Sunday, May 5, 2013
Your Cozi Calendar
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password: lucahope (or Lucahope)
ugh...can't quite remember...of course...
Book Fair!
And here are a list of the books I've put in there, so far, with a link to amazon.com for each one so you can get a quick gander at the book synopsis before diving in...plus look at how much money you're saving by getting these books for free! Yeeee Ha!
In the ADHD folder:
In the Words of Advice From People Smarter Than Us folder:
Knowledge Really IS Power...No Shit!
My mother once said "Feeling something makes it that way." My mother was wrong. Again.
So I've made you this blog...and I've done this so that I have a place to share with you every little ADD tip, trick and tool that I can think of...and hopefully, out of the lot of it all, you can find a few helpful bits...if nothing else, you'll know that I'm thinking of you and that I REALLY DO feel for ya, sista. It's not an easy thing to have, especially in this particular world. I have a deep love/hate relationship with my ADD. I wouldn't trade it, but it'd sure be nice to send it somewhere for vacation once in a while. The ÁDD' that they show on TV, the ADD with the definition of 'disorganized and forgetful'...really, it's laughable, this superficial portrait...the ADD that I live with is a lot more complex and confusing...
My ADD is Attention Dis-regulation Disorder...some days I'm fine and some days I feel like I woke up with a helmet full of marshmallows strapped to my head. Some days I'm 'Johnny on the Spot", some days I have no fucking idea where the Spot is or why people are calling me Johnny or how I was able to apparently be on the Spot that I can no longer find, today. When I say Ëvery day's a new day", I sincerely mean it.
My ADD is full of emotional dis-regulation, self-doubt and a fear of failure that has made actually dealing with and understanding ADD a million times more difficult. Because I take it all personally. Because I don't know where to draw the line of responsibility for having this disorder. Because I get so busy blaming myself for the problem that I waste the time I should be spending on solutions.
One of the very first important things that Debbie did for me was to simply validate the fact that I actually DO have ADD. And later, she did neurofeedback on me, and I could actually SEE my brain waves and SEE how they weren't 'normal' ...hmmm... neurofeedback...you should do neurofeedback...more on that later...Anyway, I'm telling you now, you have ADD. I've known you for a long time and I really believe this to be true. In part because I've noticed that the closer that someone is to me, on the spectrum, the better I get along with them, the better I understand them, and vice versa. One thing that is helpful to keep in mind is that ADD, Aspergers, and Dyslexia are all connected...they're all frontal lobe issues. And often what helps for one, will help for the others. Just throwing that out there...For instance, here's a video I found about how the world looks when you have Aspergers...my world looks very similar...is it Aspergers? ADD? Who knows...What I DO know is that this stuff in the video...THIS is why Walmart SUCKS! It all blends together...the sights and the sounds...it's a nightmare and it literally DRAINS me for hours afterwards...choosing when you tackle Walmart is important if you have other stuff to do afterwards...
To believe that you have ADD, you have to see it for the physiological condition that it is...so I'm making some links, for you, for some books to look at in your spare time...if you can, try to do this as soon as possible, once school ends, cause you've got a fair amount of work to do this summer to get ready for the fall...you've got some rocks to go get for your foundation over the next few months...it's gonna be hard, but it will be worth it, in the end.
So I've made you this blog...and I've done this so that I have a place to share with you every little ADD tip, trick and tool that I can think of...and hopefully, out of the lot of it all, you can find a few helpful bits...if nothing else, you'll know that I'm thinking of you and that I REALLY DO feel for ya, sista. It's not an easy thing to have, especially in this particular world. I have a deep love/hate relationship with my ADD. I wouldn't trade it, but it'd sure be nice to send it somewhere for vacation once in a while. The ÁDD' that they show on TV, the ADD with the definition of 'disorganized and forgetful'...really, it's laughable, this superficial portrait...the ADD that I live with is a lot more complex and confusing...
My ADD is Attention Dis-regulation Disorder...some days I'm fine and some days I feel like I woke up with a helmet full of marshmallows strapped to my head. Some days I'm 'Johnny on the Spot", some days I have no fucking idea where the Spot is or why people are calling me Johnny or how I was able to apparently be on the Spot that I can no longer find, today. When I say Ëvery day's a new day", I sincerely mean it.
My ADD is full of emotional dis-regulation, self-doubt and a fear of failure that has made actually dealing with and understanding ADD a million times more difficult. Because I take it all personally. Because I don't know where to draw the line of responsibility for having this disorder. Because I get so busy blaming myself for the problem that I waste the time I should be spending on solutions.
