SEN

Holidays

| skwarepegrowndhole

This isn’t the post I was planning to write today – it was supposed to be a follow up blog about GCSE results that was going to be very similar to my A-level blog last week, but sometimes you just have to go where the words take you, and today, they have taken me to holidays. I am writing this on the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend, but I will publish this once we’re on our way home.

Until this year, we have managed to have 2 holidays in the UK each summer – which makes us very lucky. I used to work in Further Education, and the college I worked at broke up for the summer at the end of June/beginning of July. Our children had scholarships to a local private school (again, the fact that we found the money for this even with the help of scholarships makes us very fortunate), so they broke up at the beginning of July. This meant that we could get away for 2 weeks before state schools broke up, when the prices were a little cheaper, especially when we headed to Cornwall. Then, in August, we went away with my parents for a week, usually to Norfolk and we shared the cost, and we also shared the childcare which was a huge thing when our children were younger.

This has continued every year for the last 15+ years, but the teaching job I have now follows school holidays, so because my contract is term time only, we’ve had to stop going away in July. This year, I decided that we would come to Cornwall for 2 weeks – and our second week would be the bank holiday week (I’m sitting writing this in our holiday home). We would come down for 2 weeks, with my parents joining us for the second week, so it was like a hybrid of the holidays we’ve had until this year.

We are having a lovely time – we’ve been to the beaches, but have behaved like locals (I grew up in Poole, Dorset so know how to avoid holiday makers in the summer) and got to the beach early and left when everyone else arrived. We’ve been to our favourite eateries, but have booked tables or got there early to avoid too many crowds, and have been to Newquay and Padstow, but, again, have got there early. It’s been a lovely holiday, and apart from missing the dogs and the cats, I’m in no rush to get home.

However, it is busy. We tried to eat at one of our favourites, and the restaurant was fully booked, even though we had got there late afternoon/early evening, but we could eat at the bar. The first table away from everyone smelt of bins, the second was next to where the band was setting up, and the third was under the speaker with uncomfortable seats. We left and found a plan B that was just as busy, but had outdoor seats. We ordered food (pizzas), had a drink and we left to eat at our holiday home.

This afternoon, our youngest has chatted to me. It’s too busy for him, and he’s also realised that 2 weeks is too long for him. We’ve already booked to come back at Easter, but because he talked to me, we already have a plan. He’s not a child any more, he’s a young adult who is happy catching trains, so at Easter, he will either come with us and train home early, or train down a few days after we arrived and stay til we come home. Problem solved. This holiday, though, he’s stuck with us til we come home on Thursday.

Has this conversation stifled or impacted our holiday? Absolutely not. Has the further revelation before I started writing that he’s spent a lot of time masking this holiday when we’ve been out, so is feeling tired and headachey impacted it? Maybe a little bit, but it’s his holiday too, so I need to be aware of how he’s feeling, and I need to make sure that I do everything I can to help him not to be in too many places where he has to mask. We have talked, and we have a plan.

Looking back, 14 days in a very busy part of Cornwall over the bank holiday weekend wasn’t one of my better ideas, but we live and learn. I’m not perfect, I make decisions that maybe I shouldn’t have done, but I made them with the best intentions. What we can do, is make sure we all have fun on the few days we have left down here. I won’t try and persuade our youngest to come to the beach or go anywhere where he’ll have to mask, and I won’t do that to our eldest either. We may all have to compromise a little bit, but not when it comes to their sensory needs. No compromise there.

We have a day out planned, we know where we’re eating if we’re eating out, and we know that we can all enjoy the next 4 days with minimal masking. I need to breathe, not feel any blame, and know it’s one of those situations that we learn from, and then move on.

