Charlie finally got to go for a walk.  Happy boy.

I came across this the other day on Instagram and made so much sense to me.  It's from Thomas Kossak.

Why ADHD brains resist being told what to do (ADHD & demand avoidance explained)

The moment someone tells you to do something...you suddenly can't do it.

Yes, this is real.  For many people with ADHD, being told what to do causes instant resistance.  Not because they disagree, but because something shuts down inside.

It's not laziness or attitude.  From the outside it looks like defiance, immaturity, or stubbornness.  From the inside it feels like pressure, panic, mental block, and loss of control.  This is neurological, not intentional.

ADHD is interest-based.  ADHD brains work when something feels chosen, interesting, meaningful, or self-directed.  The second it becomes a demand, dopamine drops and motivation disappears.

Being told what to do can feel like criticism, control, failure, and rejection.  Even if the words are neutral, the nervous system reacts first.

"I was about to do it...until you said it."  This is one of the most common ADHD experiences.  You planned to do it.  You agreed with it. But once it was demanded- your brain said no.

Shame makes it worse.  ADHD adults already carry guilt, and feelings of being overwhelmed and being behind.  Being told what to do adds shame and shame kills dopamine.  No dopamine=no action.

This is called demand avoidance and is often linked to ADHD, rejection sensitivity, burnout, trauma, and chronic masking.  It's not a diagnosis, it's a pattern.

What actually helps ADHD brains is choice instead of commands, collaboration instead of pressure, and curiosity instead of control.

I read this and so many of my decisions made so much more sense.  I often tell my husband I am contrary, and apparently I am.  It felt good reading this.  I felt seen and even more importantly, I felt like it wasn't just me.  Feeling unique isn't all it's cracked up to be, in my opinion.  Unique feels lonely and isolating to me, I'd rather be part of a tribe.  I think we all would rather be part of a tribe.

Part of my tribe.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Sunrise yesterday morning.  It has been very cold here for weeks but this morning we woke up to a warm day.  The dogs are so happy and have been playing outside, wrestling and growling, and having a good time.  When I'm done here, I'll take them both for walks.  

Really not much going on here.  I have a new computer and my husband spent a lot of time setting it up and transferring all of my files, but I hate change and things are slightly different.  I'll cope:)

We have been Jackless for almost five days and it's been strange and relaxing at the same time.  I also took a break from Katie and our Sunday lunch this past weekend.  I called her house though and she was happy and relaxing which is good.

My house is clean but quiet.  I slept in this morning, but no hugs.  I think I prefer messier and morning hugs.  Jack will be home this afternoon and talk of soccer will start up again.  He has everything laid out on our bench by the front door so he won't forget about soccer, as if.  He got goalie gloves for Christmas and cannot wait to try them out.

My husband and I were talking about Jack last night.  My husband works with a lot of physicists and Jack, when introduced to one of them, informed her that infinity wasn't a number.  A discussion ensued.  We also talked about CGI vs. AI because we had a long talk in the car not long ago about CGI vs. AI.  That's what Jack likes to talk about, and soccer, and Roblox. He is also trying to sort out the differences between 4G and 5G. He's a funny guy, endlessly curious.  We are so screwed:)

It's cold and it's snowing.  It's been snowing off and on since Christmas Eve. You can see how the snow has piled up.  Jack had a good Christmas, Katie and I did not.

Katie became overstimulated and overwhelmed in West Edmonton Mall.  When I took her out to the parking lot to drive her home, I got her in the car and she attacked me.  She hasn't done that in years.  She pulled my hair (with her death grip), tried to bite me, and was head butting me as I tried to get her hands out of my hair.  She was screaming and crying and continued to attack me, pinching and hitting.

I called my husband who drove back to the mall so that we could take her home together, him driving, me wrestling with her in the back seat as she screamed.  I had to hold her away from me, at arm's length to avoid being pinched and hit.  It was a long drive back to her place.

