Summer and Stimulation needs

Hello again everyone.

I find myself apologizing for an extended absence, yet again.  The upside is that I do not post when there is nothing to report and hopefully have only interesting posts, if irregular in schedule.  I also love conversation, so please feel free to send me a message and/or leave a comment.  It gets me excited to interact with people of similar interests, and I will not publish your comment if you ask me not to, of course!  They do not automatically post on this blog.

Summer has begun.  We have already had heat indexes and one family member who seems to have suffered due to heat.  I hope you are all keeping well and finding fun ways to keep cool.

We moved during the last school year, and the house is wonderful.  We love it.  It fits our lifestyle and family so much better than the previous place, and we are very thankful for the change. 

Moving was also a lot of work!  I cannot imagine downsizing after several decades in the same house!  Logically, we all know that moving is always work.  We had purged a few years ago anticipating a move, and then purged again before the move . . . . twice.  We still found toddler things from M in some of the boxes our amazing friends helped us pack in the end.  How did they hide all this time?!  I like to think I'm pretty organized, but moving was an eye-opener! 

As a result, I strongly urge anyone interested to join a decluttering facebook group, read a book on minimalist life, or whatever motivates you to reclaim your space!  A couple of books recommended to me have been You Can Buy Happiness and It's Cheap, The Joy of Less, and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to list just a few resource.  The statistic that sticks with me from college (no, I will not tell you how long ago that was, lol) is that we spend 80% of our time using 20% of our stuff and 100% of our time maintaining 100% of our stuff.  Seriously, looking at it takes energy, even if you don't clean.  You'll feel less stress and more in control when you dump stuff.  And if you decide you want something later, a lot of that stuff is easy to grab.

M did an amazing job during the move.  She arranged her room and handled decorating decisions with her own enjoyment and user-friendliness in mind.  It has become her oasis, and we were surprised how mature she was about the whole thing.  Her parents tried to do the same thing, mostly with success.

A lot of people told us their child of that age would never let them move, or that they would make it miserable.  M gave us her opinions, and acccepted the decisions that weren't hers to make mostly with grace, which is pretty amazing!  When grandparents came to the unpacked house for the first time, she handled half the tour, pointing out things that she really liked, some being ideas I worked on which was sweet.  The fact that she didn't have to switch to a different school weekdays made the trnasition easier, definitely, but there was still plenty of transition.

Summer came on pretty fast with all of that going on during the school year, especially since it ended with her first official final exam administered by a different person.  It was for a lab science, including a fair amount of lab work, and she did very well, as we knew she would.  Being her first experience like it, she was nervous and extra proud that it went well.

After that, it can feel like the world skids to a stop with the season change.  We hear about the lazy days of summer.   I remember them when I was in school, before college, when I spent all summer in the water, on my bike or reading.  This summer, with the changes we've made, we have more time than previous years.  It sounds like a dream, but with people who have a high need for brain stimulation, it can be a challenge.

We chose to do some homeschool work this year.  M was on board for that, after seeing for herself that she gets anxious and in a bad mood when she isn't stimulated enough.  We aren't doing a lot of schoolwork, tho. 

She also was invited to do a Skype book club with some people far away, and was completely honored.  The amazing mom who is coordinating it used a book list from their school district and invited other local girls to do that, including many civil rights themed books.  There are others, of course, but I like the idea of the diversity of civil rights things to consider at the same time.  I know M will consider the different scenarios, contrast them, see similarities, and then think about her outlook into her everyday world.

Our new neighborhood is quite different from the last one, even though we are technically in the same city.  I wasn't sure if M would be really uncomfortable with the changes, excited, or something else entirely.  Neighbors chat with her, tell us how happy she seems, and how well-spoken she is.  I love that she feels comfortable talking to most people, and that she is seeing more diversity and still approaching everyone as a person.  Not all the same, but all equally human.

