Neurodivergence part 1

There is a series called Divergent by Veronica Roth. It's not the most amazing series ever, there are things that could be developed more but it brings you along for the ride in a way that I, at least, identify with it. The society tries to pin each member into a faction that they identify with based on a test. Cue the personality tests, right? The protagonist however is split between two factions and she has to choose one or be eliminated. I feel for this character in this way, she isn't like her parents and she isn't just different in one way, it's in many ways, she's divergent after all. 

I have taken so many personality tests in self discovery, I love personality tests. They are so fun to try on this or that idea. But really a lot of times, I often find myself split in between a few different categories. With the Myers-Briggs test, it's the E/I factor that often has me debating if I am an INFJ or an ENFJ. It feels like there is no clear answer. When it comes to the four temperaments, I feel mostly melancholic but also see a choleric and a phlegmatic, though that last one probably comes as a trauma response, oh life. And then you have the beloved enneagram that gets at one's core weaknesses. With the enneagram, I have typed myself anywhere from a 1 to an 9, but never a 3 or 7. Currently, I've landed on a 5w6, but really it could be a 6w5 depending on the day, because both are so very close to how I operate. But let's not forget those tests that label how you operate how to operate in strengths and weaknesses in the work place, the strengths finder test, and in that one I am all over the place, people cannot place me one bit. 

All of this is to say that as fun as it is to try on this or that, I know you can get stuck in being one thing, but hah, I really cannot be one thing. I want to try and understand myself, but in understanding myself it becomes more and more confusing. It would be nice to have more peace with this, right? Maybe that will happen in time, I can hope. 

In the last year, I had a behavioral evaluation for my son, who I thought was a quirky kid, and his school that I have him also thought he was a quirky kid. Well, he did turn out to be a quirky kid with like 4 different diagnoses that meant, he was neurodivergent. Applause, ladies and gentlemen. The divergent mom created a neurodivergent kid, who would have thought, huh? On top of that if you add in K's ADHD hyperfocus abilities, you know we are set to have a whole slew of quirky kids. And for sure we do. 

When I began to understand my oldest son's qualities, some of them I didn't have trouble with comprehending them, they weren't scary to me. With one in particular, it was more difficult to see. I was strongly questioning the diagnosis. "What do you mean he's autistic or special needs? Why do people keep saying that?" He's not like the autistic kids that I knew. It didn't matter that so many strangers and well meaning people had tried to tell me that my kid was extra special, or really for them he was so dang hard to control, they always had to call me for reinforcement, cue the homeschooling. He was so freaking smart and gregarious, that it worked for a good while to have the world be our school. With the diagnosis, when I dove deeper into it, it was like oh, ooooohhhh, I can see this. And then of course I thought about my other kiddos and for sure they all are quirky in their own rights too. I mean usually you don't have the principal having you tell you about melt down incidents for your 6 year old but mine totally does. However, again, what should I have expected? Nothing less than this, and actually it's pretty fascinating and I actually mostly love trying to help them be the best human being they can be. It's like the lab followed me home even though I gladly left academia behind. 

I'll add more to this soon, but I think I need to stop for today. So let's label this part 1 of ...

Chicken encounters 1

Tiger likes to spend her days poking at anything and everything. She will poke at all human feet, even as they are moving. She will peck at the floor, she will peck at the door, she will peck at an apple core. Tiger makes sure she will get the first special bit of food. She will trample her fellow hens to make sure she will for sure get that treat, or be the first to anything ever. The one characteristic of Tiger that is in contrast to her aggressive is that she is the easiest to catch. She can be very docile in someone's arms, you can actually get her to fall asleep in your arms when you lay her on her back. 

When in conflict

 I have decided its a pretty taxing thing to feel in conflict always with the church you belong to. To know that you have thought about things a lot and have researched and listened to others, and just cannot have the point of things that you once did, it's a bit brain fraying. I've been watching what the people say that are still devout and its interesting because I think they simplify the situation so that there are no grey areas. But there are always grey areas, and most people live in the margins of those grey areas. To listen and to understand what is actually happening in a situation instead of just having a hard and fast rule takes time and effort. But I think we are better for it. I see this as a parent, it's easier to say no to all the things, but sometimes you have to give a yes where you normally would have a no. I wonder if perhaps its just easier to demonize the other viewpoint than it is to have compassion. It's so interesting to see how God shows up in different ways to different people. I know he's an all encompassing God, so in the end he can handle our differing ways of solving problems. However, it would be good to see more listening and learning to situations that are outside of your own. 

High School selections

 I can never quite think of a great title, but alas, I want to write. I have been dealing with high school applications for my oldest, and it has been a huge process. It is because we live in the city of Cleveland and there are just so many different choices. There are so many public magnet schools and then there are the private schools, and then there are the charter schools, and last the private charter schools. He has so far checked out 4 different schools. His first choice is a private school that is $34,000 a year to go. It feels preposterous and completely impossible to actually send him, but the thing is I love it too. 