Then hubby drove back to West Edmonton Mall so that I could pick up my vehicle, drop off her wheelchair and drive home.  There was no Christmas dinner.  We had Indian food (butter chicken and tandoori chicken), and I had a glass of wine.  I may have cried.

Despite Katie's meltdown, we had a good Christmas and I made our turkey meal last night.  We also have a few days to ourselves as Jack is with his other grandma.

My hubby bought me a pottery wheel and I've been practicing.  So far, I can't even center the clay but I am practicing.  

My mother's hands.  Today is my mother's birthday.  She died almost thirteen years ago and I miss her still, although I no longer cry when I think of her.  She was born over a hundred years ago, hard to believe.  She met my dad during WW11, they married and she became a Canadian war bride.  She also became a mother to twin girls ten months after she arrived in Canada.  

I think my parents loved each other but life wasn't easy for them.  They lost five babies between me and my sisters, and one of the twins was hit by a truck when she was 12 years old.  My sister has a brain injury but in those days, she was just quirky.  Then my parents had two more babies in the 1960's and raised my brother and I in a much changed world to that of my sisters.

She was a good mum and I loved her very much.  She wasn't perfect, what parent is?  I have her sense of humour which I value, I also have her arthritis and hypertension.  She actually apologized to me for passing on her genes:)  She was a smart woman who could have done anything she wanted, but at that time, women were not allowed to do anything they wanted.  She became a mother and loved children and babies.  

My dad was punching above his weight when he married her and I think he always knew that.  She was a beautiful, middle class girl from England.  He was a boy who grew up in poverty, his dad a logger, his mum a drunk, and his granddad a miner.  The war brought them together and he never let go.  She was the making of him.

Here is one of her favorite jokes.

The Queen was showing the Archbishop of Canterbury around the royal stables when one of the stallions nearby let out an extremely loud fart.

A little embarrassed, the Queen said, "Oh dear, I'm frightfully sorry about that."

"It's quite understandable, Your Majesty," the Archbishop replied after a moment. "As a matter of fact, I thought it was the horse."

I made this heart for my backyard.  It was easy, just roll the clay over the embossing plate.  Done.  You can see a couple of plates on the bottom right which I had such high hopes for but they turned out truly hideous.  Still learning.

I went out for supper with my son last night, the first time in years.  It was nice.  We talked.  He talked a lot and I listened.  I am hopeful for him but we'll see.  A year of sobriety, in 20 plus years of alcoholism is a good first step.  I'm proud of him for that.

We had our snowstorm, some parts of the province got hit much harder than others.  We didn't do too bad, although I am glad I wasn't on the highway.  I had to drive to the other side of Sherwood Park that day, and that was hard enough.  People probably don't realize that you can't see any road markers on the road during a snowstorm.  It's a game of guess where the lane is and it's helps if you know the roads well.  Everything is plowed now, so much easier to get around.

It's cold though, bloody cold.  Right now it's -31C with the wind chill and I am quite happy I found some snow pants that fit me, with all the winter toques and mitts.  Waiting for the bus with Jack isn't all that nice.  He seems oblvious to the cold, while I worry about frostbite for him.

I don't know how many of you have watched "Ted Lasso", I would highly recommend, but on it, Ted makes cookies for his boss and she loves them.  I saw the recipe someplace online and saved it.  Yesterday I made them and the cookies are truly lovely.  I tried looking it up to see if there is an official recipe and what I found was hundreds of recipes that claim to be the Ted Lasso biscuit recipe.  Regardless, the recipe I used had almond flour and regular flour and it was delicious.  They're almost all gone:)

That's it.  A cold day and a good day to stay home and work on clay or on the quilt.  Haven't decided yet.

It's a terrible photo I know, but you can see how widespread the storm is.  It's supposed to snow all day and into the night.  I wanted to go visit a friend in Saskatoon but that got put on hold.  I'm too old to brave snow covered highways anymore.  It never used to bother me, but I was young then, and ignorance is bliss.

Jack has recovered from his illness and is back to school.  He'll be visiting with his other family for a few days over Christmas.  It's nice to have a break for us, and I worry about him while he's there.  I guess that's pretty much life, isn't it?  

