Delivered From Distraction - How It Changed My Inner Lens Part 1
“I’m not a psychiatrist but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.” That’s how I feel when talking about AD/HD. I am not a trained mental health coach, PhD, or MD. I have read a lot on the internet, books, and talked to people. This is about Dr. Hallowell and Dr. Ratey’s book “Deliverd From Distraction”**. I contacted Dr. Hallowell a few weeks ago and asked him about referencing sections so I should be ok as long as I follow the guidlines we discussed.
This book is organized expertly for people that can only read in short spurts. It covers a huge range of information concerning AD/HD. It has helped me even more than his first book. In this entry I want to cover the first few sections that really impacted me and why. Bear with me, I hope that it might help someone else, if nothing else to go see someone to get help.
In his introduction the doctors put AD/HD in the best light possible. They say, “The best way to think of ADD is not as a mental disorder but as a collection of traits and tendencies that define a way of being in the world.”(xxxii) This is by far the most positive description I have ever heard. It immediately helped me to think in a different about AD/HD in a good light. In that same section he hits AD/HD on the nose.
Having ADD makes life paradoxial. You can superfocus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perfrom at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely totally intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, fut feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.
….The goal is to sculpt ADD into a blessing.(xxxii)
The first chapter is designed for everyone - but especially for those that can’t focus long enough to read the whole book. It’s in a question and answer format with complete and positive answers. Some of the questions asked are:
- What is ADD?
- What is the typical profile of a person who has ADD? (The answer to this is AWESOME!)
- Aren’t most people somewhat like this.
- What causes ADD? Is it inherited.
- Other than its being heritable, is there any other evidence that ADD has a biological, physical basis to it, as opposed to psychological or environmental?
- Does ADD ever go away on it’s own?
- What is the proper procedure to diagnose ADD
- What else should one watch out for regarding the diagnosis of ADD and getting treatment?
- In what ways are diagnosis, identification of talents and strengths, and implementation of a plan that promotes talents and strengths part of the treatment?
- What are the most important lifestyle changes? (This answer won’t surprise some people but it will definitely help.)
- What are the dangers of stimulant medications?
- What alternative medications are there to stimulants?(xxxiii)
There are many more questions but each of these questions they have a good short answer. In the chapters throughout the book they cover all of these questions and even more to great detail.
When I read this it got me so excited to keep reading. Unlike some people when it comes to reading something that I am genuinely interested in I have no problem. My wife will roll her eyes because she’s seen me on several occaissions completely disappear into a book until it was done.
The second chapter in my opinion is landmark. It says something that I’ve ever seen captured in any of the other things I’ve read. It’s called “The Feel of ADD”(3-19) Both doctors have ADD as well and so they know first hand what we face. I can’t imagine what it must be like for them to treat patients or to go through the rigors of their practice. I think from the volume of books they both love to express themselves and probably disappear into their writing to the point that their wives or business partners are pulling them out. (that was a side thought that just came into my head.)
In here is a list of ingredients that are not diagnostic but is what it feels like.
- High mental or physical energy (coupled with extreme lassitude at times)
a fast-moving, easily distracted mind (coupled with an amazingly superfocused mind at times)- trouble with remembering, planning, and anticipating
- unpredictability and impulsivity
- creativity
- lack of inhibition as compared to others
- disorganization (couple with remarkable organization skills in certain domains)
- a tendency toward procrastination (coupled with an I-must-do-it-or-have-it-now attitude at times)
- a high-intensity attitude alternating with a foggy one
- forgetfulness (coupled with an extraordinary recall of certain often irrelevant remote information)
- passionate interests (couple with an inability to arouse interest at other times)
- an original, often zany way of looking at the world
- irritability(coupled with ternderheartedness)
- a tendency to drink too much alcohol, smoke cigarettes, use other druges, or get involved with addictive activities such as gambling, shopping, spending, sex, food, and the Internet (coupled with a tendency to abstain altogether at times)
- a tendency to worry unnecessarily (coupled with a tendency not to worry enough when worry is warranted)
- a tendency to be a nonconformist or a maverick
- a tendency to reject help from others (coupled with a tendency to want to give help to others)
- generosity that can go too far
- a tendency to repeat the same mistake many times without learning from it
- a tendency to underestimate the time it takes to complete a task or get to a destination
- various other ingredients, non of which dominates all of the time, and any one of which may be absent in a single individual(20-21)
When I read that I thought - wow - talk about inconsistent. Yet this list of ingredients is my mind. Here someone was writing about what it was like who has it. I have no idea what people with Attention Surplus Disorder(that’s everyone else in the world) see when they look at this list but it inspired and gave me some hope.
