Catastrophizing is a bad habit I have developed since becoming a father. I am no idiot, I know where it has its origins: London’s nearly 4-month-long NICU stay and all the things I witnessed during that, all the scares and setbacks we have had with her since then, and the ASD and ADHD diagnoses. Not to mention that since she has been born we haven’t lived in a calm, peaceful, and honorable country. A lot can go wrong. A lot can go right, but I am weak and tend to spend quite a bit of time in the former mindset. I am trying to improve that. Progress pending…
Anyway, when you’re already fearing the worst, attending a parent/teacher conference can be like going to the front lines of the conflict. You expect to hear some bad or sad news regarding the child you already know has special needs, but when it’s the other child, the one you thought was in the clear, the mind goes blank. You can go from not very hopeful to the sky is falling quite quickly. This is precisely the way I felt when Camden’s teacher brought up his attention span last year. I stared at the ground, here we go again.
We started the diagnosis process last year in Denver, but it fell to the wayside amidst the chaos of moving. Now, in Fort Collins, we have had another teacher express concern about his attention span in class. I’m thankful he has had attentive teachers who both, without any communication between them, mentioned attention concerns. Finally, we are taking the steps to look into it, starting with the Vanderbilt Assessments this week and meeting with his doctor next week.
As for me, I haven’t been catastrophizing too much this go around. I don’t think it will be a multiple diagnoses situation, like with London. At most, I do think Camden has a moderate case of ADHD and we hope to get him some help. We will review the assessment results next week and probably talk treatment/solutions in the same appointment. Talking and writing about it has made it easier to face. So, even if you’re not here for updates regarding this, you’re still gonna get them because I’m here to talk and write about anything. Buckle up. 🙂
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