ADHD Dad Blog

Better Late Than Never

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Trick or Treat: An ADHD Wake-Up Call

posted: Friday October 30th - 12:39pm

Had I insisted on dragging my family into my ADHD fantasy life only to have it blow up in their faces?

“We are falling down, down to the bottom of a hole in the ground, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, I’m so scared I can hardly breathe, I may never see my sweetheart again.” -- John Prine, "The Bottomless Lake"

It’s Halloween in Villa Park, Illinois, 1959. I’m ten years old in my homemade Zorro costume. My shadow on the moonlit sidewalk looks just like Guy Williams’ shadow in the TV show. I am Zorro -- “a fox so cunning and free.” My friend David says it’s late; we have to get home with our treats before the teenagers came out to do their Halloween tricks. He’s worried that we’ve gone too far to get home in time with our sacks full of Milky Ways and popcorn balls.

But I’m not paying attention. I’m in my own world as I cross into Elmhurst, and gallop down an unfamiliar street. I am Zorro -- I am invincible...except when I’m faced with three Elmhurst teenagers in leather jackets. They surround me at a street lamp. I am suddenly very vincible. Two of them smoke cigarettes; the guy who picks me up by my cape chews a toothpick. They bounce me around, take my hat, mask, cape, and all my candy and send me scampering back to Villa Park. My shadow on the moonlit sidewalk looks like a scared 10 year-old running home.

But see, I’m always shocked by a change in the weather and by hard reality exploding apart my day-dreamed life.

Just this last September, it seemed to me that we were all doing pretty well, in our house. My 14 year-old ADHD daughter was transitioning out of special ed. Her reading and writing was above grade level and she wowed them with her project presentations in social studies. And at home, not only was her temper pretty much under control, her compassion and sense of humor were re-flowering.

My 21 year-old ADHD son passed his midterms and actually seemed to like his classmates and some of his teachers. My non-ADHD wife was working harder than ever at her education company, as well as with her private clients. She had a great response as a presenter and teacher at The Hawaii Writers Conference. It seemed like maybe she’d be able to pull off the first year of her company being in the black. And one of the teachers working for her sold us his car at a unbelievably great price.

And I, the ADHD dad, had finished a pretty successful tryout run of my solo show in L.A. in the summer, and was back in Honolulu in the middle of shooting and editing a local video job that would give us some extra cash. Despite a hiccup or two due to bouts between me and my ADHD, I was reasonably happy. Plus, the new therapist was working out for the whole family. And we found a way to gate the front door so that our huge dog didn’t bound out into the street terrorizing mail carriers, joggers, and the nice lady tending her papaya tree next door.

I had been the one that sold our family on the dream of living in Hawaii in the first place, and after ten years of struggling with the reality of making your way in paradise, it seemed the sun was shining for us, a light breeze blowing across the calm tropical sea.

But then in October, Margaret’s sister called from Georgia. Their mom was in the hospital. Even though she was out in a couple of days, it jolted us. We saw how far apart we were from family who needed us. My parents on the east coast were even older and my dad was going in for surgery, but we couldn’t afford to keep flying back and forth. But both our families needed us. Then, unrelated to these realities, the Hawaii school system discovered they were out of money, and the upheaval was not good for Margaret’s work or my daughter’s school. Then, the car we bought developed an unsolvable overheating problem. Then, worried that my progress on my video project was suffering, I buckled down on that and missed my therapist appointment twice. And the dog knocked over the gate.

Had things changed that much? Suddenly everything that seemed strong and solid about our life on an island in the middle of the Pacific seemed weak-kneed and wrong-headed. Had I insisted on dragging my family into my ADHD fantasy life only to have it blow up in their faces? Had the Elmhurst teenagers busted through my daydream to give all of us a candy-stealing dose of reality?

In the middle of this spin, Margaret and I sit down. “I think we should move to Georgia,” she says.

Next: Ch-ch-changes...

ADHD K.O.’s Dad

posted: Monday October 19th - 1:04pm

The fight may never end, but ADHD or not, it’s the love we have for each other that gives all of us the reason and power to stay in the ring and prevail.

In late rounds this week, ADHD hit Dad with a surprise roundhouse right to the head, knocking him flat with panic, despair, and a hopelessly dark world-view. Petrified that his therapist will want to put him on anti-depressants again, Dad takes a self-imposed sick-week and hides in bedroom.

