It's all about me....

And actually, it is. 

A year ago, I was convinced Freyja was ADHD, but if someone had suggested to me that I was too, I would have quite literally laughed in their face.  After all, I am a mother in my mid thirties, I got through high school and University, I have functioned in the working world since I was 21, often in jobs which required intense organisational skills, so how could I possibly be ADHD?  Right?  Wrong!!!!

The major problem I had recognising her behaviours in myself was my memory.  I basically had very little memory of being younger than 8 years old, the age she will soon be.  I have never really been able to remember being a child, and have had a great deal of difficulty putting myself in her shoes, or indulging in child's play with her, as it is not something I could associate with.

Since we began the counselling, and started the path to diagnosing Freyja, I started to see the similarities at first between myself and my mother when I was a kid.  I had thought that maybe my Mom simply wasn't great with kids, which is something she said herself, but came to realise that it was a similar personality clash that I was now repeating with Freyja, which then made me ask the deeper question of 'why' and slowly I started to remember bits and pieces.

I moved when I was 6, from a town where my grandparents lived and I saw them daily, to a small village where I only saw my family at weekends.  I had friends at the school in the town where I had lived, had been popular at school, and was transplanted to a village where everyone knew everyone, except me and one other new girl, and my Dad now tells me I took it very badly.  I am guessing that the lack of earlier memories is, in a way, a suppression of the good memories, in the way that some people repress bad memories.  I specifically remember someone asking me when I was 15 about childhood memories and me telling them I had none before I was 8.  This isn't something that came with the passage of time, its something I switched off early. 

I could remember that the move was traumatic though.  I could remember that I had been happy with friends and then suddenly was unhappy and bullied.  It was one of the reasons I wanted us to emigrate before Freyja was in school, to lessen the impact.  I had not realised that she would still suffer the same trauma at such a young age.  Maybe that is one of the factors that worsened our subsequent behaviours.

Anyway, as the counselling sessions continued, and as I talked to my parents each weekend via webcam about what was discussed, it became clearer and clearer that Freyja was a lot like me - maybe she has been worse, but lets face it, times have changed.  30 years ago, if you spoke back to parents, grandparents, teachers or neighbours, you'd have gotten a clip around the ear or a smacked backside.  You learnt fast that while you may think it, you sure as hell didn't say it.  These days, that kind of thing is frowned upon, and as I can tell you from experience, the ADHD child and time outs / naughty steps etc do not mix.  You can put them in a time out for two minutes, they will play with anything in sight, get up repeatedly, shout, cry, and after the two minutes, can't even remember why they were there in the first place.  Corporal punishment isn't exactly an ideal, but it did have the advantage of the 'short, sharp shock' which was memorable, even to kids like me, but I don't want to be smacking my daughters behind 20 times a day, so other methods needed to be considered.

Anyhow, I had tantrums, argued with my mother (but not my Dad - so familiar), flitted from one thing to another quickly losing interest.  But the clincher, the thing which really highlighted it for me, was the fact that I did really well in exams, but badly in coursework, right through school and into University.  I always left everything to the last minute, research, assignments, revision for exams.  Lots of burning the candle at both ends.  I needed the pressure and the stress to force me to concentrate or I'd get distracted.   All through school my reports read, "Lisa is bright and helpful but does not reach her full potential.  Gets distracted chatting to friends.  Must try harder."  Always I achieved average, or slightly above average grades, but always my teachers told my parents I could achieve so much more, was one of the brightest and most imaginative kids in the class, but just wasn't achieving my potential.  Every parents evening and report card ended with me in tears of frustration, telling my parents I had tried my best, them reassuring me that as long as I had done that, then I could do no more, but always I knew that I was capable of more, I just didn't know how to achieve it.

I went into the workplace and I excelled at organisation in busy, multi-tasking jobs, but quickly lost interest in the jobs where there was not the high levels of pressure.  I didn't move up in companies, I had no wish to, but I did well in the jobs that interested me, moved on quickly from those that did not.

Things changed when I got pregnant with Freyja.  I got less organised.  I blamed 'baby brain'.  But it never came back.  Too many sleepless nights and things to juggle at home, as well as at work.  I have been coasting along for the last few years in a job I liked, but it was and is pretty repetitive.  Its good when its busy, but when things quiet down and the pressure is off, I was getting distracted again.

