MAILBAG!

So, a particularly inquisitive friend of mine has started what I intend on turning into a reoccuring event on this blog.  Reader questions!!  We’re going to call it Mailbag Time!!!  That’s way too many exclamation points for this early in a post!!!!  But seriously.  I welcome your questions, of any kind, and would love to answer them.  There are no stupid questions!  And if there are, I will simply not post them, to save you the embarrassment.  So, anything you’re wondering about, ask in the comments, or shoot me an email here.  Hopefully, this can become a regular thing we do.

So, we’ll start it off with...
Audrey from Oak Park asked: (she overachieved and asked 4, so...the bar is set)

How do you draw the line at something being due to ADHD vs. something less "clinical"? I'm thinking in particular about your "bills" example and how that kind of thing happens all the time to people for all sorts of reasons. So how do you decide when you can attribute stuff like that to ADHD and when you can't/don't/shouldn't?

That's a great question, because it really made me think; I hadn't considered how I differentiate between the two before tackling this question. I'll use the comcast bill example, because it was brought up in the question. In this example I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that this was a case of ADHD rearing it's ugly-yet-sometimes-humorous head. Why? Because of this sentence; “Your service has been temporarily discontinued due to an outstanding balance.  You may pay over the ph....” annnnnd facepalm”.

I need to clarify something about that sentence.  The “facepalm” was not an “Ohhh great... I completely forgot about paying the bill this month” facepalm.  It was more of a “Are you kidding?  I thought about paying that bill 7 different times in the last 15 days and I just never did it” facepalm.  And there’s a huge difference between those two things.  

Anybody can forget to pay their bills.  You get them in the mail, lay them on the counter and start making dinner.  You’ve got a lot on your plate this month: your cousin is getting married in a week, and you have to find him a gift since he only registered at Bass Pro Shop.  You have a dentist appointment on wednesday, and you have to floss 16 times a day to make up for the last 6 months of failure.  Those expense reports are due in two weeks, and I have no idea what expense reports are since I’m an electrician, so nevermind.  The point is, you’re busy, and you forget to take care of the bills.  Happens to everyone.

That’s not how it works for me.  The worst thing that these companies do to me is put a due date on these bills.  I open a bill and, Sweet!  I don’t have to pay this for 15 more days!  Horrible thought process.  But it’s exactly how the ADHD mind works.  There’s a saying, that describes this phenomenon perfectly, and it goes, “Due Tomorrow?  Do Tomorrow”.  So when I see I have 2 weeks to pay a bill, it gets shoved so far back in my brain that I don’t think about it for days.  

But then I do think about it.  Multiple times.  But every time, I remember that the bill still isn’t due, and come up with a really good excuse as to why I shouldn’t pay it now:  I need to leave for work.  This is a really good TV show.  My computer is like 8 feet away...  That happens over and over until I finally forget for long enough that my cable stops working.

Apparently I could’ve written a whole post about that one stupid bill.  But anyway, all that to say, there is a distinct difference between “normal” forgetfulness and my ADHD moments.  A “moment” isn’t so much forgetfulness as it is a series of systematic and continual procrastination.  You know, mixed with heavy doses of forgetfulness.

What led to your (eventual) diagnosis?

Oh man, that's a story worthy of an entire (and possibly more than one) post. And I will get to it, I promise.

Are there medications for ADHD, and if so, what do they do?

Yes, there are many medications for ADHD; the most popular of which are Ritalin and Adderall. There are many more, and surprise surprise! I have a story to tell about my experience with medication. SPOILER ALERT: it wasn't good...

Do people outgrow ADHD?  Especially with the perception that "so many kids these days" seem to have ADD or ADHD, does that mean all sorts of adults do, too, but we just don't talk about that?

Another fine inquiry, Audrey!  You’re an expert question asker.  From what I’ve read, and my own experience so far, ADHD isn’t something you can “outgrow”, like allergies or being an annoying teenager.  If your brain has worked in 5th gear since you were 4, it’s always going to work in 5th gear.  ADHD will always be present in those who had it as a kid, but you’re right; we don’t hear a lot about Adult ADHD.  This is for a couple reasons.