Family says Dad took a dive.

“Now he gets to lie around all day, eat cookies, and read books,” family says. “Who’s going to do the laundry, clean the kitchen and change the light bulbs?”

“Not I,” Dad says from under covers, “My head hurts. Leave me alone. I need quiet.”

A couple of days go by. The house is peaceful, not a sound. Dad gets out of bed to get a sandwich and maybe a few more Safeway oatmeal-raisin cookies. The kitchen is empty. The whole house is deserted. Dashing around the place in a growing panic, it hits him that there’s no dishes, no clothes, no furniture, no people. His family, seeing he’s no longer useful, has packed up and moved away.

Okay, my family did not desert me.

But late this week, I did get laid out by that ADHD punch to the head and heart. And a good-sized part of me is convinced that the only reason my family didn’t pack up and leave is because I stayed on my feet and kept up with the household chores, part-time jobs, and all the other people-pleasing behaviors that cover the dark, frustrated fury and self-loathing burning at my rotten core.

My crusty old corner-man in the boxing ring sits me on the stool -- squirts water in my face. “How many times I gotta tell you to keep your head down. No wonder ADHD caught you with that right. Now, he’s got you throwing around wild-ass mixed metaphors. Stay focused, kid. Fight your fight.”

Okay, okay. But see, it’s not that I think that my family is mean and shallow or really treats me like a slave. It’s that I know how difficult it can be to be around me when I get overwhelmed, frantic, and short-tempered. I can barely tolerate myself when ADHD hits me with a wave of burning synapses that gets so huge that I’m sure I’ll tumble over and over, and stay lost in confusion and uncertainty forever. And then, trying to keep from drowning, I lash out -- desperate to grab anything that makes sense -- and say or do something scary or hurtful.

So why on earth would my family stay around for this lunacy?

Before, it was probably because I was a mammoth provider. Today -- not so much. So I become a mammoth homemaker. And in a snap, I turn into my mother -- the 50’s housewife putting aside her desires, her writing -- to take care of her spouse and kids. And you have to be real tough to pull that off.

My corner-man towels me off, shaking his head. “You’re not hard enough for that, kid. I seen some of the toughest ladies in the universe fight that fight and get flattened by a bitter madness that’s meaner than anything you can handle,” he says. “If you can’t stay focused, stay honest -- fight with what you got.”

I tell him I don’t know what I’ve got to fight with. ADHD is dancing around in the ring looking bigger and stronger all the time. He can’t wait to pound me into screaming mush.

My corner-man slaps me. “It’s love, kid. That’s what you got -- a whole family full of it. You fight with that, you can’t lose. Now get out there and show that bum who you are.”

So I do. And the old corner-man is right. The fight may never end, but ADHD or not, it’s the love we have for each other that gives all of us the reason and power to stay in the ring and prevail.

And keep an eye out for that roundhouse right.

ADHD -- Captured on Video!

posted: Monday October 12th - 12:44pm

It’s hard enough banging around through life with an ADHD brain leaving little piles of burnt disasters in your wake without having to watch video evidence of your lame disasters repeating in front of you in digitally corrected color.

So I’m in the middle of this video project that’s like any project any of us do for money -- demanding, nerve-wracking, and, well, hard. I know -- why do you think they call it work? And I know I’m luckier than I deserve to be, that this job fell in my lap in the first place because we need that money yesterday. And I’m not complaining -- I’m more like spinning in front of my computer freaking. And then complaining, but about the freaking -- which doesn’t qualify as an ungrateful, selfish attitude that’ll get me fried by a lightning bolt from God -- so that’s alright... (I started spelling “all right” as one word when I wrote TV. I don’t think other TV writers do it. I think I fell into the one-word spelling from overuse because all my TV characters were so weak-willed and passive that they acquiesced to every other character’s desires continually -- “Alright, whatever you say...only if it’s alright with you...alright, it’s my fault...are you alright?” But I don’t think that it’s really a word unless it’s one of the ones that got in because the dictionary people got tired of trying to make people spell it correctly -- “Alright, we give up already!”)

