End of an Era

Well, tomorrow my baby girl goes off to College for her Taster Day, preparation for when she starts her Painting & Decorating Course in September.

This is a huge step for B. She has been out of mainstream education for 6 years now so there are lots of challenges ahead for her.

For the most part, she has so far handled it all pretty well. We've had the drama of not being able to find workwear small enough for her size 6 frame but we did eventually find a boilersuit that fits her about 95%! As anyone reading this, whose child suffers with the dreaded oversensitivity to clothing, knows only too well, not only did we have to find something that fit but something that wouldn't send her into Sensory Overload. For the last 6 years we haven't had much issue with clothing, mostly because on those days when it was an issue, she simply stayed home in her pj's!

She has to be there for 9am sharp tomorrow morning and this is another huge challenge! I know some of you will be smiling here too, knowing how Time and SPD are not the best of friends!

College is a big deal for most of our teenagers. A new environment where they are encouraged to make their own decisions instead of being told what to do and when to do it, can be a daunting prospect. Add SPD into the mix and it can be an incredibly stressful prospect.

She even said to me the other day, that she wondered what she was thinking, could she really pull this off, could she actually do the Course? My reply? You don't know until you try and if you don't try, you'll only regret it later. Just think, if you can pull it off... the world is your oyster! And if you can't... well at least you gave it a damn good try and we'll just sit down and have a rethink, it's not the end of the world.

Wish us luck
Till next time
B's Mum

A different type of normal

Where to start…

OK, I was inspired to start my own Blog after coming to the conclusion that 'If Mohammed won't come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed’, in this case I’m the mountain and Mohammed is every ‘official’ I seem to have come up against, trying to get them to see that SID is real and if no-one will acknowledge it, how on earth will we ever make it a condition that everyone is familiar with?

In the UK it’s unheard of, to the point where the local Mental Health Trust can’t make a diagnosis (even though they concur with you that’s it’s most likely is SID, after they’ve looked at your research, your reasons for thinking it’s SID, googled official websites to find out more, listened to your arguments why it’s not Aspergers) because it doesn’t even appear on some International List of Disorders that they have to adhere to… I refused to accept what they said was the ‘nearest alternative’ diagnosis: Aspergers, it’s not Aspergers! I was even told to tell her school etc. that it was Aspergers, purely because people now know what it is and have a basic understanding of the condition. So for crying out loud… how is SID going to become better known if we just tell people it’s something else?

So what is SID? It’s not Aspergers, it’s not ADHD and it most certainly is not attention-seeking spoilt brats manipulating poorly-skilled parents. SID is a very complicated condition, I think it’s safe to say that no 2 children who have it are ever going to be alike, it’s heart-breaking from a parent’s point of view and extremely frustrating from the child’s point of view. SID is on the Autistic Spectrum and can co-exist with other conditions like ADHD, Aspergers, OCD, AD, PPD-NOS, SAD, Bi-Polar etc. It takes alot of work, from all sides, not just the sufferer, and just as you think you have finally got something under control, something else pops up and bites you in the butt and creates a whole new set of problems. Even strategies that used to work may one day no longer be a viable option.

When my daughter ‘B’ was first diagnosed, I tried to find a way that a 7 year old could understand it. I used a pasta as an example: when the brain sends a signal to the body, it’s like a message travelling down a long piece of straight spaghetti, it gets to it’s destination with no interruptions or confusion. When the brain sends a signal in someone with SID, it’s like a whole plate of spaghetti, all mixed up, the signal can‘t find it’s way through the tangle of pasta and ends up either in the wrong place or gets lost in the mess. Does that make sense to you?

It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed and defeated with SID, but we’ve always tried to view it as an ‘inconvenience’, if you like, not an all-consuming nightmare. If you try to look at SID as the annoying little side-kick instead of the super-villain, you will come to realise that you’re no different to any other family, it’s just your ‘normal’ is a different ‘type’ of normal…

There’s a wonderful Blog on My Blog List, that I think sums it up better than I could ever do (Pancakes Goes Awry – Friday, October 10, 2008). Please take time to read it, it’s an education.

Blessings till next time
B’s Mum