2019-11-20 - 11:57 a.m.

Good news! Teen got an acceptance letter to a college for a program wants to attend.

WHEW

That motivated them to get out of bed and get ready for school.

I get it , they have POTS so it's hard to get up without physical symptoms, however the reticence is in my view more psychologically driven currently. Medication is helping POTS symptoms but I dont think the right amount of healthy diet, exercise and meds has yet been found to help psychological motivation.

I hate this child is hard to motivate.

But hey, they did vacume the basement in exchange for the difference in cost to go to KPOP concert Sun night. They did get out of bed and to school , on time , the next day. They are not dumb and knows enough that if could not get up next day that might be last time go out on a school night.

Thing is, I was happy they wanted to go anywhere. That is an accomplishment.

Trouble was after pushing through , with the typical soreness after having danced for hours, they were in expected discomfort on Mon evening. That is normal.

What is atypical is the lack of ability to navigate that discomfort and lack of tolerance for any irritation when tired. So on Mon they called asking for a ride home at 4:25 right when I was in middle of major kitchen overhaul working with friend June who does actual organizing consulting. June is great at what she does, but she is good precisely cause she pulls out anything hidden. Makes one face all their dirty laundry and dusty corners with crap and then assess. Throw out or clean. She says the hardest part of this work is dealing with the psychological aspects of people going through a purge and reorganization. The process is not easy as it exposes vulnerability such as fears, and attachments to things that people cling to for feeling of safety and security. Peoples' relationship with their stuff are varied and complex.

So I told my teen I would be glad to give ride but it would be 15 to 20 min before I left. My friend started working with me at 7:30 am and goal was finish! I wanted to respect her time so she could be done as she was in the middle of giving me next step instructions when the teen called. I also wanted try to get kitchen in order to extent could- or at least a clear plan, before getting teen.

My friend is a huge help! I mean it might seem simple to gather every cookie cutter in house and assess and clearly see one does not need well over 100 ! But you know, without someone pulling them all out and compelling me to sort through them to decide which to keep and which to donate, I would not have gotten that done on Mon. I was used to the container proudly labeled "100 cookie cutters" with every numer 0-9 , letter of alphabet, animals, flowers, shapes in all sorts of sizes just sitting gathering dust on the top of my fridge. It reminded me of my once small children making sugar cookies and gingerbread and biscuits on various occasions.

Over the past months I have gradually cleaned out the attic and living room. I sorted and alphabetized CDs, donated car trunks full of books, and clothes, and fabric. Before the purge of cookie cutters weeks ago I cleanqed my kitchen and decluttered and donated old games no longer played, extra containers, a cookie cutter set, decorating contraptions rarely if ever used, along with some items from my mother's kitchen acquired years ago that since collected dust. My friend offered to help with the kitchen after she assisted final clean out of basement and I said "I already cleaned the kitchen."
June said, "Let me help you go through it once more as I guarantee you can declutter further Nd reorganize it to be simpler to find things."

She was correct.

About a week ago June was here helping and she folded and organized all my teens clothes which were stubbornly sitting in a pile in the hall. Many a parent would throw the whole darn pole out after the behavior of my teen. Maybe three weeks ago or four, I went in to straighten and vacume teens room after having prompted and made it clear teen needed to clean the room or I would as it was overdue for sheets changed, vacuming and overall deep clean.

Teen did not get it done, so I did. I was surprised the room was rather well organized for the most part. I changed sheets and made the bed then just had to pick up clothing and piles of electronic things from floor and place on bed and I could run the vacume.
The clothing pick up consisted of administering the smell test, then hanging clothes in closet or folding in the two drawers under the bed if the items passed the test . I did a few loads of laundry for the rest of stinky clothes and the room looked great when done then running the vacuum. I did not touch the piles of thing moved. I figured leave it to teen to organize their stuff.

Teen came home and freaked I had touched stuff, went in a rage and hurled the vacume which tumbled down stairs and broke.

NOT OK.

When in right mind we later discussed and my Raging teen agreed that it would be appropriate that they replace the vacume. Idea was to earn money to do so.

This teen so lucked out as a house blocks away was sold and a perfectly good, almost new Hoover was put to the curb which I took home, cleaned up, and am happy works well.

Today I finally vacuumed the upstairs after a few weeks; What a difference.

After throwing out old bunk beds, end tables, chairs and various other stuff, the contents from basement being kept are now in the attic and my house is clean and presentable.

I am almost ready to rent the basement! Just a few kinks along the way:

Last week my heat stopped working!
Thank God it ended up only being $148 as it just needed one small $7.50 part. I thing the heating guy was almost going to charge me less...as he said "Its only the converter $7.50" and I said, "and your service call charge."

I was so happy it was just that and really wanted to value their time and good service and honesty.Believer in paying people their worth in the market!

Even if I can't pay all Bill's yet this month, still felt that was right thing to do. The only one left is my electric bill and they just charge a 10% late fee and let it float a month. Last month my mistake was paying all but the water bill on time ( its every two months) as somehow I overlooked that auto pay did not go through! Just didnt notice and then got a note on my door pay by next day or it would be cut off. Sheesh, not the bill to forget as it was a $50 charge for returned autodraft ! That bill is an every other month bill, which frankly is one of those things I think I and other ADHD folks find challenging as bills that are not every month are easy to confuse or forget. I dropped a very reasonable life insurance policy as soon as lost my job and am so happy to not have to pay attention to its quarterly autodraft payments. Those autidrafts would occasionally mess up my monthly budgeting when things tight, as I would forget about the bill due.

Need to go prompt this teen who felt need to shower before heading late to school ....

Basically what I did not expect was that the kitchen pantry reorg of canned good would freak out teen. Being tired and irritated had to wait a half hour before I was there to give a ride home also contributed to anger in conjunction with a lot of projection onto June regarding control issues.

It was total melt down, autistic like inflexibility with change and raging at my friend who just last week dared to fold teens clothes that were left in the hall. June actually found a wonderful open metal shel that fit perfectly in the hall and pulled the clothes on it. Teen raged then.

The raging seems to be about control and a need to feel secure with things familiar the way expected and lack of ability of executive functioning to adapt to small changes combined with weird replaying of behavior observed as a small child from father. So bizarre as I don't get it how someone could move out of one place not liking abuse but then emulate it.

But off to try to get teen to school....
I need to pick up a bunch of psychosocial evals done by teachers that are ready.

Happy took this teen to an autism clinic me with expertise to screen for autism.

Better late than never.
Hope they have good therapy resources to refer to and suggestions....

as my teen is very gifted but needs some more work on social skills, I believe, to successfully navigate college, as well as psychological support.

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