Its all about the details..but one step at a time...

So, I am finally home for Christmas! My first semester of university is officially complete! Its been a long and hard semester but its been so worth it. Even though i've had many set backs that have made me feel like giving up, even to this day, I keep fighting and holding on as tough as it is!


Anyways, just thought I would give you all a quick update on my current status however, I have a completly new idea for a blog that was inspired by one of my dear apd support friends. Throughout this blog I want to talk about how detail is so important for people living with APD and how without schedule, and routine, it can all become very overwhelming.


Although routine and schedule is hard for someone with APD to achieve, it is very crutial. We often times need our parents, teachers and friends to help us with it but we do EVENTUALLY get the hang of it all and it may seem stressful on times for others but as you read through this blog you will begin to learn why.


If your not a parent of someone who has APD, your probably wondering how a child wanting to be on schedule is stressful? Well, when you experience the child asking for every detail of everything thats about to happen or wanting exact times and dates as to when things will happen that can get annoying. However, for those of you who are parents, teachers, or friends of APDers and have witnessed this, I will try my best to further explain why it is so important to us.

After thinking about it a little while and hearing stories of other kids with APD who expereince the same issues, I believe that when things are not planned, or not in order then we forget things.  For instance, tonight I was wrapping christmas presents, checking my facebook and doing up parcels for the mail and I had myself on a schedule I would do one thing at a time take it one by one complete one task and move onto the next one. However, my mom came in then and gave me a card I needed to sign so she could deliver it and because I got distracted I very quickly then forgot what I was doing. Its also like when you give someone with APD instructions on something. Like for me when I was a kid if my mom would say "Go upstairs and grab the cordless phone for me" and then say something about turning the TV off or adding more things to what she said, I would run up stairs but then forget what I was up there for. Therefore, we like to know when things are going to happen but have an order for them and take it one thing at a time.

It also helps when things are written down. I know for me, even though I have trouble processing words sometimes and understanding readings, I am still much better visually then by auditory. So, I know for me, I like to have list of things and times and a detailed schedule to go by, this way I can literally check things off as I go and take it again, as I said, one thing at a time.

The Cycle Of The APD Hero - My Journey From The Beginning To Now

Hey there readers:) So for my final assignment in english class I had to take an aspect of something we have learned and relate it to something in my life... soo I took some quotes from literature we have read and used them to tell my story through APD so I thought I would share it!


Hope you all enjoy! It is quite lengthy but I hope you all will read!


-apdteen23


After reading the pieces of literature for this semester, it has been so apparent to me how well I can relate to these literary works. Growing up and my journey to discovering my learning disability and learning to live with it, has reminded me of the cycle of the hero in so many ways. Even after being given a diagnosis, the cycle of being in the familiar to the unknown still continued.


Unlike the cycle of the hero, my story begins in the unknown. It starts with the unfamiliar of having a constant struggle, however it was one that no one paid attention to. Not only was the fact that nobody saw a problem a constant battle, but then I experienced a major war within myself of realizing I was different but not knowing why.


As a small child in elementary school, many people believed me to be just a bad kid who did not try, nor care. I remember getting in trouble with my parents because of the comments from teachers that would be on my report card.  They would say things like “Robyn is very inattentive in class, very unorganized, a slow worker, needs constant reminders to keep on task while doing work, misses instructions, and over all needs to learn better classroom behaviour.” However, what they did not know was that it was so far from being my fault.


One thing that I came to realize growing up is when people are putting you down and tell you ‘you are no good’, and that ‘you are not smart and not trying’, you begin to believe it. Not only did the school seem to think I was lazy and not trying, I also never had many friends. I had one best friend whom I had met back before pre-school and were best friends though school, which helped, but when everyone else around you is teasing you for missing a joke, blaming your slowness on the colour of your hair, and constantly pointing out your stupid and silly mistakes, those thoughts stay with you.

Not only was I having problems at school, I was also having issues at home. My constant frustrations with school and peers often caused many major break downs and anger issues as a child. Time and time again I would come home from school so angry and frustrated that my mother would have to lock me in my room for time out until I had calmed down. Little did we all know, this had so much to do with my learning disability was yet to be discovered.

