ADHD Dad Blog

Better Late Than Never

Archives: July 2009

An ADHD Horror Show

I could see what drew my son to ~Dexter~, a series about a guy who feels like he’s wearing a disguise so he can pass as being normal in a world where he struggles to find real connections to others.

"Somehow it's reassuring knowing I'm not the only one pretending to be normal."
- Dexter Morgan from Dexter Episode # 105, Writer: Melissa Rosenberg

As you may know, in our family I am, of course, ADHD, and so are our two kids. That’s everyone except my wife Margaret, and Danny-Boy the dog. And we’re not too sure about him.

How Margaret deals with all of us is some kind of miracle that you’d have to ask her about. But just because she’s not ADHD, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have crazy ideas: for instance -- this summer’s travel extravaganza.

Okay, I thought it was a good idea too, but I am officially, doctor-certified crazy, so I have an excuse. Anyway, after a particularly stressful spring, Margaret and I decided to push the envelope of our mental and financial endurance this summer and spread the whole family all over the map -- physically, emotionally, and maybe psychically too.

Three of us have been all over the mainland -- me in L.A., where I did my show and stayed with family friends for two months, my wife and daughter on a road trip reconnecting with relatives in Georgia, South Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware (where they met up with me at my parents’ house for the Fourth of July) while our son house-sat with our dog and went through his own interior journeys with alcohol and responsibility.

In the end, Margaret’s plans all turned out great, but toward the end of the travels, everybody’s nerves were frayed and we were all exhausted and well, touchy. Or maybe it was just me.

I got back to Hawaii and to our son, Harry, two weeks before my wife and our daughter, Coco. So Harry and I spent a couple of weeks getting the house cleaned up for their return and talking. I was, as I’ve said, on edge and wanted to get some things talked out with my son, but I couldn’t find a way that didn’t fray my nerves worse than they were and make Harry pull away and shut down.

Then finally, we talked about something else to talk about what I wanted to talk about -- his growing up, our relationship, his friends, his life goals and things like that. The conversational duck-blind we used was Dexter, a TV show he’s passionate about. During our two weeks alone he showed me all the episodes he’d saved, and during this Dexter marathon I began to see what attracted my ADHD son so strongly to the show.

Harry had been on me for over a year to watch this show with him, but I resisted. My god, the hero of the show is a serial killer. Nearly every week someone gets butchered by this guy. He pointed out that I read tons of thrillers and murder mysteries. But I said they don’t glorify violence like that, and besides they’re books. Books are better than TV. Well, in this case, he was right and I was wrong. Every once in a while being wrong happens to a parent -- admitting it is the hardest part.

But like I said, I could see what drew Harry to this series about a guy who feels like he’s wearing a disguise so he can pass as being normal in a world where he struggles to find real connections to others. He identified with him, and as we watched, I identified too.

Yes, Dexter definitely is way out there, but the character is struggling constantly with questions of morality, right and wrong, and the responsibilities of love. So, episode after episode, night after night of this very bloody TV horror show, Harry and I found a way to communicate about him, his life, and on a different level -- but just as frightening -- the horror of growing up.

ADHD Dad and the New Therapist Two-Step

Like many people with attention deficit disorder, I have developed an aversion to change.

In my last ADHD Dad blog post I think we established that, like many people with attention deficit disorder, I have developed an aversion to change.

I’ve hitch-hiked across the country not knowing whether I was going to sleep that night on a rock hill outside of Wendover, Utah, or in a vagrant’s cell in Vernal. (I’ve done both, and the cell is more comfortable, plus you get free pancakes and eggs for breakfast.)

In my twenties, I moved from Missouri to California, to New York, then back to California, all the while changing jobs, life goals, and girlfriends constantly. I've been married and divorced twice. It didn’t seem an unusual or stressful way to live at the time; instead, it seemed like the best way to keep things interesting.

ADHD is all change all the time. I dealt with it by embracing and surfing the chaos. Only now do I appreciate how stone scared I really was.

I finally settled down in L.A. with my third (and real-deal) wife, Margaret. For fifteen years I wrote and produced TV in one city. Even with success in my grasp, I still manage to make it feel like our whole family is hitching across Utah not knowing where we are going to be come nightfall. An easily distracted hypomanic drunk isn’t the best guy to be driving the bus.

We made one more move - to Hawaii (the most remote land mass on earth - a fact I find deeply comforting). I got sober and, a short time later, I start going to a therapist here, Dr. G. Dr. G started by seeing my son. Pretty soon he was seeing the whole family. I don’t just go in for the quick med visits; something in my relationship with him helps me to really work at therapy. I haven’t trusted anyone enough to do that in a very long time.

