I can finally announce it! I'm going to be a Lolli in March! Steven might be a Pop, but he hasn't decided yet.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022
Monday, September 26, 2022
Feelin' 22!
Goofball makes it hard to take pics because he moves too fast! But Happy 22nd birthday to the boy who made me a mom! He's enjoying his birthday at work managing a coffee shop. He loves his job and takes pride in it. We are proud of you! Love you Gage Kitchens !
Monday, September 19, 2022
Ryker is 16!
Happy 16th birthday to Ryker! He loves computers, games of many types, and Kirby. He has beautiful enviable hair and hates pictures and rarely smiles in them. He never fights with his siblings. He is still my calm middle child. I have still never heard him yell or get really upset at anything. He can debate anything however. He does things his way and doesn't care what others think. He's introverted like his mom and loves his space. We are very proud of him. Love you, Ryker!
Monday, September 12, 2022
Recent Evaluation for Autism
After a rough year with many changes, some good, some not good, I had come to point that I realized I needed to be tested for Autism. While I feel I had become self-realized years ago, it wasn't until this year that I really needed the official diagnosis due to a lack of understanding from some in my family and some other reasons. I had originally made an appointment with a psychologist in Missouri who didn't know of me. I make a lot of referrals to psychologists around here and I wasn't sure if I could get an unbiased evaluation. Plus I wanted someone that knew about high masking autism, particularly in adult females. The one in Missouri would have been a great fit but she was 7 hours away, didn't take my insurance, and had a 6-month wait. I still made the appointment. I was that ready. A couple of months prior to my appointment another psychologist had just started a practice in NWA and she was female and neurodivergent. I had one client scheduled with her and felt her assessment was spot on so I went ahead and made an appointment. She took my insurance and I was able to get in within a month. I told her to go ahead and test for ADHD as well because I needed to know if my symptoms were overlapped, both, or just one or the other. It was ruled out.
These were my results and the instruments she used.
One aspect of worry I had was actually put to rest with the IQ testing. I always had this fear that my struggles with understanding certain concepts were due to some overcompensated lack of intelligence. Surprisingly my IQ was actually above average and consistent throughout all areas tested. I still realize I have to find workarounds in some things because certain things are hard for me to grasp and my learning style is different than most. But my capability is there.
The GAD is not a surprise and I find it rare that autistic individuals have no anxiety. It is a comorbidity in most. My anxiety pushes me to be overly functional, staying ahead of the demand of anyone and making me be early for just about everything. I should have realized I didn't have ADHD because most of those individuals procrastinate and I "precrastinate" and do things ahead of schedule to try and prevent the anxiety of the task.
I will say the mild portion is something they put in clinical settings but frankly functioning labels are crap. Here is a little bit of my thoughts on functioning labels from my upcoming trainings on the topic.