Adult ADHD Blog

Archives: August 2009

ADDitude's Adult ADHD Blogger Gets a Job!

The comeback chick, a.k.a. Jane, emerges along with a renewed sense of energy. Apologies to my loyal readers who have wondered where Jane is.

About a week ago two job offers came in, both unexpected and arriving at a time when this adult ADHDer was on the verge of checking herself into a rehab clinic (i.e., anxiety, depression) or some kumbaya-styled retreat. The family was fully prepared to take me back into the roost, with long sighs, of course. They couldn't kick me to the curb—or could they?

I had hit rock bottom with the trailer park roommate, and the German cockroaches that had infested the freezer.

There was the tsunami-like chaos at the pool where I had been teaching. The teenage lifeguards were cruel in their adolescent and racist ways. One asked me if Orientals liked to eat dogs. I was tempted to shoot back, "Do you guys eat grits and sweet potato pie?" But I swallowed the white-hot anger, fearing that I'd go beyond the tipping point and end up in court.

After an endless day, I'd return to the 5th floor walk up where I was careful not to trip over the Staten Island-like garbage bags piled outside the apartment. I averted the stares of the rough-looking characters in the neighborhood. I'd even adopted new attire for fear that my Banana Republic-style would clash with the baggy pants and bling.

On the off nights, I flirted my way into the bed of The Chef. I'd grown accustomed and even addicted to the routine of swapping complaints with The Chef, who shares my Cinderella complex. He'd whine about being beaten up by the bossy and bitchy women at work, while I'd rant about the roommate and not having any work. "Misery loves company, it's like two beggars on the street swapping pennies," the father said. A friend with benefits is still a friend, I rationalized.

Then came the offers and a new potential suitor, a handsome doctor (an anesthesiologist) who I met about half a year ago, through the online dating service. We both admit that the future is precarious, so why not get to know each other as friends. There is a light, even though there is just a sliver.

The other day I had dinner with the father, stepmother, and sister at an upscale seafood restaurant back in the 'burbs. The loved ones raised their glasses to me and made a toast. "To a new beginning, a fresh start," they said, doing a bottoms up for luck. "Remember to do less. If you do less, you will have no problems," the father said.

I am trying and discarding the piles of clothes, food, and even acquaintances by the wayside. (See "Singletasking Makes Sense".) I stick to the rule of three—no more than three dates, three ideas, three activities, three goals per day, but it is still tough. The mind still runs wild like mustangs, but these days, I'm riding high on cloud nine and I just want to continue celebrating.

Life is good like what the T-shirt says. For now.

Roaches and ADHD Dating Woes

Desperation sucks. Relationships at a certain point come with a price—and I wonder if it will ever get easier.

The German cockroaches reared their ugly face in the sink and fridge the other night. I returned to the apartment to find even the freezer infested by the critters.

I watched them with sick fascination, marching over bags of frozen vegetables. The roommate, the single mother with the boy, responded to my 911 call calmly. "Really are they roaches? I thought I saw fruit flies, but no roaches," she said.

It didn't matter, because I'd already sprayed the afflicted area with Raid and now the kitchen had transformed into a graveyard. She could see for herself. "We need the exterminator," I said calmly. "I have a phobia of anything that creeps and crawls.…"

I did not mention that the root of the problem might be the tower of unwashed dishes, all hers since I don't cook. It was really that simple. She was, on the surface, an unfit mother and a terrible housekeeper, and she knew it. Maybe she too suffers from attention deficit disorder (ADHD).

On that note, perhaps it is the cockroach graveyard or the depressing reality of this city, but lately I've wanted to give up. The feeling of being stifled comes not just from the pressure to find a job, but also from these men who want to date me.

The suitors are on a strict biological clock. They have achieved a certain amount in their careers and now want to marry and have babies in slam, bam, thank you m’am fashion—and I regard such haste and impatience as a sign of immaturity and insecurity. When we are desperate we see things in a fog. It is like the cab drivers in a rush to turn a corner. Running a pedestrian over defeats that purpose. There is no real way to explain it to these desperate men, because feelings, emotions, and things are tough to change.

Desperation sucks.

Right now I am desperate for a full-time job with health care, desperate for the stability of having a place to go. To be sure, that would not solve all problems, but without that I am left on edge, always wondering when will the waters be calm again.

Major Meltdown

Launching a very private battle to slay the demons of ADHD.

The recent meltdown started with an email and a call to the mother, the invisible non-existent mother, who years ago abandoned my sister and me after an extramarital affair.

