Adult ADHD Blog

Archives: March 2009

Spring Returns, a Cynic Emerges

Distracted. Forgetful. Untreated adult ADHD. All signs that I'm not be ready to be a parent?

Easter eggs and pastel-colored flowers at the corner shops are a reminder that spring is here. It has been more than four months since the layoff, and I've entered a period of feeling angry and cynical about it all.

I realize I should be thankful that I have this swim instructor job, but I am frustrated. Half of the kids I taught today shied away from me, shaking their heads, screaming "No" at the top of their lungs, when I tried to coax them into the water. I did dolphin dives, red light-green light, and Simon Says, and even sang “the ring around a rosy.” In the end, I felt like I was losing my voice and my spirit.

My supervisor is quiet, mellow, very observant. He seems to be testing me, letting me handle the classes on my own. When he closes the door to his office, I am certain he can hear me squawking loud and clear.

Yesterday, I spent time with a really smart six-year-old, the daughter of a friend of a friend. I was rushing like a madwoman, just to be sure that I picked her up from school on time. If I ever become a mother, I am sure I would lose the child or forget him at the supermarket.

Talking with the little girl was taxing, and I found myself unable to keep track of what she was saying. (I mean, what was she saying?) Hippos. Penguins. A wish list of things she wanted for her birthday.

At one point during lunch, I watched her carefully. In one instant, she focuses her attention on a table of screaming children. In the next, she’s asking questions about their plates of uneaten fries. Children are easily distracted. I realized that she and I have a lot in common.

A Common-Sense Approach to ADHD

I found my kindred spirits at the shallow end of the pool.

For the first time in my life, I am faced with three- and four-year-olds who throw tantrums without telling me why, and without warning. Did I get a masters degree from an Ivy League to do this? As I watched them dissolve into tears, I thought, "my sentiments exactly." I, too, wanted to cry. Earning $16 an hour isn't easy.

Not to my surprise, I feel like the attention deficit disorder (adult ADHD) has emerged stronger than ever, too. The pool, where I work as a swim instructor, isn't divided neatly into lanes, and with noisy kids splashing about, I feel scattered.

My head and thoughts are simply all over the board. I require some level of structure and calm on the job, and this isn’t it.

"Quiet, listen to me!"

"If you say one more word, I am taking away free time."

These kids are big. The three-year-olds look like five-year-olds. The nine-year-olds look like 12-year-olds, and they have such a strong grip. I ended up shutting up half of them by giving them piggyback rides across the pool, while praying to God that they wouldn't strangle me with their grip.

The father and the friends contend that I lack common sense. The father says that I need to step beyond this Ivory Tower and funk, and learn how real people live. If I qualify for food stamps, then I should apply. If I want a full-time job, then I need to send resumes and network and ace job interviews.

I continue to tell him that it’s the ADHD diagnosis, but he chooses to blame it on himself. If he weren’t such a workaholic while I was growing up, he says, things would have been different.

I sigh and shake my head in disbelief at times. I cannot believe how close I was to achieving a comfortable lifestyle and life, and how it simply fell apart. At moments like these I wish I were a bratty toddler who could whine, scream, kick her legs, and dissolve into tears. If only I were three and not 33.

Become a Better You, Jane!

The conventional advice, the daily Oprahisms, doesn't always do the job on unfocused, attention-deficit minds.

The promise of structure and planning disappeared this week, as I moved back to the suburbs and the father, stepmother, and sister. Since returning home from the trip to Florida, I have felt like a man without a country.

For some time now (since the health benefits ended), I haven't had Adderall. The difference I see without ADHD medication is that I tend to flounder more. The progress I've made in reducing the symptoms of adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—inability to focus, the constant lateness, the absence of follow through, say—appear to be backsliding.

For instance, yesterday evening I went through great pains to sit through a two-hour committee meeting for a non-profit, and, in the end, could not do it. I fidgeted, started text messaging, and scribbled a to-do list on the edge of a legal pad.

The thoughts scattered from one to the next: the film that a date was taking me to later that night, the boxes of my life that I would need to unpack. I stifled a yawn and had a sudden urge to pick up and leave. I was getting bored.

It is like that with the job search too. Despite joining a job-search group, the Laid Off Society of America, despite the support of friends and family—despite all the self-help books in the world and all the positive words of Joel Olsteen and the Chicken Soup series—I am unable to devise a plan and see it through.

At 33, the vision of a life of stability and bliss is anything but.

Late and Losing My Memory

A new game plan for ADHD-driven slip-ups: Pretend it never happened.

I’m in month three of unemployment, and month one of no health insurance, and no ADHD medication. I guess you could say I’m floundering.

For a while things were actually going pretty well. Attending the 12-week support-group sessions (with fellow adults with attention deficit disorder/ADHD) gave me renewed hope. But now, with the severance dried up, I’m clueless about what next.

Lately the stress perhaps has taken away some of my short-term memory. I showed up on deck at the pool the other day, five minutes late for the class I was teaching. The kids were sitting on the edge of the pool twiddling their fingers, while a few parents were gazing upward, glaring at that large wall clock with the digital red numbers.

This time I did not apologize, but rather quickly inhaled and exhaled and swallowed the apology. I've learned that sometimes it's better to walk in cool and collected, even if I've done a royal screw-up. No one wants to deal with a loser.

At that point, the teaching assistant reminded me that we needed to test the remaining kids and issue them progress reports.