Maybe that's too deep and heavy for summer.  We are also spending plenty of time in the water and letting her run around outside with friends, of course.  If you ask M what she's thinking about, tho, you'll often hear about what she's reading, so we're keeping her well-stocked.  Some of them are audio books, so she can do artistic things or kinetic things at the same time, which is also nice.

And just to loop it back to the purging/minimalist theme, we're using the library a ton.  It's inexpensive (cause your taxes pay for it, so you might as well use it).  We use the kindle app options, some digital audio options through the library and some physical books, as well as some activities at the libraries.  Check it out if you're interested.  If you're not sure if you need to keep all your books, see if it's something available at the library.

OK, one final thing to stop at least one of my friends from hyperventilating.  If books are your version of teddy bears - like you need to cuddle them and you feel loved surrounded by them - by all means, keep your books!  It was just one example.  Each of us in this household had at least one area we did not purge.  That's the beauty of it.  If you minimize the things that you can, having a couple of collections works with less effort.  Just minimize the number of collections ;)

Hopefully, I'll keep up with y'all this summer.  Either way, remember that play is important for your health, so arrange some for you and yours, maybe including water this summer.  Stay cool!

Your Rainforest Mind

Look what was shared with me today - I love this analogy, and may have finally found an alternative to the dreaded word "gifted" ~shiver

https://rainforestmind.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/youre-not-crazy-youre-gifted

New Years Resolutions and Perfectionism

As New Years approaches, we start thinking about all of the things we might set as New Years Resolutions.  Losing weight is a popular one.  Very popular.  Interestingly, it's never been one I have chosen.

As a recovering perfectionist, resolutions are really hard for me.  As one of my friends says, "That's why I don't try things.  I know I'll fail." which is really one of the most popular presentations of perfectionism.  My husband sets goals and they are actually something to aim for, whereas for me, they are a place to arrive. . .  or else I have failed.  Anyone relating to this?

Click here for a very respected source of a definition of the word "goal".  The first definition is: something that you are trying to do or achieve.  Note the word trying.  As Star Wars came out recently, the immediate follow-up through my head is this Yoda clip which really doesn't help my perfectionistic side.

I think my husband actually has this concept right, and I have it wrong.  Don't tell him so, lol!  Trying is not necessarily achieving.  That's where it can become an unhealthy control issue.

Over the last few weeks, the stress has actually increased again a few times in this house.  I know, it doesn't seem possible, but that's really what has happened.  We're resigned to stress being part of our lives all the time now.  We can still work toward a healthier lifestyle in the midst of heavy stress.

During that time, M has been harder on herself than we've seen in a long time.  Whenever something goes the least bit askew, she'll focus on what she "should have" done.  I'm in favor of banning the word "should" or at least making it a swear word, so it is used less frequently in polite company.  When I try to redirect her by saying, "It's no big deal, let's just focus and fix it."  What I mean is, let's move forward.  What literally happened last week is that she focused on that fact that she "should have _____" - YIKES!!!  Not at all what I was looking for!

I think this gets us back to goals.  The important part is the direction, not the desitnation.  The trying rather than the achieving.  The second part of that definition linked above is: an area or object into which a ball or puck must be hit, kicked, etc., to score points in various games.  It's about the direction and the momentum.  Something to aim for.  There can be as much excitement and emotion in sports when goals are attempted as there are when they are achieved.  Maybe there should be as much celebration in life over goals attempted, as well.

My most successful New Years Resolution (and one I repeated a number of times) was to finish more projects than I started.  It's a a direction, rather than a destination.  I enjoy a lot of things and tend to get in over my head.  Not starting new things sounds very constrained and not very fun.  Quitting feels like failure and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  A lot of my feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment are derived from finishing things, whatever the quality of the result.  Therefore, finishing more than I start helped me reduce my in-progress projects, which also reduced my stress level without boxing me in.  The other benefit is that it encouraged me to consider carefully when starting new things.  I had a limitation on the quantity of new projects, so I chose the ones most meaningful and exciting to me.