Dr. G reads my writing as I work on things – especially on Pay Attention, my ADHD show. We talk deeply, and laugh too. Once I was shocked to find myself more honest and unguarded with him than I’d ever been with anyone in my life besides Margaret.

This seven-year relationship, this dance of minds, became an integral part of my life. I was finally able to calm down enough to actually see the world around me. I was able to be present enough to actually see the people in my life.

I did not want this dance to end. But my therapist was closing shop and taking a big teaching position. So I had to react like a grownup and accept the change, which outwardly I did. As you may have read in the previous post, inwardly I threw a monster tantrum. It was just fear, but fear makes me angry. Especially fear of the chaos.

Inevitably the first appointment with the new doc came. New office, same-old forms to fill out. We shake hands, sit. He puts a pad and pen on his crossed leg. Dr. G never used a pad. And this new doc is way young. I decide to be super careful here. But then he asks an interesting question, and my answer surprises me. All right, maybe I’ll take another step. Maybe this can be okay - if I can just get him to stop with the note pad.

My New ADHD Dance Partner

Like most adults with attention deficit disorder, I do not welcome change.

My personality has completely changed as I've aged -- I'm not sure exactly when it happened. I used to be bright, open and adventurous. I liked to go to parties. Not anymore.

I’ve thought that maybe my personality changed when I was 49 and had a breakdown that led me to be diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, hypomania, etc. Then sometimes I think my personality changed eight years ago when I got sober. Other times I think it changed in the last year.

Sometimes I think my personality hasn’t changed at all - that I’ve always been the same and have only recently begun to see that I’ve spent most of my life inside a slippery clown suit in order to make it through each terrifying day. If that’s the truth, the clown suit is permanently off now and is stuffed in the garbage can at the curb. So who am I really?

My core ADHD hypomanic self hasn’t really changed. It’s just more exposed. I’m still easily led by a distracting thought triggered by a random sight, sound, or smell that turns into a shadow of an idea that weezles down into a tiny notion inside a detail about whatever caught me that’s tucked away in an even tinier wrinkle in my brain. If I can just get in there with a toothpick or something to dig it out.

I’m not a big-picture guy. I can’t stand brain-storming meetings. I cannot bat ideas around with other people -- you can keep your bat. I’ll keep my idea and go somewhere else.

You cannot put me in the same room with people who are getting a feel for the larger landscape, finding common ground, and developing big sweeping changes. I refuse to participate in this evil treatment of human thought.

Okay, “evil” is a little much. But I’m not a fan of change - especially big changes made by other people. Stay the same and leave me alone. That’s all I ask these days. So when my therapist of eight years – the only therapist that I could really talk to – decided to close his practice, I was not happy.

Good therapy, I’d recently discovered, is a communication dance – rhythm and steps building trust until you trip over unexpected discoveries together.

Now my dance partner was closing shop, going into teaching, and passing me off to some young guy.

I’m too old for this kind of change; but I need my meds, so I have to go meet my new dance partner tomorrow at 1pm. I’ve never met him and I hate him. This will never work.

Next time: ADHD Dad and The New Shrink.

ADHD Dad Phones Home

I keep bouncing from one bright and shiny thing to the next, blaming my creativity for missed deadlines - I’ve got a lot of nerve getting on my kids about their behavior.

“Let me tell you a secret about a father’s love, a secret my daddy said was just between us. He said daddies don’t just love their children every now and then; it’s a love without end, amen.”

- From Love without End, Amen by Aaron Barker, sung by George Strait

Sorry for the long absence. My last ADHD Dad blog post ended with me having just arrived at my parents’ house in Delaware. I was about to pick up the phone and drop the discipline hammer on my 21 year-old ADHD son Harry, who was in Hawaii. I meant to write and post the next part of the story last week, but I was packing to fly home then I was standing in airports or crammed in an airplane seat. I finally woke up from a huge jet lag collapse and have been blinking around at my home that I haven’t seen for three long months.

Okay – excuses, excuses – and yeah, I should have gotten right to it, but instead of writing, I spent the first days back in front of my own computer looking for new desktop icons (one whole day); and reorganizing already organized files; and updating applications I hardly ever use (another whole day). When I was done with that I started untangling a thin gold pendant necklace my wife, Margaret, had left on a shelf near the bathroom sink. I found it while cleaning and avoiding work.

The truth is I’ve been laying back and letting distraction drive the bus. At one point, I pulled gently on a knot in Margaret’s gold necklace and, as it untangled, I realized that this was the necklace I’d given her when Harry was born. The pendant was a multi-faceted emerald, Harry’s birth stone. I don’t normally believe in signs, but this time I made an exception.