So, anyway. I’m freaking about the video project, but not because it’s hard and demanding. I do hard and demanding every day. It takes concentrated effort to remember to rinse the conditioner out of my hair before I step out of the shower and start rubbing a towel into the pink goop -- and yeah, I’ve tried 2-in-1 shampoos, but they don’t work on the Alfalfa-like cowlick that sticks up from the back of my head. Okay, okay I’m vain. But I’m a sixty-year-old, ADHD ex-truck-stop cook and TV hack trying to live out my life with dignity, so how about giving me a break, alright?

You know what’s also hard? Remembering to take your afternoon ADHD medication. I’m always forgetting until about three or four p.m. and I’m already an insomniac so I’d like to skip the meds by that time. But if I do, dinnertime will be a mess for the whole family with me forgetting, getting all tense and yelling (the dark side of ADHD Dad) -- if I even remember to make dinner.

Of course, my skipped-meds consequences don’t hold a candle burning at both ends to my to my bi-polar friend’s skipped-meds consequences. Try a four hour phone conversation convincing someone you care about that the only way to keep the black hole behind her bed board from sucking her into oblivion is to get her prescription out of the purse in the hall no matter how impossibly far away the purse or any possibility hope and meaning in life are. “They’re in the purse, alright? Meaning and hope are right under those child-proof caps waiting for you.”

But, okay, about the video project...It’s an exercise video -- real good trainer, a smart, thoughtful woman. It’s not her. It’s me. I direct, light, and shoot the footage. Then, I get home and capture it into the editing program. Now, as the editor who’s got to make the end product out of whatever was shot, I look at the footage and I can’t believe what I see. I forgot to match lighting on consecutive scenes, I forgot insert shots, I didn’t see the huge lighting instrument reflected in the mirror right behind her while she’s talking to camera, and -- look at this! -- a whole scene shot without sound because I forgot to turn on the lavaliere microphone.

It’s hard enough banging around through life with an ADHD brain leaving little piles of burnt disasters in your wake without having to watch video evidence of your lame disasters repeating in front of you in digitally corrected color. But I’ll fix it in editing, somehow. Maybe do a reshoot for that sound glitch. I’m not complaining -- okay, I am -- but the client’s coming over to look at a cut, my hair looks stupid, and I need to take my meds.

Next time, I’ll be more together, alright?

Writing: A Temporary Cure for ADHD

posted: Friday October 2nd - 10:43am

I've realized that crafting honest writing cuts ADHD fear and self-pity off at the knees. Maybe if I write more, I’ll lash out at others less.

Every time I post this blog, I think I’ll get the next one emailed off sooner. It’s one of the enjoyable chores in my life, these days. Besides, I’m a writer and it’s important to keep my honesty and story structure skills working when I’m not, like now, writing a big project like a play or whatever. But maybe the problem is looking at this blog as a chore at all. I know I said “enjoyable,” but put it in front of “chore” -- that’s pretty faint praise.

But these days, my life is pretty much all chores. My wife, Margaret, is working hard out in the world keeping her company, and therefore our family, afloat, so I’m the housekeeper and stay at home parent doing the laundry, dishes, and housekeeping chores. This is a very fair arrangement -- I’ve already testified to my cleaning obsession -- and we’ve found a useful way to harness it. And I’m doing some small-scale video shooting and editing, which I can do out of the home. That brings in a little money. And the kids like me around, when they get home, to talk to and make them stuff to eat. I love the kids and my wife. My wife and kids love me.

Considering what most people are dealing with in their lives, I couldn’t have it better. By all rights, I should be the prime example of a happy, healthy dad and husband. I certainly shouldn’t be yelling “I don’t know! I’m sorry! I’m stupid okay? You know I’m stupid!” at Margaret, and then slamming out of our bedroom at night. But that happens sometimes when you have a mental condition, I guess. But losing my mind two days after I post a mature-sounding blog about dealing with my daughter’s explosive temper is embarrassing.

It was a little thing, really. A text message buzzed on my phone while I was video-editing at the computer. I picked it up thinking it might be my son texting me from school needing something. But it was a message from the bank saying to call immediately due to some “activity” on our account. Now, I don’t do the money in our household -- I’ve already testified to my ineptitude in that area, as well -- but I do know we are perpetually on financial thin ice, so I call the number on the screen.

