Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on
All of our troubles will be out of sight
 
No pressure, though. It’s just that all of your relatives are coming over. You have to decorate, cook the perfect holiday feast, find the ideal gift for your family members, friends, coworkers, neighbours, go to all the social gatherings, and still work your full-time job…

So yes, it is the most wonderful time of the year… but not always!
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The holiday season can be filled with joy, family traditions, nostalgia, and happy times. Still, many of us find ourselves consumed by loneliness, sadness, grief, stress, and the overall “holiday blues.” I’m sure we can all relate in one way or another.

Holiday stress differs for each person. The season may evoke memories of loved ones that we long for. Some find themselves seeking to recreate childhood nostalgia or to pass on that feeling to their children. Others may have never experienced joy during the holidays, filling this time of year with comparisons.

Regardless, this can still be a special time of year, as long as we take care of ourselves first and foremost.

This may include managing our expectations around this time of year and finding the parts of the holidays that really do bring us joy, even if that includes saying no to plans and opting to stay home and watch movies when we’re feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or down.

The holidays are also filled with lots of food, presents, overspending, and alcohol. Although this can be exciting, such overconsumption may take a noticeable toll on our mental health and bank accounts. It is crucial to notice our limitations, acknowledge when it’s time to say no and set some boundaries. In addition, knowing who and where to go for support when “no” just doesn’t seem possible is necessary during this time of year.  

All in all, setting boundaries, managing expectations, steering away from overconsumption, and reaching out for help when necessary.

For more information on handling the holiday blues, check out this article from CMHA: Five ways to protect your mental health this holiday.

We hope you have a peaceful and joyous holiday season, regardless of what and whether you celebrate.  A

Think you're an oddball? Welcome to the club!

As more women open up about being diagnosed with ADHD as adults, like Jessie J did just this week, we look at the common signs in girls and how they're routinely ignored or misinterpreted. 
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There are many signs of ADHD that appear early on in childhood, with most children in the UK being formally diagnosed around the age of six years old. Those signs have become easier to spot over the years as more research has been done into ADHD and its impact on kids - and getting a diagnosis is set to become even easier thanks to the new NHS online ADHD test. 

But the signs still commonly go unnoticed in girls. 

A possible reason for this, according to Dr Patricia Britto, who wrote about the early signs for GoodToKnow, is that "Boys with ADHD usually display hyperactive behaviours such as running and jumping and also impulsivity. Girls with ADHD, on the other hand, typically show internalized symptoms, including inattentiveness and low self-esteem." She added, "In some cases, girls often develop adaptive behaviours and strategies that enable them to mask their symptoms to fit into societal expectations."

This often means many women go undiagnosed for decades. It's a fact many celebrities are bringing attention to, with female stars on the stage and screen using their platforms to encourage others to recognize the signs so girls can get the help they need earlier on. 

In 2023, singer Lily Allen revealed that she had been diagnosed at the age of 37, telling The Times that she believes she only got confirmation of what she always suspected because she moved to the US, where they take ADHD 'more seriously' than her home country of the UK. 

"I've actually just been diagnosed with adult ADHD. It sort of runs in my family. And it [the diagnosis] is only because I’m here in America, where they take these things slightly more seriously than they do in England," she shared. “I went to see someone, and they said, ‘Have you ever thought about this?’ And I said, ‘Well, yes, I have.’”

Jessie J is the most recent celeb to speak out, revealing just last week that she was diagnosed at 36. "It's empowered me and honestly sometimes has overwhelmed me all at the same time," the singer shared of her diagnosis on Instagram. "It has made me love myself even more. I'm hugging 11-year-old me."

According to Aristotle Paulidis, the co-founder of RoutineBase, a platform focused on helping individuals, especially those with ADHD, establish and maintain beneficial daily routines, waiting until your thirties to finally get a diagnosis and, subsequently, medication or support that can significantly improve your way of life, can leave girls struggling with little understanding of why.

"In school, girls with ADHD might get okay grades by working really hard. But they struggle to manage time and finish work. Teachers might think they're just lazy. This can stop girls from getting help early on. It can hurt their school work and how they feel," he told GoodToKnow. 

At the same time, doing well in school can be a sign of ADHD in girls, proving just how complicated it can be to spot the signs. This is because they're 'masking,' Paulidis says, working hard to cover up the impact of their undiagnosed ADHD. "It's important to spot these hidden signs of ADHD in girls," he urges. "It helps them get diagnosed and treated sooner. And, with the right support and routines, they can then do better in school, with friends, and in life."

So looking out for the easily ignored signs in girls is incredibly important. But what are they? 

The most commonly ignored signs of ADHD in girls:

• Daydreaming
• Seeming quiet and distracted
• Talking too much
• Getting upset easily
• Feeling anxious, sad or 'moody'
• Acting shy
• Having trouble maintaining friendships
• Being a perfectionist
• Struggling to manage time and can't finish school work
• Seeming lazy 

Read the original article here. A

• Stages of Grief – Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

It is never too late to get diagnosed.

