*ADHD Diary* Ameblo Article Reboot #29 ~ **Elementary School Days***

[Agar-style Memory]

No matter how many times I taught him.
If he learned one thing, he would lose another.
My son's agar-style memory.

Someone's words took me by surprise.

"Mom. If he forgets, you can just teach him again.
After all, he was able to learn it once.

If it took two hours to learn it the first time,
it won't take that long the second time.

It should definitely be shorter than the first time.
It will absolutely never take more than two hours.

As you teach him over and over again,
he might understand it in an hour, or even 30 minutes.

It can't be helped that he forgets.
Let's think of it that way."

—The moment I heard those words, I felt the wall in front of me simply vanish.

While I was hurt by words, I was also saved by them.
It was a constant cycle of that.

[Just by changing how you accept it]

"He forgot again..."

Every day I would get stuck thinking that way, but
just by thinking, "I wonder how many minutes it will take to understand this time,"
my own feelings became much lighter.

Instead of blaming him for forgetting,
I just need to start over again, as many times as it takes.

Just that made the world look quite different.

Concerta gave my son words.

However, it is not a "magic pill that makes you smart."

Even though I knew that,
there was a part of me that was expecting it somewhere.

[Confession of the Zero-Point Worksheet]

"Mom..., you promise you won't get mad?"
My son spoke to me in a small voice, fidgeting.
I had a hunch.

"I won't get mad. What is it?"

"This..."

He gently handed me the familiar zero-point worksheet.

"Wow, that's amazing.
It's not easy to get a zero, you know.
I can laugh at this no matter how many times I see it, it's amazing, really."

I smiled on the outside, but I was crying my heart out on the inside.

Seeing me like that, my son looked relieved.
That, too, was a regular occurrence.

My son, now an adult, once asked me,

"Mom, when I was little,
you never got mad no matter how many zeros I got, why?"

"Getting mad wouldn't change the zero.
And I knew that was the score you got after trying your best."

Then my son said,

"Yeah, that's it.
If you had gotten mad back then, I think I would have lost my mind.
No matter how many zeros I got, Mom would smile at me.
Just thinking that saved me."

Just by him saying that,
I am once again—saved by my child.