1. Self-awareness.  By the time you’re 30, you’ve most likely learned that it’s annoying when you interrupt and yell random things and act all fidgety when other people are talking, and they kind of hate you when you do it.  And if you haven’t realized that, there’s a good chance a lot of people hate you.  Most adults have learned to suppress or hide the Hyperactive urges for the sake of being a normal human.  Kids haven’t learned that skill yet, so the ADHD is more obvious.

2. Coping Mechanisms.  This is probably a post in and of itself, so I’ll give a brief overview.  When somebody is born without hands, they learn how to do stuff with their feet, and with their mouth.  When someone is born blind, they develop a much higher sense of hearing and smell and touch, to adapt to their circumstance.  It’s no different for those of us who have with lived our whole lives with ADHD.  Like any other disorder, handicap, or disability, you learn coping mechanisms as you move through life.  You get better and better at coping as you become an adult.  Since ADHD isn’t a visible, physical issue, adults have developed enough of these mechanisms that they can successfully hide the disorder for the majority of the time.  For the same reason, the basic plan for most patients on ADHD medication is to wean them off the drug entirely in just a matter of years.

That’s all for now.  As always, comments (and now QUESTIONS) are welcome and greatly appreciated down below or here.

How I Missed the Bus

As if middle school isn’t just a 3 year-long nightmare on it’s own.

Puberty, growth spurts, class schedules, hot “lunches”, exams, strange classmates, cliques, passing notes, “girlfriends”, lack of “girlfriends”, braces, locker rooms, home ec., hair gel....

All of that stuff made middle school really, really horrible.  Like, i’m getting anxious recounting the unmitigated disaster that was my time at Sandberg Middle School.  That name just makes me want to projectile vomit.

Sorry, that was gross.

Anyway, imagine slogging your way through all that, while simultaneously battling a learning disorder.  Oh, and just to make it a real party, you dont even know you have it!  Fun times.

The only way to successfully navigate one’s first 3 years of real school (I know that, looking back, Middle School is a total joke, but darn it if at the time it didn’t feel REAL) is to make and maintain a solid schedule for work, practice, and play.  Lucky for me, I can’t make OR maintain a schedule to save my life.

The one part of my life that did remain constant was my morning routine, and that’s only because I had a very loud, very mobile alarm.

“COLIN! ARE YOU UP?!  ITS 5:45!”  
My mom would yell down to me from the top of the stairs every morning.  No “good morning sweetie pie” softly whispered into my ear, accompanied by the smell of a fresh cooked ham and cheese omelet.  Never that.  

Worse, her path to the stairs took her directly over my bedroom, at which point her heels pounding into the hardwood just a few feet above my head on the top bunk did a better job than any alarm ever could.  
“ghrphhaggrd kinda....”
“Time to practice!”  
Ugh.  She would say it so sweetly, as if this were somehow great news.  She delivered the words in this sing-songy kind of tone which really just made things worse.  

I woke up so early every day because I would get to watch the sunrise each morning because I had to get my piano practicing done before school.  This generally meant more yelling from mom; “That’s wrong!” and “Do it again”  were two of her favorite catchphrases.  Once I finished my hour of practice, I would scarf down some breakfast (again, never that ham and cheese omelet) and most likely finish the homework that I totally did not do the night before, then head out to the corner to wait for the bus.  

Except for this one day. Why am I telling this story?

This one day, something different happened. Seriously, this story is going to ruin my life.

“SHOOOOT!”  
“What, Colin??”
“I.... I missed my bus.”
“What? How?” How do I answer this question?!...

This day, I walked back into the living room to grab something when I heard a strange sound outside.  Naturally, I went to the large picture window to see what it was, which was when I realized I was hearing a huge number of birds, all just chilling outside on my front lawn.  That’s like, a TON of birds, my incredibly elegant 12 year old mind said to itself.  