A friend has been inspiring me by incorporating more exercise into her life, and another of our friends accurately pointed out that showing up at the gym each time is winning the battle.  That brings me to the last definition of goal: the act of hitting, kicking, etc., a ball or puck into a goal or the score that results from doing this.  This is the only definition of goal I had incorporated into my approach, when it's only one of 3, and the last stated.  Let's celebrate making our goals when we do, and the direction we aim when we don't get all the way to where we want to.

Please join me in phrasing the goal AS the direction.  Make more exercise is the goal, rather than the weight or clothing size you wore when you were 18 if you're now 50, for example.  That way you can celebrate getting your body into the gym as scoring a goal based on that last definition.

This post may not sound like it's about gifted kids and education, but it is.  For you see, gifted kids grow into gifted adults.  And most parents of gifted kids that I know learned things from their parents.  Some of those things are not what the parents wanted to teach.  Kids learn by watching.  When we help ourselves adopt a healthy approach and lifestyle (in terms of thoughts as well as bodies), we help the children watching us.

Happy New Year!!

Giftedness as Asynchronicity

My child is many ages at once.  Brilliant.  Perfect.  True here.  Check it out here.

Another Fall - Another angle on the gifted experience

Like most parents of highly gifted children, I go through my periods of denial.  More experience parents who love and support me recommended transcript work . . .  about two years ago.  They said it a little louder, but equally gently about a year ago.  Guess what I decided was premature.  Guess who knew better.  I was surprised, really, but my waves of denial had gotten me.  Again.

Last Spring was a wake up call when we got the Peabody test results.  One subject is not yet to High school level, but should be this Spring if the trajectory stays true.  The others were mostly beyond High School at that point.  We just kept thinking it would slow down later.  I know the more experienced parents in this sphere are shaking their heads and chuckling.  That will probably be me one day, as well.

For those who are very nervously wondering if "what they say is true" and that it speed up, I can't exactly say that.  It feels like it, certainly, but the overall grade level progression, and most individual subjects has stayed at about the same rate for M, according to the Peabody results.  I have already stated why my instincts on this particular issue aren't ones I can trust, lol.  If they continue at this rate, she'll have one subject at the start of High school in the Spring, but overall, have graduated from High School.  She will be 11.  Does that terrify others?  It certainly terrifies her father and I!!!

If you follow this blog, I humbly thank you, and you will know that we have had monstrous personal life circumstances for a couple of years.  If not, I thank you for reading this one, and you now know the boiled down background for the rest of the post.

Approaching this Fall, I simply wasn't ready to start homeschooling again.  I'm just too run down.  I feel drained, hollowed out, and incapable of doing justice to M in the area of education.  The fact that she is advancing so quickly doesn't minimize the effect.  A year ago, I felt the same, but not as severely . . . although at the time, I couldn't imagine it being more severe.  Here's hoping what doesn't kill us makes us stronger!

This year, we lost a beloved family member and held the funeral just before the school year started.  I had not fully healed from multiple other emotional blows during the past years when the terminal diagnosis was given early this calendar year.  We are honored to have been allowed to devote a lot of our time to this amazing person throughout the year, and that is a balm to the wounds.

In some ways, starting a couple of new class schedules right after the funeral was good timing.  It was a clean start.  There wasn't the strangeness of the regular schedule blocks suddenly leaving.  Mostly, anyway.  The day I had set aside for that still feels echoing and cold, even on warm days.  M, thankfully, doesn't seem to be aware of that, and I am thankful she is spared that.  She has enough wounds, anyhow.

In other ways, the timing was jarring.  There was no buffer time to just recover and sit in the experience.  2014 left me the summer to do just that, and in retrospect, I understand the gift that was more fully than I did at the time.

We are not ignoring the experience and the wounds and the healing.  All of us in this house have seen psychologists to help us cope in as healthy a manner as possible.  I am so thankful for that support.  We are continuing to use these resources as we have a rocky fall.

