10/25/2014

"You're Not ADD (Part 1): You're a Blonde"

My friends had no trouble identifying what was different about me, but getting an official diagnosis was harder than I thought.


When my son was diagnosed with ADD, the inattentive kind, it put me on my own path to understanding my own attention pitfalls. As hard as it was to get him sorted out at fifteen, my own out-sorting has been even more challenging. This post begins a new, intermittent (naturally) series about trying to get to my own diagnosis.
Blonde Hairdo
There are those of us out there who wear our difference so naturally that it becomes part of our personality.
I hear stories all the time about how quickly doctors prescribe Adderall and Ritalin to anyone who seems a little distracted. But there are those of us out there who wear our difference so naturally that it becomes part of our personality.
Here is a list of character traits that have been assigned to me (mostly fondly, to my good fortune), and to so many others who may be secret ADHD sufferers.

  1. Quirky
  2. Weird
  3. Chatty
  4. A Social Butterfly
  5. Naturally Stoned
  6. Lazy
  7. Unmotivated
  8. Half-a*ed
  9. Spontaneous
  10. Flexible
  11. Energetic
  12. Distracted
  13. Spacey
  14. Space Cadet
  15. A Dreamer
  16. A Visionary
  17. In My Own World
  18. On My Own Planet
  19. In La La Land
  20. Moody
  21. A Temperamental Female
  22. A Bit Nuts
  23. Bubbly
  24. Ditzy
  25. Dizzy
  26. Scattered, and my personal favorite....
  27. Blonde 
OKAY! I can own that! My blonde hair twists and curls chaotically, in every direction — not unlike the mind underneath it.
Blondes have more fun, right? And, because they help me laugh at my own moments of idiocy, I am often amused by jokes about people being dumb. Songs, too. ("Cuz I’m a blonde — B-L-A-N-D! / cuz I’m a blonde — don’t you wish you were me?" — Downtown Julie Brown)

My favorite blonde joke, for those of you who still remember Wite-Out™ and Liquid Paper®, goes like this:
Q: How can you tell a Blonde has been using your computer?
A: The little white marks on the screen.
A funny image to be sure, but the message behind this joke is actually deeply relevant to the ADD journey: until you get the right diagnosis, all the corrections you TRY to make can’t really solve the problem.

10/16/2014

In the Mood for a Funk?

Living with rejection-sensitive dysphoria — the soul-sucking downside of attention deficit.
I wrote recently about the first thing William Dodson, M.D., says everyone with ADHD has: anInterest-Driven Nervous System. The second thing he says everyone with ADHD shares is an emotional response called Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria. I kind of don't want to write about it, because there's that impulse to skip past the hard stuff and focus on the fun stuff. But it's hard when your mood falls off a cliff for what seems like such a little thing.
ADHD Definition, Talking About ADHD, What ADHD Means
You get so tired of this feeling you want to give up before you even start.
— Kristen Caven
If you have this thing, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, imagine (or remember) yourself as a teenage girl whose stomach is churning because there are so many choices in her closet and it's impossible to choose an outfit and the wrong combination could give her away as being different and bring the harsh and ultimately life-ruining judgment of her peers.
Or, a boy who lashes out at his brother's friends because it seems like he's never getting a long enough turn in the video game and it's not fair. Or a child who squeezes into a corner behind the door and cries at their own birthday party because things are not going the way they imagined. Or a grown-up who throws a party and can't seem to be in the moment to enjoy it.
It's what, eventually, makes you lose interest in that job you thought you wanted. Or hit "close window" instead of "submit" because you are not confident you'll win that award. Or fall into a funk and turn into a jerk when that guy/girl you like likes someone else. Or talk yourself out of liking that guy/girl as you eat/drink your troubles into oblivion. It's yeah, didn't really want that; those grapes were sour anyway. It's what keeps you stuck. Or going around in circles. You get so tired of this feeling you want to give up before you even start. It's one reason why people with ADHD don't achieve their potential. It's why an older man will decline an invitation to socialize because he's realized, or decided, he's "not good with people."
It helps to know RSD is a thing, if for no other reason than to be able to go, "Oh, now my brain is doing that thing it does." It helps to know that social skills might not come as naturally to you as they do to other people. And it's okay to get some help breaking down the details so you can understand the rules.
Acceptance of the downside of ADHD also helps you accept the upside. And, fortunately, in keeping with my theory that the nature of ADHD carries the seeds of its own cure, there are at least two wonderful upsides:
1) Forgetfulness can be a blessing when it comes to bad moods.
2) Some sparkly distraction will surely come along soon!