Compared to What?

Diagnostic questions can be confusing when ADHD is “normal.”

Life in the Fast Brain | posted by Kristen Caven

In my family, I’m the together one. I’m the one who shows up, completes a task, and makes the necessary connections to make things happen. I pay my bills (automatically, of course). I reframe negativity and keep people positive. I make amazing things happen in my life, when I put my mind to it. So when I was screened for ADHD, time after time, I had trouble answering, or even understanding, the questions.

ADHD is normality, to me. I grew up surrounded by people who were late, lost things, forgot things, had moods, drama, and wild ideas, people who were night owls and nappers.

— Kristen Caven

When I brought a test home, my husband laughed at the question, “Did you have ADD as a child?” He asked, “How would you tell?” I did daydream all the time, but I never acted out or failed a class. I was the middle child (the peacemaker) and the only girl. Unlike my brainy brothers, I never lit fires at school or had insomnia so badly my life fell apart—so my parents never perceived me as the problem child. They were the ones with problems, not me.

On the question, “Do you sometimes find yourself talking too much?” I had to ask, “Compared to what?” I am surrounded by people with intense thoughts and flocks of words flying out of their heads. Among them, I have learned to be a good listener and a restrained and reflective speaker.

“Do you say inappropriate things?” Inappropriate…for what? We are outside-the-box thinkers. “F--- that,” says my husband. Practically everything on TV, the Internet, and in the movies is inappropriate. We just call it like we see it, like we feel it.

ADHD is normality, to me. I grew up surrounded by people who were late, lost things, forgot things, had moods, drama, and wild ideas, people who were night owls and nappers. “Do you have trouble keeping track of things?” Well, how often is sometimes? How often is often? I lose my glasses in the house weekly, but I have taught myself to always put my keys on the hook, and I usually know where my child is. My desk is a nightmare, but I can always put my hands on things when I need to.

Clinical tests are so, well, clinical. ADHD is so contextual. It is hard to define and understand ourselves, especially when we are distracted by details and can’t remember things. And with such change-able consciousnesses, it is hard to say what is really what sometimes. “Do you often feel misunderstood?” Yes, most definitely I do!

Kristen Caven is a mother and a writer, a mover and a shaker, and a creative force in her community. To her, ADHD stands for “Awesomeness Development & Happiness Directive.” Learn more at www.kristencaven.com.

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The Thing Is…

Making excuses for a loved one with ADHD is beyond exhausting.

So, I have this certain family member who I have known all of my life, who I have loved more than anyone, and who has given me so much I don’t even know where to begin. The thing is, a lot of people don’t like him.

He has taught me so many things, like how to take apart your gas stove and put it back together (it’s so simple! You don’t have to call for service). And how to cook the most delicious ratatouille from the garden without following a recipe. And how to talk to anyone about anything. He also taught me to always keep a spare key handy, to save ten percent of everything I earn, and to be sweet to little old ladies. He is super charming, and smarter than most humans. The thing is, he can be completely impossible to communicate with.

I really don’t mind that he forgets my birthday, because he eventually remembers and I know he loves me and the un-birthday gifts are always really great. The thing is, my husband notices. And he gets really protective of me.

But I love that he exposed me to the beauty of religious thought, the mysteries of medicine, and the importance of not putting anything on or in your body that is advertised on TV. The thing is, he also has to be right about everything.

This person has taught me to be super tolerant and understanding of the odd ones, the ones who communicate in weird bursts, or talk constantly, or say things that might seem rude. He’s taught me to look for the good in people.

This guy is wicked smart. If you have the time or patience to listen to him go on about how the world got to be the way it is, you will be so impressed by his knowledge. But try to get a word in edgewise, and you’ll end up feeling frustrated. In fact, he is so smart he knows what you are going to say, and finishes your thoughts for you. At different times he’s been labeled dominating, megalomaniacal, bigoted, and a sexist pig because of this insensitivity. But in his heart he is none of those things. He’s a good man, a doctor with great bedside manner, and an asset to his community. He is just hyperactive. The thing about that is, when his charm runs away with him, he’s socially awkward and rude.