When I filled out the questionnaires with the doctor to get assessed myself, I did one relating to me now, and one relating to my memories of how I was as a teen.  I actually said on reading the results that I was surprised I managed to achieve anything.  I was always late to bed, always late up, rushing last minute to get ready for school, missing my bus, forgetting my bag, losing my wallet or keys, (that hasn't changed - I have misplaced my debit card so many times this last couple years I have lost count and have actually had to have it replaced 4 times! in the last 18 months!)

Apparently, because ADHD just wasn't really recognised when I was a kid, we developed coping mechanisms and actually became highly organised individuals when enough pressure was placed on us to become so, but without that pressure, and the clarity it brings, our minds fogged and we slipped back into distraction.  It becomes a repeating pattern and it holds you back - something I clearly do not want my kids to experience.

So now I am on the Concerta too.  I won't say it is a great success yet, as we are still upping the dosage a little at a time, but I will say that each time I begin a higher dosage it makes things so much clearer.  A lady I know has also been diagnosed ADD, along with her son, and when she started her meds she described it as suddenly having so much room in her head.  I totally agreed with that.  You suddenly start to realise how 'normal' people function.  You can get jobs done, when you intend doing them, instead of getting distracted 5 times by other things.

Each time I get a higher dosage, it gets better, and then as my body adjusts, the clarity recedes a bit, but less each time.  I am about to up the dosage again this week for me,  and I hope that it will be the last one.  We have noticed a difference, but just as Freyja's wears off in the evening, so does mine, and I need it to last that bit later so I can be organised enough to get her and her sister into bed at the proper time, do a few chores and then let it wear out as I have a while to relax before I head to bed. 

So, we are both a work in progress, and while she still shouts at me, its not quite so bad as it used to be (though the last couple weeks she has been a bit worse for that), but I don't react as badly, and that in itself diffuses things and does not feed into her moods.  Without my reaction, she has no battle to win and gives up sooner.

One side effect, is my renewed clarity during the day has made me realise that my job is not challenging enough and I am hoping that a new opportunity at my workplace may come up - it has been mentioned and I have been told it is mine if funding is approved for it, so fingers crossed on that.

8 months on...

Today is November 1st, and exactly 8 months ago, I started this blog. 

I know, I know....  I haven't exactly been keeping up my end of the bargain by keeping it updated, but I really couldn't quite get my head around things and put everything into words before.  I think I am ready to give it a go now though.

The 8 months has been the longest, scariest, most surprising rollercoaster ride I have ever been on.

Since Freyja was diagnosed, we tried Vyvanse, which made everything so much worse and resulted in three months of living with the embodiment of the kid from The Exorcist.  We told the doc we wanted to stop the meds and he offered us an alternative one.  After a few weeks off the Vyvanse, we took him up on the offer and she started Concerta.  It has been an amazing transformation to watch.  We tried 18mg, and then 27 mg, and now she is back into school we are waiting to see whether or not the dosage will need one last tweak.  It seems to be wearing off around 4-5pm now which means she is getting through the school day but has problems sustaining her concentration in the evening for activities, and the homework she will soon start getting.

The downside to getting a higher dosage is the effect it has on her already tiny appetite and her sleep patterns.  Since starting the meds, she has been taking melatonin most nights to help her sleep.  One of the side effects can be insomnia, though thankfully once she is asleep she now seems to have less nightmares.

Freyja has always been a picky eater and since starting the medication it has become worse.  She often complains of feeling nauseous and of having stomach aches, but I am beginning to think that it is actually her lack of eating that is causing these issues rather than the medication..  Her eating issues have been going on since we moved to Canada, and we knew food was her control thing.  When she couldn't get her own way in other things she did it by refusing to eat.  Since starting the medication she has lost weight (thankfully she was carrying a little weight before, so she is not scary skinny, but still skinny for the kid who has alwas been well built). Her already limited list of likes appears to have gotten smaller and finding something to feed her is getting really tough.  People keep telling me to just give her what I want her to eat and she will eat it eventually, that no kid will starve themselves, but I have seen her eating habits, she already eats about half the quantity her two year old sister eats, and she is still healthy, still growing, but I always have that worry in my mind that a child who uses food for control could end up with anorexia or bulemia as a teenager.  Because of that I have had long talks with her about that, asked her if she feels fat, asked her if she wants to be skinny like some of the other girls in school, and the answer is always a resounding "NO".  So, I am thinking maybe she has some digestive issues that are causing the problems, maybe an alergy that is causing the stomach pains and nausea.

