Monthly Archives: August 2019
My Daughter
This is a personal piece about what’s been happening at home to do with my daughter. It’s something I’ve asked if it’s okay to write about, and wanted to get off my chest. I’m not interested in doing an ‘oh you poor dear’ piece, it’s just a venting exercise, and maybe it might help someone else going through a similar time.
It’s been a bit of a difficult year in many respects, but the hardest stuff my family has had to go through is to do with my eldest daughter, Keira. She’s nearly 15 now, and has always been hyper intelligent, and aware of everything going on, but was never brilliant with social stuff.
It all came to a head at the beginning of the year. Keira’s anxiety issues started to result in panic attacks and dark thoughts on her part, and we sought out counselling for her.
It’s difficult to state just how horrendous that period of time was, and just how much I wanted to be able to make her happy, but she couldn’t get past it, couldn’t see anything but misery and pain. It was a difficult time for not just Keira, but her mum and me, and her two younger sisters.
Keira went to counselling about being angry all the time, about how she didn’t believe she was good enough, about how she was certain there was something wrong with her. She was getting stressed at school through the amount of pressure she was receiving about her progress in school.
You see, Keira was one of the top two kids in her years for her SAT scores in year 6. In fact her score was so high that she was predicted A and A*’s across the board for her GCSE result. Exams that she didn’t have to take for another 5 years. So for the last 3 years, every single time she’d taken home a report, because she hasn’t met that predicted grade, the school has been forced to mark her down as underachieving.
It’s been incredibly frustrating for her. She could be getting an A in tests at 12, but because she was predicted an A*, she’s considered underachieving. No matter how much the school have explained that these things are meaningless, 3 years of her having to put up with constantly being shown as underachieving when she’s one of the top children in the year, took a toll on her confidence and made her start to hate school.
Thankfully, we think she’s started to understand this. Her grades never suffered, her behaviour at school didn’t change, but she was constantly anxious and suffered from panic attacks during school time. It was difficult for her. Her mind works in logic, and she couldn’t figure out why her brain didn’t work the same as everyone else’s.
She started a counselling course 2 months ago that finished last week. The clinical psychologist in week 2, gave my wife and I, and Keira’s school forms to fill in because she’s convinced Keira has Asperger’s.
The change in Keira since hearing that is dramatic. There’s finally a reason. There’s finally a way forward for her. There are reasons why she’s so smart, but doesn’t understand social cues, and finds normal teenage behaviour to be almost alien to her. She doesn’t understand why people would anyone would say one thing and do something else. But now she understands why her brain thinks this way.
She’s happier. Happier than I’ve seen her in a while.
Asperger’s is harder to detect in girls as they’re so smart and can hide it from the world, but as Keira got older, and as she went through counselling, her ability to hide these things broke down the more comfortable she got with certain people.
It’ll be two years until Keira is assessed (at least), and there’s no guarantee that she’ll be formally diagnosed with Asperger’s, despite a clinical psychologist stating that she saw zero chance she didn’t have it. Despite going through the list of aspects of Asperger’s and ticking them off one at a time.
None of that really matters to her, because that diagnosis is in the future, and right now she has a way to move forward, and an understanding of why her brain works so differently to everyone else.
This year has been hard on Keira, on all of us because we didn’t know how to help her, how to make things better. There’s no magical cure for anxiety, and she still has it, she will possibly always have it, but having her be able to understand is a massive step forward, and I hope that one of many.
As a parent there’s little more terrifying than knowing that something to do with your child is out of your control, but seeing Keira deal with the problems that confronted her, and move through them has made me incredibly proud. She faces new challenges now, but she’s a much happier teenager for what she’s discovered this year, and right now that’s pretty much all I can ask for.
Sorcery Reborn Blurb
So, the last time I posted anything was a few months ago, and honestly, I know I’m a bit remiss and should post more often. It’s something I’m hoping to work on once I’ve finished the third and final Rebellion Chronicles book by the end of the year.
In other news, I have an exciting announcement coming up that I can’t talk about at the moment, but will hopefully be able to do so soon. Yes, I know it’s super vague, but unfortunately that’s all I can say at the moment.
In the meantime, here’s the blurb for Sorcery Reborn. Also, the new date for the Kindle version is November 21st. The Audible version should be out either the same day or the original 28th November, unless my publisher tell me any different.
Oh, and I will be putting up the first chapter of Sorcery Reborn a little closer to the release date.
He doesn’t need a weapon. He is the weapon.
After losing his powers in an epic battle between good and evil, former sorcerer Nate Garrett finds himself living as a humble human in Clockwork, Oregon. While the world thinks Nate is dead, his friends continue to fight against Avalon and the evil it’s intent on spreading.
Avalon’s forces turn up in Clockwork, and Nate’s frustration grows with every passing day his magic doesn’t return. He finds himself trying to stop Avalon’s plans while hiding from enemies who would destroy everything in their path to see him dead.
Avalon’s darkness begins to threaten the people Nate cares about, and an old nemesis returns; magic or no magic, he has no choice but to fight. But will Nate see his magical powers reborn before the entire town—and everyone he loves—is destroyed?
If you haven’t yet pre-ordered the book, and you’re intending to purchase it, please do consider pre-ordering. The early weeks of a books launch are really important, and publishers use them to see how well the book is expected to do.
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Steve McHugh 