The rest of this chapter continues to elaborate on the “feel” of ADD. What we see. What we experience. What we struggle with. It’s one of my favorite chapters in this book because it tells me the one thing I was so afraid of. That I am not alone and other people struggle and overcome everyday with the same struggles and obstacles I do.
Thank you Dr. Hallowell and Dr. Ratey
Looking Back - Where Do I See It
Since being diagnosed I have started to play back the events in my life to see where the first signs began. In order to put the events in perspective here are the qualities that doctors look for in the individuals life:
- Fidgety energy
- Difficulty remaining in seat
- Easily Distractable
- Difficulty waiting in line
- Blurts out answers to questions before they’ve been completed
- Difficulty following through instructions
- Difficult to sustain attention in tasks or games
- Shifts from incomplete tasks
- Overly talkative - sometimes excessively
- Interupts others
- Fails to listen to people talking to him
- Loses things regularly
- Takes on dangerous activities without thinking through the consequences
Looking at this list I see many of these in my early childhood. When I was in the first grade my teacher was a strict older woman that believed in teaching the way it had been done for the 40 years prior to my joining her class. I found myself sitting in the hall regularly for disrupting her class where we reciting words on the black boards or for not completing my coursework. This is the only teacher I ever had that mocked me for failing to pick something up that was very basic like reading words we’d been practicing for weeks. It was not her mocking that spurred me to learn, but my interest in a comic book at the convenience store at the end of my street. I saw the pictures and the words and I wanted to know what they meant. It took me a week to read through the comic. The next time it took 3 days. Then I could do it in a day.
Following that first comic my reading excelled. I was still in the hall for disruption but not for failure to read. She was still not fond of me or my behavior but it was as I remember a really boring class. By the end of the first grade I was reading my brother’s text books from the third grade. Once I figured out how to do it I realized I could learn quickly and wanted to be better at it than my older brother. The thrill of being a better reader than my brother was exhilerating.
Other events that mark early childhood was my complete disregard for common safety to myself or others. One summer I got ahold of matches from the kitchen and built a fire between our house and our neighbors house. There was only 3 or 4 feet between them but that didn’t bother me. It did bother my mother and our neighbors and I was quickly disciplined when my mother returned from work. My neighborhood friends and I played hard and played fast. I loved to run. It was so exciting to run and race with others.
I was as impatient then as I am today. I remember having to wait for my turn to do something and wanting to jump out my skin. Whether it be playing kickball, getting a drink from the water fountain, or reading out loud in class. My brother always the good boy that did what he was told, I was the one that came home late to dinner because I was in the middle of playing or got pulled away by something laying on the side of the road and immediately found a new object that I saw as a sword or a laser gun. In the process time slipped by and it was past dinner time. There goes my night to watch the Bionic Man because now I was grounded to my room for the night.
When I played baseball growing up I hated it half of the time. The time I was in the outfield. Until someone hit one out and I got the rush of running to the ball to catch it. The other half of the time was at bat or waiting for my turn at bat. That was the only time I cared about. The motion and activity.
As my life continued on more of this type of behavior continued. Some teachers found out that I would work on school work as long as it kept coming. Some found that I could find things quickly and get things done for them faster than the other students. Some utilized these and some didn’t. Those that did kept me going. Those that didn’t I struggled to keep my grades at B’s. C’s were not tolerated in our house.
When I started middle school we moved to Columbus and I attended Columbus public schools. I was fortunate to attend Woodward Park Middle School. The teachers were generally good and helped me to get out some of the potential they saw. When I was in the 7th grade my math teacher made a comment that I have always remembered. “Bobby, you are very smart. You could be an engineer or something like that if you wanted to. You just have to settle down.” Mrs. Leonard was again an old fashion teacher in that she was very strict. But she believed in her students. At least she believed in me, because she recommended me for 8th grade algebra despite my average grades. I took the evaluation test and passed with flying colors. Many of my fellow students that had always received straight A’s were only allowed into pre-algegra. I never did poorly in math again because I knew that I could do it.
