Destination Diagnosis | 2019 Archive Post
One from the archives to give a little context to how neurodiversity has shaped our family and the decisions we've made.
This was the last blog post I wrote about our struggles with fitting our square peg in a round-holed system. Since then I’ve shared snippets over on Instagram, but in all truth, living it can be overwhelming and exhausting - so just surviving is the aim of the game. But I feel now - 5-6 years on from this post - we’re not just surviving, we might actually be thriving! I wish I could have shared all that’s happened and is happening with the ‘me’ that wrote the below, 6 years ago - she would have sobbed with joy if she could see how it’s working out right now. (Sorry for the slight spoiler!)
One of the themes that’s continued to arise over the last 8-10 years, both in my head and in many of the chats I have online, is a diagnosis for all that Hugo is and does. I consider seeking a diagnosis when things are bad – when Hugo’s thrown the shit at the parental fan and I feel like I’m drowning in failure, it's my flare for help. Then things settle down for a bit, a teacher, GP or CAHMS give you a look/letter of “I’m sure he’ll grow out of it”, so I lose steam and don’t want to rock the behavioral boat - until the next time!
But you know what they say?! Doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different outcome, is madness. So, for anyone with a spirited firecracker, who’s tick is ticking to a different tock, here’s where we’re at with a diagnosis, or - as I've come to prefer it - 'description'. After all, a diagnosis tends to imply something's wrong and it's not that there's something 'wrong' with Hugo, it's just that he's different to the 'norm'.