Other than that possible side effect, she is doing fantastically well.  Her concentration at school has improved greatly, her mood swings have almost disappeared except for the usual kid moods.  She still struggles to get ready in the morning (before the meds kick in) and get to bed in an evening (after the meds have worn off) but some of that has been down to me and my own inability to organise and get stuff done - more on that in the next post - so we are getting there, slowly but surely.  Most of the remaining issues tend to be related to me rather than others, so now I am getting myself sorted too and we seem to be making headway.

So way back then, we wondered if we were doing the right thing, and honestly there were times that I really thought we had made a terrible mistake, but looking at the girl I see now, I know we did right and I know that, hard as the road has been and no doubt will be in the future, it was the right road to take.

How far we've come

So, its been a while simce I posted and there is a really valid excuse for that which I will expand on in my next post, but for now a recap and an update on Miss Freyja.

Freyja was probably about 4 when me and Lee kind of thought she was ADD.  She had trouble listening and remembering things you'd ask her to do, yet her memory in other ways was amazing.
She was talking early and knew her alphabet and numbers up to 40 or so by the time she was 2.  At 3 she could write letters and numbers (though occasionally she would write like she was mirror writing - funnily enough as a side note, Da Vinci did that and they say he was classic ADD!)

When she was 4 she started preschool and was already ahead of the kids, so we thought we would try to teach her to read at home and she seriously railed against it.  She just wouldn't do it, even though we knew she could if she tried.  She would always mess around in dance class and swimming class, never listening to the teacher, talking over people, interrupting constantly.

My parents said she was just like me as a kid and she'd grow out of it, but she didn't.  (Turns out she was just like me and I'm ADD too!  I told you I had a valid reason!)

At 5 we put her in French Immersion Kindergarten thinking that would help her as we thought maybe she was just bored in the preschool as she was so far ahead, but she struggled and hated it.  I suggested to her teacher that she may be ADHD/ADD and she virtually laughed at me.

As soon as she moved to Grade 1 in the english school, she came on in leaps and bounds but always the same comment from her teacher, Freyja didn't finish her work, Freyja missed recess to finish something, Freyja is always the last to finish.  At the Parent Teacher meeting at the end of the first term the same things were said again and I told the teacher that I thought Freyja may be ADD, she didn't laugh but said she wasn't sure.  The following week we called and made an appointment with our family doctor and were refered.

She was diagnosed ADD just before the Easter vacation.  She hated being different, but to me it was a relief.  It was a relief to find out I was ADD too.  It explains so much, and it also gives you a foundation to work from, rather than your child is lazy, your child is rude, your child is too rough with her classmates etc.  I try to tell Freyja, ADHD is not a catchall excuse for everything, but knowing you have it reminds you that you have to watch what you do in certain situations so you don't do or say something wrong.

I felt very guilty for giving my daughter a label, but at the same time, ADD is also often a label for people labelled as gifted, imaginitive, independant, innovative, really, I can't wish she didn't have it, or I didn't have it.  Its there and you either work with it or against it.  Pretending it isn't there does not make it go away, it just makes you more and more frustrated with your own failings.  I'm nearing 40 and I still remember my disappointment and frustration with every report card and teacher meeting - could do better, needs to concentrate. 

Freyja is being treated, and after a glitch with the first medication Vyvanse, we switched to Concerta just as school was coming to an end in June.  The difference has been amazing, at school and at home.  There is less anger and arguement at home (though like all 7 year olds she still tries to push the rules and boundaries occasionally).

Last week we went in for her first parent teacher meeting with her brand new teacher, new to the school, no one had told her Freyja was ADD.  Her description of Freyja, helpful, clever, ATTENTIVE, CONCENTRATES AND LISTENS WELL IN CLASS!!!!! We are working with her ADD, using meds and techniques to help, and she is already forging ahead, proud of herself because she is reading a chapter book by herself - in her own words, I am taking a long time as I read it slowly but I am reading it all by myself!  A year ago she would have been raging, screaming, throwing the book in frustration at not being able to do it.

And there you go.  I apologise for rambling...... I am ADD you know!   :D

One step forward and two steps back..

So it’s been a month since my last post, and to be honest, that’s because of how frustrated I have been as well as busy. 