My early childhood is filled with good and bad stories like these. I have excluded the one where I almost burned down a corn field. Or the one that got me up a huge tree with no way of getting down. I was fearless in my actions. I knew that I could do things that others could do but I knew that for some reason they came difficultly to me. It was hard to grasp things that took an hour to explain. I often slept through Calculus but still passed with better than average grades.
Somewhere along the line I learned two important things. The first was that if I blend in no one will notice. If you don’t look like you’re up to trouble no one will notice. I did this well. My mother will attest to this. She still hates hearing about the things I got into when I was younger that she didn’t know about. The second and more important was if I had to study and it was boring or overly difficult to grasp, work in 15 minute increments with a 5 minute diversion to give you a break. It has served me to this day.
What I didn’t mention was the teenage drug and alcohol use. It wasn’t an addiction or me rebelling that some people might think. It was boredom. And when it wasn’t boredom only it was to see if I could do them and get away with it in school or at home. There were periods that I was a model citizen but at the onset of boredom I usually found myself in trouble.
From my early experiences and early successes that were helped by those that saw more in me than I knew I had, I knew that I could do anything I wanted to. Regardless of difficulty I could overcome if I persisted. When I graduated from high school I was grateful. Unlike the other students I wasn’t afraid but looked forward to taking on the world. The thrill of the unknown and the prospect of figuring it out on my own was so exciting.
If AD/HD was understood as well then as it is today would I have been diagnosed? Maybe. But even as an adult I still went an additional 19 years before someone pointed it out to me.
A Diagnosis Delivered
3-4 months ago I was diagnosed with AD/HD. I dismissed it as an excuse for bad behaviour or energetic children. Earlier this year a doctor told me I had a completely different disorder after talking to me for 15 - 20 minutes. That one put me in the hospital for a day. It completely put me off the diagnosis offered by the mental health profession.
I was and still am to some extent convinced that medical professionals in large are becoming prescription writers. There are other ways to treat illness, physical or mental than just prescribing the latest and greatest medication. It was for this skepticism that I was hesitant in seeing a psychiatrist again about anything that they could not fully diagnose. But after talking to my family doctor and doing some research I relented and made an appointment to see a psychiatrist about AD/HD in the event it was a real diagnosis.
We sat and discussed my past starting from my childhood. We talked about major life events and also issues that finally brought me to his door. After sitting and discussing these for about an hour he suggested I try some medication to determine if it would help in the issues I am facing and to read a prominent book about AD/HD titled “Driven To Distraction”.
I did both. I was amazed at the initial effect of the medication. The clarity. The focus. Seeing my world through a clear lense for what seemed like the first time. Being able to sit down and work at my desk for hours instead of minutes. To be able to listen to a conference call for the whole time and get something out of it. To complete a large number of tasks without hesitation and procrastination. In the weeks following at the Dr.’s orders we’ve adjusted the medication dosage to find the right amount that 1. lasts the duration we need it to and 2. causes the least amount of side effects. It’s a work in progress.
More amazing than the medication was the book. It was as if I could finally understand why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made over the years. It explained motivations behind many of the decisions I’ve made through out my life. Some good and some bad. The more I read the more I learned about what AD/HD is and isn’t.
What it is:
-
A neurological disorder in the brain where the uptake of key chemicals is off balance. Not any different than the people that suffer from depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, or anything else that relies on the brain’s capability to regulate chemical uptake and creation.
- A disorder that is manifested by multiple symptoms that all start from childhood. Whether the person realizes it or not until much later is irrelevant. The history is there that provides the foundation for the diagnosis.
- Treatable
- Manageable
- Lifelong
What it isn’t:
- An excuse for screwing up if an accurate diagnosis has been made.
- An excuse for not living up to your ideas or goals
- A hinderance to your life if you don’t want it to.
I’m not an expert. I’m learning. I know now what some of my inherited limitations are. In my life with all that I have accomplished I also realize that I have left goals left undone and unexplained. I see why they went undone. Not because of the loftiness or the length of time but because they would have been difficult for normal people but for someone with AD/HD they were unrealistic. Not that I have limitations to what I can accomplish but in the way that I go about it.
The traits that are symptomatic of AD/HD are also some of my best qualities. Creative, daring, impulsive, sensitive, ability to hyper focus for extended durations to complete tasks, multitasking. These are what have made me what I am today. My question now is since I understand this the only question is with the knowledge what will it make me tomorrow.