This Fall, most of M's classes are taught by others.  We use online teachers, video teachers, and more than one source of in-person teachers for her.  Our intention was to have very qualified teachers helping her, especially in subjects that I am not gifted in.  The benefit we were hoping for was space for me to be a little bit less involved as I heal, and for her to have other environments with fewer triggers around recent events.  Sometimes it seems like this is working.

Other times, it is apparent that I am not functioning as well as I'd like to.  For instance, I tend to make appointments in groups.  In past years, we used those as "appointment weeks" and just took a week off of our at-home curriculum.  Since she's ahead of the state requirements and tends to take classes in the summer, this seemed ideal.  Note to self: you cannot take a week off when you are not the teacher.  This is one of those instances where someone who sometimes seems smart shows that moments of obvious lesser intelligence still shine through.  Poor M.  She was the one that suffered most through that one.

As a family, we are trying to adapt and meander toward a more functional lifestyle.  Right after registrations, I realized we were in too deep, and M and I decided to drop one class only days after registration.  That was an expensive decision and one that her father was wonderfully supportive of.  We still began the Fall knowing we had a really heavy load of classes, despite having signed up for only some of what was interesting and useful for the semester.

We said we'd stay flexible and adapt as necessary, making these decisions between hospital visits and mentally shutting down for the day.  We knew it wasn't the greatest time to be doing this, but it's what we were given, and we did our best.  Overall, it just feels messy.  I know it doesn't look as messy as it feels because we have wonderful friends who understand and are completely honest with us.  They love us, accept us, support us, and let us know when we are out of line.  I cannot imagine survival without them.

So . . . we have a high school student in some ways and a typical learning-time-management girl who is developmentally appropriate to her age in that respect.  Can you picture it?  She's also a perfectionist, as are her parents, which makes life more difficult as we all battle that particular ailment.  Every time we adapt, M and I both feel remorse and some degree of failure, even when that is not an appropriate response.  Her parents are also both deeply wounded and grieving, rather than perfectly resourced to help her find that balance.

We are struggling to find balance and appropriate priorities.  While my own child is reasonably my higher priority as a mother, I now have other family members who need motherly involvement in a way that is appropriate and important for me to try and address to whatever small degree I can.

I also need to take care of myself while all this is happening so that I can do my best at finding balance, when what I really want is to be Superwoman and Supermom.  My instinctual goal is to try and do it all perfectly all the time and looking perfectly put together & made up.  Yes, I do realize it's ridiculous.  It's also honest.  I need to take care of myself so that I am capable of helping anyone.

After the wonderful insight of Brene Brown in the Gifts of Imperfection, I'm an aspiring good-enough-er.  Who's with me?

gifts and curses of hyper-awareness

I have generalized anxiety disorder, which is far more common than people realize.  I have been treated and "stable" (whatever that means) for many years, but it's part of my daily reality.

Not long after my diagnosis, my psychiatrist told me that I needed to recognize the benefits of the condition.  I snorted, made a sound like,  "pffft!" and said, "benefits?  of my disorder?"  Yeah.  He took it all in stride, not reacting and letting me process the comment.  When he had my attention again, he said something like, "Yes.  You see more than most people.  You notice things others don't, and that is an advantage when you react to the information in a healthy manner.  What you see is there, whether or not other people see it.  You're not imagining things.  You just have more information."

My first reaction was that it was good to hear I wasn't hallucinating.  Unfortunately, hallucinating IS the allergic reaction I can have to some medications I will never take again, so this was comforting.

I thought about those words a long time.  I grew up hearing "you're oversensitive," "you're overreacting," "you're just looking for shock value," "I didn't notice that," "you must be imagining things," etc.  As I began to trust that what I saw was actually there, I learned to react more healthfully to the abundance of information entering my mind all the time.  Not surprisingly, I need my quiet time and time alone every. single. day.  Without it, I just want to scream.  It's overstimulating to the extreme.

