Adult ADHD Blog

Archives: October 2009

Can Two ADHD Adults Make a Relationship Work?

Maybe two people with attention deficit disorder could help each other. There is always hope.

The Boyfriend, aka Mr. Sensitive, thinks that I am hysterical (“You are funny and say the funniest things” he laughs), and that the piles that I acquire are cute. Is it too good to be true? True love, I am told, is when someone loves you exactly the way you are, and tells you to don’t go changing, like the Billy Joel song.

I often think that The Boyfriend is a figment of my imagination, or is an E.T.-like gift that will soon enough return to outer space, so I fear getting too attached. I place my heart in a glass box where it sits soundly so I won’t get hurt. I’ve had my heart and confidence stomped on by enough false starts in jobs and love. At a time when many women my age have walked up the wedding aisle not once, but twice, and are onto their second babies, I feel like a late bloomer, overall. Other days, I fear I will never bloom. Will I ever experience the feeling of having someone get down on one knee and ask me to marry him, and will I ever know what it feels like to be a mother? Is the late bloomer reality an effect of ADHD or is it my fate, and written on my palms?

The Boyfriend elicits these fears and these questions. Is it possible that someone would really like the “spaz” in me? I loathe that side of myself.

I am tempted to tell The Boyfriend about the ADHD medication, about spending much of my teens and 20s struggling to make sense of the disarray and disappointment, which now has a diagnosis.

The ADHD diagnosis came with self consciousness and self doubt. Prior to that, being laid off by an employer, dumped by a boyfriend, abandoned by friends seemed like their fault. Now I find myself repeating “sorry” and “I apologize” as if life were a daily trip to Catholic confessional booth.

This past weekend, The Boyfriend returned again to visit me in Gotham, and then we planned to jet off and take a little weekend escape to a nearby Island. He is so excited when he sees me, there is a spark in his eyes, and he loves to kiss me and have “bed ins” (a tribute to John and Yoko), and time seems suspended and all other worries fizzle.

I sometimes think of falling in love like being drawn to a painting. From afar, the painting -- which could be “The Milk Maid” -- seems perfect, and then you walk closer and see the fissures and the cracks within the paint, and start to wonder, "Could I really hang this up?"

I’ve noticed that The Boyfriend is almost as forgetful as I am. There was the jacket left behind, and then the litany of hats, cell phones, and umbrellas, which translate to grand plans of weekend getaways or promises to visit friends and family, or attend certain events, which never seem to materialize. The Boyfriend has similar tendencies towards half-drunk cans of soda, which create a landmine of cans in the apartment, and he, too, loses track of time.

There was a time when we talked on the phone for hours until close to the wee hours of dawn. I love talking to him, but wondered if he’d forgotten that these were official “school nights.” His apartment looks like a tornado from The Wizard of Oz blew over leaving behind a mess of papers, clothes and “stuff.” I called up my girlfriends in panic, but the girlfriends tsk tsk me and say, “Jane, most guys are messier than women, and their places just aren’t that clean.” I’ve spent most of my life being yelled at for having too many piles, so I am sensitive to this like a canine that sniffs out cocaine.

I asked the Father the other day if he thought two people with ADHD could have a relationship and make it work. “Yes, I think so, and money can solve a lot of problems,” the Father said. “You can always outsource things, including getting someone to come clean the house.” Briefly, just briefly, what the Father said seemed to offer a glimmer of hope. Maybe two people with a disorder could help each other. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but there are always exceptions to the rule. There is always hope.

ADHD Medication Holidays

The effects of going off my ADHD medication are noticeable, but the sunny side outweighs the negatives.

On weekends, I put the Adderall on hiatus, out of a hunger to feel a bit of normalcy again. I call them "Adderall Retreats" or "double 'S' days" (Saturdays and Sundays). Either way, these medication holidays are respites from what I consider the effects of the drugs on me, an edginess and anxiety followed by a brief oasis of focus.

The effects of the Adderall Retreats are noticeable, but the sunny side outweighs the negatives -- I gain a few pounds (the underwear elastic groans), I sleep like a baby, and I am more forgetful and struggle between To Do lists, a handful of organizers, and full-sized monthly wall calendars. Once again, I’d like to nominate myself as Poster Girl for Staples. Thank you very much.

Procrastination takes hold and once again I am thrown back into a world of missed deadlines, but I feel less fear. The worst thing is fear -- fear of people, fear of failure, fear of collapsing in a vortex of anxiety and self-doubt. I walk around constantly thinking there is something wrong with me, that I am a defective iPod -- nice to look at, colorful and bright, but inside the wiring is wacky.

The Adderall Retreats return a dose of confidence back into me; I am a wild mustang that has been quarantined and set free. I can go with the ideas, which hit me like meteors. The string of thoughts make me laugh -- one second, I consider being a doorman, I surf the Internet and look for shooting galleries, I consider taking an interior decorating class or a sushi class, I wish to get a replacement Beta fish for the one that died two years ago. I am like a child at play: happy, content, and totally me. I wish that the world functioned this way, too.

The humor and flair for words once again surface. I have come to take these things for granted, and have started to realize that the color and spark are a gift that I too often overlook. I think back to my good friend Kate who once told me that she didn’t believe that ADHD is a disorder.

“People are wired to learn differently, Jane,” she said. Kate is great and maybe that is the thinking that will allow me to overcome fear and anxiety and move on through everyday life with a sense of normalcy. I miss a sense of normalcy and feeling that I am normal, which is why I take these Adderall Retreats, and yes they are bliss.

ADHD in the Rat Race for Organization

Organize, organize. How does an adult with ADHD make sense of everyday life in times of uncertainty (and stress, and inattention)?

