Normal Is as Normal Does
How can someone with ADHD live a so-called “normal” life? By struggling to build the habit, every single day.
I suddenly feel normal, or what I think normal is. I think normal is having no waves of panic. Normal is knowing how much money is in your checking account and not feeling like your nerves are firing erratically. Normal is accomplishing some of the things you set out to do.
I can only assume what normal is, what it means to live a normal life. I don’t know from experience and cannot figure it out through observation. I have no clue what it is like to live it, what it is like to have an inner life that is not in attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD) turmoil.
So perhaps normal for an adult with ADHD is to have brief moments of non-turmoil. Maybe the key to living a better life is to determine how to extend those brief moments, so that they last more than a few hours.
A person without ADHD who is reading this may not understand the struggles of those with ADHD, or why “normality” may only be brief in duration. There is a saying that explains why the sun rises each morning. “It rises because God says, ‘Do it again.'” That is the struggle of the individual with ADHD who must consciously say to himself, “Do it again.”
“It” can be defined as most of the things that people without ADHD take for granted: financial control, longevity in a job, no outbursts.
People with ADHD must tell themselves to do these things again and again. I assume that they will eventually become habits. I hope so.
