Monday, March 18, 2024

 Monday, March 18, 2024

 

     I sat in mental chaos while I meditated. It was like an Olympic volleyball game on steroids. I didn’t hear words; I just felt sections of my brain firing rapidly. Most annoying. Inspired by Fr. Greg Boyle’s talks about his model of loving self-compassion that he teaches the ex-L.A. gang members, I tried sitting with my wounds, loving them, and promising to protect those aspects of myself. My mother often expressed contempt for me. “You, you, you. Leave it to you.” Or “You’re nobody.” I have to overcome her internalized intolerance for myself.

   The twenty-six-year-old’s word recognition was good today. We worked on fluency, which is the ability to read aloud so it sounds like conversational speech instead of a list of words. Conversational fluency and singing have much in common. You don’t stop after each word; the words are strung together as in a song. I modeled, and she tried to copy me.

   Microsoft files disappeared again. I lost the latest version of Blog book 2023-1 and all the files for ‘updates interim.’  With the interim files, I was able to download a previous version. There was no previous version available for the blog book file. Hopefully, it will reappear as some files that disappeared the other day did.

 Today was a banner day. Adolescent D said, “This was a good session.” We didn’t do anything differently from what we had been doing. I continued giving him words from New Yorker articles. Some were multisyllabic. I also picked words that emphasized some phonics principles he might have trouble with. Today, he tried to sound out the final -e in a multisyllabic word. Oh, boy. That’s deep. From what I’ve seen so far, the single letter e at the end of all words longer than three letters is silent. I’ve told him that repeatedly. This poor boy.

   I wish I had a diagnosis from a neurologist. His mother won’t make the effort. In the past, she just said no. Now, she argues there’s no pediatric neurologist on the Big Island. They would have to go to Oahu. I don’t 

know if she’s wrong. I don’t know if a neurologist could do anything other than recommend an Educational Therapist. From what I’ve seen, they don’t have more to offer than I do, and maybe less.