Miss me?

It's been a minute since I have written anything, but there has been a lot going on in the Smith house.

My beautiful child opened up to me about a month ago and told me that they felt more feminine than masculine. So my son is now my daughter. She also wants to go by a different name now. I couldn't be more proud of her for living her truth. I got her an appointment for the adolescent and trans health clinic in the area. That was she has professionals who specialize in this to talk to, and to help her along her journey. I also got her registered for a personal clothing thing to help her get gender conforming clothing. We are just waiting until they are able to set an appointment for her.

Had her reassessed, trying to get an autism diagnosis, and got the results a couple of weeks ago. She was not diagnosed with ASD. We were basically told the same stuff we were told with the last two assessments. She's close, but not enough to get the diagnosis. We were also told to keep up with her therapy and try to find meds that will work for her, if we want to continue on the medication route. She's been off meds for a couple of months now, so we would be starting fresh if we did that.

Her school isn't helping the matter at all either, but I will wait until a meeting we have set before I talk about everything that has been going on with that.

I got myself an assessment too. Basically because since I was diagnosed with ADHD I never really felt like that was a proper diagnosis. The medication for someone with ADHD made me feel like I was on speed. And that is how people without ADHD respond to the medication. So, after a 4 hour long assessment I was diagnosed with moderate to severe anxiety (which I already knew) and a learning disability in math. I struggle with reading as well, but not enough that there is a disability there. My sleep is jacked also. So, add a poor sleep habit and massive anxiety, that can and does cause me to have concentration issues. I also learned that because I have a learning disability I can get a math tutor if I ever want to improve my math skills. The dr that did my assessment also recommended some therapists for me to help work on my anxiety. I'm probably going to try and set an appointment with someone on Monday. Medication alone isn't enough. I need medication and therapy to help me live normally.

I know I'm forgetting about something, which is typical for me, but I'm excited to help my daughter on her journey to be able to live authentically. As long as she is happy I am happy. I'll keep ya'll posted on everything.

I am so proud of him 11/7/19

Last Friday I took my son to the bank to open his very first checking account, mainly because the bank was having a sign up bonus, but also because he’s old enough for one. Well, he’s old enough to start learning about them. Anyways, that weekend he was on Amazon searching for a coffee pot to buy, coffee is his new thing, and found one with Alexa support that was within his price range. Even though his debit card hasn’t shown up yet he has his account hooked up to a different cash card, which is supposed to take the money from his bank account if there isnt enough on the cash card. About 20 minutes after he placed his order we got an email that the payment was declined, the cash card didn’t do what it said it was supposed to do. So, he talked with his Papaw and asked if Papaw paid for it with his card could he get the money out of the bank to pay him back, which Papaw agreed to. That resulted in us taking a trip to the bank on Monday for him to pull the money out of the bank to pay back Papaw. My son was so damn excited about doing all of this that he was bouncing on his toes the whole time and hitting his fists together, barely paying attention to what was being said. Just pure damn excitement all over his entire body. On top of that he had $4.75 in his little mo eh pouch he decided to put into his savings account. He has been so on the ball with keeping an eye on his account and asking about responsible purchases before he makes them.

The other thing that made me proud this week is he has been cooking more and yesterday he made Firecracker Chicken (added a picture at the bottom), which he found the recipe himself and checked to see if we had the ingredients himself, and asked if we could take what he didn’t eat to group and share with the other kids in group. The other moms even pointed out how much he has grown since day one until now. We are 9 weeks into group and he went from not speaking to anyone to asking if he could bring the chicken he made to share with the group!

The growth I am seeing in my son lately makes me so damn happy and I can’t wait to see what else he surprises me with!!

Looking for answers for myself 10/26/19

On top of trying for the last eight years to get answers to properly help my son I’ve been trying to get answers for myself as well.

I knew growing up that my brain was different than everyone around me, but I didn’t know how or why. I was just as smart as everyone else in my family, but it always took me a longer time to learn the information at school, I always failed the tests, even when I knew the information. I had a teachers assistant in 5th grade (Actually my second year of 5th grade) that noticed early in the year that I was a visual and hands in learner, just hearing the information was not going to make it stick. So she helped me learn how to take notes in a way that worked for me, and I became AMAZING at it, because it was just like organizing, which was one of my favorite things to do!