M has this same gift/curse of hyper-awareness, although she has not been diagnosed with anxiety.  You know how they say ignorance is bliss?  What does that make our hyper-awareness, I wonder.  I think how we choose to handle it can make it a number of things, but it doesn't automatically produce bliss.  That I know!

I'm not sure how interrelated this might be with giftedness.  They are both neurological, so it's reasonable and logical to think they could be related.

How many highly gifted kids do I know who are hyper-aware in one way or another?  I cannot count them.  Sensory issues are hyper-awarenesses.  Visual memories are definitely hyper-awarenesses.  There are so many . . . .

Kids who are hyper-aware can tend to be perfectionistic.  They can tend to be extremely literal and to correct small inconsistencies.  Those are hyper-reactions.  They might need to move all the time - often called hyper motor disorder.  I'm not even going to try and produce a complete list.  You get the idea.

Bak to M.  She was sitting with a sick relative and they were doing a test.  M got very intense in her watching, but not in her speaking.  I'm not sure what was whirring through that precious head.  I asked the nurse a general question and got a reasonable, calming kind of response.  I didn't believe her because of the "benefits of my disorder."  I saw her eyes.  Awareness is not bliss in this situation.

Two days later, admittance to the hospital happened.  Again.  The day after that, a move to the ICU.  Again.  Instead of stress beginning with the hospital news it began the day of the test for me and my girl.

We have a gradeschool-aged kid, who tests (by an independent tester) as a high school level student, and has the emotional age that ping pongs randomly to either side of her chronological age (depending on the topic), who is now aware that things with a loved one are quite serious.  You can imagine the emotional reactions.  Actually, I hope that you cannot.  Like I said, it's not ignorance and bliss.  Imagine having the intellectual capacity to understand the heightened amount of information you automatically take in, but an emotional capacity that has no idea what to do with it.

These are the types of days I really hope noone in their blissful ignorance says, "That must be so easy for you!" or "How wonderful!  I wish my child was gifted like that!"  On days like this, I wish she wasn't.  On days like this, I think ignorance might be bliss and wish she had more of that.

Joy even in grief ~or~ Gifted grief is not better.

I have still been thinking about this blog, people going through similar journeys, and living the journey.  I just realized I have only one post from this calendar year and decided to do something about it.  I hope to get more regular about it in time.  The reason I've been absent is that I'm soaking up the life I have available to me right now, knowing that some of those options might not be there in the near future.

There is a lot of stress in our family now, due to a statistically terminal diagnosis in a loved one.  If you've read a number of my entries or know me personally, you're aware that we had several funerals over the course of a just a few months - that ended just over a year ago, and the current patient was diagnosed in January.  It's been tough.  Very tough.

What do you do when stuff like that happens?  Most ask why.  It's a fair question and one that we may not get a satisfactory answer to in this lifetime.  Some avoid it or act like everything will be fine out of a belief in the power of positivity.  Some despair because it is so sad and feels so unfair to everyone involved.  Everyone grieves differently, and in the face of a terminal diagnosis, grief is appropriate.

This is a topic and experience where I feel like we can be a little more mainstream.  After all, everyone deals with it.  And yet, since we are atypical, some parts still look different.

I personally choose to react and prepare with statistical and logical reason, but continue to hope miraculously.  We are Christian and believe that God CAN do anything.  Sometimes, however, it is not in his plan.  My choices are hedging bets, perhaps, but it works for me.

M was despairing recently about the number of losses and starting to feel a lot of anxiety about her own health and that of her parents - she has seen parents closely related to her die, as well as their children dealing with it.  This is perfectly reasonable for her to experience, but how many kids would be able to turn a corner in about 5 minutes because of this scenario?

me: "OK, so the population of the US is ______."  Get a calculator, and I'll look up the numbers.
M: "OK, I have the calculator."  Tears stop.
We divide the number of cases of one particular kind of cancer in a year by the population of the US, finding it to be far less than 1%.  M looks relieved and confused.
Next, we divide the number of cases of another kind of cancer in a year by the US population and find it also to be far less than 1%.  She looks much cheered for an instant, then positively perplexed.
We add them together to find that there is maybe 0.1% chance (rounding up) of being diagnosed with either kind in a year.
M: "So why have we known SO many?!"
me: "I don't know.  It's just really bad luck to know 4 cases considering those odds."
M looks thoughtful, but much more peaceful, and goes about her day.