After 2^nd appointment with Michelle in the Behavioural Unit, she had seen some of Freyja’s behaviours, but really she had been pretty good, and didn’t argue with me (until one minute after we left the office – sigh!), but a few days later we had the appointment with the Paediatrician and she was herself for that – oh boy, was she!

After an hour of trying to hold a conversation with her, and Lee and I, while she jumped up on the bed, and off, and on, and off (repeat as necessary for one full hour), swung her feet over the edge of it so she kept “accidentally” kicking his computer monitor, and declaring repeatedly over the top of his questions “sigh!  I’m BORED!!!” he got the idea and agreed, Yes, she’s ADHD.  Despite the repeated jumping about, he says she veers more to the Attention Deficit side than the hyperactive side. 

So he offered us medication, and to be honest, we nearly snapped his hand off to get it.  2 days later, we had the prescription and she started taking 20mgs of Vyvanse each morning.  Vyvanse is an amphetamine but its slow release and in such a low dosage, it basically just gives them enough to sharpen their focus.

The first day, she was wired, talked for about 6 hours non-stop, but never argued, did what she was asked to do and was super helpful all day.  Day Two, she woke up at 3.30am and never went back to sleep, so neither did I.  Rosie woke up at 6am with a fever, so the day was spent with a tired Mama and a grouchy baby sister.  But never once did she complain I was ignoring her and giving all the attention to Rosie or say she was bored while I cleaned house.  Instead she occupied Rosie and kept her smiling while I cleaned.  Went and got them both snacks and drinks.  Was the girl I knew she wants to be.

It lasted about ten days.  It was the best week ever!  No arguments, no whining, no fussing (well the usual stuff but like any kid does, not like an ADHD kid does.  Then, as her body must have adjusted to the medication we noticed she was getting more irritable again, more argumentative, coming back from school complaining she hadn’t had time to finish things again.  At first I thought it might be caused by excitement about her pending birthday and party, but that came and went and still she was getting worse.

If anything, she is worse now than ever.  For 5 nights in a row, I had to cajole, argue, carry, shout her into bed through 45-60 minutes of arguing and whining, shouting and screaming, hitting and kicking.  I just about broke down.  The thing that made me feel worse than anything is that she is the one getting the most hurt by all of this.  She hates the way she acts, she hates that she can’t concentrate.  She hates that she had a ten day glimpse of what it is like to be “normal” and then ended up back to the same thing as always again.

We have another appointment with Michelle in the Behaviour Unit in 2 days, and then with the doc in 10 days.  I am trying to get snap forms filled out by her teacher and her day home to try to get the dosage increased.  We know it worked; just it’s not enough for her.  My last appointment with Michelle, Freyja had to come and read a book to Michelle.  After reading some pages, she had to say if the things in the page described her or not.  After a 10 minute ramble about one page, Michelle asks “Is she always like this?”  “No, this is better than normal” I reply.  After I get a confused look as to how this could possibly be better, I tell her it is because, even though she has just spent 10 minutes talking about something where 3 or 4 words would have done, at least she is still discussing the same subject.  In the past we would have been way off on a tangent by then.  Michelle then asked me if Freyja had taken her meds that morning.  Yep, at 7.30am, same as every day.  It is now 9.30am.  Michelle tells me that if the meds were working, she would expect Freyja to be significantly more focused.  We both try to stop Freyja talking as it is nearly the end of the appointment and she is still rambling on over the top of us.  She has a tantrum and goes and sits in a corner, squashed in the space between the wall and a cabinet and refuses to come out. BINGO!!!  Finally, a little glimpse of what she is like when she is getting the wrong answer (that would be NO by the way) from me.

So, keeping my fingers crossed that the dosage is increased ASAP.  Poor kid thought all she would have to do is go to the doctors, have them agree it was ADHD and get a pill so that, boom, she’d be all better.  She never expected all these appointments and forms and questions.  She never expected it to take time, and it is so frustrating for her that it is making her even angrier.  And I hate to admit; I am not dealing with it well.  I have my Bad Mommy days, and I have lost count in the past two weeks of how many times she has said she hates me, but I am determined to get her through this.

It is only now that I am going through this that I have realised just how many friends or acquaintances are going through similar issues with their kids.  ADHD, OCD, ODD, Autism, Asperger’s, the list seems to be endless.  I know I am not alone, and that helps, but why are so many of us going through this these days?  Is it just because there is more diagnosis, or is it because there really are more kids going through these trials and tribulations?  Either way, I am glad to know that there is help out there for us, maybe not a quick fix that Freyja would like, but a way forward.  Just gotta keep holding onto that, and remember those 10 wonderful days with a little girl who was happy and focused and who knew she was loved, and hope that we can get back there again.