But seriously.  Any Alfred Hitchcock fans here?  He made a movie about exactly what I was seeing.  It’s called.... The Birds.  Look it up.  As my wonderfully inquisitive nature is wont to do, I decided to find out just exactly how many birds there were.  So, I began counting.

1,2,3,4...

For those of you unfamiliar with ADHD, there is a term called “perseveration”, or Hyper-Focusing. It’s a concept that when we discover something that is really interesting to us, our brains become fully engulfed in that task, while all other thoughts and issues are literally rendered obsolete.

27, 28.... there are a TON of birds here!

This act of “perseverating” on something can, and have had much more dire consequences.  It’s something I’ll discuss in a later post.  But it happens; it’s not a conscious decision, and as it goes on, we have no idea that it’s occurring.

42, 43, 44....
Everything else that was once important, even 15 seconds ago, no longer matters.

66, 67, 6 A rumble, and then a flash of yellow.  Suddenly, priorities are reset right back to where they were 5 minutes ago.  Those birds don’t even exist anymore.

I missed my bus because I was counting birds in my front yard.
Guys... I missed my bus to school because I was COUNTING BIRDS.

….How do I answer this question??

“Well, I was.... there were.... I saw a ton of birds outside...”
“And??”

Was that answer not good enough?!

“I was counting them.”

I never did find out how many birds there were.  The bus scared them away.

Present Day

So far, the posts on this blog have been very school-centric.  That meaning, everything I’ve written about to this point has had to do with how ADHD affected me with regards to school.  Well that’s mainly because ADHD stops becoming an issue once you’re out of the classroom and it doesn’t really matter anymore.

Ha.

That’s about as far from the truth as possible.  

ADHD doesn’t affect me anymore in the “oh, you forgot to turn this paper in? You’re going to fail” sort of way.  Now its more like, “oh, you didn’t pay your gas bill, have fun in your 47 degree apartment the next few days!” sort of effect.  I have “ADHD moments” almost once a day.  Some of them have become normal and mundane (to me at least), while some others are too “good” (read: embarrassing) not to share.

First of all - and I mentioned this before - I planned on starting this blog in May.  But it’s not like I thought about it once in May and then just forgot about it for three months.  No no no. I forgot about it nearly every single weekend.  Almost every saturday morning, during some down time (or sunday during church) I would tell myself, Ok, it’s time to start that blog today.  I have free time this afternoon.  And every saturday or sunday, that thought shortly turned into, Whelp, now it’s midnight. Guess I’ll start that blog next weekend.  This kind of thing happen all the time.  For a person with ADHD, every thought is so fleeting.  As fast as it comes, it goes.  People with this disorder:  WRITE STUFF DOWN!!  The only reason this blog got started when it finally did was that I actually sat down and wrote out a bunch of ideas I could talk about, and, at last I had somewhere to start, and something to remind me.

Remember that forgetting to pay the bills example I gave earlier?  Yea... totally true.  My friend David and I recently started renting a condo together, and it was decided that I would pay the bills (I’m not sure why we ever thought this was a good idea). He would in turn pay me his half each month (Seriously, this is just a disaster waiting to happen) About a month in, I came home from work one afternoon and opened my computer.  “Unable to Connect, Check your Internet Connection”.  Ok, don’t freak out.  This has happened before.  You can live without internet for a few hours.  Just watch some tv.  Click.  NO SIGNAL.  OK, ok, ok.... you’re starting to get a little panicky.  Just breath.  Maybe just watch something on Netflix.  Open computer.  OMG YOU NEED THE INTERNET TO WATCH NETFLIXTHEWORLDISENDING!  I managed to find a paper bag to breath into and decided to call comcast.  I entered my account info and heard, “Your service has been temporarily discontinued due to an outstanding balance.  You may pay over the ph....” annnnnd facepalm.  Lesson learned, you know, until next month.  ADHDers?  Either set up automatic bill payments through your bank, or marry some OCDer and have them pay the bills.

