Two Jack Lake, named after two Jacks. 

 Morning walk with Charlie yesterday.  

We took Jack to his skills building group yesterday and it was good, until it wasn't.  We were talking about a tool called ALSUP  which can be used to identify lagging skills.  For some reason I don't like this tool, it feels to clinical and judgemental.  It's not really, but that is how I felt.

Then one of the leaders of the group put something up on the board about ADHD and how it can affect the lives of people.  There was a list of four things.

1. School

2. Social

3. Safety

4. Self esteem

We talked briefly about these things, how much school can be affected, how people with ADHD can make impulsive decisions that affect their safety, how their social skills lag significantly and cause problems, and finally what all of this does to their self esteem.

This all touched a nerve with me and then the lady beside me started talking about her eight year old daughter, and how her daughter struggles, and it was like she was talking about me when I was eight years old.  It was all too much for me and I started crying and couldn't stop, I had to leave.  I cried a lot on the drive home, pulled it together for the evening, but when I went to bed I sobbed again.  Charlie looked quite concerned with me but I needed to let it out.

So I thought a lot about this.  School wasn't a huge problem for me, I was smart, with an excellent memory.  I had a hard time paying attention in school because it was kind of boring and I liked to daydream, but I made honours.  I could have learned a lot more, could have put in more effort, but I didn't.

My social skills were awful, which I understand now, but of course as a child I didn't know.  I learned over the years to improve my social skills and nursing helped a lot as well.  I learned how to talk to people and I learned how to listen to people.  I paid attention to what worked and what didn't and it hurt a lot because I often got it wrong, but I kept trying.  I'd say my social skills are adequate now but I still don't understand things like small talk, but I can do it.  I'm sure most people find me a little/lot outspoken about things that I believe are important.  I still interupt people at times but I try so hard not to.  I still lose my train of thought and kind of ping pong around in conversations, which I'm sure irritates people.  I'm still easily distracted and I still overshare and I as I write all of this down I wonder if my social skills are adequate:)

What really touched a nerve with me was safety.  People with ADHD can be very impulsive, putting them in unsafe situations.  The leader touched on a few things like unsafe sex and unplanned pregnancies which describe me.  I had sex with people who were not safe, I had unprotected sex, and I had way too many partners (too much information but I really don't care).  I got pregnant with my son when I was only twenty, way too young to bring a child into this world, especially with my son's biological father (an alcoholic sociopath).  

I haven't done as many unsafe things as some people with ADHD.  I didn't experiment with drugs, although I did try hash once and couldn't sleep for two days.  I did try weed, did not like that either, thankfully.  There was no MDMA or ketamine or crystal meth when I was a teen.  I drank way too much when I was young which was related to the sex I had.  I put myself at risk and I just realized that yesterday.  I am thankful I wasn't sexually assaulted or in an accident because of alcohol use.

Needless to say, my self esteem has taken a beating over the years.  I thought I was a social misfit (I was), I thought I was unloveable (I'm not), I thought I was selfish (sometimes, but mostly I was just trying to keep my head above water, and I was overstimulated a lot of the time).  Basically I just felt like a fuckup which probably had a lot to do with my depression (that and the overthinking).

Anyway, all of this hit me yesterday in the middle of our class and it was too much.  The grief hit me like a ton of bricks.  I imagined how different my life might have been if I had had early intervention like this when I was a kid, or if my children had had this kind of intervention, how much better all of our lives might have been.  I am so thankful I can do this for my grandson but I still feel so much grief and sadness for myself and for my children, two generations of hurt people who didn't ask for any of this and didn't know there were options.

So that's my life today.  I'm sad but acknowledging that I'm grieving helps me.