  

It was not until I was about 10 years old that my mom really began to question things. It began when she came across an article about children with ADD and thought “wow this truly sounds like Robyn”.  After reading the article she brought it to the attention of her psychologist. This led to meeting her psychologist who was very quick to come to the conclusion that there was no way that this was my problem.  However, he did have some concerns so he sent me to my school counsellor for testing.  This was only the beginning of many assessments and doctor visit.

It first started with multiple academic tests with my guidance counsellor.  This led to visiting the psychologist again, then an assessment with a speech language pathologist, a paediatrician, and an eyes and ears assessment with the school nurse. Finally the last of the assessments was a trip to the audiologist. This is where I received the confirmed diagnosis of (Central) Auditory Processing Disorder. This entire experience reminds me of the quote by Annie Dillard that states “[b]ecause I had to climb a mountain to get there”. It reminds me of my experience because we had to go through so much struggles and hard times, like climbing a mountain to get to the answer of my problem. It was long and painful, but we did manage to get to the top.

This diagnosis brought so much relief for the people around me. The fact that they now had a label to put on it helped in so many ways. After discovering why I was acting the way I was brought so much clarity to them everyone around me.

When I started the sixth grade, the school got a FM system for me which was supposed to help. However, it was an old FM system that had horrible feedback and background noise which defeated the purpose of it being there. Not only that, but there was so much more to this learning disability than anyone knew, including myself. By this point, my grades had improved a little because the teachers were aware that there was a problem so they were more lenient with me, but not by much. Everyone around me believed because they knew my diagnosis everything would fix itself. However, I was still feeling as if there was still something there that nobody else realized which kept me down in the unknown.

Junior High brought a whole new experience to the issue. Even though there was more support available, there still was not much. In addition, because APD was not known as being a ‘learning’ issue and was just a ‘hearing thing’, I was always last priority when it came to receiving help. They would often say “well, her only problem is she cannot have background noise, therefore we can just stick her in a room by herself and let her do test in there”. What was not realized at this point was a classroom with no one in only myself, was ‘louder’ to me than a classroom with other students there. This was due to the fact that I would get distracted by my own thoughts and would have nobody there to keep me on track. This was another aspect of APD that nobody realized.

After just managing to get through grade seven, with a little under average grades, I moved along into grade eight. That year brought a whole new load of challenges for me. Along with the fact that school was very hard and at this point I still was not getting any better support, it was also the year that my best friend since preschool had moved. Like me, she had a learning disability so on some level, even though it was not the same one, we understood each other. It was one thing to feel so stupid and incompetent in school because no one believed you when you told them you were struggling and trying your hardest; but to have to go through Junior High without your best friend who has been by your side really makes you feel like your world is being taken away. The fact that I never really had other friends also contributed in me becoming depressed during that year.

After having my best friend move away, I felt as if I had no one by my side anymore. No one to be there and no one who believed in me so I very quickly started giving up. It came to the point where not even the school’s newly started music program made me happy. It did help a little, truly it was really the only thing that kept me from killing myself, however it did not replace not having my best friend by my side.

 In the cycle of the hero, after the hero starts to come out of the unknown, he then meets a mentor or a guide. For me, that following September of Grade nine was when I met my two mentors. During this year, I received new teachers that completely saved me from myself, but it took me a while to realize it.

The first guide I met would be my English teacher, Mr. Noseworthy. It was by complete fate that this man became my teacher because he was a last minute replacement when my current teacher had to take the role of principal. In the quote “[a] fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees” by William Blake, this teacher is the wise man and I am the tree. He is one of the few who managed to help me find some confidence and unlock my potential. He put in the time and effort and actually helped me with my work instead of pushing me off to the side saying I was not trying.

My second guide would be my new music teacher, Mr. Chaulk. Although music had been an escape for me for as long as I can remember, he helped me bring my music to a whole new level. He helped work with my confidence and helped me find a goodness inside of me when I felt like I had none. Throughout the course of my years from grade nine to this very day, I have had a few mentors and guides from school, however this man was much more than a music teacher to me. This man quickly became a friend to not only me but my whole family.

Then as I reached my years of high school, things began to go downhill from there. I became depressed during this year because my English teacher was forced to transfer schools as our old English teacher returned as our teacher. Although he was not a horrible teacher, he was not that constant reminder in my life that I was smart and special in my own way. He did not understand my needs the way Mr. Noseworthy did.  Along with the fact my English teacher left, I no longer had music class either. Even though I had after school band rehearsals, it was not nearly the same. However, on top of all this, was the new found hardness of high school and the new challenges that brought. Despite not physically moving buildings, as our junior high and high school are in the same building, the courses did become much harder and I was given mostly all new teachers.