For now, I’ve checked the weather so tomorrow is going to be a beach/chill at the house/read kind of day, Tuesday isn’t as good, but we’re off out for the day, and Wednesday will be a quite day with some walks before frantic cleaning and packing as we head back home on Thursday, hoping to avoid the ‘last weekend before the schools go back’ travel chaos on Friday and Saturday.

what difference does a label make?

| skwarepegrowndhole

I promise this blog won’t end up being just about me and ADHD, but this is another ADHD post!

It’s just over 3 months since I had the official ‘yes, you have ADHD’ conversation, and I can honestly say that is has had a huge, positive impact on my mental health. I obviously haven’t only had ADHD for 3 months, I have had ADHD for the past 53 years so the diagnosis and label didn’t change that at all. The diagnosis didn’t make it appear, it didn’t make it more or make it ‘worse’, but the diagnosis did change how I feel about me, and how I deal with how I feel.

For 53 years, I felt that I wasn’t enough, but I was also too much. I replayed conversations in my head over and over again. I had to stop myself butting in to conversations and finishing other people’s sentences. I felt I had nothing to say, but also had everything to say. People walking too slowly would make me stim, and if someone took to long to explain something obvious, I know my facial expression would show my boredom – this isn’t to be confused with conversations that start with one story and quickly deviate off to all kinds of unexpected places. These are my favourite conversations.

I still replay conversations, I still get fed up with people walking slowly, I will want to butt into conversations and feel all the feelings, but now I know it’s not because I’m broken, or because there’s something wrong with me. I have a brain that is whizzing at 100 miles an hour, focusing on everything and picking up on things that others may not. It’s not a superpower, but it’s me, and I am not broken.

Over the years, I have had multiple conversations with people who don’t want a label or a diagnosis, and I’ve written before that a diagnosis is a lens rather than a label; it allows other people to see and to understand, but I now understand how it also allows us to understand ourselves.

I remember when our eldest had his ADHD diagnosis, and he said it was a relief to know that he wasn’t going crazy, and that it was something that had a name. As well as allowing us to understand him a little more, it allowed him to understand himself. As he’s grown older, but before he left some, he sometimes told me that he may be having an ADHD week, so could I break things down into smaller chunks or instructions, and give specific times that things needed to be done. It could be ‘washing in the washing machine by 9am on Saturday’. This was a direct instruction with a deadline. It made things a little easier for both of us.

I understand the ‘ADHD weeks’ too – some weeks things seem to be more chaotic than others, and when they are like this, I have started using lists in my phone. I have to add a couple of things that I’ve already done so I can tick them off, as this makes the list less daunting, and also gives me a bit of a dopamine hit. I am also more honest about what’s going on with my thought process. In the past, if things didn’t go the way I expected, or if I was upset by something, I would clam up, but then be off with people close to me. Now I explain why I am feeling how I’m feeling, however obscure these feelings may seem when I say them out loud. It’s helping others to understand me, and stops me being stroppy or grumpy over something that can be resolved or understood.

Some have asked me if it was worth going to see my GP and then waiting 15 months for a diagnosis when I am in my 50s. Yes, absolutely yes. I had imposter syndrome about self diagnosis – was I just making excuses, and was I almost belittling the things that people who ‘really’ have ADHD go through? It has been liberating – and also explains why we missed so many signs and behaviours that our children had when they were younger. Your son putting a staple through his finger at 7, just to see if it would go through, doesn’t seem that odd when you did the same thing at the same age.

That saying, many are happy with self diagnosis, and that’s fine. I’m not saying everyone who thinks or knows they have ADHD or are autistic should go and get a diagnosis. It’s about doing what’s right for you.

For me finding out that I definitely have ADHD has been a game changer. I’m not on any medication, it hasn’t changed me that much, but it has allowed me to be kinder on myself, to explain how I’m feeling, and to rest when I am close to burn out.

Do I wish I had found out sooner? I’m not sure. I wish I could go back and hug my younger self and tell me everything would be ok, but I love where I am now, and finding out may have altered my course and led me somewhere else.

I feel I found out at the right time. I have ADHD, my brain is different not less, and I like it.