Often, in my work with my older clients, we work through the stages of grief. Grief is actually more complex than the “stages of grief” would have us believe. Individuals may move back and forth through different stages, they may skip some altogether, or they may have a completely different experience of the emotion. However, I have seen a pattern similar to the stages of grief in my older clients specifically, and in some cases, in the parents of younger clients.

Older clients have usually travelled through the denial phase, which is how they came to be diagnosed. Post-diagnosis, some clients are still in denial. Not about having the disorder, but about how the disorder disrupts their life. They have difficulty pulling apart ADHD from their personality. Historically, ADHD has been seen as a personality disorder, and older clients may have internalized this understanding and struggle to free themselves from the firm understanding that they are somehow simply “bad” rather than someone who has a brain that works differently. Parents of children with ADHD may not accept this idea either. It can be difficult to understand that the child that is still not cleaning their room, still not doing their homework, still telling tales, still fighting with them, is not doing it because they are defiant or lazy, but due to a lack of dopamine in their brain, which is the main neurotransmitter involved in ADHD. Dopamine is released when you complete a task. It produces feelings of satisfaction and motivation. This neurotransmitter also helps control mood, memory, sleep, learning, and concentration, among other things.

Many older clients become angry at their parents, caregivers, teachers, and sometimes even themselves. If only they had been diagnosed earlier, then their life would have been so much different. It can be difficult to move beyond this stage when looking over all of the possible losses in life due to remaining undiagnosed for so long. Parents often internalize the anger because they didn’t see or understand the signs of ADHD, and they are afraid their children suffered unduly. Their children are often simply happy to be fully understood and seen today. Their homes stop being places of warfare and transform to places of understanding, acceptance, and support.

Then we enter the “What if I…” phase of bargaining. This is usually when clients and parents of clients begin to try to find ways to make the disorder go away. What if I remove Red Dye #5 from their diet? What if I just try harder? What if I take this supplement? Sure, some of these “what if’s” may help some symptoms of ADHD, but the underlying disorder is not going to go away. Also, some of these interventions may help in the short-term, but the likelihood of long-term change is extraordinarily minimal.

The depression phase is usually short lived and goes along with the bargaining phase. As each different intervention is attempted or discussed, and if no change is found, a moment of sadness often occurs. It is difficult to accept that you or your loved one is neurodiverse. It means that many things in life may need to change. It means that accommodations must be made. Life will be different. But I can assure you that, with acceptance, life is better.
All brains are created differently. Read that again. ALL BRAINS ARE CREATED DIFFERENTLY. None of us like the exact same foods, music, clothing, room temperature. All of us are different.

Neurodiversity is what makes life interesting. It is not all negative. Apple understood this when it used the phrase “Think Different” in its marketing. We neurodiverse individuals, we think outside the box. Sometimes, far outside the box, and that is what can make us incredibly successful. Even if we are not successful in the ways that society may deem important, we are often extraordinarily happy in our small, personal worlds. For most of us, happiness is the bottom line of what we want for ourselves and our loved ones. Acceptance of who we are and how our brains work and leaning into our difference is a definitive step towards achieving that happiness goal. A

Burlington Today interviews Artemis Director/ADHD coach Tara Carman-French

“We’re all in this together,” local centre provide support for ADHD, learning disabilities
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A diagnosis can improve education, work and relationship experiences if assessed and supported early enough.

The Artemis Assessment and Treatment Centre has been serving Burlington for around 25 years, and has changed lives by helping to diagnose and coach people with ADHD, autism or learning disabilities.
“We look at what an individual wants to achieve,” Tara Carman-French, director of Artemis Assessment and Treatment Centre, said. “We look at why they’re struggling to achieve it. We look at the final goal, break the steps down in order to achieve that goal and make it into little manageable chunks so that they can achieve what they want to achieve.”

Artemis Assessment works with people of all age groups, from young children in elementary school to seniors in their 70s, and Carman-French spoke on the importance of being assessed and diagnosed as early as possible.

“Early intervention is extraordinarily important,” she said. “What I see in my older clients is a lot of grief. I see a lot of grief over what could have been if their parents had known that they had autism or ADHD or a learning disability, they would have had a different educational and post-secondary experience, a different work and relationship experience. Early intervention allows us to tailor the educational experience for how a child learns.”
After being assessed and diagnosed, Artemis Assessment can work with people to find out what kind of accommodations are needed to help them with school or work, such as providing a child with ADHD with an alternative to writing with a pencil.
“A lot of parents are concerned about the stigma of ADHD, autism or learning disorders,” Carman-French said. “If the child is blowing up in the classroom, or distracted in the classroom and daydreaming, they’re getting a negative label anyway as being lazy or a daydreamer. If we have a diagnosis, then people will know that the difference is in the way their brain is built and how to accommodate them.”
The Artemis Assessment and Treatment Centre is currently starting the process of providing autism spectrum disorder assessments in 2025 to provide more support and coaching to residents of Burlington.
“I want everybody who has an interaction with us to leave us with something,” she said. “Even if you aren’t our client. If you’re looking for a speech pathologist and call us, we’ll tell you who a local speech pathologist is. We are all in this together and everybody who touches our organization should leave with something positive, something helpful and something to help them on their way.” A
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Read the original article by Calum O'Malley here.