Long story short -- it was a phishing scam. And I had keyed all our bank account info into it. Later, I mentioned the bank emergency to Margaret, and she was understandably concerned about what I’d done, and I tried to explain but couldn’t because I couldn’t remember how it had happened exactly because I was distracted thinking about something else as I did it, and then couldn’t talk because I was paralyzed by how stupid I’d been to do it, which reminded me of every other unbelievably stupid thing I’d ever done in my long personal history crammed to bursting with countless stupefying mindless mistakes in judgment and lack of common sense. And then, just like my daughter, I lashed out.

Later, after it was all over, and the card was canceled, and our account was safe, Margaret and I talked. “What are you so angry about? And why are you so angry at me?” she asked.

I told her I wasn’t angry at her, but angry at myself, disgusted by myself, really, and tried to explain the lashing out again, but it’s hard for her to understand when she’s the one who’s been recently lashed out at.

I agreed to talk to the shrink about it at the next visit. And I will. And I’ll turn up the vigilance on my temper. But sometimes I’m doing the chores around the house and I feel like my mom, the frustrated writer/housewife in the fifties -- cleaning and criticizing myself for unwritten words and too-clean bathrooms.

And sometimes I don’t see the bright side of ADHD, hypomania, stammering or any of the other brain crap. All I see is the constant, every second struggle to pay attention, remember the word, the name, the appointment, or even find a clean, clear thought. I get tired and want nothing more than to go hide in a book. That helps.

And sometimes, if I’m lucky, when it’s late enough that everyone else in the house is asleep, I’ll turn on the computer and start typing. And usually if I do that, like I’m doing now, I realize that writing this blog is no chore at all. And I once again realize that crafting honest writing cuts fear and self-pity off at the knees. Maybe if I write more, I’ll lash out at others less.

It’s worth a try, anyway.

ADHD Rage, Explained

posted: Tuesday September 29th - 12:00pm

When my ADHD daughter yells and explodes out of frustration, I identify with her intensely. I can see the overload crowding into her head pushing all rational thoughts into an airless corner where the only way out is to react and react big or you’re sure you’ll suffocate.

“I’ve always known that there’s more going on inside me than finds its way into the world, but this is probably true of everyone. Who doesn’t regret that he isn’t more fully understood?” -- Richard Russo, Bridge of Sighs

“God, you guys -- I’ll do my homework after I eat, okay? Stop bugging me about every stupid thing every stupid second! You make my life a nightmare!” With that, my fourteen-year-old ADHD daughter, Coco, storms into her room with her bowl of mac and cheese, and slams her door so hard it sounds like a gunshot, which sets the dog on a barking jag. Between barks, I can hear Coco kicking the wall. I stand in the kitchen still holding the pot and spoon I made her dinner with, close my eyes, and keep my mouth shut.

I am not going to respond in kind. I am going to breathe.

Slow even breath in, slow even breath out.

I learned this from my last therapist. The therapist, who after years of slowly building mutual trust and rapport, deserted me to face the daily emotional pummeling of being a parent all by myself. So this nightmare, as my daughter calls it, is all his fault, the selfish creep. I should hunt him down and beat his head in with this mac and cheese spoon. But he’s not a selfish creep. He set me up with another therapist before he closed his practice. And I’m not facing this parenting stuff alone. My wife, Margaret, is right here, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Your cheese is dripping,” she says. Margaret has a less extreme approach to life. She sees the humor in both of our kids’ dramas. She watches as I put the spoon in the sink and wipe up the cheese sauce from the floor. Breathe in, breathe out.

“Are you okay?”

“Mmm -- hmm,” I nod, between slow even breaths.

“Your problem is, you take things too much to heart,” Margaret says and smiles.

That’s a phrase we picked up from Richard Russo’s novel, Bridge of Sighs, describing Lucy, a man prone to occasional blackout spells who’s nearly immobilized by love, family, guilt and obligation and who I identified with intensely. It’s become a gentle joke between us, because I do. I take everything too much to heart. It’s not that I get my feelings hurt; it’s that I get immobilized by compassion.

When Coco yells and explodes out of frustration, I identify with her intensely, too. In her eyes, I can see the overload crowding into her head pushing all rational thoughts into an airless corner where the only way out is to react and react big or you’re sure you’ll suffocate.