This person has an inability to listen to someone else’s heart, since his mind is always racing to conclusions. His own thoughts are louder than yours, when you are talking to him, and, the older he gets, the less likely you will ever get to point B in a conversation…though you will cover points C, F, M, P, S and T before returning to point J. He doesn’t read facial expressions or tone of voice particularly well, so he might think you are really upset when you’re not. He is truly uninterested in thoughts that don’t originate from his own mind, and criticizes people when he seems to be giving them compliments.

The thing is, he is also really loving and altruistic. He has a great sense of humor, he is talented and educated, eager to please. When he is not distracted, he is kind and generous, and desperately caring. I wish other people would see this, and talk about it. I wish it were the old days, when people would give people the benefit of a doubt and not focus on the fact that they are jerks. Because I know he is. I have made room for him all of my life. And I would really like to talk about something else for a while.

The thing is, understanding what ADHD is can help others be compassionate. And it can help a person work through their own self-sabotaging habits.

Like That Bumper Sticker Said...

Ever wonder where your child got his ADHD from? Figure it out!

Life in the Fast Brain | posted by Kristen Caven

“Insanity is hereditary,” the bumper sticker says, “you get it from your kids.” Snarky, hilarious, but wait: Maybe it’s true?

My kid pushes me to be better, more dedicated, and more courageous.

— Kristen Caven

How come so many of us don’t accept the ADHD label for ourselves until after our kids get diagnosed? It’s because we think our kids are normal, just like us. For example:

• • When Enzo was three and couldn’t eat a sandwich unless he was walking around, I shrugged and said, “My little brother was just like that.”
• When he was eight, nine, and 10, and so on, his teachers complained that he was always reading books during class. I shrugged and said, “So?” I did that, too.
• When he hit 13 or 14 and couldn’t wake up in the morning, I remembered my big brother being the same way.
• When I think he’s not listening because he’s fiddling with an iDevice, I remember my own mother complaining that she wanted eye contact, and thinking how much better I could hear her when my eyes were doing something else.
• When he thinks that his room is clean but I can’t see the floor, I remember not seeing my own detritus, or understanding the concept of organizing a drawer.

When our kids actually fall through the cracks in today’s test-crazy school environment, however, in ways that we didn’t when we were younger (or we almost did but forgot how many times adults saved our own butts), we learn that they’ve got these special brains.

And we think, “Wonder where s/he gets that from?” (Side note: I just met the guy who invented the she-slash-he pronoun when he was a professor. Would you look at that? I’m distractible, too.)

My kid pushes me to be better, more dedicated, and more courageous. He pushes me to persevere, and to fight for him and for myself — and to be more forgiving of myself, just as I forgive him. Our kids teach us to be more honest with ourselves, to look in the mirror and see ourselves for what we are.

That’s the toughest part about getting co-diagnosed. When we are trying to grasp the big picture about our child’s ADHD patterns of lying, forgetting, and boredom, we have to admit to ourselves that we lie, are bored, and forget our agreements more than just once in a while. We have to see who we are and stop making excuses like “it’s totally normal" and "everyone does it....” We have to own the fact that our impulses can also get the better of us, and our distractions keep us from moving forward when we are doing everything right.

Having grown up in a family where forgotten birthdays, double-booked dinners, and outside-the-box activities were the norm, I get how insanity runs both ways. I have spent almost as much time waiting for my son as I did waiting for my father. And ha, ha—he’ll get the same treat, some day, with his son or daughter.

He will also be an awesome dad, because awesome runs in the family, too.

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A "Moving" Family Drama

When I helped my father move, I finally discovered that his attention deficit was the reason we often felt so disconnected.

Life in the Fast Brain | posted by Kristen Caven

Going back to our hometown is always a challenge for Enzo’s dad and me. Half of my generation relate to the chaotic ballet of a “Divorced Family Christmas.” At their best, holidaysare exhausting because you have to pack in so many celebrations. At their worst, they are compounded with uncomfortable emotional challenges. If you marry someone whose parents are also not together, and also live in the same town as yours, and you have an adorable son that everyone wants to spend time with, taking trips back home wear you out. But you do them anyway, because you love your family.

Every single thing on the “hurt me” list was connected to his ADHD!

