ADHD and Hope

Hope is an interesting concept. Webster's defines hope as: (noun) the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.

For many, hope is what gets them through a tough situation without falling apart. For me, it's what makes the fall so much more destructive and painful in the end.

I keep thinking something might go right for my eight-year old son with ADHD, Luke. Maybe he'd catch a break like being able to attend a private school so much better suited to him, despite the fact that we can't afford the tuition. I hope for it, then I crash and burn. {I spent the day in bed last Saturday when I found out we didn't get enough scholarship for him to attend this school.}

With every new medication or dosage I hope it will be the one to finally give him some ADHD symptom relief and remain effective for more than two months at a time. Every Spring during Little League baseball I hoped it would finally be the year that he'd be able to participate at the speed the game requires. I hold my breath each afternoon while waiting for him to emerge from school, hoping that this might have finally been a good day for him behind those walls. All day long, every single day, I hope.

And most days I fall hard from hope's high ledge. Hope just can't hold me up. I tried fighting, but the beast is bigger than me. I am often helpless to make the appropriate changes for Luke. Then, I inevitably turn to hope. I can rest on it for a while, but hope doesn't have the power to influence these outcomes, so hope doesn't have an affect on life with ADHD.

I feel as though ADHD has defeated me. I have for several months now. It's bigger than me. It's indestructible. But if I think about this rationally, it's really society, Western medicine, and the U.S. school system that has defeated me. Those outside our ADHD community are ignorant about ADHD and I can't seem to change that. The mainstream medical approach to ADHD is trial and error on my sweet kid rather than digging to find out causes and affect real change. And the schools... well, the school system is over-politicized and under-humanized. They can't just see a child struggle and do what's necessary to help them. The schools require a fight (to my death) to help a struggling child and, even then, it's never enough... it's never what they really need.

I've fought this school year, fought harder for something than I've ever fought before. I searched for alternatives and all four possibilities turned out to not be possibilities for us after all. I have put so much time into ADHD and Learning Disabilities and trying to help my child that I couldn't begin to estimate the total. It has consumed me. I've relied on hope to endure IEP meetings, medicine checkups, rough mornings... And I continue to crash and burn.

I know we will make it. I know Luke will be a successful and happy adult one day. I see so much intelligence and creativity in him that I feel certain we'll find his path, his destiny of a bright future.

And then I think about the school failing him year after year. I wonder if their resistance to step up and really, truly accommodate his needs will send him down the fork in the path away from success. I find myself hoping that I can keep him on track if I fight hard enough... but I don't have much hope for hope anymore, at least not today. Maybe someday soon...



Penny Williams is the creator and editor of {a mom's view of ADHD}. She is also a freelance writer, real estate broker, wife, and mother of two living in Asheville, N.C. She has published several pieces in ADDitude Magazine, the #1 national publication dedicated to ADHD, and has also been quoted in Parenting.com's Family Health Guide on ADHD and The High Desert Pulse article, When Ritalin Works.  When not writing, she can usually be found behind a camera.