No matter how gently requests or questions are put to you -- and sometimes that’s worse because then it sounds like condescending “careful of the mental patient” talk -- but however it comes at you in a short amount of time or just the wrong time for you -- you lash out to stop it, but you’re also lashing out at yourself inside your head looking to break apart this wall holding in the overload and let air in -- just one second of quiet air -- that’s all you want, and in the moment, bright red rage is the only hope for release and you don’t give a damn about anyone else. A second later, you apologize and add that new bag of guilt onto the huge pile you carry around your whole life. And of course, the pressure of that guilt adds to the next overload.

So I’m always telling Coco, “No sorries, it’s all okay,” whenever she apologizes over small things, or even medium things. I think we need to forgive others their slights and slips as much as possible. But more importantly, we have to learn to forgive ourselves and, maybe with some help from others, work on adjusting how we handle things.

Coco and I both have been working on managing our tempers and doing pretty well at it. She told me what she does is slow things down and not talk. “It’s not that I’m not listening, Dad,” she says “I just don’t want to lose my temper and mess things up.” The more pressured she feels in her head, the slower she takes it -- whether it’s getting ready for school in the morning, doing homework, or getting ready for bed at night.

I don’t know what I can do about taking everything too much to heart, especially when it comes to those I love and value, but I can probably do better at shaking off the anxiety. I’ll work on adjusting that. I might try a little of Coco’s “go slow” approach myself.

ADHD and Money Deficit Disorder

posted: Monday September 21st - 1:25pm

I try to give our family finances the care and attention they require, but if there’s anything in the world that triggers a deficit of attention in me, it’s a column of figures that never adds up to a positive number.

Yesterday, just when I was thinking we were making some headway, financially, and I was feeling a little better about myself, in general, the oil sensor, water pump, and starter all went out on the car at the same time. We had plans for that five hundred dollars. If we even still have it. I might have spent most of it on a new camera tripod.

Truth is, I hate money. Or, it hates me. No matter what I do, we just don’t get along, we never have. I try to give our family finances the care and attention they require, but if there’s anything in the world that triggers a deficit of attention in me, it’s a column of figures that never adds up to a positive number.

It’s been this way forever. At ten, I only managed to sell three tickets to the Boy Scout Anniversary Jamboree -- two to my parents and one to the depressed lady next door who I think thought I was collecting for the paper. This wasn’t enough to get the prize -- a Motorola Transistor Radio. But what was worse was when I turned in my official Jamboree cardboard box with “Trustworthy” scrolled across the top in big letters; the Scoutmaster discovered I was short six bucks. I’m pretty sure I had planned to replace it with allowance or lawn-mowing money, but I forgot. I even forgot I’d spent the money, so later when I got the lawn-mower money, I forgot to put that in the “Trustworthy” Jamboree box, so now I was standing in front of the Scoutmaster and the whole troop being fingered as a thief. I wasn’t, honest. I just forgot to cover the deficit.

Later, after my dad paid the difference, I went on the Jamboree camp-out and since they all thought I was a thief anyway, I stole the Motorola Transistor Radio from the winner’s tent, got caught, and was kicked out of Boy Scouts. See, the winner was such a smarmy show-off and kept rubbing it in...but that’s another story -- maybe an advice article: “ADHD, Get Even Now -- Before You Forget.” Maybe not.

But I’m talking about money. As what passes for an adult, I got credit cards and promptly forgot every amount I charged as soon as I had whatever I bought in my possession. When the bills came, I paid the minimum -- when I remembered -- and was shocked when, card by card, they were refused when I tried to buy a TV.

Still, I was basically a poor cook/waiter/starving artist type trying to balance my checkbook and pay my rent, so I couldn’t get into that much trouble. Then, success reared its ugly head. When the Hollywood cash rolled in, I figured I never had to worry about money again and promptly began throwing it out the window like confetti.

I put up a sort of “together” front in those days, and both my wife, Margaret, and I were confident that no matter what, my career in the L.A. television world was solid, so there wasn’t that much to worry about. Of course, we were completely wrong.

Now I’m back to being a poor, starving artist type, and I’m more comfortable in that position in life for a lot of reasons -- the people I’ve admired in life were never the wealthy ones. But still, I’ll probably be working off old debt until I’m even older and grayer. And when I see my ADHD son and daughter impulse buy and treat money with the same absent disregard I did, I worry.