One of the very first important things that Debbie did for me was to simply validate the fact that I actually DO have ADD. And later, she did neurofeedback on me, and I could actually SEE my brain waves and SEE how they weren't 'normal' ...hmmm... neurofeedback...you should do neurofeedback...more on that later...Anyway, I'm telling you now, you have ADD. I've known you for a long time and I really believe this to be true. In part because I've noticed that the closer that someone is to me, on the spectrum, the better I get along with them, the better I understand them, and vice versa. One thing that is helpful to keep in mind is that ADD, Aspergers, and Dyslexia are all connected...they're all frontal lobe issues. And often what helps for one, will help for the others. Just throwing that out there...For instance, here's a video I found about how the world looks when you have Aspergers...my world looks very similar...is it Aspergers? ADD? Who knows...What I DO know is that this stuff in the video...THIS is why Walmart SUCKS! It all blends together...the sights and the sounds...it's a nightmare and it literally DRAINS me for hours afterwards...choosing when you tackle Walmart is important if you have other stuff to do afterwards...
To believe that you have ADD, you have to see it for the physiological condition that it is...so I'm making some links, for you, for some books to look at in your spare time...if you can, try to do this as soon as possible, once school ends, cause you've got a fair amount of work to do this summer to get ready for the fall...you've got some rocks to go get for your foundation over the next few months...it's gonna be hard, but it will be worth it, in the end.
The Summer You'll Spend Toting Rocks From The River
...In
normal life circumstances it's not really very prudent to point this
kind of thing out to a person. Mainly because people usually figure
this stuff out on their own, given the time, and if you try to force a
person to
get there before they are ready, they simply can't hear you. But
considering the fact that your situation is very 'time-sensitive' , this
situation is different. So I need for you to just trust me here. Know
that I love you more than I can ever tell you. You really are my
sister and I am SO grateful to have you and more proud of you than you
will ever, ever know. And my pride in you, my respect for you has only
continued to grow, over the years. I know you will probably never be
able to fully see yourself as I do, as others do. I believe that THIS
is the worst of the emotional legacy that you were left with and NOT the
fact that you didn't go through the 'normal' life processes in the
right order. You've been questioning the strength of your foundations
here lately...what you seem to be unable to see is that although your
foundation wasn't created in the 'normal' or even the optimal way by a
stable home
and a 'normal' family life, that it doesn't mean that it wasn't
created. Because it was. By you.
For
'normal' kids, their foundations are laid down, with great care and
thought, by 'normal' parents...much like cement is mixed and smoothly
poured down when building a house. But for people like us, our
foundations are built another way. They are built, by us, with the
stones of experience that we gather and bind together over our lives.
There
is a house two down from our home here in Eden that used to be an old
school house. It was built when my grandmother was a little girl and it
was a very big deal because, when it was done, my grandmother was given
the opportunity to actually go to school for the first time in her
life. Unfortunately, her father didn't much believe in education for
girls and so she was only able to attend through the 4th grade when her
father pulled her from the school so that she could work in the tobacco
fields. But she learned enough to read and write and she always took
such pride in her handwriting, which was impeccable.
The
story that she used to tell me about it all, the one that seemed to
bring her the most joy and pride, was not of attending this school,
however, but of how she she helped to build it. When the builders were
ready to lay the foundation for this school, they needed many stones.
So they paid the neighborhood children, my grandmother included, a penny
for each stone that the children could bring to them. Each day she and
her friends would walk a mile, each way, to the banks of the Dan River
and bring back stones until, finally, there were enough for a
foundation, two feet high, made up of four layers of smooth river rock,
covering a surface area of two thousand feet. Grandma always talked
about that experience as
'the summer we spent walking to the river for rocks.' I never did think
to ask her how many pennies she got in the end..100? 200?
Many
years later it was converted into a residential home and almost every
part of the building was remodeled, resided and renovated. Everything,
that is, but foundation, which is exactly the same as it was when it was
first built...still bearing the ghost prints from stones that my
grandmother once touched, once walked for miles to gather with her tiny
hands so that she could have a place to go to learn...it still stands - a
foundation so tall that you can easily
see the layers of stone from the street when you drive by.
Although the house has gone through several renovations with various owners, has been
virtually rebuilt from the ground up, it seems that no one has ever
thought to redo this one very important structural feature. Probably
because it would obviously be foolish to change something so beautiful
that has also proven, over the years, to be more sturdy and strong than
any cement.
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