Once again my academics took a turn for the worse, and resulted in me starting to lose interest in other things I loved. I very quickly became depressed. I started to give up completely with my school work, and I had few friends because as I started to go downhill, no one wanted anything to do with me. I felt so alone and so unwanted that most every night I would just wish that I would not wake up in the morning.

 It finally got to the point where one night I went down into my kitchen, poured a handful of pain killers in one hand, and a bottle of water in the other and was determined to end my life right there and then. As I started to take the cap off of the water bottle, I started to think about the decision I was making.  I suddenly felt a force stopping me from doing it within. The sad thing is, the thought of not being alive was not what stopped me. What had stopped me at this point was the fear of it not working. The ideas of what everyone would think of me and what people would say were running right through my mind. Being from a small town, everyone knows everyone, word gets around and the idea of having people glare at me as being even crazier then I believed them to already see me as did not settle well with me.

After I had decided to not go through with the act, I ran to my room with tears running down my face. As soon as I got to my room I instantly got online and at the time was glad when I saw a friend of mine online. She was pretty much the only person in my class that I talked to and at the time I felt I could trust her. I felt I could trust her. I decided to tell her what I was about to do just a few moments before. Her reply to what I had just explained was to not worry, things would get better and that she would be there for me no matter what.

  For the first time in a while, I went to bed not feeling horrible about having to get up for school in the morning. I felt as if maybe things would get better and even though deep down I felt as if I was kidding myself, I tried to block out that feeling of doubt. The next morning, as I was standing by my locker getting my books to go to class, a guy from my class came over to me and asked if I had tried to kill myself the night before. My response to that was a blank stare of complete shock. I could not believe that people had found out about it. If this guy knew, then everyone knew. The worse part, was when he followed by saying I should have done it because they all would have been better off without me.

After hearing this I was convinced my only way to get rid of this feeling, was by getting a fresh start. For months I begged and tried convincing my parents to move me away to another place. I was even willing to be shipped off to boarding school; however, they would not take it. I eventually came to the point where I gave up, but decided I would just plan to do extremely well in school by somehow making my learning disability go away and get all A’s and get into a university far away.

For the remainder of the year I became so engaged in my school work, constantly studying and trying my hardest, however, after working my hardest and not receiving marks above seventy I was beginning to feel very discouraged so again, I gave up trying.

At the end of that year I received my report card with marks that were not anywhere near what I wanted them to be. My mother became very concerned. She became even more concerned when we learned in a meeting with my school counsellor and principle that because of the small school size it was mandatory for me to take a course that I was close to failing the year before. That past year, I had only done an introduction to the material and failed the whole science unit based on that topic and I was being forced into the upper year course of it because of the lack of courses. This made my mom very frustrated and started to seriously consider moving me to a new school. My father said there was no way that we were leaving Twillingate. He said that many people graduated from there before and did fine and therefore a move was completely unnecessary.

Despite what my father thought was best at the time, things very quickly changed. Over the course of the summer as my grandmother became very ill with cancer and was not given much time. This helped my parents make the decision of moving much easier. Although we did not have my grandmother around for long and she passed away before school had started it was a great new start for all of us, and bringing us closer to family.

Although going to a new school then brought me even further into the unknown, in no time I was making my way up into the known. In the words of Annie Dillard “[t]he new place interest you because it is not clear”, best described how at this time even though everything about this new experience was unknown, that was what was so appealing and exciting to me.

A change in atmosphere gave me a clean slate. I made the decision I was going to take all easier courses. The school was larger and there were so many more courses to choose from. I decided that I was going to pick the easy courses so I could do well without having to tell anyone about my learning disability. I was convinced that by doing this I could breeze through and make my learning disability go away. This did give me more confidence for the time being as I was able to become more involved in extracurricular because there was more offered and my course load was not as demanding. However, I failed to realize the courses that I was interested in courses that were mostly all electives. The light course load was good for that one year because it boosted my confidence and got me on the honour role, but it gave me no indication to what my grade twelve year would be like.

