You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder (17 page)

Regardless of the brand of denial we choose during this stage, we aren’t dealing yet with the reality of our ADD. We need time to process our new knowledge and confront ourselves with our weaknesses. At this early stage in the process of recovery, we don’t recognize the face reflecting back to us in the mirror:

“That isn’t the person I used to be,
and I’m not ready to figure out who it really is.”

Bargaining—It Can All Be Fixed

As we begin to make sense of everything, we bargain with God or fate to forestall facing the inescapable fact of our disorder. The deal goes something like this: “If I’m really good, you’ll give me back what I’ve lost.”

For many ADD adults the bargaining is around medication that often brings at least initially dramatic, positive changes. A whole world opens
up as the medication helps us emerge from lifelong fogs. Sights and sounds that had previously drifted by our conscious awareness are noticed for the first time. We are better organized and focused. We feel energized with a new sense of purpose and feel calmer and happier. This new tool is a great bargaining chip.

We promise ourselves to work diligently at pursuing the right dose of medication.
When we find it, we know that our symptoms will go away. We’ll be able to take responsibility for our behaviors and be like everybody else.

This strategy works for a while until awareness grows that maybe this isn’t the answer to our problems. Our improved ability to pay attention makes us increasingly aware of our mistakes. We grudgingly acknowledge that our medicine hasn’t cured them. It doesn’t
make us normal even though we promised to do everything right if only the Ritalin or Adderall would fix us. We begin to notice the drug’s uneven symptom control over the course of the day and our decreased functioning when the drug is at a low level.

Our diagnosis vindicates us against the invalid assumptions people have made about us. We’ve spent our anger railing about the injustice and have
taken a step toward dealing with our symptoms. But we aren’t fixed. Our bargaining doesn’t work but we’re still not ready to own our disorder.
We still aren’t ready to accept that our ADD is not just going to magically disappear.

Reality Sinks In—Depression

Our diagnosis is supposed to free, not imprison us. But that’s often what happens at some point in our grief process. As adults, we resent
having to relive the identity crisis of adolescence. We may not have been doing great before, but at least we thought we knew who we were. At this point depression often sets in. For some ADD adults it returns periodically, threatening to undermine progress.

KK:
“ When depression set in, it was compounded by the growing certainty that my daughter also had ADD. I mixed us up in my mind during that time. Tyrell was my bright hope for the future. I put a lot of energy into carefully nurturing her self-esteem so she wouldn’t have to go through what I did as a child. When I realized that ADD was at the root of many of my problems, I was frightened for
my daughter.

“In my state of gloom, I began to think that she was doomed as I was. If this problem was inherited and biological, there was no escape. I agonized over Tyrell’s fate and my own. I ruminated about all the things I couldn’t do and all the times I had failed. I relived each painful and humiliating experience from my past. My positive attributes and accomplishments ceased to exist.
There was the triple whammy of feeling helpless as a parent, generally incompetent and without hope for the future. I said good-bye to many of my dreams, both the realistic and the unrealistic ones.

“This stage was marked by extreme fragility. I constantly burst into tears, and innocent remarks set me off. I laugh at it now but just hearing the word ‘memory’ would bring tears to my eyes because
it reminded me of my deficits. I sat in church every Sunday trying to hide the tears streaming down my face.”

PR:
“ The relief I felt after my diagnosis was short-lived. In the months that followed, it was replaced with an assortment of conflicting feelings. Depression was one of them. It was a place I had frequently visited during my life. This time, however, there was no vagueness about my feelings
of gloom.

“I had often lived under a cloud of helplessness and hopelessness. The discovery of my ADD, however, brought my negative feelings crashing down around me. I had previously been able to pull myself out of my black fogs by reasoning that things really weren’t that bad. My diagnosis brought this reasoning to a crashing halt. Things really were that bad! I would never be okay.

“I had accepted
that my then-eight-year-old son’s symptoms would never go away. I vividly recall the moment two years earlier when my fantasies about R. Jeremy abruptly ended. I sat in the psychologist’s office, mentally checking off all the things he would never be able to do. Four months pregnant with a baby girl conceived after several years of infertility treatments, I felt gut-wrenching terror for both
my children.

“Remember my brother Roger? Well, I had given my son his name and I had an intense, frightening feeling of déjà vu. What awful curse had I visited on my son? Would he also come to some terrible end?

“Depression set in with a vengeance. I had previously resolved my issues around Jeremy’s disorder and had accepted that he would have lifelong challenges. But here it was again—that
damned ADD. This time it was mine. My feelings and fears about both my son and myself converged into some pretty self-destructive thoughts. Just when I was getting a handle on his problems, I was faced with the reality of my own.

“It wasn’t easy to move beyond my depression. It didn’t happen overnight. But I did it. With persistence and a sense of humor, I climbed out of my deep, black hole again.
I decided I didn’t like it in there—it was too dark and I’m into bright, open spaces! I figured that with my family of four, I was
two down, with two to go
. I did it twice and if I had to, I could do it again.”