So I tell them stories of my screw-ups and try to give both of them hints on how to not to focus on possessions, and to stay aware of the dollars flowing in and out of their lives, and help them see that even though it’s not how we measure the true value of life, we need to give our individual and family finances the attention they require to at least keep us fed, sheltered, and not totally stressed out by harassing debt-service calls at all hours. I think they’re getting it. Though when I told my daughter, “I really was going to put the money back in the Boy Scout box -- I just forgot,” she rolled her eyes.

So we keep going, and pray that the car doesn’t need any more major repairs before spring. And even if I still hate it, these days I’m trying to treat money with at least a little more respect.

Me, the Cop, and ADHD

posted: Monday September 14th - 12:14pm

When I was drinking, I could blame my memory lapses on blackouts. Now I have to face the fact that my scattered memory is just a comorbid condition attached to my ADHD brain.

I’m driving in downtown Honolulu at 4 a.m. and suddenly my rearview mirror is filled with flashing cop car lights. I pull my very junky ’83 Jetta to the curb and the Honolulu Police officer walks up and puts a flashlight on me. I hand over the license and registration, and he asks me where I’m coming from. “I’ve just finished a video shoot over at a gym, we have to shoot at night when they’re closed, it ran long, ten hours -- all my fault -- didn’t schedule the shoot the best way and should have hired an assistant to handle the lights...” I know I’ve clicked into a hypo-manic ramble but I can’t shut myself up -- every detail seems vitally important for him to understand the context of how I got to be in this situation. He’s lucky I don’t start from back in high school. Still keeping the light on me, the cop interrupts.

“What gym was this?”

“Um, the uh...” I’m not ready for that question. I can’t remember the name of the place. I was just there. There’s a huge red and yellow sign over the door of the place. I can see it in my memory but not what it says.

“It’s the one, not 24 Hour, smaller...um...”

I’m locked. There’s no way I’m coming up with the name until I’ve gotten home, put my feet up, and had a vanilla yogurt with Honey Bunches of Oats on top. I sure wish I had a bowl of that right now. But I don’t and I’m just still hopelessly stammering on -- now describing the red and yellow sign in detail to the cop.

“It’s not neon, it’s like a big light box with the front painted and a picture or more like an icon, really, of a guy lifting weights...”

He interrupts again.

“You know you ran a stop light back there?”

“I did? Oh. I didn’t see it.” That’s obvious. What isn’t obvious is what I was preoccupied with that caused me not to see the light. Just as I open my mouth to start to explain that, the cop hands me back my license and registration, pointing out that the registration needs to be renewed, and says he’s letting me off with a warning. I’m grateful, but I think he just figured that if he had to listen to one more minute of my ping-ponging, hyper-detailed chatter, he’d put a bullet in my head. And then there would be all that paperwork.

The next day, my wife Margaret says he let me go because he was probably looking for drunk drivers. Lucky thing he didn’t stop you a few years ago, she says. No doubt, but back when I was drinking I was actually better at keeping my mouth shut when I was in conflict with authority figures. I didn’t want them to smell the booze. Also, when I was drinking, I could blame my memory lapses on blackouts. Now I have to face the fact that my scattered memory is just a comorbid condition attached to my ADHD brain that makes for constant surprises. I hate surprises.

Case in point -- two weeks later I’m pulled over by another cop because my registration sticker is out of date. I had completely spaced the last cop’s warning. In the course of things, she asks me what my phone number is. I squint into her flashlight. I should be ready for this question -- it's so easy. But no.

“Uh, its...37...no wait, its 932...no...”

I start to explain that numbers on demand are a challenge for me, especially when I’m questioned by authority figures. Even at the Safeway checkout line when you’re supposed to type it in to the little pad if you don’t have your Safeway Club card, which I lost the minute I got it. She doesn’t care. She just hands me a ticket and sends me home.

At home, I put my feet up with a bowl of yogurt and cereal and wait. The lock-box in my head opens, and my phone number tumbles out, a happy little useless surprise. But I quietly repeat it over and over to myself as I eat. I’ll be ready the next time.