 The high school is a mastery based concept high school. It's not the rat race of grades and "must get into college at all costs" high school. Instead its a model of real world problems where you dive deep and learn the things you need to learn along the way and then interact to solve a problem for a community business or organization. It feels like homeschooling at its finest but with the resources to actually be able to pull it off. 

I really, really hate the rat race of grades and such because its just not really how I think life should be. I also don't ever remember being stressed to the max as a high school student in that way and I was the valedictorian of my high school class. Why are we making the teenagers so stressed out about their life choices? All I think is that it mostly means that the teen will become burnt out. And perhaps this was the one thing that I was stressed out in, sports. I had gotten to a level of soccer that no longer felt fun and I didn't think it was worth doing it any more in that level. But that wasn't really the same stress of must achieve, but more so that I didn't want to do it anymore and so I ran instead. 

It is fascinating to see it through his eyes, and I think he definitely sees where I am coming from but also is his own person, and probably stresses a whole lot more about these things like his dad does. The first born child is geared toward people pleasing a bit. We shall see as it goes on, where he gets in and what he chooses come May. 

Mother's Day

 So much of me hates Mother's Day. It embodies memories of fighting with my own mom, burying my baby, taking a kid to the ER and just all these expectations. Somehow I feel like it would be nice to just be taken care of all day, but to actually get that where I am in life, that's not going to happen, at least not by the people around me. I am going to get a massage, and I am sure there are other ways I could take care of myself. I don't think I'd mind sitting in the coffee shop by myself for breakfast and writing. Perhaps this is what I should do.  I love words of affirmation, so perhaps I will once again write some stories as words of affirmation to myself, that I am doing this motherhood thing. Yes, I think I just might do that. 

Poem, 1.5

 To feed, to clothe, to give a roof over one's head. 

Those are the basics. 

 To be able to accept, hear, and understand. 

Those are the things that bring love. 

Somehow the latter is so much harder. 

Perhaps because we fight to still have the former. 

When will we learn. 

Reconciling being made in the image

 One of my favorite songs by the Rocket Summer, "Just A Moment Forget Who You Are" has a line in it where it says, "Because who you are is perfect. You were made in the image of greatness." In Bryce Avery's only slightly subtle way, he is referencing that we as humans are made in the image of God. And taking that we are made in the image of God, that we made to be something that is all good and true and loving, doesn't that mean that we should be good? 

Mr. Avery isn't the newest to comment on people being made of good. However, there seem to be a prevailing cultural idea that people are awful and bad. I think we have taken the idea of original sin and made it become that people are just these vile things that need to be killed in order for there to be good in the world. This doesn't seem right. 

I am wondering, how do we as a society reconcile being good inside with the idea of original sin. Because according to original sin we are prone to always choose the bad thing, but it can't be as black and white as that. If you take the garden of Eden scene where you have people choosing to do evil, to go against what was good for them, how does this make sense with us having good inside? Because to me we have to have good inside for this all to be worth it.

Science seems to be leaning towards people not having needs met which leads them to have behaviors that are non productive toward actually getting the need met but are correlated with not having that need met. So what do we do with this? Is it possible to have original sin make sense and also be good inside? 

I have been often told that a sign of growing is to see that two opposing truths can be possible at the same time. Where is that here? Is it possible to have the ability to choose to do bad things and also be good inside? I think so. But where does this leave God? What need was God not providing that led Adam and Eve to go and do something contrary to what was supposed to be all good and true? Or was it simply a curiosity killed the cat measure, and what does that mean anyway? I remember learning in the book, THE Neuroscience of You, that more curiosity can lead to more vulnerability and when taken to more extreme measures it can actually be detrimental. Is this coming into play here? Was their curiosity too much?

I really do struggle with the cultural idea that we are not worthy of God's love. This makes no sense to me because if he is a father in the way that a child should know a father, we are loved. He wouldn't be all loving if we weren't? Yes, he does let us go and figure it out on our own, sometimes terribly, but we are loved. If we aren't loved, I am not sure that's a God I want to do everything for in my life. 

But this doesn't mean that everything that I do is excusable in the sense that it doesn't matter if I go kill someone or degrade them with my words because no matter what I am loved. First, that person is also loved. And second, we want to be trying to display that love to others, in our imperfectness, we still can show that love. Shouting or murdering others isn't love. We all have dignity and that dignity is represented best when needs are met and people are treated well with love. And love isn't destroying the other person, its finding connection and bringing them closer to the source of love. We were made in the image of God. 

What does this do exactly for the doctrine of original sin, I am not entirely sure if I've figured out, but I know for me I need a God that loves me no matter what and loves who ever I am in conflict with no matter what, but that encourages us to find that dignity and beauty in everyone around us, and encourages us to apologize and make amends when we mess up to remember that dignity of self and other. A God that wants us to fight for the people really being stripped of this dignity and love. I will continue to try to do that, I was made in the image of greatness (and so were you) after all.