubar and you were working the slate, you wrote the 5 backwards - I thought it was so funny when you started talking about all you dys-es.  As if it wasn't enough to have severe ADHD you came with your own special package.  Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia, Dyspraxia, auditory processing, sensory processing, motor processing, wow, what a list and you only see out of one eye. How does this all fit together? It all fits together in you. You are so much more than your disabilities, though I know that sometimes it seems like the struggle to push past them is the only thing you can see.

I almost hugged the school psychologist that did your last set of IEP evaluations.  Why? Because she saw a fraction of what I see.  She started by saying, "Mary is really intelligent, so intelligent that she has come up with incredible measures to compensate for her disorders."  That my dear is the truth.  So intelligent.  More intelligent than you may ever realize despite our repeated efforts to drill it into your head.  But what you have is more than intelligence. Your fierce determination and perseverance, your fixation or obsessions, whatever you want to label it, pushes you. Your intelligence combined with your determination, perseverance, dedication, fueled by that fierce independence makes you nearly unstoppable.

That fierceness has driven you from a place where you couldn't read to a place where you read all the time. You write, draw, paint, film, act, invent, create, dream, anything you want to do, you set your sights on and do it. No learning disability has ever stopped you from pursuing what you want. I love that about you.  I admire that about you.  And when people see you doing all the things your peers do with ease I wish they knew what it took, the monumental effort you make, the hours of speech and OT, and work that you have put into doing what others do with ease. The fact that they don't think twice about it is a compliment to you. You make it look easy, natural, like a skilled ice skater or gymnast who makes it look easy, but has put hours of effort into their skill.


I know some days you wish you were "normal" that all the aspects of life and social skills came easily. We've talked about it. Mary, normal is overrated. You are so much more than normal could ever hope to be. At the end of the day you have a foundation of qualities that will push you past what normal could ever hope or dream of achieving.  I know it because I have seen it in your strong, determined, beautiful blue eyes.

Happy 16th  Birthday!

You've come a long way, Baby! I look forward to the adventure ahead, to watch and enjoy all the places you go, all the dreams you'll reach for, all the goals you'll achieve.

Love,

Mum

An Inheritance from the Distracted King - Mastering Hyperfocus

Besides inheriting their ADHD from their father, the Distracted King, our children are benefiting from his years of experience and the many coping mechanisms that he has found to pay the heavy price tag of ADHD and open the great and marvelous gifts which it offers.

The King and I were talking today about hyperfocus, a quality of ADHD that can easily hijack the mind making it easy to get lost in ideas, creative ventures, and activities.  The conversation was inspired by a wonderful blogpost I read written by Zoe Kessler for Psych Central called A Hyperfocus Balance Sheet: Is Hyperfocus Worth it?  A wonderful breakdown of pros and cons to hyperfocus.  In the discussion the King said he considers hyperfocus one of the greatest qualities he gains from his ADHD.  It has taken a long time to get the balance just right, to master it rather than it controlling him, but now it's an asset that he uses in many aspects of daily life.

The benefits to my husband and our family are really hard to quantify but I have pinned down specifics of this sizable inheritance beyond the obvious financial benefits we have gained from his successful career.

The King has taught them to use hyperfocus to accomplish an unwanted, even hated task.  One of the hardest things for the ADHD mind to do is focus on something boring, uninteresting, or undesirable.  Unfortunately life is full of such tasks. Right now, for our kids, school is full of such tasks.  The King uses something that his mind wants to hyperfocus on as a carrot to get through the mundane and irritating.

We have a son, now a freshman in high school, who is a grammar freak.  Until we had him diagnosed with ADHD and medicated in the 1st grade he couldn't remember his alphabet. Then, like someone turned on a switch, he started reading.  Within a couple of months he was reading at a 6th grade level and much to the chagrin of the teachers and office staff he was correcting the spelling and grammar of the school newsletter and returning it each week.  Now this same son had to read a book in honors English, House on Mango Street.  It has been several months and he still randomly breaks out into rants about how horrible that book was to get through.  Why?  It has no grammar at all - just one run-on sentence.  The boy who can sit down and read a 400- 600 page book that he wants to read in a day or two was struggling to get through a page.

With the help of his father he learned how to hyperfocus on the task he didn't want to do so he could get to the one he wanted to do.  Reading chunks for the reward of reading chunks.  Important to note that you have to set limits on your pleasurable hyperfocus or you will easily get swept away.  In this case it was pages or chapters, sometimes it minutes or hours.  Today he used those same skills to write an essay for the same class.  Each time he uses the skills he is learning about managing his focus and engaging the ability to hyperfocus he is able to do more and more on his own without the Kings help of guidance.