— Kristen Caven

A few years ago, the stress level spiraled out of control when we visited my dad, who was in the process of moving. We had planned to help him with the move on Friday, but when we dropped in to say hello on Monday, it was clear they would never be ready. The furniture that would have to go in the trucks was still three layers deep in I’ll-get-to-that-later and where-did-I-put-that clutter that had been building up for years. Always ready to help in a crisis, I excused myself from all the fun family day trips we’d planned with the other family branch, and rolled up my sleeves. On the first day, I made a pathway through the basement office to get to the bundle of cardboard boxes he had purchased a year ago to prepare for the move.

Long story short: I knocked myself out helping him. The process was frustrating, the communication convoluted, the emotions confusing. On Thursday, Enzo and his dad came to help move, almost as planned. Toes were stepped on and shins were banged, but the three of us felt good working together as a family. We smiled at the “Grandpa Gerf” train memorabilia that had been special to Enzo as a child. We laughed at the three wi-fi routers we found, in their original bags, under piles of clutter. No wonder he could never make a good connection!

But on Friday, my dad got mad at me for something he thought I had done, and he unloaded on me. Our relationship was damaged, perhaps permanently.

It took me months to process what had happened that week, and on that final day. I worked with a therapist during this time to unravel our relationship. She had me make a list, without pulling any punches, of all the ways he had supported me and all the ways he had hurt me throughout my life. Being the dutiful daughter, the sweet one, it was hard for me to make the second list. My impulse was to make excuses for all the hard stuff (“But he was going through a divorce”) and forgive him, or just let those feelings go before I felt them. (It’s hard, with ADHD, knowing how you feel sometimes, anyway.) But somehow I got through the list, and it was very long.

Then I stepped back and took a look at it. The good and the bad were very inconsistent.

Then I saw his ADHD.

Every single thing on the “support/love” list was truly him—the talented, educated, fluidly intelligent, and altruistic daddy I loved and felt close to. Every single thing on the “hurt me” list was connected to his ADHD! All of the not listening, the forgetting birthdays, the not keeping promises, the incompletions and interruptions and inconsiderations, the criticisms, the fixed thoughts, the inability to switch tracks, the mis-reading of my emotions. All of these things had confused me, disconnected us in many ways, and, at times, hurt me deeply.

Above all, his vituperous emotional sensitivity, especially to feelings of rejection or judgment, had damaged all of his other relationships with our other family members (I was the only one of seven kids who showed up to help him move). He had finally set his phaser on stun and pointed it in my direction.

Being able to see the invisible, insidious patterns of ADHD enabled me to take this family challenge more seriously, and to start new conversations with my dad. Because I want to love him for who he is. And I do.

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A Date With Your Family

How we learned to not lose our minds and keep hope alive with e-z family meetings.

Somewhere around when Enzo hit middle school, we realized we needed to up our game if we were to keep up with the demands of a busy family of THREE. (Don’t laugh, oh you mighty mothers of many…! If you count my five careers and thrill-circus family of origin, it feels like more.) We had tried talking about our week every Saturday morning, or Sunday night, but we always forgot or were too busy or too tired. Finally Enzo pointed out the obvious: we should have our family meetings on Monday nights, after we’ve all been back to school/work for a day and know what might happen in the week ahead.

We go down the list and talk about each item, checking each one off once the activity has been recorded in the proper place, on one of our personal calendars or devices, or on the main family calendar.

— Kristen Caven

We brainstormed on all the bases that need to be touched each week, and I sat down and made a Word doc and got totally into making the Best System Ever: down the left side of the grid, a checklist of topics to be touched on; across the top, WHO would facilitate the meeting on the first, second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth week. We put it on a clipboard with a pencil and hung it on a pushpin stuck into the kitchen door.

So every week at dinner (which we decided a few years ago would also be Meatless Monday, for better or worse), Enzo’s dad “Dave” gets the clipboard out. (It is highly recommended that you have one person in the family who can stick to a routine remember this.) We go down the list and talk about each item, checking each one off once the activity has been recorded in the proper place, on one of our personal calendars or devices, or on the main family calendar. The details have been changed and finessed over the years, but the structure has, amazingly, held together for nearly a decade!

First you have the must-dos: Educational, Professional, and Personal. This is where we report the tests, haircuts, and meetings that are on each of our radars. Then we have the social obligations. (We just like this word, even though we are clear that socializing can and should be fun.) After the must-dos, we have a list of may-dos. Once we see what the week looks like, we sketch out what to have for dinner each night, or who will make it. At the bottom of the chart, we note all the birthdays of that month, special projects, and who is going to do what on chores day. After the first year or so, we got wise to the system and put “Family Fun” on the checklist. Now we always try to make a plan on a Monday to take a bike ride or go see a movie on Saturday, so we have something to look forward to all week long.