Man Overboard: The ADHD Cruise Ship Manifesto

posted: Friday September 4th - 4:05pm

Each individual’s experience with ADHD - whether as the parent, spouse, or friend, or the one who’s actually trying in vain to nail their brain down to one spot – is just so... individual.

Due to the sometimes overwhelming presence of ADHD in my family’s life, I read a lot of books, blogs, and articles about the subject, always looking for some new insight or piece of information I can learn from. But really, I’m hoping to identify with other people’s stories of everyday struggles and small victories with ADHD.

The trouble is, each individual’s experience with ADHD - whether as the parent, spouse, or friend, or the one who’s actually trying in vain to nail their brain down to one spot – is just so… individual.

I was reading a very entertaining piece about not fitting in with the non-ADHD world that mentioned how great it would be to be on an all-ADHD cruise where everybody would accept abrupt changes of subject and being interrupted in conversations. The idea being, I think, is that ADHDers would understand and be more tolerant of each other.

I wouldn’t last a minute on that boat. I deal with my own ADHD in a more desperate and well, fascist-like manner. I sit in the cave in my head and desperately hold onto each wiggling, slippery thought and errant, stammering word. I don’t want to lose them before I examine and devour them, or put them in little labeled cages for later. And yes, a second later I forget what wall of the cave I put the cage or the label falls off when I knock it over looking for another cage from last week.

But the point is, I don’t enjoy chaos. It is my everyday world, and I’ve found ways to use it creatively, but in an existence of constant flashing lights, ringing bells and bumper cars I crave peace and whatever sliver of order and understanding I can find, and when I find it, I give it everything I’ve got.

So, when I’m writing or reading and someone interrupts me, I tend to jump out of my skin. When I’m interrupted when I’m talking I go blank and immediately search for my train of thought that has immediately zoomed off for parts unknown, never to be heard from again. I’ve long ago stopped grieving for these orphan trains, but I still feel a twinge every time a fully formed gorgeous thought turns into empty track. My two ADHD kids don’t act this way themselves and think I’m skittish, which goes with my generally eccentric home persona. My non-ADHD over-achiever wife is more understanding, but that’s probably due in part to being married to me for 25 years.

The ADHD community is filled with individuals who have much in common and much to share with each other. But maybe due to the fact that ADHD directly affects the way we see and interpret the world around us and the world inside our heads, I think our experiences and how we live with them are amazingly diverse. This, in the end, is a very good thing.

Just don’t put me on that boat.

ADHD & Over-Compensating Disorder

posted: Friday August 28th - 2:16pm

Early on, my ADHD and I caused such havoc and disappointment that I developed a psycho-level work ethic to try to fix the things I was bound to screw up or forget before it happened.

“Dad, stop already. The microwave is clean enough. I want to make popcorn.”

That’s my 13 year-old daughter, Coco. And she’s wrong.

You have to use a scrubby sponge on the inside ceiling of the microwave to get all the little bits of chili and soup that get stuck up there. You don’t want one of those bits falling into your coffee when you heat it up, at least I don’t. Besides, I’ve got to take the rotating plate out and put it through the dishwasher to get off the grime. And the bottom corners have some dried up gook that I’ll need to dig out with a fork tine. The popcorn will have to wait until I get this job done properly. Just give me a second. Or a half-hour.

Coco rolls her eyes.

“OCD much, Dad?” The accepted myth in my family is that I’m obsessive-compulsive. That seems reasonable, considering OCD is well-documented as a possible comorbid condition with ADHD. But I’m not OCD.

I am ADHD - of course. Hypomanic – uh huh. Stammer – y-y-yep, word-retrieval incompetent, and pathetic short-term memory - that’s me. Alcoholic – well, duh.

But in all the testing I’ve gone through at various times in my life I’ve never been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. No matter how clean I keep the house.

Then again, there are a bunch of people that worked with me back when I was a TV writer-producer that would definitely agree with my daughter. My passion for organization, folders, binders, production calendars projecting four months into the future, and scripts finished weeks ahead of production drove a lot of writers on staff right over the edge. I went to work earlier and earlier and stayed later, pushing myself and everyone else, checking and rechecking, petrified of forgetting something or falling behind. Towards the end of one season an exhausted writer stood in the middle of my office and yelled at me, “You’re not a Pharaoh, Frank! You can’t just keep loading the work on for no reason!”