The King has taught them how to establish a state of hyperfocus, how to get into the groove.  Getting into that hyperfocus state of mind is easy when it's where your mind wants to go but when it doesn't want to go there it can be very difficult.  The King has certainly proven it can be done.  He has also passed the process onto our children. Recently we found out we had to move, the King took one of our daughters out to the garage, surveying it he said to her, "Mary, I need to know what is in this garage.  I need someone who can get lost in this job."  Other than a few parameters he didn't tell her how to do the job. She strung up Christmas lights, found an old boombox we thought was dead forever, fixed it, blasted music, created a system for finding and cataloging everything in the garage, and went to town.

As each day passed she employed the first lesson listed above by doing other chores that needed to be done and then headed back to the garage.  The King is still teaching her the lesson, helping her learn to take breaks, praising her work and progress, helping her see the value of the time and effort she is putting into the task, and satisfaction of finishing a long hard job.

Important to note that the King didn't dictate how she got into the groove of hyperfocus, that is a very individual process that changes for each person and each task.

The King has taught them there is a time to stop - pull yourself from the groove and pay attention to other things in life.  It took the King years to learn this and personally I would like to think that I had a little something to do with it.  Just like he would go out the garage to help Mary learn to monitor and balance her ability to hyperfocus I have helped him, over the years, to see when he was loosing perspective.  This has probably been one of the harder lessons to learn but he has really come to a place of where he can pull himself from that hyperfocus state and enjoy the world around him.  Having both the ability to put yourself into that frame of mind and take yourself out of it allows you to use it daily, finishing  small projects and making marked progress on long ones.

Part of learning it and teaching it is learning to recognize what you need and what those around you need.  While getting his focus ripped out from under him is hard - he even describes it as painful, he has learned to communicate it and teach ways to cope with it to our kids.  Being self aware and being able to express it to others helps them understand where you are coming from and what they can do to help.  He consistently includes them by asking them to look at something he's working on and for their critique.  When our rather random house is firing distractions like a war zone he asks for their help in keeping his focus.  He often says I can't think about that right now but let me get to this point in my work and my attention is all yours.

The kids have become very good at being equally self aware and expressive.  As they vocalize their struggle between what they need to be doing and the multitude of ideas that flood them we can help them manage the way their brains work while they learn to manage it themselves.

Most commonly we see this manifested in the uncontrollable need to write down an idea, record a melody, or draw an inspired picture.  He has taught them to jot down notes or record ideas quickly and then get back to the required task at hand.  He has taught them that even though it is hard to wait they can.  They can remember the inspiration and act on it in the appropriate time.


The King has taught them that you can include others in your hyperfocus state, making it not such a solitary quality.  Their are aspects of his job that are not very inclusive.  We can't all sit around and edit a film or draw the same picture.  He includes us in the source of his hyperfocus by including us where he can.  More than just asking our opinions he has pulled us into his world and activities.  When he worked on a film a couple of years ago our family became intimately involved.  Our older girls were production assistants, the younger ones acted as extras, we were often on set if nothing else just to watch and be there with him.  We write stories as a family, make movies, deeply discuss art, literature, and music.  He proves all the time that hyperfocus does not need to be a solitary place, in fact it can be very inclusive as we look for ways to share our joys and obsessions.  Many of our fondest memories revolve around getting lost together in a wonderfully creative world come to life.

It has passed along to our children and they are know to come and share their inspiration with us and involve each other in their creative endeavors.  Fernando asks Hannah or Rachel for drawings of characters for his story, Mariah has Rachel help her with lyrics and has her sing her songs, Rachel takes lyrics to Mariah, they help each other with plot ideas for stories and movie, they share and pull others into their process.

The King as taught them that there is a satisfaction that comes in finishing, a confidence that carries you through to the next hard thing to conquer that requires the ability to hyperfocus.  When our daughter Mariah was about 15 she was already heavily into the world of composing music.  I think she fell into that world from the moment she took her first music lesson at 7 years old.  At 15 he had a tall order for her though.  He needed a song written for a movie he was working on - one that she could write and she and her sister could perform.  A song that would play during a movie scene where one of the characters, a young gang kid, is considering suicide.  He pulled her into his hyperfocus, spinning her off into her own.

It was a hard thing to do, she had to use all of the skills mentioned above to complete it. She had to pace herself and find balance using hyperfocus on a consistent basis to complete a task.  She had to put herself into that hyperfocus state when she didn't necessarily want to finding a process to do that, a place to best work, set the mood for herself.  She had to communicate when she needed help following inspiration because it finally hit.  Often she had to find ways to hold onto the inspiration and set it aside until she could work on it at the appropriate time and place.  Sometimes she needed help pulling herself from that place back into the flow of life.    It wasn't a song she ever would have written on her own, it was dictated by the script and mood of the film at that moment.  But she did it.  How priceless is the knowledge that you can apply yourself to a task that isn't what you would choose to do, one that is hard and painstaking, and you can finish with high praise.