2nd Appointment this afternoon

I am nervous as it is the first one Freyja has to attend, but kind of weirdly peaceful too.  It is a step in the right direction. 

We have had a pretty good week.  There have been tantrums as always, but bizarrely, she has been behaving better since her baby sister has been behaving worse!  Rosie is coming up to 2 years now, and just like Freyja, is becoming very much the independent Miss.  That means every time I need to get her into the car, she wants to get in herself and starts screaming and thrashing as I try to strap her into her carseat.  I know this is a phase she will get through, but as we are always already running late because Freyja takes forever to get ready (and so do I - Mommy ADHD!) it becomes even more stressful.

Freyja has been telling her sister to stop misbehaving and has been trying to be more helpful.

Last night was actually the best night yet, despite being the busiest.  After school, she went to a beginners chess club.  Despite being her first game ever, she won it!  She is really enthused by the idea of taking up chess and her birthday is coming up so I think I will buy her a set and start going to the monthly chess at the library in Calgary, hopefully it is something she will enjoy. And it shows she can concentrate when she is interested in things.  I played chess with my Dad at a similar age, and card games, and I loved it.  Partially because I seemed to have a natural ability to remember and anticipate moves, and partly because I won - all the time - and no, my Dad didn't let me win, I just had a flair for it.  Hopefully Freyja will get the same enjoyment, as she certainly seems to have the same capacity for remembering and anticipating moves in games.

After chess we went home and found she had homework.  Usually, she does not get homework, but at her Parent Teacher meeting last week, the teacher commented that while Freyja is working at Grade 1 level, as she should be, she actually could probably work at Grade 2, but because of the lack of concentration, she always has work left unfinished while the other kids get theirs done, so we said "send it home with her then".  They did send it home last night, and asked it be done for today.  She finished Chess at 4.30pm and had to be at Sparks at 6.30pm so I was dubious, but she ate her dinner (quickly for once, and only got up twice) and then settled down to her homework, finished it and got ready for Sparks all in time to get out the house, no arguments.  Apparently she was really well behaved and attentive at Sparks too, so maybe that is what she needs, more structure and things to do.  Maybe all of this isn't really ADHD or behaviour issues, maybe its just a very bright kid who's bored silly.

She's been showing a great interest in space and science lately too, as well as her reading and art.  Her choices from Scolastics this months were - A solar system mobile to build - A geology set with rocks and an experiment to 'make your own sedimentary rock' - A Phineus and Ferb science kit with household experiments.  She's been having great fun with it all, and can't wait to put everything together.  The library books she chooses are often science based too, and the other day when Lee put on a program about the Big Bang Theory, she asked him to see if it was on again and record it for her to watch.  As a pupil at a Catholic School, I see her trying to have some interesting debates with the teachers in a few years (as it should be).

And so, I have been doing some reading these past few days, looking at the aspects of ADD or ADHD which can be seen in a positive light - exploration, creativity, enlightenment, and I'll add another post with some links to these and a bit about some famous people who would these days probably be classed as ADHD.  This is my challenge to myself now, not to look at the bad side, the tantrums and distractedness, but to look at the good points of how she is 'different' and imagine what she could become if I loosen the reins a little....

Ist Appointment done

Well, we were there for 3 hours! Who knew we had so much to say! Poor Lee was nearly falling asleep by the time we left, he had just come off nightshift, and I was an emotional wreck.

Lots of stuff came out that I wasn't expecting. Mainly my fears of it being "all my fault" in one way or another. Most of her "bad" or "Difficult" behaviour is the stuff that revolves around me and my response to her. We kind off feed off each other emotionally, but in a bad way rather than good. She is so like me, I started to notice in the questions we were asked that the behaviours that she is showing are my behaviours, the ones that made my mother crazy, the ones that Lee tells me remind him of my mother (We are all carbon copies of one another - we ever all look alike).  Actually, the night before I was getting a bit emotional at dinner (hormones kicking in as AF was about to arrive) and started getting annoyed because she was yet again not eating her dinner.  I started to cry as I felt so bad about tellin her off yet again and hugged her and apologied for raising my voice.  As I did so, I caught sight of us in the mirror (we have a mirrored wall - rented house - not my choice!) and there she was, MY MOTHER!  I looked just like her when she would get all hormonal and upset when I was a kid.  Freyja looked just like me when I'd hug my Mum and apologise for doing wrong and tell her it was going to be OK.  History was so obviously repeating itself here and I think that is why in the meeting I just broke down.