Out of the Depths—ACCEPTANCE!

If you keep working on the grief process, you will come to a new and better place in your life. The stages you will go through are often difficult and painful,
but
they’re essential
. When the going gets rough, don’t get discouraged. Visualize where you’re going—to a place where you will discover and learn to use your valuable gifts.

PR:
“ One summer, a terrible thunderstorm rocked our house and terrified my young daughter. When it finally ended there
was an incredibly beautiful double rainbow stretching across the sky. Alison was dumbstruck because she
had never seen a rainbow. After watching it awhile, she announced that she hoped we’d have another bad storm soon so she could see another rainbow. Her fear disappeared, replaced with a child’s optimism.

“I’ve thought from time to time about that storm since Alison comforted herself with the wonder of the resultant rainbows. It may be a cliché, but my journey through my own personal storm has
taught me to believe in the gold at the end of rainbow. It’s there. It’s real. It’s within my grasp.

“Maybe I’ll have more storms than rainbows, but that goes with the territory. I know that my journey will be an uphill struggle, but the rewards are worth my efforts. I accept my son and myself as we are. We’re all we’ve got, so we’d better make the most of our lives. Those complex and beautiful
rainbows symbolized limitless possibilities. And so do we, my son and I.”

KK:
“I don’t remember exactly when the depression began to lift. I know one sign of my emergence from gloom and doom was regaining the ability to laugh at myself. I joked about starting a new kind of AA group for people like me. I would call it Airheads Anonymous.

“Understanding that I wasn’t to blame for the way I was
relieved me of the guilt I had lived with for so long. I was a valuable person with a disability. I had deficits but they no longer defined who I was. They took their rightful place as one dimension of a multidimensional person. I began to feel more confident about my parenting skills and became less anxious about my daughter’s future. I reasoned that if I could make it without any help during my
childhood, Tyrell could do even better with support.

“Coming to terms with my ADD meant spending far less time and energy hiding my deficits. I concentrated on understanding
them without being consumed by them. I was finally free to take charge of my life and realistically assess it.

“The months that followed were exciting and productive as I evaluated various career options. It became clear
that I had a gift for writing and an ability to understand and connect with people. I was already using my people skills in my teaching and nursing, but I realized that many of the routine details of my work were painfully difficult for me. I decided to use my risk-taking ability to embark on a new venture, although it wasn’t readily apparent what it would be!

“I had been intensely interested
in ADD since my diagnosis and wanted to specialize in it in some way. I just didn’t know what direction to take. I liked the flexibility of teaching and enjoyed mentoring students, but sensed that perhaps this wasn’t quite the right niche. I wrestled with the issue of security versus optimally using my interests and talents. With my newfound sense of inner strength, I was sure that I would eventually
find what I was looking for.

“When the answer came, everything fell into place. I decided to write this book and asked Peggy to join me in this venture. The project had my name on it! I knew there were millions of people struggling with ADD and that there was limited help available for them. This book would be the perfect work choice for me.

“I had impeccable credentials—who could know ADD better
than someone who lived with it? I could use my experiences, varied background in education and mental health and my people and writing skills to work at something in which I was intensely interested. What a perfect job!

“Life still has its ups and downs, but I feel that I’m living it more fully now than I ever could have before this journey. Instead of hiding my weaknesses or working at things
that are wrong for me, I can now celebrate my gifts.”

In the remaining chapters of this book we will offer a framework you can use to maximize your abilities and minimize your disabilities. The focus will be on what you
can
do rather than what you
can’t
do. We want to help you discover your hidden strengths and talents and celebrate the
person you are.

We don’t presume to have all the answers. We can, however, help you formulate the questions you need to ask as you take responsibility for your recovery. We share your pain and your hope because we are struggling alongside you.

As you continue on your personal journey of recovery, consider the following quote by Cathy Better of Reisertown, Maryland. It appeared in the
Community Times
newspaper and is an empowering affirmation of the possibilities available to you with hard work and a deep commitment to yourself.

Each day that we wake is a new start, another chance.

Why waste it on self-pity, sloth and selfishness?

Roll that day around on your tongue, relish the taste of its freedom.

Breathe deeply of the morning air, savor the fragrance of opportunity.

Run your hands along the spine of those precious 24 hours

and feel the strength in sinew and bone.

Life is raw material. We are artisans.

We can sculpt our existence into something beautiful,

or debase it into ugliness.

It’s in our hands.

Chapter 5
About Balance, Toyotas, Porsches, Circus High Wires and the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

D
id we get your attention? Are you wondering about the connection between balance, cars, high-wire acts, AA, ADD and recovery? Well, there is a connection and it’s an important place to start learning how to effectively manage your ADD.