A few of you may have noticed that the URL for this blog changed last night between the first and second entries I posted.  No big deal.  It’s only because I spelled the word “business” wrong in URL of my OWN BLOG.  In my rush to get this thing up and running, I didn’t even spell check the name of the website!  That would be pretty funny on any blog, but a blog about the effects of ADHD?  Somebody call Alanis Morrisette and ask her to explain irony again.

Anybody remember that time I put a movie in the DVD player and then proceeded to never turn the movie on?  Because I do.  

All this to say: ADHD doesn’t just end when school does.  It’s something that affects the everyday life of those who deal with it, long after that final schoolbell rings.

That’s all for now.  I gotta post this before my internet gets turned off again.

October, 1996

“Mommy?”

That’s 8 year old Colin speaking; hair still blonde, face freckled, and baby teeth still in place.  Isn’t he such a cutie?

No.  He’s a nightmare.  Just wait.

“Yes, Colin?”

She most likely called me any one of several demoralizingly embarassing nicknames my family had for me when I was 8, but for my dignity’s sake, Colin works just fine.

“Could you take me to see Grandpa Joe this weekend?”
“Umm, I’m not sure.  It’s awfully last minute.  Why do you want to go there anyway?”
“I just....want to talk to him...”

Yea, thats totally not suspicious at all.

“Talk to him? About what?”
“I don’t know.... stuff”
“Colin...”
“OKwellthere’sthisassignmentandIhavetointerviewsomebodyandIhavetheGreatDepressionandit’sdueMondaysoINEEDTODOITNOW!
“Colin!  Are you serious?? How long have you known about this?”

It’s kind of ridiculous how many times I would hear that question over the next 10 years, worded the exact same way every time.  And every time my answer would be roughly the same:

“Well, she gave us the sheet at the beginning of the year, but...”
“But what?”
“I don’t know.  I forgot about it....”

Somebody tell me why I wasn’t diagnosed until age 20 again?
Needless to say, we went to see Grandpa.

My grandfather was always an old man to me.  He being 30 when he got married, and I being the last of four kids to my mother made it so that he was already 74 when I was born.  Unfortunately, this has resulted in my memories of him being limited, and sometimes he came off a bit grumpy.  

Growling a complaint at the poor waitress serving him in the retirement home dining room was a favorite pastime of his.  He always got bent out of shape when I would come up behind him, rub his shiny bald head and call him “Bald Eagle” (which, by the way, was stinkin’ hilarious).

Of course, the memories are positive, as well.  Like the time my sister gave him a tie dye t-shirt for Christmas, and he kept it for an entire year only to re-gift it back to her the next year.  And the time he sat with me for over an hour to help me with my 3rd grade project.

Strangely, this is the only conversation with Grandpa Joe that I can remember clearly.  I distinctly remember sitting in the library of his retirement home, asking him a simple question and writing furiously as he would go ahead and talk for 15 minutes straight.  I remember hearing about men jumping out of windows to escape the pressures and problems of the Great Depression.  I remember him talking about dropping out of school after 7th grade and getting a job to help his family make ends meet.  And I remember thinking that I wouldn’t be super disappointed if the market crashed again at that very moment.

It didn’t, and I had a three page paper to write.  With the interview was done, I popped up, stole one of his Werther’s Original candies because those were and still are the greatest candy of all time, and shouted a quick thank you as I scurried out the door.

When we got home, I pounded out a three page paper in the next few hours, if only because my mother picked me up by the neck, sat me in a chair, and held me there until it was finished.  Had it been up to me, I would’ve been outside playing, thinking the hard part was done.  The paper should only take half an hour now, is what I would’ve told myself.

But that’s my point.  I received a great grade on that paper; a giant red sticker if I remember correctly.  That means you did great in 3rd grade. “You’re the Bee’s Knees!”, it said.  Because, you know, I totally knew what that saying meant when I was 8. I was ecstatic.  

I was making a point.....