My Mum and I had an amazing relationship when we were still in England, she was (and still is), my best friend (apart from Lee of course), but it wasn't always that way.  When I was a kid, our relationship was so volatile.  Always shouting and crying, always feeling bad but never able to put it right.  When I was about 10, my parents spend a few months apart.  My Mum had married at 18 and had me at 19, and kind of felt she was missing out on stuff.  It didn't take her long to realise that she wasn't, but those few months, whilst they were incredibly hard, were the best thing to happen to us as a family.  She and my Dad realised just how much they absolutely could not be without one another, and she and I were only together Friday night through Saturday.  We didn't have time to argue about the petty, silly things and spent real quality time together.  We found out, firstly, how much we cared about and loved one another, and secondly, how incredibly alike we were.  Our relationship from then on was great, to the point where my Dad admitted to feeling a little jealous as we were spending so much time together.  Anyway, enough of the past, back to the present...


So, one surprising thing that came out of it all was not just that they asked us to fill out questionnaires about her behaviour, but I was also given one to fill out about mine (along with Lee as he is on the outside looking in - usually shaking his head and sighing) as I may end up getting assessed myself for Adult ADHD.  The thing is though, at the beginning of the meeting I would have been incredulous at such a thing being suggested. But when we had been through the meeting and she suggested it as a possibility, it made more sense than I would like to admit. Most of the things Freyja does that seem obsessive and incredibly annoying, are that way because they go against my obsessive and annoying things that I do.

Oh, I should mention, that after years of struggling, and weeks of telling my parents that we were beginning the process, during which my mother has always said I was never that bad, my parents suddenly decided to tell me that I used to have almighty tantrums where I would stop breathing, right up until I was 7 or 8! Maybe they could have mentioned this sooner.

So now, we are into the process, and I have bared my soul. While the depression flags come more from Lee's side, the ADHD flags come from me and my mother (have I mentioned she has been known to break down and leave a store because the reorganised over the weekend and things weren't in their right places! I have never done that - though I might have sworn when they have done that I have never cried and left - dear god, I am turning into my mother and Freyja is turning into me - poor kid!! )

We have another appointment next week with the person at the clinic where Freyja will be going (the parent one was the starter) - I have no idea what her job title is, I just know she has a degree in Social Work - and then the week after that we see the Paediatrician for the first time.

At least I am not scared now. She told me not to feel a bad mother, as I have proved I am the opposite by making this step. I know everyone has been telling me this, but it feels good when the professionals tell you that - even if you still don't feel it as you carry your screaming, flailing child into her room for a time out, checking the clock on the way and starting the mantra.... two more hours.... two more hours.... only two more hours until bed time

This Monday?!?!?

So, no sooner did I make the last entry than I get a phonecall from the clinic asking for Lee and I to go in for a meeting. "can you do tomorrow" asks the nurse....

Erm sorry what?

"or Monday if tomorrow is too short notice" she says...

Wow!!! So on Monday we go to start it all off. I am so nervous!!!!

Where we are today!

Finally, now, we have some stability again.  Our finances have improved.  My husband and I both have stable jobs with family oriented bosses.  Freyja’s school is great, a huge improvement on the one we went to for kindergarten, and there is no bullying.  She has dear, close friends.  She is growing and learning and doing well at school.  We have close family friends who are like a surrogate family here, they live only a few streets away.  Her daycare (before and after school) is the one she has been going to for almost three years now, her sister goes there now, and her care-giver is like an extra grandma, the other kids are like cousins.  Our landlady is a wonderful woman who has treated us like family and basically told us we can stay in the house until it falls down if we want to.  Finally she has a stable basis, continuity….. but the behaviour hasn’t stabilised, if anything it is getting worse.

She’s getting vivid nightmares of people hurting her, her sister, me.  Daddy trying to save us but not being able to.  She is frustrated when she can’t get something right first time.  Calls herself stupid, hits herself on the head.  She is angry when she can’t do things her own way and lashes out, especially at me.  She is doing well at school, getting all B’s,  but her teacher is getting frustrated because she thinks she should be easily getting all A’s.  Says she is the smartest kid in the class but cannot concentrate, does not listen, is always the last to finish.  These are things I have been hearing for a while, and things I have been telling teachers since she was 3, but because there has been no continuity, they have not realised that this is a continuing pattern, not a phase.