Not only was the load for grade twelve much harder because of public exams, I was also forced back to my hometown because of a tragedy that affected my father’s side of the family. Even though it was not an easy move we had to return to my home town. Grade twelve was a whole new challenge. It caused many problems academically. I had taken a ‘slacker’ year the previous year doing electives, I now had to take harder courses to get my graduation credits. Many of the mandatory courses were also public courses in which the final exams are made by the government. These exams have such strict rules that the teachers of the course are at no point allowed to view the exam. This makes preparing for the exams a little harder.

Having four public courses, one university preparation math course, and two electives made grade twelve very frustrating. After living away for the year doing easy courses and no supports, I decided to not use any supports again when I came home. I was popular at my old school when I did not use them so I figured maybe if I ignored my learning disability again for another year it would go away. I was very wrong. One of my major issues with learning is reading comprehension. It takes me forever to understand things that to others are so easy. Having a public English, Biology, and World Geography course was very challenging. Along with two math courses one university preparation course and one public math course which were also very difficult because I always had trouble with math as well.

After a few months into school my grades were dropping yet again. I was trying my hardest, staying for tutorials and studying all the time but it was not working. I was still doing horrible on test and not getting anywhere. I finally came to the realization that if I wanted to get anywhere in life, I would have to give in and accept help and learn to accept my learning disability. To do that I had to truly learn what it meant to have APD because the supports I received as a child did not work. I looked into what it really meant to have APD and along the way I managed to meet a few people going through the same thing I was. I learned there was so much more to APD then what many people realized

 After I had finished my research I brought it all to the attention of my school counsellor. She was very understanding of what I had to say and was so glad I brought it to her attention. In terms of cycle of the hero, this woman would be another mentor/guide. I had talked to her about my issues and what things I was having difficulty with because of my learning disability it was easier to get supports for me. Although it was a small school and there were not many supports available to give, it was much easier than doing it all alone.

Despite the fact I was far from a top A student, I still managed to pull through. Even though it took much hard work, determination, and strength I did complete high school with maybe not the best marks, but one thing I had failed to learn growing up is that it dose not matter about the best, all that matters is my best and those are two different things.

Now, I have finally made it. Despite what others believed and I myself believed, I did achieve my goals. Although university has been a completely new trip into the unknown, it has been a wonderful ride so far. I am constantly learning new things each day and although it gets very frustrating at times, it is worth every minute of it. William Blake says it best when he says “[w]hat is now proved was only once imagined”. From this quote he shows us exactly what I myself have been learning, is that we often prove imaginations to realities when we least expect them.

Don't take it personally..I'm just stressed

This next post was inspired by the fact that first semester exams are coming up in my very near future. I wanted to get another blog up for this semester and I thought this topic would be perfect!


I know for myself, as I am sure it applies to many of my fellow apders out there, when time comes for a big test, assignment, a hard class, or anything that is overly stressful, like your average person we get stressed and over whelmed, HOWEVER, the stress we go through is often times different than what most people experience and many people don't realize that!


Speaking from expereince, I know for me personally I get quite stressed to the point where I look completly run down and tired and very overwhelmed and a little on edge. Luckily, it is the soul of exams and as soon as they go so does the mood.


It is often times so hard, I know being in first year university it has gotten even harder because on top of school work there is having to go to the store and getting things, chores and so on and so forth, the things you can normally get your parents to do if you have a ton of school work, however it dosen't work that way when your far from home so it has deffinitly been a whole new experience for me this year.


So, all and all, I know this is a quick blog but I just wanted to say to you parents especially, if your apder is stressed and overwhelmed and starting to get run down, don't be TOO alarmed unless it last a LONG time, and if you are lucky and it only last a short time, just be supportive, but still give them their space. If they snap or get annoyed easily, don't take it to heart just know they are going through a difficult time and need to learn to adjust. I think for someone with APD there will always be stressed linked to school work and learning and not understanding, its the story of our lives, however, its when it gets too hard to handle then you need to look into help. I know for me, starting university has been a new kind of stress and I have been getting better with dealing with it, however, I am still learning to find ways that I can cope and work around my stress so its not as exsausting, but it takes time and practice. However, although they need space, it is nice knowing that someone is there for you. Just a reminder that as long as we do OUR BEST nothing else matters. Its not about being THE best, its about being YOUR best!


-apdteen23