So now I’ve wrestled myself back into the driver’s seat, and I’m typing away. But I keep thinking that considering how, especially over these last three days, I’ve bounced from one bright and shiny thing to the next, blaming my creativity for missed deadlines or off-subject meanderings - both of which apply to this post - I’ve got a lot of nerve getting on my kids about their behavior.

Anyway, here’s the Harry story up to now: While Margaret was in L.A., and his little sister stayed at a friend’s house, Harry was supposed to be taking care of our home, hearth and dog in Honolulu and preparing to try college again in August. Instead, against all the rules, he had a drunken, pot smoking party. The dog got lose, girls were throwing up on the front lawn, and they were making enough noise to wake up our neighbors, including the cop across the street.

Margaret spoke briefly to Harry when he called to preempt the neighbor phone calls, but the hammer talk is my job this time. Now Harry’s sitting in Hawaii waiting for my call. I’m angry and disappointed in Harry, but I don’t know what to say to. Since its 5 pm here in Delaware, I avoid calling Harry by making martinis for my parents. I bring the drinks to my mom and dad in their matching wingback chairs along with some crackers and sliced cheese. I like waiting on them. I tell my mom and dad what’s going on and as I get them refills, and my dad especially, has strong opinions about Harry’s misdeeds.

As I close the door to the guest room and punch Harry’s number on my cell, I’m hit by the weird irony of a ADHD recovering alcoholic son serving drinks to his mother and father before calling up his own son to give him hell about getting drunk and screwing up. I stop dialing – I dread the draconian restrictions and restitution I must and will bring down on him. I still don’t know how to get Harry to really learn from this experience.

Then I remember when I dropped out of college. It was the morning after I’d shown up on my parents’ front porch in the middle of the night screaming drunk, waving an empty scotch bottle, and blaming them for everything wrong in my life before I threw up in the bushes. I still remember what my father said to me.

So I punch in Harry’s number again and when he picks up I say, “First, I love you.”

Drink, Drugs, and My ADHD Son

I was a twenty-one year-old kid once – but this isn’t about being a kid, this is about trust, ADHD, and alcohol, and the damage my boy can do to himself.

In a couple of previous posts I’ve written about my son turning twenty-one last May and my concern about his subsequent experiments with drinking. My own history as an ADHD alcoholic fueled and heightened my concern. But after talking with my wife Margaret, I decided that my son Harry was not me and that overreacting to my fears with restrictions and lectures wouldn’t help him make the right decisions. So, when Margaret flew to L.A. for the closing week of my one-man ADHD show in June we left Harry at home alone to take care of the dog and look after the house while we were out of town and his sister stayed with friends.

It was honor system – he knew the rules – no parties and no drugs (which he promised us he hadn’t even tried and had no interest in.) We called to check in and he seemed fine. Then three days later we got we got a phone call from Harry. He had some things he wanted to tell us before we heard it from the neighbors.

Apparently as soon as Margaret got on the plane our house turned into Animal House. Only in real life it wasn’t funny. It was a nightmare of loud parties, drinking, pot-smoking, and Harry’s drunken friends arguing with furious neighbors at three a.m. - one of whom is a cop – as the dog gets out and runs down the street.

Now, Harry told us most of it, but not all, Margaret got the complete scoop when she got home. But the problem was at the time was that Margaret wasn’t going to be home for a couple of more days. So the task facing me was to handle Harry over the phone until Margaret got home to deal with him and the neighbors face to face.

Okay – I’m freaking out – my head’s exploding with the biggest “I told you so” in human history – or my human history, anyway – on top of full tilt fury slamming up against deep love and concern for my kid and hey what about our poor dog – he had to have been scared silly by all of that insanity - and the other kids’ parents – legal issues – and damn it, he promised – but I knew, I did - I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist temptation – I was a twenty-one year-old kid once – but this isn’t about being a kid, this is about trust, ADHD, and alcohol, and the damage my boy can do to himself. This could have been even worse – what if someone had gotten seriously hurt? The more I think about it the more freaked and seriously pissed off I get. God, I’m going tan that kid’s hide.

I pick up the phone, start punching in Harry’s number and then snap it closed. I have to do some breathing. A panic attack could undermine the righteously indignant avenging angel rant I’m planning to bring down on his head. But as I breathe I remember the nightmares I poured into my parents’ lives when I was in my teens and twenties, and I realize that nothing I’ve been thinking about saying will help any of us. The truth is, I don’t really know what to say to Harry at all. But I’m his dad – I have to figure out something – and fast.

Next post – ADHD Dad Phones Home