Once we realized we were on an ADHD roller coaster, we added a “Coaching Checklist” at the end, to remind us to look at the white board where Enzo’s goals and plans for world-domination are sketched out or listed or crossed off.

The problem with this system was, at one time, that it felt too structured, too obsessive. But the beauty of this system is that you can change it at any time you like (but the beginning of the month is the best since you start with a fresh page). We have added lines for “Sunday Reflection” and “Sports” as we’ve learned what each family member values and wants company with. Our best new addition was suggested by Parenting Coach Lisa Fuller (if you sign up for her newsletter you get a free guide on family meetings): the first thing we now have on the list is “Things We Appreciate.” It keeps us on the up and up!

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The Fast Lane Towards the Future

I've gotten us lost, I've made us late, and I can't stop tearing up. We're visiting colleges with our son, and it's bringing up big feelings.

Life in the Fast Brain | posted by Kristen Caven

Enzo’s in the driver’s seat. I’m next to him and his dad, “Dave,” is in the back, relaxing, reading a book. We are weaving in and out of the fast lane on our way to visit a college in L.A.

Tears are leaking out my eyes, and I want to hide them — except I lost my sunglasses two weeks ago.

— Kristen Caven

I planned ahead for this trip. I put in hours of researching, building a Google Map and printing out parking passes, scheduling several school visits per day and a trip to Disneyland in the middle to celebrate his last high school summer vacation. This morning, however, we were late to the first tour, since I had everything packed but my glasses…and we had to turn around and go back.

Without wifi, I can’t access the Google Map I made. We’re trying to use Waze to avoid heavy traffic. Leaving the first school, I program the name of the second into the car’s GPS, and between one road map and another, I soon manage to navigate us onto side streets where we go more than 7 miles per hour…but stop at every light. Now we’re late for the second school tour, too.

When we pull up in front of the building the car’s GPS brought us to, twenty minutes late for the tour, we are confused by our surroundings. Turns out the car found us a satellite campus. I look at the college map I printed out, which has no relation to this place we are in, and notice the address under the logo. I program that into the car instead, and we turn around and go back the way we came.

The breezy chatter we’d been enjoying all morning has stopped. My mind is now going in loops, bargaining with the executive misjudgments I’ve made in the last few hours. I'm wondering if it’s ADD or anxiety or just this… this feeling that is welling up inside of me, subconsciously sabotaging my well-laid plans, this feeling that we are driving to what might be Enzo’s new home a year from now, far away from our family.

Tears are leaking out of my eyes, and I want to hide them — except I lost my sunglasses two weeks ago.

I hold back my sobs, because I don’t want to distract Enzo from the amazing job he’s doing driving on this trip. He’s got his license now. He’s getting his life together. He’s less afraid of being on his own than he should be, knowing what I know about what he doesn’t know aboutthe demanding world he’s growing into. He hasn’t noticed I’m taking notes at all these talks because he isn’t — because neither of us will remember all the details and dates of this crucial information. But I don’t want to shake his beautiful faith in himself.

We pull up to the right campus and see a group of students gathered around a fountain in the distance. I make Enzo pull over and jump out with his dad. Shaky, I get in the driver’s seat and go find a parking spot to have a little cry and pull myself together. Because somehow — and I don’t know how but it always does — this is all going to work out just right.

The Thrill of the Chase

This historic steam train ran on a strict schedule — but as we chased it together, three generations of my ADD family got the chance to indulge the impulse to explore, discover, and share an adrenaline rush.

One of my favorite summer memories was a day out of time with my train-obsessed father and son. We were visiting family in Boulder, Colorado — full of the typical stresses of organizing around various diverse clusters of family cultures and communications — when my dad (whom I shall call Grandpa Gerf* in this blog) — called with the news that a historic Union Pacific 4-8-4 steam engine was going to be running a hundred miles up the UP branch from Denver to Cheyenne, Wyoming. The stepmother, in-laws, and husband backed away from the invitation to chase it, like cockroaches disappearing when a light goes on. But eight-year-old Enzo was ready to leave at the crack of dawn, his pockets full of toy trains and cars.