ADHD is a life long disorder, the way their brains are wired is not going to suddenly change. They will struggle with how to manage and use the qualities of ADHD to some degree all their life but every bit of ground they gain, every bit of understanding, every tool they acquire changes what their future looks like.  They are fortunate that the Distracted King is there to lead the way, that he embraces his strengths and weaknesses and strives to show them that they can work on them everyday because he works on them everyday.  In the end is there really any inheritance more valuable than that.

*The song, Smoke and Mirrors, is written by Mariah Aro with help from her sister Rachel and performed by Rachel Aro with harmonies by Mariah.

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Please, No Memorial Day Repeats

As we are approaching the 4th of July I can't help but find myself pleading with Heaven that we don't repeat our Memorial Day mayhem.  The injury was not all that bad but the drama surrounding it wore me out.

It all started with a little obsession.  Weed eating.  My son had made a deal with his father; a video game in exchange for weeding around the house.  This was a big deal.  Hunter became the very definition of hyper focused.  I would never have guessed that, as a parent, I would have to tell a child to stop doing a chore but he was obsessed.

No, Hunter, you may not weed eat in the rain with an electric weed eater.  No, Hunter, you may not weed eat at the crack of dawn.  No, Hunter, you may not strap a flash light to your head and weed eat in the dark.

He was freaking out.  Late rains in the season and weed eater malfunctions were tripping him up.  He was sure that the weeds he had already whacked were growing again.  Finally, all things combined in his favor and we let him back at the yard.  The problem, once he started he wouldn't stop.  We were trying to keep him hydrated, and make him eat.  We finally had to pull the plug and make him stop.  He was very upset.

I consoled him by sending him to the shower, one of his favorite ways to calm down when overstimulated, and telling him to get a snack when he was finished.

He took his shower and headed straight for the peanut butter.  He and his oldest sister are obsessed with peanut butter, they could both eat it all day.  She, however, is much taller and to preserve it for herself stashes it on the top shelf of the cabinets in the kitchen, high above the counters.  Hunter is used to jumping up on the counters to reach it.

This time his aim was off.  He gouged his head on the cupboard corner.  Heads naturally bleed easily and his hair was still dripping wet from the shower.  Blood went everywhere.  Screaming filled the house.  It should be mentioned that Hunter, in addition to ADHD, is very obsessive.  In fact, he has self proclaimed "safety issues."  This is the boy that told me he saw the jaws of life on a TV show and thinks we should get a set for the trunk of the car "just in case."

This is the wrong child to have blood pouring down his head.

We spring into action.  Mark, the first aid guru, goes to look at the wound.  Fernie is trying to help calm Hunter down.  Jaren, who has quite a history with stitches, is lending his support.  I am trying to find my shoes, phone, keys and thinking about how long the ER wait is going to be for a minimal head wound on Memorial Day.

In the mean time I catch wind of an argument brewing.  Hunter's two oldest sisters are arguing over who is going to the ER with him.  Rachel is complaining that Mariah always goes.  It's true, she does, she hates worrying about people that are hurt and not being there to know what is going on.  Waiting is bad, waiting at home feeling helpless is worse.  Consequently, she has been present at nearly everyone in the houses traumatic moments.  It is a favor, really, to all those that would have to sit at home with her and endure her freaking out if she were left home.

Rachel, is so socially deprived by living in the secluded foothills, that the ER on Memorial Day seems like a great way to interact with society.  Clearly, I need to get her into town more.

I hesitated to take them both, the last time I did that was when Rachel went for torn ligaments.  She was so annoyed by her sisters inability to wait that she tried to safe surrender her to the workers in the ER.  "Is there an age or size limit on the safe surrender?"  Rachel asked the man at the admissions desk.  He looked very supportive and understanding as he started to explain the policy. "Cause, I want to surrender her."  she said as she pointed to her then 16 year old sister.

Both girls are now following me around pointing out why they should be the one to go with and how they have Hunter's best interest at heart.  Mary runs by with electrical tape.  Mark is applying direct pressure.  Hannah is serving up cheese cake and peanut butter, feeding the traumatized masses.  Mary is looking for paper towels.  The girls are still arguing.  I don't think Hunter wants either of them to come at this point.

He wants his Dad and Fernie.  Fernie, went with us when he had to have his eyelid stitched up because he ran into another scout.  Fernie, attentively talked about different weapons for hours while we traveled to the ER for that set of stitches and kept Hunter calm. 

I keep telling to girls to stop arguing, it doesn't matter who is going at the moment.  I am trying to call a friend who is a nurse to see if she can look at it.  I am thinking, I really don't want to go to the ER on Memorial Day, spend hours at the bottom of the injury totem poll, and contract some other evil illness that is waiting patiently for me there. 