Well, it finally came to a head a couple of weeks ago when she started throwing things during her tantrums and almost hit her little sister with something.  She was heartbroken about it, and as always when she loses her temper, she was full of remorse after and telling us she was stupid again, and that we would all be better if she was dead.  As a person with depression issues, that waves a huge red flag to me.  There is depression on both sides of our family, and after watching her cousins as kids, I think possibly some ADHD tendencies amongst them too – certainly they had anger issues as young kids, though now they are grown into well adjusted teens.  So, we went to the family doctor last week, and he referred us to a Paediatric Psychology Unit, who have in turn yesterday referred us to the Paediatric Behavioural Development Clinic (PBDC) at the East Calgary Health Clinic.

So, in around 10 weeks we should have our first appointment, and bearing in mind that we have been dealing with this for five years, you would think that 10 weeks would be a breeze, but already my mind is racing....

What have I done? Am I a bad parent? Will it scar her for life? Will they think we are mistreating her, hurting her? Was it a mistake? What did we do wrong? All the usual second guessing I am sure all parents in the same situation as me and DH must go through...

So, I am going to take a deep breath and started this blog to get all those thoughts and feelings out. To document it for me, and for her, so we can decide if it was a mistake, or if it was the best thing we could ever do for us as a family, and to show her down the line (hopefully) how far we have come.... oh how I hope that we do indeed go far and that she can grow up to be an inspiration to other kids who just can't help themselves sometimes.

The first few Canadian years...

In the intervening years, getting Freyja to sit down and learn things has been a major struggle.  At five, she finally started to learn to read, at the same time as her peers, but long after she could have done.  Only 12 months later, she is a good reader, and gets all her words correct in the weekly spelling test.  She loves to read and her frustration is gone because she can now do it for herself, and has learned the skills she needed.

The frustration is still there for other things though.  She wants to swim, skate, dance, draw, sing, and all the other things that every six or seven year old princesses want to do.  But she can’t do them as she wants to, straight away, and she can’t easily learn the skills, because she won’t or can’t concentrate for long periods, sometimes not even 2 minutes.

The frustration has manifested as anger and as a lack of self-confidence.  It has grown and mutated over the years.  The tantrums at the terrible twos continued into the traumatic threes, the f***ing fours and fragile fives. Now she's six and will be seven in a few weeks and we have pretty much decided that this is not something she is going to grow out of by herself, it’s something that we need a professional to help us with. That was not something easy to admit, for me or her dad, or even for her, as no one wants to say their wonderful, talented, clever, funny, amazing child has something 'wrong' with them, especially a (shhhhh) *whispers* Mental Illness...

But ultimately, when the elephant is acknowledged, that is what this is classified as.  People still have that fear of the term Mental Illness, but they bandy around the component terms of it with no problem at all, Depression, OCD, ADHD, ODD and so on…  though there is still always a little tinge of embarrassment about it, we are finally starting to get there.  Mental illness means that a part of your brain is not producing the correct chemicals in the correct levels for your body.  If you had diabetes, you would change your diet, get more exercise, maybe take insulin.  If you had Asthma, you would do the same changes to diet and exercise and take an inhaler.  Why should faulty brain chemistry be treated any differently?  If there’s an issue, it can be fixed or at least helped, maybe with diet and exercise, maybe with therapy and counselling, maybe with medication, but where is the big taboo?!?

I have thought for over a year that Freyja may be ADHD for a long time.  We used to joke about her OCD tendancies when she was three and had to touch everything in order on the way to her room at bedtime.  We wondered about the anger and defiance (usually directed at me) – could it be ODD?   We worried about the vivid and disturbing nightmares she had, and how they were getting progressively worse the older she got, despite shielding her from adult programming and news broadcasts.

And then there was the emotional turmoil, maybe it’s all because of that…..

