Worse, the ‘diagnosis’ cemented my son’s differentness in his mind. Not surprisingly, he refused to embrace it. He also refused the medication route floated by health professionals to help him focus and study – unlike the majority of his friends who soon became convinced that they needed their tablets to crack open a book. [Sidebar: This is the new uni epidemic … along with vaping.]
Why do universities often make things so much more complicated than they actually are? Is is a power thing? A desire for exclusivity and advantage? A justification for fees? And how do these translate for a young person keen to take up a primary teaching position? Should a warning label be attached?
Pandemics have a habit of placing humankind on the back foot. To everyone around me, I may have looked like I was (finally?) slowing down, but my brain was on high alert. Anxiety does that. Thoughts take you where they will – rationality, optional. My mind, nerves and heart revved constantly, gearing up for destinations unknown. Meanwhile, I left a few crumbs in case I got lost … which, for a while, seemed to be often.
But it recently occurred to me that I wasn’t lost at all. I was simply changing.