The Disorganized Mind - A First Take
I recently saw an advertisement for a new book out by super Coach Nancy Ratey. I have often thought about coaching to help me get some balance back in my life, so this was something that just jumped out at me. Here’s the wife of John Ratey, co-author of some of my favorite books on ADD/ADHD, and the one of the pioneers in coaching for ADD putting out a book that seems to be calling out to me.
This weekend at one of the book stores I found a copy and immediately snatched it up. I love books like this and if her writing style was anything like her husband’s then at least it would be an enjoyable read. Other books like this that just didn’t get going for me was Getting Things Done. While many people swear by this system, it does not fit everyone and I found it hard to implement.
I brought it home and started reading through it. I’m through the first 3 chapters and can hardly wait for the next one. The sections within the chapters are short, concise, and written well. It’s been enjoyable.
The things that I find consistent with what I long thought was key for me at least and I suspect others, was structure, goals, and follow up. My greatest successes have been when I created a structured environment, set goals that I actively measured against, and followed through on when and where I failed.
Nancy points this out and talks about how the role of the coach brings this out but more importantly holds the individuals accountable for their decisions by helping them realize how they made choices inconsistent with their goals. I don’t necessarily have this challenge since I’m far more demanding of myself than others can be.
So as to not give it all away I’ll save more of the details for later, but for right now - this is a winner. Enjoyable to read and I feel like just reading it has aroused that part of my brain that I need to get kick started to get back on track.
And most important? She’s a BUCKEYE and will be here June 7th for a book signing. Yahoo!
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
Anger On Thanksgiving
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. The day we get together and have fun. Eat, watch a little football, talk to family, your mom critiques something about your life, you get to listen to other family members drone on and on and on…..
Today was a good day for me because I didn’t have to cook. Well actually I forgot to make my dish so my wife got to make it instead. So I didn’t do anything other than bathe the three monkey’s, get them dressed and load up the van to go to Mom’s. Almost my entire family was there with their family so it was a packed house. There was a lot of good food and the kids were having fun.
My mother made a great meal. Everyone brought additional food and there was a great spread. Departing from the traditions of her mother, Mom used paper plates instead of the good silver and China. Very wise on her part with the number of smaller children that have a tendency to drop things. Well the older ones do to. The food was great. I ate a whole plate. I think my family was surprised I didn’t go back for seconds but that’s a side effect of the meds. I haven’t told my family about being diagnosed with AD/HD because I don’t know how they’ll react. It’s met with a lot of doubts.
After the meal we dive into the pie and enjoy homemade apple and pumpkin pie. The kids finish and they’re off. Playing in the yard, running off the calories they just consumed. My wife, brother, sister in law, Mom and step-father are sitting there talking pleasantly and my 2 year old son comes in and climbs onto our laps. It was really nice. It seemed like we were getting along so nicely. (can you sense the but coming?)
My brother gets up and brings back a piece of pecan pie. Then my sister in law gets one. The second they sit down my mother very nicely says explains that we weren’t going to eat that until after my family left. My son is allergic to all nuts. DEATHLY allergic to them. The same son that is sitting across the table from them. My wife, mother, and I try to be very polite about explaining it’s not a good idea to eat that right now. They keep eating.
My wife gets up with our son and storms out. My brother asks me if she left because they are eating that pie. I explain again it’s a life threatening allergy for my son and go find my wife. She and my 2 year old are locked in a bathroom and she’s so angry she’s practically in tears.
This is where my itch kicks in. I call it an itch because I know there’s a right and a wrong way to handle this but the closer I get to the table the less I see the right and my itch is an inflammation and I’m wondering how I’m going to scratch this so it’s not bad. Then I’m thinking how am I going to keep myself from walking into the room and not rip my brother and sister-in-law’s head off. I wasn’t but that’s what it felt like. This entire conversation happened in my head in the space of 1.5 seconds.
I walk in the room and sit down. That’s good. I didn’t do explode. I start out calm, but I think they could see I was upset. I explained that my wife and son were in the bathroom because they can’t be around it. My brother and sister in law at this time start to denounce the reality of the allergy and that it wasn’t anything. ”There’s no way it can be that bad. Do you know how many things are made on equipment that is processed on peanuts.” That’s what he says. I am trying to explain rationally that for every package of food we buy that comes in a bag, box, container, wrapper, we read the labels. They have to print if it was processed on equipment that was processed on nuts.
For the uninitiated nut allergies account for approximately 80% of all food allergy deaths in the world. My son has a reaction if he breathes dust from a grinder. At this point I make a motion with my hand as if I was laying something down on the table and yell “You eating that pie is like putting a loaded gun on the table and point it at my son.” I am enraged. I am thinking that if this goes on I’m going to beat him. He still denies anything is going to happen. That there’s nothing to worry about. How can someone not see that all it takes is for him to pick up his plate put it with the rest of the pie and eat it when we leave in 15 minutes.
I am screaming that if he touches my son, or if the kids pick up the crumbs, or he picks up the crumbs and is exposed it could kill my son. Would you want me doing something around your children that would kill them? My sister in law at this point says “Come on. We don’t have to take this.” They get up and leave.
WOW.
I am so full of rage and anger that I am shaking. I can taste the bitterness in my mouth. I am looking around trying to understand how they didn’t get it. How they couldn’t just show some courtesy for someone other than themselves and put it away. As he’s denying anything is going to happen there were crumbs falling off his plate onto the floor and he didn’t see them.
My poor mother is beside herself. She doesn’t know what to say. I immediately apologize. I ask if what we originally said and asked them was unreasonable. It wasn’t. Now I’ve ruined Thanksgiving. Now it’s my fault. They left because of me. I’m in the family counselor office as a teenager being blamed for all of the problems my siblings have all over again. Why does this always land on me? I’m not the one arguing that nuts aren’t life threatening. I know they are. We’ve already been to the ER once. But it’s still my fault.
I can’t breathe and I all I can feel is rage. After a few minutes I get up and walk outside to smoke. I can’t taste it and it does nothing to calm me down. But my mind is racing. Did I overreact? Was this a by product of my ADD?
In some ways it was. The frustration had been building all day with the kids and the chaos at home. My oldest has ad/hd and in the mornings he’s all go. I was reading the book “Delivered from Distraction” by Ned Halloway and John Ratey. It’s an updated version of their first book “Driven to Distraction”. It’s a good book but it was not as encouraging as their first one. So now I’m a loaded shotgun with no way to unload that is not going to cause damage. Sitting there with my brother every word that came out of his mouth was one more bullet in the chamber and it just blew.
Eventually we made it home and I was still loaded. I tried to relax but I couldn’t get this out of my system. Finally I said I need to do something to channel this energy positively. So I sat down and wrote a post on one of my other blogs, then on a forum I belong to. I needed to feel connected. I needed validation that I wasn’t going off the deep end. Finally after getting it all out I felt so much better. I felt relieved. I could breathe. Now I’m here. It’s 1:20 in the morning and I think I can go to bed.
Funny thing is the people on the forum couldn’t understand their behavior either.