The point is, even though I got the interview done - last second as it was - I still would’ve failed to complete the assignment by underestimating the time it was going to take to write the paper.  ADHD-ers like me need people in our lives to sit us down and not let us back up until we’ve finished a task.  We need accountability, like the role my mom played.  But we also need those patient people, like Grandpa Joe, who are willing to help, even at the very last second, because we like working at the last second.  I would drown - I HAVE drowned- under a tidal wave of procrastinated tasks without people holding us accountable.

It’s the same reason I started this blog.  The original idea was to possibly put all these thoughts instead into a book.  I knew right away, however, that I would never finish that book just writing on my own.  Now that I have this public forum, however, I have accountability.  People know it exists, and are looking for more.  If I don’t tell the Bus story soon, I’m going to have some angry people cyber-knocking on my cyber-door.  That, along with the other reasons I stated earlier, is why I’m doing this.

I still have no clue what “The Bee’s Knees” means.

May 16, 2005

Ironically, another one of the major events in my scholastic career fell again on my birthday.  This one my 17th.

I was born the youngest of 4 kids (trust me, this is going somewhere, I promise).  My siblings are 5, 6, and 7 years older than me, and so naturally my brothers beat me and sold me into slavery after my dad got me a cool looking cloak.

Wait.

Sorry.  That was Joseph.  I just got home from church.  Do you see what we with ADHD have to deal with??

My siblings are 5, 6, and 7 years older than me, so naturally I was living under a large shadow for much of my childhood.  Do you know how hard it is to beat brothers that are 5 and 7 years older than you at anything?  Sports?  Out of the question.  I was too small, too slow, and too scared to have a chance.  Music?  We all played an instrument, but no matter how musically you play,  Mary Had a Little Lamb just doesn’t stand up next to a Beethoven sonata.  Video games?  Well, we only had two controllers, so the idea of me even getting to play was laughable at best.

That left school.  The single advantage to being so much younger was that once my brothers had accomplished something, I had 5 to 7 years to reach that goal.  It’s like a sprinter breaking a world record, because the record holder is now forty five years old and couldn’t run ten meters to save his life.  So I had to set my sights on some of their accomplishments and aim to beat them.  If you have any illusions that my relationship with my older brothers lacked a little bit of competition, it’s time to throw that idea out the window, and here’s why.

How many of you remember what your siblings got on the ACT or SAT tests?  How many of you remember what YOU got on those tests?  I do, and I was ten years old.  Fourteen years ago, and I remember where I was exactly when my brother got his scores back.  I was sitting at the kitchen table when my mom came in with the mail...

“Wes, your ACT scores just came in the mail!”

Why is my brother taking a test to be an actor?  He would stink at that.

“Don’t open it, im coming!”

Don’t rush, you probably failed.  You would be a terrible actor.

“Where is it?  Gimme it!”
“It’s right here, are you nervous?”
“Shhh!” ….  “29!  I got a 29!”

“Wow Wesley!  Congratulations!”
“29, huh, Wes?  I’m gonna get a 39 when I take it”

“Be quiet Colin, you’re stupid.”

oh, ok.  

….but I’m gonna beat that 29.

Seven years later, walking into my first ACT exam, (I knew what ACT meant, by this point) I had one singular thought on my mind.  I’m gonna beat that 29.

Fast forward to my birthday, when I open the mailbox and see my name on an envelope.  BIRTHDAY MONEY!!!  Nope, even better.  I basically galloped into the kitchen; ironically the same spot my brother had stood 7 years before and started tearing open the paper.  Gotta beat that 29, gotta beat it.....

BEAT IT! Not even.  De-STROYED it!  MY WHOLE EXISTENCE IS VALIDATED.

And I did.  And it felt great.  I was on top of the world for about 3 weeks, until my Junior report card came back.  C in English 11H,  C in Pre-Calculus.  Who knows what else.  I delete bad things from my memory.

“Colin,” my name said in a tone I’d already become far too familiar with, “how do you get such incredible scores on the ACT and then get C’s in the exact same subjects in school?”

