Take the quiz: "Your Psych-Ward diagnosis"
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder
Diagnosis: (ADHD), formerly called hyperkinesis or minimal brain dysfunction, a chronic, neurologically based syndrome characterized by any or all of three types of behavior: hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity.
I was diagnosed so long ago, they still called it hyperkinesis, then the minimal brain dysfunction ...
I was a girl born in 1964. Long before it was commonly acknowledged that girls could get this. Can you imagine what a nightmare I must have been to parent??????
My poor mother!
Yes, I can because I teach kids/teens/adults with ADD/ADHD and just about every other label there is, but I abhor those labels. IT's so rewarding to help those PEOPLE I work with regain or acquire self-esteem, to see their faces beam with pride instead of feeling like an oddity. That's a natural high to me.
ReplyDeleteI also can imagine that you were and are a joy to know; hopefully, your mom and others saw more than glimpses of YOU under the cloak of frustration you sufferred/endured even though your condition most likely bewildered and frustrated her in different ways than it did you.
P.S. I stopped in here to say hi via Woody's blog since you're on his daily reads and he and I link. I like your blog!
Yes, I was lucky in that both my parents were special education teachers and both my step parents were the type that revelled in people who were different. My step mother loved most about me the things that made me different from everyone else. My step dad just plain loved me the way I was. Unfortuneately, my step dad died when I was 14, and when I was 26 my dad an step mother got divorced and I'm no longer in contact with her. (long story)
ReplyDeleteThey took great measures to make sure I knew I was me ... and they used the 'labels' the way labels should be used. To educate, explain and endure. It was never an excuse. It was never a box. It was always a way for us to figure out what was going on and how to get around it, over it, under it when I could not go through it.
My children have Tourette's, ADHD & OCD ... we use their labels like mine were ... to educate, explain and endure. NOT to confine or excuse.
When my older and very gifted son was finally diagnosed (we missed it because his giftedness gave him coping skills that hid it, we thought he was 'quirky gifted' his younger brother with a lower than normal IQ was not able to mask any of it, so it didn't get overlooked as long)
He was finally diagnosed and then I had some friends on the internet send me emials for his teachers at how their disorders effect them in the classroom. He read the letters and saw himself and yelled "I'm NORMAL IN MY ABNORMALITIES!!!!"
It was such a freeing moment for him. It was a moment of not being a lone and having a reason for what he did. It gave him a goal to conquer.
I do not believe in using labels to contain or limit a child. I DO believe in labels used to educate ... educate the child, their families and those around them and the teachers about the disorder and how it's effected the child/adult. I DO believe in using the label to explain behaviors that make a child feel like an outcast, the explination without containment givees a freedom that allows the child to BE themselves.
I DO believe in using the label to help the family to endure ...to learn patients, to become more compassionate on those around them.
Labels used appropriately lead to appropriate services and treatments and growth.
Labels used the way our society tends to ..are destructive and containing.