A Junk-Juggling Journey

An Italian Walkabout becomes an Italian Schlep-About if you travel while ADD.

Life in the Fast Brain | posted by Kristen Caven

So there I was out in the world on my own, something I’d dreamed of doing when I was in my twenties but could not seem, in spite of my facility with languages, to ever pull things together enough to achieve. There is something universal and romantically attractive about a Walkabout, where you just go out in the world and let your impulses take you where they will.

My anxiety, before the trip, was centered around my suitcase.

— Kristen Caven

Except I had all this stuff. In my blog about Italy, which is some of the best hyperactive and impulsive and unpaid writing I ever hope to do, I talked about all sorts of interesting things, but what I did not write about in that venue was: How. Much. Time. It. Took. To. Pack!

My anxiety, before the trip, was centered around my suitcase. I scoured the internet trying to figure out if they wear jeans in Italy. I printed out lists, and still went around in circles. It’s hard enough to pack for a trip when you don’t know where you’re going, but when the trip changed radically, my suitcase just got fatter. Plus I wanted to do some shopping.

I stayed with a friend in an Ikea-furnished apartment, a tiny space with lots of well-organized drawers and shelves and fold-out gizmos and gadgets. My huge suitcase took up half the living room, and the piles around it took constant grooming. It’s true that with ADHD, our living spaces can sometimes reflect our cluttered, distracted minds, but away from my own drawers and shelves, I couldn’t find anything. I would sort my souvenirs and turn to the next pile, then forget where I had put things a second ago.

I am totally embarrassed to say that I took hours every day to dress and rearrange my suitcase. My emotional state, worrying about my friend at home, didn’t help either. Then one day I remembered to take my new medicine. I don’t know if that was the magic, or if the focused afternoon of exercise, communication, and stimulation got my mind to find the gear I needed, but something certainly changed. We spent the afternoon sightseeing, then drank delicious wine and ate amazing food and stayed out late driving around Rome. I was tired when we returned, but my mind was energized and clear and I was tuned in to my motivation...and I managed to get myself sorted out in record time! When I left the next day, everything was in its place and I didn’t forget a thing.

(Well, that’s not exactly true. I lost three gloves and left a box of overflow items… but I made it to the train on time!) I had a brilliant trip home.

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Let Them Fail?

The hardest part in getting help is letting your kid's problems show.

A 9th grade single mom called me, distraught. “I know my son has attention problems,” she said, “and I don’t know what to do.” She went on to describe a history of rat-nest backpacks, forgotten homework, impulsive decisions and other familiar-sounding struggles.

The sooner you can let him fail, the sooner you’ll get the help you need.

— Kristen Caven

My mind went back to those desperate ninth grade nights, when the red marks would start showing up on the online grading system. Until then, we’d believe our son was doing just fine. All the teachers would just tell us what a pleasure he was to have in class, and for the most part, he liked school and understood what he was learning. But in spite of his good attitude and a good work ethic, his world was crumbling around him and he couldn’t see it. He wanted to take care of things himself, but when we’d open his binders, it was like peering into the abyss. We’d help by sorting papers and trying to triage the problems. There were plenty of pep talks, but the feelings of overwhelm drained and distracted our whole family.

Enzo passed ninth grade only because he had two parents involved on his side in The Big Struggle—pushing through feelings of blame, shame, and resentment. I tried a few times to wake him up at 4am to finish his homework like Obama’s mom did for her son, but I couldn’t wake myself up—we all needed our sleep to prepare for the marathon of constant do-overs. Every single marking period was a white-knuckle ride, made worse when overworked teachers didn’t sound the alert until a few days before the end of the term. Every single report card caused a family blowup as our high expectations of our GATE-identified child were challenged again and again. We began to whisper, then say out loud, maybe he’s just a C student. By tenth grade we were much less hopeful...and completely exhausted.

“The reason that our son got a 504 plan,” I explained to this parent, “is that his grades were spiraling downwards, and we couldn’t keep him on track by ourselves anymore.” Other parents we knew had brought paperwork from specialists showing a learning disability, but their students were stonewalled from getting help—because in a public school, B students do not appear, mathematically, to need accommodations. This mom’s bright young quarterback had been to a private middle school on a scholarship, where differences were not seen as disorders. The teachers there had bent over backwards to help her charming son succeed—and not because they had a legal obligation to do so.

I gave her the best advice I could. A letter from the private school would help, but the sooner she could get her son a referral, the sooner the school would be on her side. “Tighten your seatbelts,” I said—hating what next came out of my mouth, but wanting to save her the pain we’d felt—“the sooner you can let him fail, the sooner you’ll get the help you need.”

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