Making friends was hard for me. I had a large circle of people I considered friends, but it was painfully obvious that my relationships with them was different than how they were with the rest of the friends in the group. I remember one Christmas it was really hit home how different the relationships were. I had saved up for months to make sure I could buy the perfect little gift for all the girls in my circle, there were about eight I think, and as the day went on and I handed out the gifts I kept hearing the same thing from all of them “I’m so sorry, I ran out of money before I could buy your gift.” The one person I knew had no money was the only one who got me something, and she made it. She’s been my best friends for 21 years now. I didn’t handle change very well growing up either. If I knew something was going to be happening and all of the sudden it wasn't, I had a very hard time controlling my reactions to it. It usually resulted in me exploding because that was the only way that made sense for me to react, even though I knew as I was doing it, that it was the wrong reaction. One time, when I was 17, my mom got me a Mexican pizza on her way home from work, it had tomatoes on it, which I couldn’t stand then, and I lost it. All I could do was throw it on the floor and jump on it while screaming at my mom that she knew I hated tomatoes. As soon as I started I couldn’t stop myself and I knew it was the wrong way to react, but it was the only way I could react. I remember always feeling like things around me were out of control, no matter what I did, and I tried to find ways to feel like I was in control. One of the only ways I was able to do that with paper. My note papers, or any other paper I had, had to stay in perfect condition. They couldn’t have an creases, folds, smudges, changed in handwriting, anything. If they did then I had to rewrite whatever was on it, even if it was multiple pages worth. Everything had to be clean, perfect, and the same. I used to drive teachers insane because of it.

I asked my mom numerous times over the years while I was growing up to have me tested, for anything, and she never did. She just told me that I needed to try hard and to focus, that there was nothing wrong with me. I got myself tested when I was 26 and trying to deal with college, but the “test” was a yes/no checklist as my primary care doctors office and according to that I was ADHD, yet the medication that was supposed to help me focus made me feel like I was on speed. I mean, I COULD focus, but I was able to focus on 3-5 things at one time. I remember sitting in my US History class, taking notes, working on Algebra homework, and writing a 3 page essay for English Lit class all at the same time, and it all made sense. That’s not a normal way to feel I would assume. The crash when the medication wore off was horrible too. After doing research, while on this journey for my son, it’s made me wonder about myself and to take a step back and look at my childhood different. these are just a very tiny portion of how I’ve felt different in my life. I’ll expand in different blogs later.

Daily Contract 10/25/19

For the past seven weeks my son and I have both been part of a 14 week long study at our local childrens hospital. The basis of this study is to work with kids with autism to help create plans to better help them in daily living and/or social skills, since the plans out there are currently lacking.

It's not a bad group, I don't think. My son spends his time with the other teens in the group and I spend my time with the moms. We each go over the same information, but the teens are actually doing hands on what us moms are just discussing, and coming up with game plans on how to implement this information at home.

One of the things we do is, each week, we sit down with our child and come up with a daily contract, on things we know they need to become more independent on, and have them help us figure out what a good "reward" would be for completing each task.

No surprise to me, my son is monetarily motivated, so he gets paid for each task, and ask he shows stronger independence on each item the amount he earns starts to go down. We also add a new goal each week, based on what the kids are learning about that week in group.

I have learned that I've done a pretty damn good job at getting my son to be independent so far, thanks to putting things down in writing, like this contract, but it's also really helped me see where he needs more help. One of his tasks, that isn't listed in the picture below, is using the microwave daily... he has been doing that for YEARS! so when I asked him how much he should earn for completing that task he surprised me by saying "I should earn zero because I already know how to use the microwave, that's like paying me to breath."

I don't know why it took me seven weeks into this to think of making the chart on the chalkboard like I have in the photo below, It's legit right next to where I keep the contract so he can see what he needs to do.

A little more information with this contract... there are only so many "prompts" from me that he is allowed to get and still earn his money, after that agreed on amount of prompts he no longer earns the money listed. Not only has this shown him that when I tell him he needs to do something, he needs to do it, but it has also shown ME how many times I just naturally tell him to do something.

The first two weeks in this group I would find myself reminding him more times than were allowed, per the agreed upon amount of prompts, and he would get mad at me and tell me I was causing him to lose money. It opened my eyes a lot. Now, seven weeks into it, the things that have been on the contract since he start, I don't have to remind him about anymore. He just automatically does them. The newer added items, he still needs a prompt, but he's getting so great at just looking for the contract now to see what needs to be done.

I am so excited to see how things are going to be in seven more weeks when we are done with this study.

Also, ignore where it says "I am poop," lol, that was the most clear he has written anything in a long time and I refuse to erase it. I will probably cut out that part of the wall if we move out of this house!