Re: Don't know what to do with siblings and parents

[memzak]

bout68 I would not be so insensitive as to tell you what to do but I can tell you my experience.

I found out about my ADD in July last year. I went through the denial and trying to explain it to people stage before the holidays started. My family also controlled by guilt to a point. By the time Thanksgiving rolled around my feeling guilty all the time was not as much of an issue but I still felt I had to explain myself and apologize. I went to Thanksgiving dinner to a houseful of people, tried to explain what was happening to me and stopped trying when everyone seemed more interested in other things. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas was when the guilt just melted away, I just enjoyed being around everyone at Christmas. My usual Christmas crises never materialized and I just spent the whole time smiling. I had a full feeling (and not from dinner), a feeling of being comfortable with myself and my family. I am actually looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. I have gotten more phone calls from my family this year then I got from them the last 30 years.

I can tell you that many things have changed over my 59 years and even with family squabbling we still got together every holiday and put our differences aside (as much as possible) and I remember the warm feeling I got as a child listening to the men watch football while the women got dinner on the table, I know that really dates me. Last year it was everyone gathered around the TV watching a movie while my brother got dinner on the table that will give the nieces and nephews and my own daughter the warm memories that will carry through their life.

Now I feel like a Norman Rockwell painting.

REPORT ABUSE