Self Perception
In the last couple of weeks I have been making an attempt to branch out my understanding of ADD by reading some books by other authors. I picked up one in particular that was on Adult ADD. It is written by a psychologist that specializes in ADD and helping people to cope with their self perception. I have also picked up a work book looking to it to maybe create some more regular life processes.
As I started to read them I found them both to be disappointing. My initial look at them in the bookstore left me to hope I would find value in them. I can see where they would have value for many people who struggle with issues of confidence or understanding depending on their upbringing and their own experiences. I have not found them to as yet provide me with any more clarity regarding ADD than I have gained by the previous two books I read.
In my view of ADD, I do not see it as a life threatening disease. I see it as someone might view getting prescribed glasses for the first time. They knew they weren’t seeing things as clearly as others and weren’t sure why. Then they found a pair of glasses from a friend and realized that they were seeing things with some added clarity but decided to get checked out for themselves. After going to the eye doctor and getting a prescription they found that it was clearer and now they have a way of seeing clearer.
Like ADD, getting eye glasses takes some time to adjust. You have to remember to take them with you. You have to take care of them or they get broken and you have to get a new pair. Even when you do take them with you, putting them on is just as important or they don’t do any good.
Discovering ADD is exactly the same. You have a diagnosis and possibly a prescription. You take the medicine and it helps you to balance out yourself in many ways. Helps you to see the world in a clearer light without ten thousand thoughts racing through your head. Or at least without acting on them all at once. Developing your own processes and routines to help manage information, ideas, responsibilities, etc so that you function at a level that will allow you to leverage your abilities where before they might not have been.
Most people, “normal” or not, have had their fair share of hard knocks. ADD is not always to blame. If it is I look at it like failing to wear glasses when driving and getting a ticket because you couldn’t make out the signs. Adults who have inflicted pain or suffering on children do so because of who they are, not because of who you are. Either they have their own issues they are taking out on the children or they fail to consider the possibility that a particular child might need something different from other children. That’s not the child’s fault.
I am not the reason my parents made bad choices. They made those by themselves. I am the reason I make bad choices. As an adult my boss does not have the responsibility to take into consideration my deficiencies, only that a job needs done. If I am unable to complete the tasks he’s given me I need to communicate that to him or find another job.
When I found out I had ADD and what it is exactly it did not change who I was looking at in the mirror. It just brought him into focus so I could see him clearer. So instead of thinking I had a unibrow I see I had ink on my face.
Self Respect
I wanted to title this “Self Respect - Where does it come from and where does it go?” That’s just too long. Another blog I read recently Love A.D.D.eral said at the end that “the longer you rely on drugs to feel competent, the less respect you’ll have for who you are without it.”
Respecting yourself for who you are? Hmmm. What does this respect mean? Wikipedia - Respect states “Respect is an assumption of good faith and competence in another person or in the whole of oneself. Depth of integrity, trust, complementary moral values, and skill are necessary components.[1]”
Good faith and competence in the whole of oneself. So things that diminish this assumption of good faith and competence would be what the previous author was talking about. So if you rely on drugs to combat shortcomings and you rely on them to either mask or help you to overcome these short comings does that mean you lose that faith and competence in yourself to do it without the medication?
As my ADD brain is working I see two lines of sight in this. If you use it to mask your shortcomings then do you have self respect to begin with? The person that gets drunk every day at the bar because they are incapable of being home alone or dealing with some type of pain. That would be a mask. The person that wears a girdle to hide their midsection bulge isn’t using a drug but they are masking the truth all the same.
So if medication is used to overcome their shortcomings does that mean they have less self respect? I can’t remember all the notes I typed up from my meeting yesterday. So I print them out and take them with me to my next meeting. What about my planner I use for my calendar? Does that mean the same thing? I can’t keep my appointments straight. It’s not a mask, but a shortcoming.
Now ADD medication is a little different in my life. In my world I am not necessarily hyper active, but I’m active. From a physical/social meaning I am overly sensitive. That’s been good and bad. Sounds other people may not interpret I enjoy. Tastes some may not identify I can thoroughly revel in. Touch sends messages all through me. Even if it’s a friend hitting me in the arm. Does that sound strange? To someone that doesn’t experience this I’m sure. The down side is that sounds that others might enjoy can turn into noise. Food that some might find enjoyable has no value to my tongue. The unspoken word says more to me than the spoken.
ADD Medication changes this. It turns the volume on the sensitivity down. Sometimes too far. Instead of enjoying food I don’t eat. Instead of having a glass of my favorite scotch I can’t taste the subtle wood flavors so I don’t drink. The electricity of touch turns to numbness and I end up leaving my wife alone(which to some degree she’s happy). Does this mask the over reactions I had? Am I hiding it?
On the other hand as my work-home life grew past a point I could leverage with my old coping methods to manage I needed something else to help. The medication is my tool for that. It’s not a crutch in the sense I can’t function without it, but it’s more a means to help me stay focused on the large volume of tasks I have. Do I like taking medicine every day? I don’t think about it like that. I think about it like I wouldn’t leave the house with my cell phone so why would I leave without my medication.
Have I lost faith in myself to function? No. Have I lost faith in myself to excel? No. I went 37 years without it. I am not the owner of Jet Blue or some other multinational company. I’m a guy with a job like anyone else. I have responsibilities to my family, my friends, my company, and my co-workers. My medication is my equivalent of starting to use a planner when before I used post-it notes. For the sensitivity question, while the level of medication does have more of an impact on my life than I would prefer, it’s the same as having on sunglasses, they are just darker than they need to be all the time. A significant point to this is that before I was drinking pots of coffee or caffeine equivalent every day - for over 20 years. So instead of shooting in the dark with caffeine I’m taking something administered.
So to answer my original question, my respect comes from years of learning from all of the crazy things I’ve done. Good and bad. Where does it go? Nowhere. As long as I remember what the qualities are that make me who I am then I will have it. Have I lost it? Yes. Will I lose it again? No. Why? Because besides everything I have done, I have a family that appreciates me for who I am and what I do. Their love is proof enough of my competence and that will always be my source of faith to be who I should be.
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