Frazzled, burnt out, the battle is back. Once again I am on the forefront of what some might call the rat race cranked up a few notches. The Boyfriend doesn’t know about my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but I have a feeling that he suspects it. I have a sixth-sense, which is one of the positive traits of this disorder. He knows that the new job is driving me batty, and that I am spinning wheels behind closed doors.

The fortunate part is that I spend much of the work week at a satellite site away from the Mothership, a blessing in disguise since the boss and colleagues are shielded from the stress, the fear, and the Everest-sized pile of papers. How to organize and make sense of things in times of uncertainty?

Once again the search for the Holy Grail of organizers continues. I am caught between the “to do” list on paper, Excel, and Outlook, along with the monthly and weekly Day Runners. I’ve already accumulated a pile of notebooks and random notes on napkins and Post-it's. The tech-addict friends keep trying to hammer the idea of the iPhone or iTouch in me, but given that I have an aversion to instructional manuals, I fear that I will acquire the gadget and it will end up a paperweight.

The Boyfriend and the myriad of friends think that the He-Boss is the root of the stress. Little do they know that he is only a part of the equation, that there is the constant struggle to stay with the pack. Not a day goes by when I do not blame the hiccups and kinks on the ADHD.

The Boyfriend came to visit last weekend. As a doctor, his life is one of a rat race, too. On call, off call, rounds: It is a new language to me, but what else can I do but suck it up. I find daily life hard enough to deal with, much less the reality that I have seemingly once again fallen for a great guy who doesn’t live in the same city as me. At the most, we see each other once a week. All of the daily trials and tribulations and joys are shared by text and, sometimes, by phone. I find it hard to deal with the reality that, at the end of a long day, I return to an empty apartment overlooking this great city, and am comforted by a half-empty bottle of wine.

The distance and uncertainty of the relationship leaves me holding onto the steel wall, which I cling onto. I stubbornly refuse to give too much of myself. There are secrets that will remain just that. I sweep the small collection of vitamin and pill bottles into a drawer when friends come into the apartment. I’ll admit that the real reason I do it is because I am ashamed of the Adderall, which I feel has run its course. Not only have I once again started to daydream, but I question whether this ADHD medication is the root of the moodiness and restlessness. The one lifeline that I’ve had is pen and paper. I’ve returned to jotting down parts of conversation in a notebook, referring back to names and dates so that I can’t be faulted for not listening. And given the demands of the new job, the everyday living has fallen by the wayside, and I’ve again turned to outsourcing. The entourage includes the maid, $65, the laundry, $8, and the food service that offers door-to-door delivery, $56.

There is also the cost of replacing lost items like the lipstick, umbrella, or pens. I sit, stew, and end up beating myself up over what I consider silly mistakes. These mistakes are reversible or replaceable, but what about losing track of the string of e-mails at work, or forgetting about one of the many impending deadlines. I fear that the day will come when the boss and the rest of the colleagues see the piles and the mess, and they will wonder what happened—and the same of The Boyfriend.

For now I feel safe on the island of pseudo-anonymity, a place where I can wrestle with the notebooks and organizers, and the guilt and blame on my own. A lonely battle indeed.

Love—and Adderall—Rediscovered

While the boyfriend expounded the use of ADHD drugs as a weight loss fix for his patients, I hid my refill of Adderall, and kept my mouth shut. Breaking the news about the diagnosis would have to wait.

This is bliss. I am in love, and it has been ages since I had someone I actually looked forward to being with. Cupid is kind.

We are at the end of month three with Mr. Sensitive, and it’s great. For the first time in my life I can’t complain. (OK, he’s obsessed with baseball, and he wants to take things slow. It took him two months to mention my name to his mother, and to the rest of his family I am non-existent. But, as the father says, as long as I am having fun, that’s all that matters. I mean at the end of the day you can’t care too much, right?)

Mr. Sensitive is an M.D. and knows all about drugs. He’s an anesthesiologist, and, he adds with a laugh, a “drug pusher.” He sometimes talks about his patients in a very generic way, and he has a particular gripe about the “spazes,” the people who can only function pseudo-normally with doses of Clonazepam.

We were flipping through a celeb glossy the other day as we waited for a takeout order, and there was a short piece about Lindsay Lohan. Is she anorexic or is it the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drug Adderall? Adderall, the weight loss secret to the stars. Mr. Sensitive started going into the details of Adderall—how it’s a stimulant, how it suppresses appetite, how it is abused by people, even if they have not been diagnosed with ADHD, who want to shed weight quickly. “It’s basically speed,” he said to me.

I feel like someone who is now keeping a dark secret. The other day I got a refill of the Adderall, and I’m once again on the medication and feeling oddly productive. Sure I am spending all of my time with Mr. Sensitive, lying in bed, laughing and enjoying the grand view of one of the ritziest neighborhoods in Gotham from the “penthouse.” I feel lucky; everything is going smoothly.

As I write, Mr. Sensitive is sleeping, but I wish I could be myself fully and tell him about “my drugs,” the Adderall, and the long and painful search for answers to my disorganized angst, to the checkerboard resume: 12 jobs in just as many years. Last night he mentioned a few of the things he liked about me. “You’re not crazy and you’re different, I’ve never met anyone like you before,” he says.

“How?” I asked.

“You have this way with words, you say these things and it makes me laugh,” he says.

He says I am sweet, too, and kind. I want to tell him that these are common traits among adults with ADHD, but I stop there. I lie in the darkness and in the silence, and keep my mouth shut.

“Thank you,” is all I say, and it is all that I can reveal for now.