I rarely talk about her because it is like a wound that is easily reopened, so raw that, at the age of 33, I cannot talk about her without physically tensing up or crying. My mother jumped from job to job, hobby to hobby—sign of adult ADHD, you think?—without regard for any of us. After the divorce, she chose a lump sum of alimony, including my college tuition, rather than what most mothers would want, custody of the kids.

On top of this, she is a Bible banger. My sister and I have never known whether to laugh or cry during our brief but painful and well-worn phone conversations with her.

She: Are you going to church and praying?

Me: No, but I am doing well in school.

She: Are your friends Christians, do they pray?

Me (annoyed): I don't know.

She: It's important to pray, let's pray now...

Me (voice rising): I don't want to pray. I don't want to always talk about praying, I want to have a normal conversation. Why don't you ever ask how I am doing?

She: Let's pray a short prayer. We are all sinners so it's important….

Me: No, you're not listening. And in the meantime, life, with all of its ups and downs, had marched on—college, graduate school, swimming competitions, new friends, and the discovery that my mom would perhaps never change. The last time that we talked, a few days after Mother's Day, I told her off. "Stop," I said to her. "I'm facing enough problems in my life, please don't call and ask me if I'll visit you, sleep over, or if I pray."

My mother does not even know that I was diagnosed with ADHD three years ago, she does not know about the struggles I've had since then, the daily experiments with meditation, medication, exercise, and the bookshelf of self-help books that offer the lifeline called hope. But I still think of her because she is my mother so I recently emailed and called, and was slammed with silence. She'd always been great at guilt trips. Before she hung up the last time around she said, "I'm your mother, so you'd rather I not call." I told her that is not what I said, but that I needed some space to figure things out now. And yes she is biologically, but in the greater sense of the word she's done shit.

This rejection was harder than the others. All weekend I found myself engulfed in a sadness that is so intense and painful and that cannot be explained. The pain is invisible and even with friends I could not share, because I rarely talk about my mother, the ADHD, my very private battle to slay the demons. So this weekend they sensed the air had changed, my aura had shifted from my usual prim and proper facade to the dangerous calm before the storm.

"Are you OK?" a friend asked.

"Yes, why?" I asked.

"Because you seem really sad," the friend said.

At times like this the line between ADHD and the demons of my past, the debate between nature and nurture, are blurred and I am left swimming and struggling alone, seeking desperately for respite or an island to hang on to. For now it seemed hopeless. There was only darkness.

Do We Use Relationships to Escape from ADHD?

The romantic in me thrives on the challenge of dating, but shies away when the thrill is over and the love appears.

Last weekend I jetted off to a Bahamian resort with the new guy, a balding, free-spending, and very chubby guy who will soon celebrate his 50th birthday.

He's really into me, but he is direct and blunt and has the annoying habit of having to talk about our relationship every five minutes. (Can’t say I’d recommend nagging as the way to get through to the adult with ADHD.) The truth is that I don't consider him a boyfriend yet, and I keep wondering what he means by "us." We are getting to know each other better and I feel it's important to do that before making any commitments, I repeat, like a parrot.

Despite his hots for me, he's already expressed his many concerns about me. He says he hates that I often cut him off, or that I’ll say, "I don't want to talk about it." He also hates that I don't listen to him, and he’s concerned that I seem unable to compromise. "Compromise, respect, and listen," he repeats, like a mantra.

We've been fighting and frustrated for about 50 percent of the time on this trip, and the truth of the matter is we've only known each other for two months. So what is keeping me in this relationship? Well, in many ways, I need to learn how to compromise and listen.

I haven't had the courage to tell him about the ADHD and the medication yet, and to explain why it is that I need downtime, why it is so important that I swim. He's seen the importance of the downtime already; how it is night and day after I've swum or eaten. He joked, "You are pretty easy to please, just give you a pool and feed you."

And yet there were times when I swam and was fed and I still had a meltdown. I am very resistant to the new guy's touch and turn angry when I perceive he is bossing me around. I value and cherish my independence. I am used to living alone and running my own ship, not returning to have someone there, not having to return to a room and having to compromise. It is a recurring theme in the dating life.

I am trying hard to turn things around, I am. I explained that I am not a touchy-feely person, and, until a few years ago, did not allow anyone to touch me. I am tying to come across softer and less direct too, but it takes a long time to change a person, I keep telling the new guy. He nods and tells me he thinks he understands, and he wants to give this a try and do things right.

And of course there is the greater problem that could be ADHD; I remain attracted to men, like the Chef, who have made it clear that they don't want to date me. I want the thrill and challenge of forcing someone who doesn't see me that way to change their minds.

Perhaps chasing and dreaming of these unavailable men is an escape, too. It is the romantic in me who has fallen in love with the idea of being in love, but shies away when love appears.