Honest, I would cop to OCD it if I had it. Kicking and screaming all the way, I’ve learned one basic rule from my own experience and from the examples of others with all sorts of disabilities; deal with any challenge straight on – accept whatever it is, get the help you need to understand and handle it, and get on with the day. So, if I’m not in denial, then what’s going on?

Over-Compensating Disorder, that’s what. Yeah, I made it up, but listen:

I think early on, my ADHD and I caused such havoc and disappointment that I developed a psycho-level work ethic to try to fix the things I was bound to screw up or forget before it happened. No matter what disaster I caused in school or Boy Scouts, at least my room was clean and my bed was made. Plus when everything is so messy and hard to control inside your head, having the kitchen clean can bring a little peace.

Yes, I’m nuts and confused, but as I told Coco, when I pull my hot cup of coffee out of spotless microwave my head and the world both seem a little easier to handle.

A Deeper Look at Alcoholism and ADHD: Part 3

posted: Wednesday August 12th - 12:26pm

Across the kitchen counter from me stood my wife, Margaret, and our two children. If I didn’t get sober, they were gone. I started to say something, but something in all three of those faces shut me up.

So there I am in 1998, a mental breakdown putting me in the safe hands of the medical profession who are testing me six ways from Sunday to find out what’s wrong so we can change whatever that is and I can be all better.

Truth was, though, I didn’t want to change, figure out coping strategies, make a plan, or you know, do any actual work to get better. I wanted to hang out and trade psych jokes with some cool interns and trippy patients -- Middle Aged Man, Interrupted without the Angelina sad part.

But I did seem to listen, I read the materials, and I did show up for appointments, and I did take all my meds. And I got back to gin as soon as possible. I didn’t need a story to build that room in my head where everybody agreed with me because there was just me in there. I just needed gin. The more gin, the stronger the walls. When a doc said it wasn’t a good idea, I found another doc.

So, after what for anyone else would have been a sobering diagnosis of multiple mental disorders and with no job prospects and a wife and two children to support, my primary objective was to make sure I had a justification to drink. Not very admirable, I know.

But hey, I’m a drunk.

I’m also no lightweight. There was no reason to panic. I knew what I was doing. I got a new agent again, sold a pilot; someone was looking at me for a series. Everybody just sit down, shut up and leave me alone. This is my classic mantra from inside my room in my head with its one little window on the world. You probably have two windows, but as I’m functionally blind in my left eye, I’ve only got the one. But that’s fine with me -- less openings to defend.

And that brings us to what for me what all this is really about for me -- excuses. That one-eyed thing is true but so what? I’ve always built self-pity escape hatches wherever I go.

The statistical facts are out there. “At least 25 percent of patients receiving treatment for AODD (alcohol and other drug use disorders) have ADHD, and 20 to 50 percent of adults diagnosed with ADHD meet criteria for AODD.” -- Smith, Molina, and Pelham Jr. - Alcohol Research & Health

There’s absolutely no doubt that if you’re ADHD you might be susceptible to substance abuse. But that was not and is not the problem as it relates to me. I am not susceptible to substance abuse. I am substance abuse. I don’t need an excuse to party. AODD, you bet. Done them all and would love to keep doing them all forever, but I cannot, because I’ll keep doing them forever everyday all day and all night long until I run out and go over to your place and do all of yours and then borrow your car to go get some more. I mean, c’mon -- otherwise what’s the point?

What I said to myself for the three years between diagnoses and sobriety was that the only reason I abused alcohol before was because I was self-medicating my ADHD and hypomania. But now that I was in treatment I could drink because I was all better, see?

I kept propping up this pathetically empty lie until finally one morning in April of 2001; I stood in my kitchen in Honolulu. Across the kitchen counter from me stood my wife, Margaret, and our two children. They were through asking. If I didn’t get sober, they were gone. I started to say something, but something in all three of those faces shut me right up. I just nodded my head and started to live one day at a time. That’s when I finally squeezed out of that room in my head and stepped out into the world. I dropped all the excuses and lies, and free of that, I put my arms around my family and held on tight.

Again this is only how it is for me. But I will tell you this: I am one very lucky one-eyed, ADHD, hypomanic, alcoholic.

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