“I honestly don’t know, mom”

And I wouldn’t know for exactly three more years.

May 16, 2008

“Well, everything I’m seeing suggests a pretty solid diagnosis of ADHD”

whoa...  I mean, kind of whoa?  it’s not really a surprise; let’s be honest, I’m here because I suspected something like this.  

but an official diagnosis from a trained Psychologist really makes it real.  how do I feel about this diagnosis?  how SHOULD I feel?  look at mom....what is she thinking?  look at dad.... nevermind; he doesn’t actually have emotions.  ok, maybe he does, and he just doesn’t show them on his face. speaking of his face... he hasn’t shaved in days.  how nice for mom....

wait, he said I actually do have adhd, right?  oh, he’s still talking...

“...because your high IQ and your strong support system at home actually managed to hide the more obvious warning signs for and ADHD diagnosis.  That’s why it was never diagnosed when you were a child.”

sweet.  so had I just been dumber, I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair right now.  I’d be at home, hopped up on adderall, writing a symphony while simultaneously framing my 8th consecutive report card of straight A’s.  

no wait.  it’s my parents’ fault.  if they had just let me fail 3rd grade algebra or whatever, my teachers would’ve noticed my struggles and gotten me tested much earlier.  

...you can’t fail 3rd grade algebra.  you cant TAKE 3rd grade algebra.  you dont even get real grades in 3rd grade.  

“...make you feel, Colin?”
“Oh, I don’t really know right now.” ok, that’s a lie. “I mean, it’s just kind of a shock,” lie “and my mind is really kind of blank right now,”  huge lie.  “and I think I just need time to process everything”  seriously stop lying. you’ve processed it 3 times already.  
“Well, that’s completely understandable.  Just remember, this isn’t some new problem that just came into your life.  This is the beginning of the solution.”

May 16, 2008.  A small few of you might recognize that as my 20th birthday.  But let’s be honest:  Facebook has trained us not to remember any of our friends’ birthdays by remembering them all for us.  Thanks, Facebook.  No, seriously.  There’s no chance I would remember anybody’s birthday without it.  Anyway, while 5/16/08 was officially my 20th birthday, I will always remember it as D-Day.  You know, Diagnosis Day.

Diagnosis Day came on the heels of a sophomore year at Wheaton College which could only be described as abject failure (we’ll discuss that in a future post), and came as a part of a two-week mad scramble to keep my pathetic rear end in school (future post), during which, I probably accomplished more than I had in the entire previous school year.

In the months following D-Day, I read double digit numbers of books concerning ADHD; what it means, why it happens, how to accommodate for it, etc... I got frustrated, however, reading a bunch of books about ADHD by smart guys who don’t have ADHD.  It felt like reading a mountain survival guide written by a dude who has never left his home in Nebraska.  There was a void.

This is my feeble attempt to fill that void.

Enough, “persons with ADHD can be prone to addictive behaviors”.  I’m going to actually describe the time I sat at my computer and watched youtube videos of Michael Jordan highlights for three hours.

No more, “those who have ADHD may struggle with task initiation and task completion”.  I’m sitting here, telling you that I planned on starting this blog in May.  It’s August 27th now.  

This is my story.

It will be written in true ADHD style; a post from my college days followed by a story recounting an event in 4th grade followed by an entry from my present life.  Why?  That’s the way the ADHD mind works. We don't follow your silly chronological order. Where's the fun in that? If you can't appreciate spontaneity from time to time, maybe scratch this blog off your "must read" list.

Hopefully, however, by the end of it all, you will have a complete picture of what it’s like to grow up with unidentified ADHD, and how to deal and live with an Adult diagnosis of the disorder. I can only promise that the journey will be entertaining. Seriously. Wait til you find out about the time I missed the Bus for what is potentially the worst reason ever.

This is not something I really ever intended to do. I will be sharing a lot more of myself than I ever have; more than I thought I ever would.

I just figure, if I laugh at myself first, it's not nearly as bad once you all do.