She repeated those odds to a psychologist later, so I know she is reasoning her way through the experiences.  It works for her.  For some, it would not.  I jokingly tell people I'm cursed and not to get close to me.  However, a couple of decades ago after losing my second peer-aged friend to cancer, I did feel that way.  It's difficult to navigate.

A highly gifted child may be able to reason their way through it more easily.  I don't know.  M is highly logical and literal, so it seems to help her.  However, she also understands the diagnosis at a deeper level than her age should indicate, making things harder.  I know so many parents who have tried to get psychological help for their gifted child (which tends toward depression, anxiety, etc.) only to find that play therapy is tried.  For kids like M, who gave up toys at an alarmingly early age out of boredom, this is obviously ineffective.

When life feels out of control, we try to control it.  Call it anxiety, or call it perfectionism - it's painful and a coping mechanism either way.  We have put boundaries around how much time we spend in the throws of it, but making sure we are in the throws of it; being apart from the patient for too long makes life hard, as well.  It's like walking an emotional tightrope.

We find things that are meaningful to the patient and do that.  For my husband, it meant hearing she wanted licorice and buying her every flavor of his favorite brand.  She is an enthusiastic and appreciative person who is SUPER fun to please & not too difficult to make smile, so this is especially satisfying.

I decided to update the house a little.  I got rid of some things I never liked, and had a Goodwill shopping spree (yes, I am that kind of nerd) to get some more fun and happy things into our home.  I also got some scented shower gel that makes me happy and improved my mood that way.  One of my closest friends did the same, which made me feel even better.  They are small things, but they work a little.

We still have our bad days.

One day a few months ago, I was not interested in getting out of bed (although I did get out of bed), and M came into the room and gave me a hug.  I had been crying, which sadly does not throw her at this point.  Here's how the convo went:
me: It's times like this that I wonder if school would bet better for you than homeschooling.  There aren't many, but this is one of them.
M: WHY?! [with wide scared eyes - oops]
me: Because with homeschooling, you have fewer breaks from all of the trauma and grief than you would if you were in school.  It would be a break from the emotional environment.
M: Not me!!!  I mean, these are life skills!  I need to learn this stuff!!  Everyone does. At least I can talk about it with you and learn how to deal with it now instead of later.  I'm glad I'm home during this, and I'm glad I'm with _____ during this.  It's important. [returning to her nonchalant mannerisms]

Bottom line: I was schooled by a 10 year old.

In the midst of all the stuff we're going through, we have been able to support a charitable effort that is meaningful to the patient we are supporting.  We have been able to support the rest of the family of the patient in various ways: geeking out over cleaning out a freezer (seriously) before a grad party, learning about volleyball, buying random nail polish, doing a bunch of teenagers' laundry, cleaning out a fridge, helping with a new puppy, sitting with the patient, starting dinners, etc.  We are finding and strengthening a number of relationships through the experience.

We had a great family vacation, as well.  M has found another option for classes that she is absolutely loving, for a total of 3 sources of classes for her outside our home (but still technically homeschooling).  My husband is growing into a job he is loving and good at.  We are cooking more at home and having fun with fresh local produce.  I'm meeting friends regularly just to chat.  We're meeting other families at events and getting out of the house.  We are filling the cupboards and freezer with some of the fresh local produce to use this winter and improve our menu and ease of meal planning this winter. Finally, we play games at home and with friends, and card games are common at the house of the patient.

Even in grief, there can be great joy.  Don't miss the joy from focusing too much on the grief or from avoiding it altogether.  Although we wouldn't wish the hard stuff on anyone, we would NEVER give up what we have gained through the tough experiences.