I was listening to Zadie Smith on the radio this morning, the author of "White Teeth", a book I've never read but have now put on hold at the library.  She said, that she was paraphrasing Freud and that she wanted her children to have ordinarily sad lives, to have some work that was meaningful, and to have love.  That caught my attention, so I looked up what Freud said, and he did not believe that a life could be lived without ordinary unhappiness.  I would have to say I agree with Freud about this.

Life is full of loss and sadness, intermingled with moments of joy.  I suppose it's how we deal with the losses and enjoy the moments of joy that decides how we live our lives.  

My youngest daughter was born full-term.  She weighed 10lbs 11oz.  Her apgars were fine.  We went home the day after she was born. When she was a week old, the doctor noticed a small cataract in her left eye.  Children shouldn't be born with cataracts, it meant something was wrong.  We were told she might end up blind.  What followed was more than a year of blood tests, CT scans, opthamologist appointments, and pediatrician appointments.  And in the end, all they could tell me was that my beautiful baby girl was retarded.

Katie's diagnosis almost killed me and it certainly killed the dream child I had imagined in my mind and in my heart.  It took me five long years to pull myself out of that deep well of grief that I found myself in and it fundamentally changed me.  It was not an ordinary sadness that I felt, it was a sadness that hurt my soul and turned the world into a dark place.

I discovered that life could hurt me beyond what I thought I could endure.  I turned away from my husband, from my children, and from my family.  I existed and that was all.  There was no joy left for me in the world.  I wanted the pain of that loss to stop and I kept moving in the hope that I could outrun it. The mother that my other children had, before Katie was born, died with the death of my dream child.  The wife my husband had, before Katie was born, also died with the death of my dream child.  There were no funerals but the world changed and I changed.

And now, now I hold back.  I'm not so brave to love as I once was.  I keep people away, at arm's length, even while I appear to be open and unafraid.  I'm not so different from my own father afterall.  I just fake it better.

And this is why I write, because I had no idea that I felt this way until I started writing.  My thoughts are usually jumbled together, knotted up, and writing it out allows me to untangle them and make something of them.  Some people can understand this, and some people can't, but it's how I am and I'm finally starting to understand this. 

It's that time of year when you can't believe how little daylight there is, 7.5 hours.  It's dark when I get up and it's dark before supper.  It also rained yesterday morning, so that was fun.  I slid through an intersection and will get a red light ticket.  Plus it's Christmas and Christmas just feels like a big lie.  Happy families, get togethers, and gifts.  Even Jack was mad at me this morning because he wanted soccer goalie gloves, right now.  There are a pair to go under the tree, but I can't tell him that and spoil the surprise.  So I snapped at him to stop asking me and then he got upset because he's sick and I shouldn't yell at someone who is sick.  He's not wrong but I also barely raised me voice.  I guess it doesn't matter, he felt yelled at.

Yesterday I made supper, a recipe I have used for years and it sucked.  I tried making caramel cornflakes and burned the caramel.  I got a red light ticket.  Katie sobbed when I took her home, which was the hardest to deal with.  I ended up crying too.  And Jack has been sick.  Yesterday he was vomiting with a fever, and today, just a fever.  

I don't like Christmas.  I have a small fractured family with a lot of issues.  Mum and dad probably felt the same way too.  They had grown daughters and then two young children.  Dad was in the military so they moved around a bit.  Mum was from England and all of her family were there.  We never spent Christmas with extended family.  I never knew my grandparents.  I spent a little time with one aunt and uncle on Vancouver Island and met mum's family as an adult.  My brother and I are among the youngest cousins, only one is younger than us.  There were never any family reunions or family celebrations, although we did all come together for Uncle Jimmy's funeral.  That was it, Uncle Jimmy's funeral when I was sixteen years old.  My ex-husband also came from a small family with a lot of issues, so not really any help there.  

I live in a small family at a time of year when large family celebrations are held up as the ideal.  I shouldn't complain, but I will:)