The Only Thing My Daughter Needs To Know

Last night my daughter asked me what she was like when she was ten years old.

“Did I have attention problems back then?”

This morning I thought back to that year and what I ‘could’ tell her…

At that time we were on a two year waiting list for our third psych evaluation because her therapists told us, “This is way more serious than ADHD. You need to get her tested again”.

At that time you were on some medications that helped a little but came at the cost of picking your fingers until they bled.

Dark bags under your eyes and looking like skin and bones.

At this time, I was working part time at a medical office and I remember checking my phone every thirty minutes to read your progress report from school.

Did you participate?

Did you scream and run that period?

Did you speak to folks?

At this time, we would later discover that your two percent processing speed and twenty percent working memory were the reasons why we THOUGHT you weren’t listening and the reason why we got used to tapping your shoulder three times to get you to answer us.

At this time, I knew nothing about self care, respite, support networks and was consumed by what I thought was ADHD and SPD.

But later found out it was autism, anxiety, OCD, spd, adhd (combo) and depression.

At this time, I was terrified for your future…

But what I told you last night was this:

“Yes, you had attention problems your whole life and most likely always will.”

“When you were ten you were bright, you loved to read, the teachers said you had a huge personality and you won the most humorous student award that year.”

Sparkle on.

Written by, Trisha French

Trisha spends her days building awareness one day at a time by sharing the story of a fantabulous young lady living with autism + adhd and a variety of other Dx over at Trisha’s Autism Tips on Facebook.

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