I looked at the kids—six, seven, eight year olds—and although I've been teaching them for a month or so, I couldn't remember a single name. How to fake it? I came close to calling them "hey you," but decided to swallow my ego and say nothing. (I had lost the class roster and did not want to ask the principal to print out another one.)

The pinnacle of humiliation came when I simply didn't recognize a little girl who had been in the class before. She looked familiar, but for a minute I didn't know who she was. "Are you in my class?" I asked. Are these the early signs of dementia?

In all likelihood, they are the signs of job loss anxiety, the symptoms of the ADHD condition spiraling without the Adderall, and, really, the fear that this time I might not be able to pick up the pieces again.

Airport Lost & Found: Attention Deficits

So I arrived at the wrong airport, but did get there on time. A small victory in the war against ADHD!

Regular readers of my blog know that I am a textbook case of attention-deficit disorder. The lost bits of paper, the missed dates, the “sorry, so sorry” refrains, a sad, simple ballad (best sung by an ADDer).

So of all the crazy things I’ve done throughout the last month in unemployment land, I have to say that this might take the cake. What happened? Well, in my blog post yesterday, I talked about being in Florida this week, but omitted the brain-unraveling part.

The morning of the flight, I'd bulldozed the belongings into bags, then dashed out. When I finally arrived to check in at the kiosk, the machine noted that it would not permit me to check in, because I was at the wrong airport. Time stopped for a second.

I was at the wrong airport.

The 60-year-old (who had driven me to the airport) was patient, calm as a cucumber. We grabbed the luggage carrying my life and belongings, and headed to the right airport. On the way, the friend said, half jokingly, "Check the ticket at the kiosk again to make sure you have the right day."

My life with adult attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD) now sounds like a Seinfeld episode, only it is not funny. The unraveling continued as I ordered lunch at a fast food joint and scurried off after snatching the drink—not realizing until on board that I’d forgotten to pick up the meal.

I am worn down and tired. What I really want is to be surrounded by people like me once again. ADD people, longing for a safe haven, and a separate peace.

A Coach Class Encounter with ADHD

I went to Florida to escape the winter and the city, but the jobless funk and weariness came along for the ride.

I left New York before the big storm, purposefully. I did not—frankly do not—want to be there anymore. I hate to say this, but something in me has died.

The novelty of being laid off hit me full throttle when March arrived. The severance is over—as are the health benefits. I won’t even start about the lapse in medication to treat the adult attention deficit disorder (ADHD).

En route to Florida, I sat next to a retired gentleman who was traveling with his wife. He asked me if I felt like I'd been stabbed in the back by an industry I'd invested so much into. To be honest, yes.

Maybe it is my blah attitude—the flatness and despair in my voice when I tell people what I do—that turns them off. The stranger on the plane promised no answers, but rather posed several questions:

What are you passionate about, and can you monetize it?

There are people in life who feel like they have a calling. What do you feel like is your calling?

It is frightening to say this (so I didn’t!): All I know is that I like to eat and I like to shop and swim: in essence, the perks of a trophy wife—except I am anything but. I don't even have a boyfriend.

Pretend that you ran into someone who looked just like you, a good friend in a similar dilemma: What would you tell them?

I wish I could tell them about the symptoms that plague a person well into the adult years, particularly when the disorder is left untreated. I wish I could say that most days life with ADD is a struggle, whether or not a person has a job or gets by on unemployment checks. I wish that in helping a friend, I help myself banish this funk.

Instead I said, Hmm, good question.

"Sometimes it is better to live with the question than the answer," the seatmate replied.

Here in Gatorland, it is clear that I've lost my cause and purpose. Despite all of the mantras from good friends and loved ones to not lose my spunk and spirit, there is a weariness to the way that I carry myself now. I am fully aware of it.

How the ADHD Brain Keeps Track of Time

Put aside the theories on executive functions, and the orchestra without its conductor, and the answer is simple: The adult-ADD brain doesn't know time.

In the world of attention deficit disorder, it’s as if, in the words of a good friend and fellow adult ADDer, "the future doesn't exist."

Since the layoff in December, I’ve been Miss Tardy, Tardy. My ability to get from point A to point B on time diminishes with each passing day—and each night, I go to sleep later and later.

I miss the she-boss, with her invisible whip and her ability to scare me into meeting deadlines. The basic abilities to follow up, be accountable for your time, and get things done barely exist in the ADD world. And in the ADD world of unemployment, those simple skills fail to exist altogether.

Despite the meticulous schedule that the dad and I made together, I find myself awakening well after 9 a.m., with the sluggish feeling that comes with oversleeping. The line between laziness, depression, and adult ADHD is fast disappearing. Which is the culprit?

A Type-A friend scolded me recently, and said he thought I was spoiled and I needed tough love. We are planning to swim a 24-mile race together in less than two months, and he doesn't understand why I haven't been practicing more since I have so much free time now.

I hate to use adult attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD) as an excuse, but at times like this, I feel like saying, "Hey, take it easy, I'm already trying my best." It is hard enough to deal with losing a job and hunting for an apartment.

Speaking of the fifth floor walk-up hell: Yesterday as I was scrambling to finish an article, the buzzer rang and a broker showed up with a geeky young man. What the hell were they doing here?

Then it hit me: The apartment will soon be leased to someone else, and my chapter here will close. I let them walk about the apartment, and peer their heads into the rooms that will soon be empty.

All things come to an end.