When she was about 16 months old, her Dad and I both found out that we were going to lose our jobs.  At the time, we were living in the North East of England.  My parents lived around 20 miles north of us, as did my Grandparents, and her Dad’s parents lived around 20 miles south of us, as did his brother and sister and all their kids.  We saw them all every weekend, sometimes through the week too, we were a close knit family.  But her Dad’s Granddad had been from Canada, and it was a dream of ours to move to Canada when she was a little older, but because of the job situation, we would have had to move to find work anyway as it was the beginning of the financial downturn in the UK, so we decided to make the leap and head out to Canada, specifically to Calgary, which was then Boomtown.

A few months later as Freyja turned 20 months, and 2 days after Christmas, we moved out of our house and in with my parents for a month.  At the end of January, we caught a plane west.  Now we do not regret our decision, we love Calgary, we love the opportunities it provides us, though the intervening 5 years have seen a lot of financial struggle, and the economy in the UK along with the general attitude of those living there has plummeted.

BUT, and it is a big but, our move took away her stability.  She lost her family overnight, and while Skype is a wonderful thing, it is not the same as a hug from Nana or a couple of hours playing with your cousins on a Sunday afternoon.

Since we’ve been here, finances have been tight, friendships have been started and ended for us as parents and for her, as people have moved out of the city when the economy nosedived.  We have moved house 4 times since we have been here, she has been to 4 different day-cares, one preschool, one kindergarten, and a different grade one.

Last year, she became a big sister too, only 4 weeks after her birthday.  A wonderful, and yet terrible thing for a five year old.  She wants to be an amazing big sister, and she is, but she also wants things to be as they were, no competition for affection, no praise directed at someone else, no having to share Mom and Dad….

And that is pretty much all the back story......  next, Where we are today!

Where it all began....

This is a blog about and for my eldest daughter. As I begin this, she is 5 weeks away from her seventh birthday. She is funny, sweet, very clever, kind, amazing and the most beautiful miracle any mother could have not to mention an awesome big sister. She is also at times angry, defiant, depressed, achingly unsure of herself, of her worth, and of her place in the world. This is our journey to find out what we can do as a family to make things better for her, for us as a family, and for the family she will have in the future.

Freyja Honey was, and is, our little miracle. We had some stuff going against us for getting pregnant, and had decided that we would start trying 3 months before we got married. We expected it to take at least 6 months, probably a year or two – we were pregnant next month! That’s Freyja for you, determined to have her own way even if it means making me have last minute dress fittings!

Nine months later (2 days, induction and absolutely no labour ) later she was born. The birth plan had gone out the window, she had decided not to come out, and was eventually born by c-section, to the background music of “Is this the Way to Amarillo” by Tony Christie and Peter Kay on the radio, and the accompanying grunting of the doctor who nearly broke Daddy’s rib using him as support to literally force this baby to leave the womb – yep, really we should have hear alarm bells then. She really will not do something unless she wants to, no matter how much you beg, plead and cajole.

And so, off we went home with our bundle of joy. New parents. I’d never even held a baby before, and here was this amazing little girl.

Freyja was a very happy and smiling baby, very independent even early on, and very quick to develop, though again she would do things when she wanted to, and only then. Just as she was approaching her first birthday she was not yet walking, not really doing much crawling either, though we were sure she could. One day a little girl at daycare that she always played with got up and walked a few steps, much to the excitement of their carer. Freyja immediately got up, stalked across the room, sat down at the other side and gave everyone the look…. Yeah that look, the one that says “I did it better than she did! Now what do I get?” Sure enough she showed off for Daddy and Mama that evening too, and that, as they say, was that.

Her speech was early and she was fast to learn, by a year and a half she had the vocabulary of someone a year older, by 2 years she was speaking in full sentences. Her ability to communicate was wonderful and helped reduce frustration, but at the same time it also became a bit of a curse. She was the size of a child of three when she turned 2. She had the speech of a child of three, so everyone treat her as if she were older, including me if I am truly honest. I had never had a child before, I didn’t know what to expect and thought she was just like any other child. It’s only now as a mother of another baby, and after spending much time with other parents over the last 7 years, that hindsight gives me the truth of it. Everyone expected more of her, everyone treated her as if she should have the understanding of someone older, and we were so wrong to do that.

Along with the early speech development, came an ability to know her alphabet and her numbers, again both were in place by 2 years old, but soon they were accompanied by a frustration that she could not put them into context to read a story, or add up a number. The frustration got worse as she did not want us to teach her, she did not want to LEARN how, she just wanted to KNOW how!

And that was the beginning of the path that we are on now. A great morass of frustration, love, anger, laughter and tears that makes up our family life.