Mary announces that she has fixed the cupboard, making it safer.  Hannah, hands me cheese cake, that is my weakness, definitely a comfort.  She hands Hunter cheese cake and a huge spoonful of the elusive peanut butter.  The girls are still arguing.

Donna, the nurse, answers the phone.  Thank goodness, she had just gotten home to our remote neighborhood, divine timing for sure.  The girls are still arguing as we pull out of the driveway to have her check his wound.  It is small, Mark tells me, but a little deep. 

Thank goodness she was home, she spared us an ER visit with sound advice and good instructions.

No one went to the ER.  Mariah didn't have to worry.  Rachel missed the stimulating social interaction, but lived.  Hunter's head stopped bleeding and he happily ate his peanut butter.

Everything went back to our normal dull roar of chaos.  Soon you could hear me say, "No, Hunter, you may not weed eat with a head wound."

Nesting...and I Don't Mean the Obsessive Desire to Clean

Over the years we as a family have found that we have our own definitions and terms we use all the time – our own family language.  Take for example the term nesting.

Nesting:  When someone refuses to put anything away in its place and insists on having their belongs piled around a central spot like their favorite place to sit or their bed.  Creating a nest of stuff, where everything is mostly visible.

It is a strange phenomenon, nesting, one that took me years to figure out and I am still working on resolving it one child at a time.  It started with my oldest daughter, Rachel.  Rachel loves to draw and has drawn since she was about 18 months old. Rachel, I am sure, is personally responsible for the demise of a good portion of the rain forest.  In fact she is bound to be on an environmentalist watch list somewhere.  All those papers, piles and piles of papers ended up on her floor.  We bought colorful bins and folders, purple binders and decorated file boxes but they were never in use very long.  It was maddening. 

No matter where it started out it would end up in a tight circle with just enough space in the middle for her to sit. I turned to organizing books and plans – all laid to waste by Rachel.  Some did have interesting idea – one of which started me on the path to understanding.  Though I can not remember the name of the book the idea was that you had to organize based on your personality and needs.

This sent me on a quest to understand why Rachel felt the need to have everything she owned in plain sight.  It ended in a very interesting perspective.  Rachel was afraid that she would forget where she put something. She brought a whole new meaning to out of sight out of mind.  All my pretty colorful solutions were blocking her view and enhancing her fear that her memory would fail her. 

In my house, at least, this is a very common manifestation of ADHD (Attention Deficit hyperactivity Disorder) and causes a great deal of anxiety.  It causes anxiety for my kids as they try and keep everything visible; anxiety for me as I want it invisible.

Rachel ended up with very plain clear plastic bins that could be stacked easily and viewed from all angles. When we finally got Rachel’s nest under control we found the most interesting things residing in it.  Not the least of which was a huge red onion. We knocked her nest down a notch or two and made her room manageable for me and for her.  Notice I did not say perfect…manageable is okay.

I wish I could say that clear plastic was the solution to all life’s organization quandaries but then there was Mary.  Mary is my current nester.  She makes Rachel look like an amateur. 

When I brought home the clear plastic bins she wanted to pick the largest most unreasonable things to put in them, huge stuffed animals.  That filled the bins in no time at all with the mashed up faces of Build a Bears.  At this rate her room would have been filled with clear plastic bins and still had a nest of My little Ponies, Littlest Pet Shops, photographs, drawings, writings all held together by some brewing science experiments.

Not the idea or the result I was looking for. She thought I didn’t realize that ploy of distraction to draw me away from the nest of treasures.  I am not so easily fooled.  She may win the battle but I will win the war.

I am currently in the process of figuring out what works for Mary and it isn’t working as quickly as I want it to.  As much as I want to go in there and clean it all for her I know, by experience, that unless she has buy-in and is a part of the solution that works for her then it will be another short-lived de-nesting experience.

Can't help but wonder if this extreme nesting is another side helping from the ADHD buffet of co-existing conditions, maybe a little Obsessive Compulsive Hoarding going on!  Rachel, Mary, and Hunter I can definitely see it...all over the place.  Ahhhhh Hunter, who wants to keep the Hulk big wheel trike he had when he was little, the one that got run over by a car about 5 years ago, for his children.  Along with every paper he ever touched, every item of clothes and every toy.  

In the end i just hope for a reasonably clean room, I hope they’ll have learned to understand themselves a little better and come up with a coping mechanism that will help them manage themselves when they are on their own.   

Hopefully, I can have my house full of kids and be an empty-nester at the same time, hopefully.

Check out this link to hoarding that was sent to me and remember that the internet is full of it (LOL) so judge information you read on it carefully:   

http://www.ocfoundation.info/hoarding/about-hoarding/compulsive-hoarding-syndrome-introduction.php