A few days ago, my parents were sitting at the picnic table. I was swinging a KB nearby.
Dad: “Jo, you make me tired just watching you.”
Mamacita: “I don’t know why you’re surprised. She’s been like this since she was little.”
That got me thinking:
What if my parents had medicated me?
Outspoken and overly energized, I got plenty of detention in junior high. But my parents never medicated me.
Instead, they encouraged me to enroll in everything I wanted. And I wanted it ALL. Sports, academic teams, clubs, theater, lessons of all sorts -these extracurricular events got regular doses of The Dooley Machine.
My parents saw my energy as fuel, and that fuel needed to power something. They saw the genetic work ethic they gave me as a Dooley, and they saw my own power harnessed from a combination of discipline, focus, and fuel.
So when they tell me how proud they are of the woman I’ve become, I remind them:
“This is because of you. You never let anyone dial me down. You let me figure out on my own how to harness what I have.”
My parents never saw me as a problem. They just saw ME.
They knew I wasn’t dextramphetamine deficient. They knew Ritalin wasn’t the answer.
I’m not stating it should be done this way. But I could not be happier with the woman I’m becoming every day of my life.
If it were masked by medication, I wonder if I’d feel the same.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley