I have to admit something, which is: once I started on this series of posts about the 5 steps of acceptance of one’s ADHD diagnosis, I got bored with it and wanted to write about something else. One of the ever-increasing number of ironies attached to ADD – “I’m bored and don’t want to keep writing about the same thing in my ADD blog.” Or “I keep meaning to work on my ADD blog but I just can’t stop procrastinating.” Or “I have a really great idea for my ADD blog but I can’t find it! It was just here a minute ago! Ok I remember the phone rang and then I set it down and then I picked up my hairbrush…oh damn it all to hell!”
Who is this on my internet radio? Is this Kate Bush? She is so weird. Oh, no, someone else. Whoever it is, I haven’t heard of her but she has a weird Kate Bush-type voice. That’s what I get for listening to the folk station I guess.
But yes, back to ADD diagnosis and the havoc it can play with your brain/life/loved ones/amazon.com account. So far ADD has brought us relief, denial, anger, irresponsibility, and guilt. Let’s see what else is in store, shall we?
Step Four:
ADD IS COMPLETELY MADE UP - JUST ONE OF THE LIES I HAVE BEEN TELLING MYSELF
Somewhere in my progression towards acceptance of my diagnosis, I became extremely fearful that ADD wasn’t real. I can’t tell you how but it somehow spun out of me being relieved that I had it combined with being embarrassed of my symptoms. I was suddenly so aware of all of the little nutty things that I did through the day than I had been before the diagnosis and therefore so grateful that this new awareness came with an explanation for all the little nutty things. I clung to this so much that I became paranoid that I was going to lose it – ADD was my safety raft from having ADD. It didn’t make sense but then my brain didn’t really either.
I think this sprang from me trying to find a balance between my 2nd and 3rd stages of diagnosis. I had realized that I couldn’t just say “Sorry, I have ADD” every time I did something spacey or inconsiderate, but I also was trying to stop beating myself up when my symptoms appeared. I was working on having a “kinder self-dialogue.” (Yes, I got that phrase from my shrink.) But my self-dialogue has always had a bully side to it. It’s the side that would make me think about Freddy Krueger when I was 8 and alone in my dark bedroom telling myself “Don’t think about Freddy Kruger. Don’t think about Freddy Krueger. Damnit, why am I thinking about Freddy Krueger?” This “Wah ha!” part of my brain started pointing and laughing and saying things like “You’re so pathetic. It doesn’t matter how many books you read or how many hippies tell you to feel good about yourself; this is all a lie made up by drug companies to make money. You’re just buying into it because you don’t want to take responsibility for your lost credit cards and your messy bedroom.”
My head-bully is so mean, right? But my mean head had help, because a lot of people – people who don’t live in my head – don’t believe that ADD is real (unlike the people in my head, who are very real). Or they think people with ADD shouldn’t be medicated. Or they think that it’s over-diagnosed. I actually had a conversation with an HR person at a former job of mine who TOLD me “You know, I really don’t know anything about ADD.” After we had talked about it for a while, me feeling so great that I was spreading knowledge and understanding, she finished by saying “But you have to admit; it does get over-diagnosed all the time.” She didn’t know what it was, but she did know that it was over-diagnosed. She didn’t know what was being over-diagnosed! I really hate it when people have really strong (and, in this case, redundant) opinions on things they don’t know anything about.
People really seemed to feel very strongly about whether or not ADD existed. Especially people who didn’t have ADD and didn’t know anyone who had ADD (sort of like Gay marriage…). Blogs were dedicated to the subject. The internet was full of postings on “health news” sites about it’s illegitimacy. The fervor was nearly religious. I suppose I can see how, if you thought there was a disorder that was made up just to sell drugs that are mostly given to children, it would get your blood pumping a bit. But time and time again the people who were so adamant about denying its existence seemed to be people who didn’t understand it at all. They also didn’t understand that the medication was not a sedative to knock out hyperactive kids but actually a stimulant to help them focus when they weren’t getting enough or the right kind of stimulation.
Anyway. There were all too many voices out there to fuel my nasty self-dialogue. But I researched. I read. I went to support groups. I met people. I talked to friends. And I finally realized that, whatever angry ADD-haters said, the only part of ME that didn’t believe my ADD was real was the part that wasn’t ready to accept myself and like myself. Once I was ready to do that, I stood up on the mountain top and proclaimed:
Step Five:
CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT ADD IS AGAIN? I DON'T THINK I WAS REALLY PAYING ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME...
One could also call this step “synthesis.” It was me stopping swinging from the extremes and learning to balance my approach to my ADD. Now I walk a sort of tightrope when I examine a certain symptom of my ADD. A tightrope that is very short so that I don’t bang my head or get rope burn when I frequently fall off and need to get back up again. For example: I have one messy-ass apartment. Really, if you’ve come over to my apartment and thought it was clean, that’s because I ran around for a half-hour before you got there and stuffed everything in the closet/bathroom/car. So I’ll come home and look at my apartment and say “Jesus, who lives like this? Oh yeah, me…” But I try to remember that I have a certain brain chemistry that, for some reason, makes me want to “organize” using the “pile system.” I don’t know why this is but almost every other person I know with ADD also has “piles” in their house. It cracks me up because it’s almost like you can tell who we are from our footprints or our scat. So I tell myself “You know what, organizing and consistency are not the easiest thing in the world for me.” However, I don’t leave it at that, because I don’t WANT the apartment to be messy. I don’t want to use the ADD as an excuse – maybe I’ll give myself a break and realize that it doesn’t need to be perfectly clean. Maybe I’ll look for a fun way to clean it or ask for help cleaning it. But the important thing is that I stop saying to myself either “This place SHOULD be clean” or “I can’t clean this place. I have ADD. It’ll always be a mess.”
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find something to do to distract me from cleaning my apartment.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
You're Not Crazy; You're Just Big Boned
Did I say next week in the last post? I’m so sorry… I meant next…uh… Winter Olympics… sometimes my MS Word automatically corrects Winter Olympics to say…
Ok, so, it’s been a few weeks. But guess what – IT’S NOT MY FAULT, BECAUSE I HAVE…ADD!!! Just kidding. Thought I don’t have an excuse for not posting because excuses should be saved for really important things like not coming to work when U2 is in town and your friend just spotted Bono at the Hilton. But I do have an “extenuating circumstance.” This extenuating circumstance has been taking up all my lunch breaks and waking me up at 1, 3, 5, or 7 am each day. No, it’s not a baby – I mean, seriously, I would probably just leave that thing on top of my car with my coffee the first time I took it home from the hospital.
No, he is Lando, a rescue dog from a great company called Dogs Without Borders. He was supposed to be a foster dog (my boyfriend Barry called him “Bananas Foster” for a while) but after the first hour he was in our house I secretly decided to keep him and then tricked my boyfriend into wanting to keep him over the next few days. But really, he is – and I’m going to speak in 16 year old girl language here so you may need a translator – he is like soooooo the cutest thing EVER! OMG! He is totally cuter than if there were a Muppet that was like, a llama. Only he were a blind llama from Myanmar and he had just lost his whole family so you’d always be like “Awwwww, poor blind Muppet llama!” Anyway. He’s super great.
Ok, so, it’s been a few weeks. But guess what – IT’S NOT MY FAULT, BECAUSE I HAVE…ADD!!! Just kidding. Thought I don’t have an excuse for not posting because excuses should be saved for really important things like not coming to work when U2 is in town and your friend just spotted Bono at the Hilton. But I do have an “extenuating circumstance.” This extenuating circumstance has been taking up all my lunch breaks and waking me up at 1, 3, 5, or 7 am each day. No, it’s not a baby – I mean, seriously, I would probably just leave that thing on top of my car with my coffee the first time I took it home from the hospital.
No, he is Lando, a rescue dog from a great company called Dogs Without Borders. He was supposed to be a foster dog (my boyfriend Barry called him “Bananas Foster” for a while) but after the first hour he was in our house I secretly decided to keep him and then tricked my boyfriend into wanting to keep him over the next few days. But really, he is – and I’m going to speak in 16 year old girl language here so you may need a translator – he is like soooooo the cutest thing EVER! OMG! He is totally cuter than if there were a Muppet that was like, a llama. Only he were a blind llama from Myanmar and he had just lost his whole family so you’d always be like “Awwwww, poor blind Muppet llama!” Anyway. He’s super great. Ok so anyway, back to talking about not taking responsibility for our own actions. To briefly recap, we were discussing the five steps of processing through one’s ADD diagnosis. Step One was WHAT A RELIEF! THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH! I’m glad I have shared this step with all of you because all of these great stories that came out that you’d be much too embarrassed to share if you couldn’t blame them on ADD. Which brings us (after about six weeks…) to Step Two:
STEP TWO: IT’S NOT MY FAULT, I HAVE ADD
This is the step where you will probably tell way more people than necessary that you have ADD. Like the guy in line behind you at the bank who’s mad because you’re talking on your cell phone and didn’t notice the next teller was open. For 10 minutes. Simply turn to him and say “I have something called ADD.” You may want to say it very slowly in case he has never heard of ADD before. You can then explain to him, and the several people standing in line behind him, that you have a condition that is no way your fault any more than it is his fault that he was born looking like that. Briefly outline the major symptoms of ADD including pros and cons of having it, and be sure to include a list of famous people with the disorder. You may now proceed to the next open teller.
You will notice feeling much lighter, as if you have just been absolved of all of your sins. Be sure to mentally forgive yourself for every time you were late to a meeting, lost your tax information, or forgot your lover’s sobriety birthday. In fact, if you have had several lovers at one time that did not know about one another, that’s not your fault either because you have a proclivity towards exciting new things and besides, if they ever said anything about not dating other people, you probably forgot it and that’s not your fault either.
When you go home and notice that your house is a disaster, don’t fret. How could it possibly be clean? You have ADD. It’s not your fault! Just add that pile of mail to the top of that other pile that is either your compost or your tax information. When your mother comes to visit and faints on top of a pile of bank overdraft fee notices, tell her there’s nothing you can do about it. I mean, when she had that herpes breakout, you didn’t hold her personally responsible for every little blister and bump, did you?
This statement will probably bring you crashing directly into…
STEP THREE: OH S***, I’M RETARDED
Now, we all know that it’s not nice to call someone retarded. But then, it’s much easier to say things to yourself that you wouldn’t say to someone else. And if you say it in your own head, it’s not like someone is going to track you down and say “Hey, you know what? My brother has downs syndrome. You really shouldn’t say that.”
But seriously. In our culture, or, in my culture, I should say, which would be white people born after 1975, if you want to say something is dumber and more ridiculous than anything else you can think of, you call it THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. Oops sorry, that one just kinda slipped away. You call it “retarded.” Or other people call it retarded, if you’re going to pretend that you never say that. And so that’s what I said to myself when I went into Step Three.
Suddenly, now that I knew that I had ADD, I couldn’t go through an hour without noticing things that I was forgetting, messing up, or losing because I had ADD. I did a 180 and stopped feeling like it was a free ticket but more of a great big boulder I had to carry with me everywhere. Or like a dorky cousin that my mom made me take to my friend’s birthday party. Or like that weird red spot on my shoulder that appeared after my 24th birthday and thought would probably disappear but hasn’t yet but I’m too embarrassed to show to a doctor. That’s what having ADD felt like.
(Pause for sympathetic coddling noises.)
I saw ADD in everything I did, even if it were something someone else without ADD would do, something totally reasonable that didn’t even matter anyway. Instead of being easier on myself for little goofs because of my new diagnosis, I tried to eliminate any and all goofs so that no one would notice. Which was stupid because I had just spent the last 3 weeks telling everyone I knew that I had ADD.
I started to notice how often ADD was mentioned negatively in everyday conversation or in pop culture. A cop told another cop on a TV show that it looked like the report he filed had been written by someone who forgot to take his Ritalin. Someone at work would mention a problem client of ours and say “I think there’s something seriously wrong with him, like, maybe he even has ADD or something.”
Oh my god, there is something seriously wrong with me!
The other un-fun (or doubleplusunfun for the Orwell fans) thing about this stage is that the way people around me reacted to me started to make me feel retarded. (I should say “I chose to let them make me feel retarded.”) Since I had told everyone I knew about my diagnosis, you know, to absolve me of all the mistakes I was making, they didn’t know exactly why I had told them and what I expected from them now that they knew. So people began asking if I needed more time, some reminders, a checklist, etc. A lot of the time, these things were actually helpful. But, even though I was just learning that I did best in life when I had some sort of external structure in place, I still wanted to do everything “All by myself.” And I was starting to hate the diagnosis and didn’t want to be reminded of it all the time.
This is probably what led me to…
Tune in next week for steps four and five; the exciting conclusion to Shannon’s journey through her ADD diagnosis!
Non-sequitur of the day: Ok, this is sort of a sequitur, I just didn’t know where else to put it. It’s not my fault, I have…nevermind. Anyway. So I don’t know what stage this was exactly, probably all five, but one of the things that came along with my diagnosis was that I talked about ADD ALL THE TIME. It was like when I was a little kid and I was like “Did you know that Michelangelo is the one who has the nunchucks and he likes pizza the most but really they all like pizza and I think that Michelangelo is the coolest except I also like Donatello because his mask is purple and I wish the Michelangelo’s mask was purple cuz I don’t really like orange.”
Except now it was like “Did you know that people with ADD have a tendency of being more naturally empathetic than other people? I’ll bet that’s why I’m so empathetic… most people don’t even know what the difference between empathetic and sympathetic is… Also people with ADD tend to have more vivid dreams than other people. I’ll be that explains why…” blah blah blah, you get the idea.
So this one morning I was driving my boyfriend into work – my poor boyfriend who bore the brunt of all of the ADD stream-of-consciousness hyper-babble – and I was regaling him with yet another fact that he didn’t care about from one of my many ADD books when I interrupted myself with this: “Oh my god, look at ALL of those bike cops! Why do you think there are so many bike cops in one place? Do you think it’s a training exercise or something? Have you noticed that bike cops usually seem to think they’re such hot s***?” That was when I looked over and noticed my boyfriend laughing so hard it was inaudible, which was why I didn’t notice that he had been laughing since the moment I interrupted myself talking about ADD to have a little ADD moment.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Congratulations! You have ADD!
My apologies for taking so long to post again. I found that relying on myself to post “about every week” was just not enough structure for me so I have a new system in place. I have asked my best friend Jen to harass/cajole/guilt/and otherwise mother every week to I get my blog together. So, thanks Jen! It has becoming more and more clear lately how important it is for me to have friends who will help me put some structure and routine into my life. It took a while to realize it, or maybe I did realize it but just didn’t want to ask.
I wanted also to thank all of you for reading, commenting on, and sharing the blog. I’ve received a lot of really interesting feedback on it. Some ADD peeps totally recognized themselves it, and, some NON-add people said they can really relate too. I think that's awesome, and, really, everyone has some of the symptoms of ADD some of the time. The ADD'ers have them more frequently and intensely. One thing that has been really interesting is that I have had several people "admit" to me that they too have ADD, and I had no idea! Some of them have been recently diagnosed and some a while back but couldn't really accept the diagnosis. It's kind of wacky how many ADD peeps are living in the (messy, cluttered and disorganized) ADD closet.
With that in mind, I decided it might be a good topic to talk about what it’s like to receive that all-important ADD diagnosis. I got mine a little over a year ago. I’m making it sound like the stork dropped on my doorstep or I found it in a box of Wheaties. What I mean is that that I sought out a Psychiatrist to test me for it because I had been wondering for some time if I might have it. And then SHE gave me the box of Wheaties and the diagnosis was in THAT. Just kidding.
It may seem sort of strange that I didn’t think to ask anyone about this until I was 27. In fact it was really strange for me to learn this at that age. There were some signs back in the day that might have led me to believe I had ADD and there were some signs that conflicted. I’ll get more into that later because I want to focus (yes! I am focusing on something!) on post-diagnosis stuff today.
(Side note, aka “digression”: Yesterday I started writing this blog when I was giving myself a “day off” from Ritalin, and I produced three pages of rambling material that even I was bored with upon reading later. Sometimes I think that not taking my crazy pills will make me more “free thinking” and “creative” but yesterday it was just “spastic” and “Someone you would not want to get stuck sitting next to on a trans-continental flight.”)
Being diagnosed with ADD, especially after walking around this planet for a while thinking you don’t have it, is an interesting and conflicting thing to happen to a person. A chick named Sari Solden has a great book called "Women with Attention Deficit Disorder." She also may or may not like being referred to as a “chick.” (By the way, she has a great website that has a checklist, for males or females, to see if you may have ADD. Here’s the link: http://www.sarisolden.com/html/screen.html. Be warned that you probably will feel like you have ADD after reading this, even if you don’t.)
This chick, Sari, says that a person will go through the stages of grief (denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance) when she is diagnosed. I found this to be partly true, but didn’t feel it encompass the entire scenario. I would like to propose a new list of “Stages of Acceptance” of one’s ADD diagnosis. In this post, I will introduce the five steps, and go into more detail of step one. I will finish steps 2-5 in subsequent posts (assuming I am able to finish what I started).
Step one:
WHAT A RELIEF! THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH!
Step Two:
IT'S NOT MY FAULT - I HAVE SOMETHING CALLED ADD
Step Three:
OH S***; I'M RETARDED!
(Yes I’m a jerk for using this word. Stick with me and I’ll explain why I use it but also know that I will still seem a little jerky.)
Step Four:
ADD IS OBVIOUSLY COMPLETELY MADE UP - JUST ONE OF THE LIES I HAVE BEEN TELLING MYSELF
Step Five:
CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT ADD IS AGAIN? I DON'T THINK I WAS REALLY PAYING ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME...
Let us dissect these steps in more detail. Know that, in your own progression, you may not follow the steps in this exact order, and you may go through one step a number of times before you move past it.
Let us now take a closer look at Step One: What a relief! This explains so much.
As I mentioned earlier, I sought out a doctor to screen me for ADD. The most common way of testing a person for ADD is discussing their personal history, why he or she thinks she may have ADD, and asking a list of comprehensive questions. After answering about fifty questions, my doc added up the total and pronounced “A score that indicates some presence of ADD is a 22. You scored 45. Looks like you have ADD!” Wait – go back – what? I don’t know what I was expecting her to say. I guess something like “It appears you have some tendencies, go read such-and-such book, etc.” Nope. I really had it and it seemed like there wasn’t really a grey area.
In fact, when she was asking me the questions, I actually laughed out loud a few times. Because, you see, I am insane. No, I laughed because I recognized myself SO much in those questions. Do I get excited about a project and then quit once the fun part is finished? Well, yes, but isn’t that just because I’m an evil genius? Do I frequently realize I haven’t been listening to someone even though they are speaking directly to me? Well, yes, but my own thoughts are just so much more interesting than what most people are saying, unless they are on TV, and then it could go either way. And did I often find myself making lots of small mistakes on a project if it was repetitive or tedious? Again, yes, but also again, that’s just because I’m a super-genius just like those Stanford Professors who need their spouses to set out a pair of matching socks for them before they go to work. And yes – I think everyone does these things to some extent. As I mentioned earlier, it’s only ADD if you do these things consistently, perhaps to the point where it is starting to hold you back in life.
That was the first of many moments that I realized that it really HAD been holding me back. I was not worried or scared right away when I heard the diagnosis. I was just relieved. There was a name for what the heck was “wrong” with me. And there were books to read and support groups to go to and conferences to attend – oh, I was having so much fun already!
The first thing I did after leaving my doctor’s office was call my family. “Guess what! It’s not my fault that I’m a total screw up! Yaaaay! I have a disorder. You now have to feel sorry for me, not blame or get angry or frustrated with me.” Oh, life was going to be sweet. But more about renouncing responsibility and embracing personal absolution in step two.
I immediately went to Amazon.com to buy a book to help me come to terms with my new diagnosis. Instead, I bought three. I would get bored with one, pick up another, put that one down, and then go to the third. My friend Josh said “If I were going to write a movie about someone with ADD, that would be the perfect scene.” It did encapsulate the madness both succinctly and cinematically. But I could laugh at that now! And the more I read about in the books, the more other things from my past I could laugh at.
Remember at the end of the movie “The Sixth Sense” when Bruce Willis finds out he’s a ghost and has all these flashbacks? So that’s why my wife was ignoring me. I’m dead! Good, I thought it was just me! I too had a series of forehead-smiting, gee-that-makes-so-much-sense-now flashbacks. I went back to age six: my mom lays my clothes out for me so that I can get ready for church. About 20 minutes later she comes back to discover that I have been staring at my face really close up in the mirror for 20 minutes. I flash forward to age 25, where I am counting money in the till at Ann Taylor where I work as a manager. Every time my co-worker talks to me I have to start over from the beginning. When I ask him to be quiet for a moment, he says “That’s ok, l have trouble with math too.” I learn that people with ADD will seek strange forms of stimulation, including making a situation more dramatic than it needs to be or provoking people for no reason. Suddenly it makes a little more sense that I told Glenna that Meredith said that she was acting like a slut at her 12th birthday party at the Rollerina Skating Party even though she never said that and I didn’t really know what a slut was. Huh, it’s all so clear now.
Join us next week when we discuss steps two and three! In the meantime, you can practice them by not taking responsibility for things that are your responsibility, and taking responsibility for things that aren’t!
I wanted also to thank all of you for reading, commenting on, and sharing the blog. I’ve received a lot of really interesting feedback on it. Some ADD peeps totally recognized themselves it, and, some NON-add people said they can really relate too. I think that's awesome, and, really, everyone has some of the symptoms of ADD some of the time. The ADD'ers have them more frequently and intensely. One thing that has been really interesting is that I have had several people "admit" to me that they too have ADD, and I had no idea! Some of them have been recently diagnosed and some a while back but couldn't really accept the diagnosis. It's kind of wacky how many ADD peeps are living in the (messy, cluttered and disorganized) ADD closet.
With that in mind, I decided it might be a good topic to talk about what it’s like to receive that all-important ADD diagnosis. I got mine a little over a year ago. I’m making it sound like the stork dropped on my doorstep or I found it in a box of Wheaties. What I mean is that that I sought out a Psychiatrist to test me for it because I had been wondering for some time if I might have it. And then SHE gave me the box of Wheaties and the diagnosis was in THAT. Just kidding.
It may seem sort of strange that I didn’t think to ask anyone about this until I was 27. In fact it was really strange for me to learn this at that age. There were some signs back in the day that might have led me to believe I had ADD and there were some signs that conflicted. I’ll get more into that later because I want to focus (yes! I am focusing on something!) on post-diagnosis stuff today.
(Side note, aka “digression”: Yesterday I started writing this blog when I was giving myself a “day off” from Ritalin, and I produced three pages of rambling material that even I was bored with upon reading later. Sometimes I think that not taking my crazy pills will make me more “free thinking” and “creative” but yesterday it was just “spastic” and “Someone you would not want to get stuck sitting next to on a trans-continental flight.”)
Being diagnosed with ADD, especially after walking around this planet for a while thinking you don’t have it, is an interesting and conflicting thing to happen to a person. A chick named Sari Solden has a great book called "Women with Attention Deficit Disorder." She also may or may not like being referred to as a “chick.” (By the way, she has a great website that has a checklist, for males or females, to see if you may have ADD. Here’s the link: http://www.sarisolden.com/html/screen.html. Be warned that you probably will feel like you have ADD after reading this, even if you don’t.)
This chick, Sari, says that a person will go through the stages of grief (denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance) when she is diagnosed. I found this to be partly true, but didn’t feel it encompass the entire scenario. I would like to propose a new list of “Stages of Acceptance” of one’s ADD diagnosis. In this post, I will introduce the five steps, and go into more detail of step one. I will finish steps 2-5 in subsequent posts (assuming I am able to finish what I started).
Step one:
WHAT A RELIEF! THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH!
Step Two:
IT'S NOT MY FAULT - I HAVE SOMETHING CALLED ADD
Step Three:
OH S***; I'M RETARDED!
(Yes I’m a jerk for using this word. Stick with me and I’ll explain why I use it but also know that I will still seem a little jerky.)
Step Four:
ADD IS OBVIOUSLY COMPLETELY MADE UP - JUST ONE OF THE LIES I HAVE BEEN TELLING MYSELF
Step Five:
CAN YOU PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT ADD IS AGAIN? I DON'T THINK I WAS REALLY PAYING ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME...
Let us dissect these steps in more detail. Know that, in your own progression, you may not follow the steps in this exact order, and you may go through one step a number of times before you move past it.
Let us now take a closer look at Step One: What a relief! This explains so much.
As I mentioned earlier, I sought out a doctor to screen me for ADD. The most common way of testing a person for ADD is discussing their personal history, why he or she thinks she may have ADD, and asking a list of comprehensive questions. After answering about fifty questions, my doc added up the total and pronounced “A score that indicates some presence of ADD is a 22. You scored 45. Looks like you have ADD!” Wait – go back – what? I don’t know what I was expecting her to say. I guess something like “It appears you have some tendencies, go read such-and-such book, etc.” Nope. I really had it and it seemed like there wasn’t really a grey area.
In fact, when she was asking me the questions, I actually laughed out loud a few times. Because, you see, I am insane. No, I laughed because I recognized myself SO much in those questions. Do I get excited about a project and then quit once the fun part is finished? Well, yes, but isn’t that just because I’m an evil genius? Do I frequently realize I haven’t been listening to someone even though they are speaking directly to me? Well, yes, but my own thoughts are just so much more interesting than what most people are saying, unless they are on TV, and then it could go either way. And did I often find myself making lots of small mistakes on a project if it was repetitive or tedious? Again, yes, but also again, that’s just because I’m a super-genius just like those Stanford Professors who need their spouses to set out a pair of matching socks for them before they go to work. And yes – I think everyone does these things to some extent. As I mentioned earlier, it’s only ADD if you do these things consistently, perhaps to the point where it is starting to hold you back in life.
That was the first of many moments that I realized that it really HAD been holding me back. I was not worried or scared right away when I heard the diagnosis. I was just relieved. There was a name for what the heck was “wrong” with me. And there were books to read and support groups to go to and conferences to attend – oh, I was having so much fun already!
The first thing I did after leaving my doctor’s office was call my family. “Guess what! It’s not my fault that I’m a total screw up! Yaaaay! I have a disorder. You now have to feel sorry for me, not blame or get angry or frustrated with me.” Oh, life was going to be sweet. But more about renouncing responsibility and embracing personal absolution in step two.
I immediately went to Amazon.com to buy a book to help me come to terms with my new diagnosis. Instead, I bought three. I would get bored with one, pick up another, put that one down, and then go to the third. My friend Josh said “If I were going to write a movie about someone with ADD, that would be the perfect scene.” It did encapsulate the madness both succinctly and cinematically. But I could laugh at that now! And the more I read about in the books, the more other things from my past I could laugh at.
Remember at the end of the movie “The Sixth Sense” when Bruce Willis finds out he’s a ghost and has all these flashbacks? So that’s why my wife was ignoring me. I’m dead! Good, I thought it was just me! I too had a series of forehead-smiting, gee-that-makes-so-much-sense-now flashbacks. I went back to age six: my mom lays my clothes out for me so that I can get ready for church. About 20 minutes later she comes back to discover that I have been staring at my face really close up in the mirror for 20 minutes. I flash forward to age 25, where I am counting money in the till at Ann Taylor where I work as a manager. Every time my co-worker talks to me I have to start over from the beginning. When I ask him to be quiet for a moment, he says “That’s ok, l have trouble with math too.” I learn that people with ADD will seek strange forms of stimulation, including making a situation more dramatic than it needs to be or provoking people for no reason. Suddenly it makes a little more sense that I told Glenna that Meredith said that she was acting like a slut at her 12th birthday party at the Rollerina Skating Party even though she never said that and I didn’t really know what a slut was. Huh, it’s all so clear now.
Join us next week when we discuss steps two and three! In the meantime, you can practice them by not taking responsibility for things that are your responsibility, and taking responsibility for things that aren’t!
Sunday, May 4, 2008
The Irony and the ADD
New bulletin: I cannot spell "bulletin" correctly. It is now fixed in my last post so you can't check to see how I spelled it, unless you are my BFF who pointed it out to me. Thanks Jen. By the way, you have something in your teeth.
So speaking of my BFF, about a year ago, when I was first diagnosed with ADD, I had this one crazy "ADD-Related" day (oh, aren't they all?) when I forgot to refill my Ritalin prescription, and wrote her a big email about how ironic having ADD can be. She pointed out that that my stressed-out rantings about ADD were actually pretty amusing (to her anyway, she doesn't have to live with it EVERY DAY! (Throws self down onto pillow, weeps)). That was originally when I had the idea about writing an ADD blog. And look, it only took me 11 more months to follow up!
Unfortunately, or, perhaps, predictably, I lost the email I wrote her and apparently everyone I sent email to is NOT saving everything I write to them in case I die suddenly and they need to pull some material together for my posthumous book release but I guess not everyone thinks like I do.
But anyway. My point, ehem, is that I wanted to post that email today but I'm just going to have to try my best to recreate it. I say this in case Oprah ever reads this and accuses me of "exaggerating" my ADD for sensationalization. If there is an error, I apologize. I still maintain, however, that my former posts of how I overcame alcoholism without AA and how I grew up in south central LA are 100% true. (Sorry, that's probably a writer in-joke...)
But first, let me say that I think that having ADD is probably one of the most irony-riddled "disorders" out there. It's like the equivalent of if you had cancer, but your chemotherapy drugs were destroyed by basal-cell melanoma. Or if you were narcoleptic and...um.......you know what, this metaphor is going nowhere. And I really need to stop comparing ADD to cancer. I mean, those lucky cancer bastards get CURED at some point, ADD is way worse. Ba-dum, ching...
It's ok, I'm sure god will give me cancer at some point for that last comment. So what I'm saying is that irony abounds in ADD. Example: you need to take a pill that helps you stay focused and remember to do things, but, well, you're unfocused and forget things so you forgot to take your pill. Or you go to an ADD support group but you never get to talk because everyone else there has ADD and talks on and on and on and on and everyone interrupts everyone else and gets off the topic so no progress is ever made. OR you think "Hey, I'm going to order this new ADD book about organization online from amazon.com!" and then you're cleaning your apartment and find, under a stack of unread mail, the organization book that you bought 3 months ago and forgot about.
Or, (*cough cough*) probably the best way for you -- and when I say you, i mean me -- to deal with your ADD is to write a funny blog about it, but you are lazy and unorganized and don't post for like a month....ehem. I know I shouldn't label myself as lazy but really, I am. Not all people with ADD are lazy. And yes, sometimes it seems like I am lazy but really it just takes me a few extra hours to do something because I forget why I started doing it or I get distracted by staring at my pores in the mirror. But also, I am lazy.
But I digress! (sorry...so hard NOT to say it...) Here is a recreation of some day in spring 2007 when I forgot to (or was lazy and just didn't) refill my Ritalin Rx.
• Wednesday morning: Realized I am freaking out of Ritalin and that I’d better get that Rx refilled or I’ll be in trouble.
• Take Rx to drugstore on lunch break intending to pick it up after work so I’ll have it for tomorrow morning.
• Forget to go to drugstore after work.
• Wake up Thursday morning, realize I do not have Ritalin. Try my hardest to get my butt out the door so I can pickup Rx before work.
• Remember that this is the day I’m supposed to go to a time-management seminar that my boss suggested I take when I told her I was recently diagnosed w/ADD.
• Scold self for not writing time-management seminar in day planner.
• Realize I have not used my day planner since 2006 so technically I don’t have a working day planner.
• Go to drugstore. Make feeble joke with Armenian Pharmacist Lady about how spacey I am because I didn't have my Ritalin Rx.
• Think to myself that pharmacists never really get drug humor.
• Unknowingly leave keys at pharmacy counter.
• Am now late for time-management seminar.
• Realize that building I thought time-management seminar is not where I thought it would be.
• Scold self for not writing down location of time-management seminar in imaginary day-planner.
• Walk into time-management seminar. Am not surprised most other people are late as well.
• Sit through incredibly boring time-management seminar that mostly revolves around making lists and writing things down in a day planner.
• Go back to work for 2nd half of the day.
• Walk to car.
• Look for keys.
• Look for keys more carefully.
• Look for keys again, this time emptying contents of purse out on hood of car, turning out pockets, and looking in car ignition.
• Walk back to office, hoping to find keys along the way somewhere.
• Go back into office, look in desk.
• Call campus security to ask them if anyone found a set of keys. Get recorded message asking me to leave my name and number and promising to get back to me by the end of the week.
• Leave cell phone number in message as instructed.
• Realize cell phone is locked in car.
• Wonder if I should just take the bus home and wonder if my car will get towed if I leave it in the university parking lot all night.
• Weep.
• I mean, internally.
• Like, for a half a second.
• Walk back to car, looking in all gutters, bushes, homeless people’s piles of stuff, and then under car for keys.
• Try very, very hard to remember everything I did that day.
• Reflect that time-management seminar was, ironically, a waste of time.
• Remember I am trying to remember where my keys are.
• Suddenly, after quieting down brain sufficiently, remember going to the drugstore.
• Race back to drugstore, ask about keys.
• Get handed keys by un-smiling Armenian Pharmacy Lady (has she been here all day?).
Still think cancer is all that bad? Just kidding. I shouldn’t joke, lest cancer karma catch up with me. I mean, can you imagine that? I would always be, like, leaving my cancer scarf at home and have to go to some meeting all bald and stuff, or like, forget to pick up my medicinal marijuana from the “clinic.” I’d probably get all excited about arranging all these cancer support groups and then lose interest and everyone would be all “but what about the cancer support group?” and I would be all “Jeeze, I can’t organize EVERYTHING, I have cancer for christ sake!”
Non-sequiter of the day: I love how when you post a comment on someone's myspace page it will sometimes tell you "awaiting approval." I mean, aren't we all? At the same time, I am somewhat resentful when my computer solitaire gives me the option, once I have lost yet another solitaire game, to "deal." Who the hell are you to tell me to just "deal," computer? But I always do.
So speaking of my BFF, about a year ago, when I was first diagnosed with ADD, I had this one crazy "ADD-Related" day (oh, aren't they all?) when I forgot to refill my Ritalin prescription, and wrote her a big email about how ironic having ADD can be. She pointed out that that my stressed-out rantings about ADD were actually pretty amusing (to her anyway, she doesn't have to live with it EVERY DAY! (Throws self down onto pillow, weeps)). That was originally when I had the idea about writing an ADD blog. And look, it only took me 11 more months to follow up!
Unfortunately, or, perhaps, predictably, I lost the email I wrote her and apparently everyone I sent email to is NOT saving everything I write to them in case I die suddenly and they need to pull some material together for my posthumous book release but I guess not everyone thinks like I do.
But anyway. My point, ehem, is that I wanted to post that email today but I'm just going to have to try my best to recreate it. I say this in case Oprah ever reads this and accuses me of "exaggerating" my ADD for sensationalization. If there is an error, I apologize. I still maintain, however, that my former posts of how I overcame alcoholism without AA and how I grew up in south central LA are 100% true. (Sorry, that's probably a writer in-joke...)
But first, let me say that I think that having ADD is probably one of the most irony-riddled "disorders" out there. It's like the equivalent of if you had cancer, but your chemotherapy drugs were destroyed by basal-cell melanoma. Or if you were narcoleptic and...um.......you know what, this metaphor is going nowhere. And I really need to stop comparing ADD to cancer. I mean, those lucky cancer bastards get CURED at some point, ADD is way worse. Ba-dum, ching...
It's ok, I'm sure god will give me cancer at some point for that last comment. So what I'm saying is that irony abounds in ADD. Example: you need to take a pill that helps you stay focused and remember to do things, but, well, you're unfocused and forget things so you forgot to take your pill. Or you go to an ADD support group but you never get to talk because everyone else there has ADD and talks on and on and on and on and everyone interrupts everyone else and gets off the topic so no progress is ever made. OR you think "Hey, I'm going to order this new ADD book about organization online from amazon.com!" and then you're cleaning your apartment and find, under a stack of unread mail, the organization book that you bought 3 months ago and forgot about.
Or, (*cough cough*) probably the best way for you -- and when I say you, i mean me -- to deal with your ADD is to write a funny blog about it, but you are lazy and unorganized and don't post for like a month....ehem. I know I shouldn't label myself as lazy but really, I am. Not all people with ADD are lazy. And yes, sometimes it seems like I am lazy but really it just takes me a few extra hours to do something because I forget why I started doing it or I get distracted by staring at my pores in the mirror. But also, I am lazy.
But I digress! (sorry...so hard NOT to say it...) Here is a recreation of some day in spring 2007 when I forgot to (or was lazy and just didn't) refill my Ritalin Rx.
• Wednesday morning: Realized I am freaking out of Ritalin and that I’d better get that Rx refilled or I’ll be in trouble.
• Take Rx to drugstore on lunch break intending to pick it up after work so I’ll have it for tomorrow morning.
• Forget to go to drugstore after work.
• Wake up Thursday morning, realize I do not have Ritalin. Try my hardest to get my butt out the door so I can pickup Rx before work.
• Remember that this is the day I’m supposed to go to a time-management seminar that my boss suggested I take when I told her I was recently diagnosed w/ADD.
• Scold self for not writing time-management seminar in day planner.
• Realize I have not used my day planner since 2006 so technically I don’t have a working day planner.
• Go to drugstore. Make feeble joke with Armenian Pharmacist Lady about how spacey I am because I didn't have my Ritalin Rx.
• Think to myself that pharmacists never really get drug humor.
• Unknowingly leave keys at pharmacy counter.
• Am now late for time-management seminar.
• Realize that building I thought time-management seminar is not where I thought it would be.
• Scold self for not writing down location of time-management seminar in imaginary day-planner.
• Walk into time-management seminar. Am not surprised most other people are late as well.
• Sit through incredibly boring time-management seminar that mostly revolves around making lists and writing things down in a day planner.
• Go back to work for 2nd half of the day.
• Walk to car.
• Look for keys.
• Look for keys more carefully.
• Look for keys again, this time emptying contents of purse out on hood of car, turning out pockets, and looking in car ignition.
• Walk back to office, hoping to find keys along the way somewhere.
• Go back into office, look in desk.
• Call campus security to ask them if anyone found a set of keys. Get recorded message asking me to leave my name and number and promising to get back to me by the end of the week.
• Leave cell phone number in message as instructed.
• Realize cell phone is locked in car.
• Wonder if I should just take the bus home and wonder if my car will get towed if I leave it in the university parking lot all night.
• Weep.
• I mean, internally.
• Like, for a half a second.
• Walk back to car, looking in all gutters, bushes, homeless people’s piles of stuff, and then under car for keys.
• Try very, very hard to remember everything I did that day.
• Reflect that time-management seminar was, ironically, a waste of time.
• Remember I am trying to remember where my keys are.
• Suddenly, after quieting down brain sufficiently, remember going to the drugstore.
• Race back to drugstore, ask about keys.
• Get handed keys by un-smiling Armenian Pharmacy Lady (has she been here all day?).
Still think cancer is all that bad? Just kidding. I shouldn’t joke, lest cancer karma catch up with me. I mean, can you imagine that? I would always be, like, leaving my cancer scarf at home and have to go to some meeting all bald and stuff, or like, forget to pick up my medicinal marijuana from the “clinic.” I’d probably get all excited about arranging all these cancer support groups and then lose interest and everyone would be all “but what about the cancer support group?” and I would be all “Jeeze, I can’t organize EVERYTHING, I have cancer for christ sake!”
Non-sequiter of the day: I love how when you post a comment on someone's myspace page it will sometimes tell you "awaiting approval." I mean, aren't we all? At the same time, I am somewhat resentful when my computer solitaire gives me the option, once I have lost yet another solitaire game, to "deal." Who the hell are you to tell me to just "deal," computer? But I always do.
Friday, April 11, 2008
BULLETIN: PERSON WITH ADD ACTUALLY GETS SOMETHING DONE FOR ONCE
If you have ADD, you probably understand how proud I was when I finally made myself sit down to write the title for my first ever entry to my blog.
And here I am, a mere six hours later, writing the blog. Everyone clap! Sorry -- don’t clap; I don’t want you to get distracted from reading. Someone’s liable to walk in the room in a few minutes to see you clapping and ask you what the hell you’re doing and you won’t remember.
But hey, if they’ve known you long, they probably won’t think much of it. (Unless you are also yelling “YAY!” at the same time, in which case you’ve just convinced them you have a bit more than ADD.) Anyway. Sorry. I digress!
Ok don’t worry I’m not going to make “But I digress!” some sort of tagline. I don’t have a bicycle horn here that I honk every time get to say “But I digress!” I have, in fact, had the idea of this blog for many months, have had ideas half-formed in my brain for that long, and have had the title in my head probably much longer. The point is, it really was a pain in my ass to make myself actually sit down and write this thing. And look, I’m having so much fun already! Really! It’s fun. Even though I just writing this now, I am picturing all of you thousands of happy ADD people out there, reading this and saying “Oh my god; that is just like me!”
Because, let’s face it. There is only so much someone can do to “treat” ADD. Yes, I have about seven or eight books on the subject, some very good, some I even read all the way through. And by all the way through, I mean parts from the front of the book AND the back! But after the meds, the therapy, the fish oil, the exercise, the brain-building activities, and the purchase of many different day planners, you are still going to have some shitty days. You’re going to forget to do something really important at work, you’re going to bounce a check, you’re going to lose that last ADD book you just bought under a pile of “to-do” action items and accidentally buy a second copy. You’re going to…ok, I think it’s fairly obvious I’m actually talking about myself here, so let me share some real situations. One time I got a chicken breast out of the fridge, got a knife out of a drawer, cut up the chicken, put the chicken in a little baggy, and then put the chicken in the knife drawer. Another time I was getting ready for the day and took the cap off of a tube of toothpaste, squirted the toothpaste onto my finger, held my eye open, and then suddenly realized I was about to put toothpaste in my eye as if it were my contact.
My point is a) having ADD can sometimes suck, no matter how much therapy you have. And b) (making lists helps me keep my thoughts organized) ADD is actually quite funny. When I was first diagnosed, about a year ago, I did a google search on for “ADD” and “Humor.” I was really hoping to find a hilarious book or blog about ADD that would just help me “deal.” Something I could laugh at when I had had a long day. But there was nothing! Nothing, at least, that I am aware of… I got bored after searching for a while.
So here you go! If you have ADD, if your roommate/spouse/child/barista has ADD, or if you enjoy laughing at others’ problems, stop here for your heapin’ helpin’ of weekly ADD-related humor. And if you made it this far, NOW it is safe to clap your hands and yell “YAAAAAY!” Just take that football helmet off your head or someone is really gonna start to wonder.
And here I am, a mere six hours later, writing the blog. Everyone clap! Sorry -- don’t clap; I don’t want you to get distracted from reading. Someone’s liable to walk in the room in a few minutes to see you clapping and ask you what the hell you’re doing and you won’t remember.
But hey, if they’ve known you long, they probably won’t think much of it. (Unless you are also yelling “YAY!” at the same time, in which case you’ve just convinced them you have a bit more than ADD.) Anyway. Sorry. I digress!
Ok don’t worry I’m not going to make “But I digress!” some sort of tagline. I don’t have a bicycle horn here that I honk every time get to say “But I digress!” I have, in fact, had the idea of this blog for many months, have had ideas half-formed in my brain for that long, and have had the title in my head probably much longer. The point is, it really was a pain in my ass to make myself actually sit down and write this thing. And look, I’m having so much fun already! Really! It’s fun. Even though I just writing this now, I am picturing all of you thousands of happy ADD people out there, reading this and saying “Oh my god; that is just like me!”
Because, let’s face it. There is only so much someone can do to “treat” ADD. Yes, I have about seven or eight books on the subject, some very good, some I even read all the way through. And by all the way through, I mean parts from the front of the book AND the back! But after the meds, the therapy, the fish oil, the exercise, the brain-building activities, and the purchase of many different day planners, you are still going to have some shitty days. You’re going to forget to do something really important at work, you’re going to bounce a check, you’re going to lose that last ADD book you just bought under a pile of “to-do” action items and accidentally buy a second copy. You’re going to…ok, I think it’s fairly obvious I’m actually talking about myself here, so let me share some real situations. One time I got a chicken breast out of the fridge, got a knife out of a drawer, cut up the chicken, put the chicken in a little baggy, and then put the chicken in the knife drawer. Another time I was getting ready for the day and took the cap off of a tube of toothpaste, squirted the toothpaste onto my finger, held my eye open, and then suddenly realized I was about to put toothpaste in my eye as if it were my contact.
My point is a) having ADD can sometimes suck, no matter how much therapy you have. And b) (making lists helps me keep my thoughts organized) ADD is actually quite funny. When I was first diagnosed, about a year ago, I did a google search on for “ADD” and “Humor.” I was really hoping to find a hilarious book or blog about ADD that would just help me “deal.” Something I could laugh at when I had had a long day. But there was nothing! Nothing, at least, that I am aware of… I got bored after searching for a while.
So here you go! If you have ADD, if your roommate/spouse/child/barista has ADD, or if you enjoy laughing at others’ problems, stop here for your heapin’ helpin’ of weekly ADD-related humor. And if you made it this far, NOW it is safe to clap your hands and yell “YAAAAAY!” Just take that football helmet off your head or someone is really gonna start to wonder.
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