Asked my dad about my early years pre 8. Unfortunately he didn’t have much to tell. Probably not surprising as it was over 50 years ago.
A snippet.
but you were obviously a pretty precocious child because I remember you watching a lot of television and rushing into the kitchen to share the news of the Kennedy election in the fall of 1960’. Also you must have begun tto o read a little because you always referred to “Disney, Walt” in the index for m wnhich you could only h ave got from a printed format. You tended to fstutter a little and were left handed. Mima and I tended to be rather short of sl,eep. Because you would not go to bed early, had to have one of us stay with you until you went to sleep and tended to w,ake up with nightmares. You woke us up one night to say " I had a doggy in my eye" which had to relate
to your timidity about big dogs.
WE got down to the beach bungalow in Pataya frequently and you taught yourself toto swim there by the time dyou were Six. On the other hand, you tended to stutter a bit and were physically not too well coordinated, probably because you are left handed.
I think my father might have been skimpy on details because of a reluctance to admit I had difficulties/problems.
The school in Thailand did suggest I might have what is now called cerebral palsy. After tests at Great Ormond street provided negative my parents didn’t pursue the matter.
In recent years my sister has said she always thought it most likely I was dyspraxic.
I think your dad, just like people on this forum, and possibly others, want to make you focus on your assets and potential, rather than dwelling on your misfortune to have a certain number of ailments. If I were your father I would probably do the same…
Should you just ignore the fact you have not had the help to function fully though? How would people here feel if they were denied help for their schizophrenia and were just told to focus on their assets ?
Mom wrote in my baby book that I started walking at 6 months! Growing up I was the star of my hockey, baseball and soccer teams…a gifted athlete. I have scores of sport’s Trophies from my youth packed away in storage.
Schizophrenia didn’t hit me till later in life, around the age of 38. And I gave up sports entirely when my kids were born 13 years ago.
I had a dysfunctional mother who only ever dated sick, violent men. One of whom regularly beat and raped me from the age of five to about the age of 12. And my mother was aware of it and didn’t do a @#$%ing thing, which makes me very glad she’s dead. Those were my early years.
I don’t think you were denied help for sz.
Most people here, you included, are on meds for sz. And it generally works. Rather you didn’t get the help you needed for nvld. But honestly I am not sure what interventions for such a condition were available in the 60s or 70s, when you would have benefitted most, being young and all.
Heck I am not sure there are efficient therapies for nvld even today. Experts will probably advise parents of young nvld sufferers to enforce early socialization habits and also focus on identifying and encouraging strong points (assets) in their children.
Just my 2 cents.
Probably no more help than there was for those with Asperger’s when I was in high school and wound up dropping out. All I knew was that I was a round peg and school was a square hole. Being repeatedly slammed into something you don’t fit into gets old and I fled.
Yes, I am not his mom. I am simply offering him a different perspective, which firemonkey, as an adult, is free to embrace and learn from, or ignore. So far he hasn’t complained about my stridency. When he presses the red button, I will dial it back a notch or too. No hard feelings.
It’s not really that hard. I just figure out what my mother would have done and then do the exact opposite. It has been a remarkably successful approach.
(All jokes aside, if you didn’t like someone doing it to you, don’t do the same thing to someone else.)
Gonna disagree with you on this one. The “Dreaded Question” conversation is probably a top ten hall of famer for this site. Really hope @SzAdmin pins it as an example of positive support.
