Mom Is Very Involved: Raising awareness on the realities of being an ADHD Advocate by Lynn

You may be wondering how I went from being an ADHD parent to also being an ADHD advocate.

The first two decades of my career taught me that I could not be an advocate for anyone, on any matter, if I did not first understand and fully appreciate the interconnectedness of trauma, shame and systemic failure.

Consider Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score, “…four fundamental truths: (1) our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another. Restoring relationships and community is central to restoring well-being; (2) language gives us the power to change ourselves and others by communicating our experiences, helping us to define what we know, and finding a common sense of meaning; (3) we have the ability to regulate our own physiology, including some of the so-called involuntary functions of the body and brain, through such basic activities as breathing, moving, and touching; and (4) we can change social conditions to create environments in which children and adults can feel safe and where they can thrive (2015, 38).

With the above in mind, imagine the trauma inflicted on parents when professionals and institutions blame them for their child’s reactions. This blame denies the safety required for vulnerable communication. The parents will feel powerless and helpless as they are held solely responsible for what they cannot control and do not fully understand. They are denied the support they so desperately need. They fight, flee, or freeze.

I am one of these parents. I came to the school asking to be part of their community, seeking their help. They abandoned me.

Now, consider the trauma inflicted on a child when the adults in their life blame them for the dysregulation they cannot control. The child has no choice but to assume they are the problem. They fall victim to an environment they have no control over. They feel powerless and helpless. They fight, flee, or freeze.

So where to we go from here?

I have learned that advocacy is one of the tools that can help to dismantle discrimination, stigmatization, ignorance and the misuse of power and authority. Making my ADHD advocacy public denies the opportunity for our experience to be weaponized against us and instead allows us to focus on healing.

Before our personal details are revealed, I want to tell you more about the person behind these words.

I am 49 as I write this. I live in Peterborough, Ontario, but I was born and raised in Hamilton. We moved to Peterborough when our oldest was five years old and our twins were three and a half. I never thought I would live here, and I had never spent any time here. Funny how quickly everything can change. My husband was going to be transferred, and Peterborough was one of the options. We drove up one afternoon, spent the night, puttered about the city, and said, “Yeah, OK, we can make this work.” Within three months, we bought a new house, sold our old house, and moved to Peterborough. This was a huge transition. I did not know a single person living here. None of us did. It worked out.

Prior to moving to Peterborough, I had been working as a social worker for many years. At different points in time I worked within the Hamilton emergency shelter system, child welfare, and inpatient psychiatry.

Since living in Peterborough, I have gained additional experience. I worked in community mental health, hospital settings, home care, and hospice. I also returned to school and earned my MSW. It took me four years to accomplish this, taking one course at a time. I am very proud of this achievement. As soon as I earned my MSW, I opened up my private practice, which is what I do now.

Needless to say, I have more than two decades of experience working as a social worker. Most of this experience occurred within our government systems, as a case manager, advocate, program manager, and therapist. I love what I do and feel very honoured and committed to continuing. I also want to share that I chose to do my MSW at Dalhousie University for its focus on social justice.

Are you starting to understand why my personal life and professional life started to merge?

I did not seek or plan to be an ADHD advocate; it was inevitable.

I know how to be a social worker, an advocate, and an activist. It is wild to say, but I have more experience in years as a social worker than I do as a parent. Despite this, I was not prepared for the resistance I encountered from the school system. Nor did I expect it to get so personal.

I have never confronted a system so desperate to remain the same despite advances in research, knowledge, and best practices. I have never faced an essential service that impacted the lives of so many people, that held so much power, with little to no accountability. I don’t know about you, but I know of no examples of positive outcomes born from those who hold incredible power and influence without accountability. I know of many instances where these factors have been causal to atrocities.

We need to worry about this.

It is no wonder that students, their families, and the professionals working within this system are not well. Moral injury and trauma are being inflicted without consequence, question, or a genuine effort or desire for it to be different. Narratives are being manipulated and dominated by the same well-funded voices. The government blames the boards, the teachers, and the unions. The teachers blame the government, boards, and parents. The unions blame the government and promote the victimhood of teachers. Research and news articles mostly focus on poor student behaviour. Few articles are printed or trend when they talk about the experience of students and families. We would much rather view teachers as the Mary Poppins-like figures of our communities, the governments as never doing enough, and the students through the lens of “there’s something wrong with kids today.”

Too many adults blame children and youth with little to no critical thought of their role in shaping these kids. While attempting to collaborate with the adult professionals working within the schools, I noticed that most of them did not have the regulatory skills they expected the kids to have.

Witnessing the trauma inflicted on our ADHD youth strengthened the ADHD advocate in me.

“You’re lazy,” “try harder,” “focus,” “sit still,” “you need to see a doctor,” “you will amount to nothing,” “let’s see who gets further in life,” “you have no friends,” “no one likes you,” “you’re going to live in your parents’ basement,” “live off your dad’s money.”

That is but a small sample of what my kids, primarily my daughter, heard day in and day out from the adult professionals who were supposed to be teaching them, mentoring them, and modelling the skills they were expected to develop.

I can prove it, too. I have receipts.

Your ADHD Advocate,
Lynn