And so my journey begins. Where do I start? I guess I can start with me, right? That’ll put me in chronological order. Okay, well, I was a bright, cheerful, happy, intelligent kid. Bouncy and bubbly. As I write, I think I should say, what I have to say is my own perspective, not that of my family or friends. They may or may not have seen things very differently from me. Okay, so as I was saying, I really don’t remember much trouble until I was about seven years old. For me, that’s the number I seem to have put to where my trouble had begun in my mind. That’s when I begin to remember the tantrums. I seem to remember that being when I started really getting argumentative, grew my attitude problem, and started to lose control of my temper. That’s when I remember really fighting with my dad, and probably starting to scare the crap out of my mom.
As I got older, I felt like I was fighting the world. No one understood, I felt, and I needed ways to lash out. I fought, and fought and fought. It felt like the world was against me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t fit in anywhere. I had few friends, and the older I got, the fewer friends I had. The kids, I know now, didn’t know what to make of me. I made no sense to them. I couldn’t sit still, always sitting on one leg or the other, or up on my knees in my chair, or jumping out of my chair. I couldn’t shut my mouth. Guess some things never change. ;-) I wouldn’t act in ways that were socially acceptable, and didn’t seem to even see the world around me. People thought I was a trouble maker, a liar, unmotivated. Really, I wasn’t any of those things, I just couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t figure out how to keep my brain from running ahead and doing what it thought to do before it stopped and thought about it. I was clumsy and awkward because the part of my brain that ran my motor skills worked so much faster than the part of my brain that coordinated my path around the hazards in my way. Throw in teenage hormones, and man, my world came unglued. By my teen years, I was more out of control than ever. The screaming, the intensity of my anger, even I at the time knew it wasn’t right, but no one really understood why, or how to control it.
My dad, he tried. But he was as confused as I, and now that I’m older I think maybe he had the same difficulties as I, and didn’t know what to do with his own mind either. As I got further out of hand, his frustration rose, and the house would become a war zone. My mom, I don’t think she knew what to do. My dad and I would explode so angrily that she probably would have been in more danger for her own life if she had stepped in at the wrong time. Okay, maybe not so badly, but you get the idea. I got to a point where I would overturn furniture, punch and kick holes in walls, scream on the top of my lungs for hours on end, and generally very much lash out. And I had no idea why. All I knew was I couldn’t stop.
Eventually, with nearly straight “F”s on my report card, I was kicked out of high school. The teachers all said the same things, from grade school on. “She’s got a heart of gold, she just can’t sit still. She’s so very smart, but doesn’t live up to her potential. If she just worked harder… If she could just sit still… If she could… If she could…” But I couldn’t. And I had no idea why.
As an adult, I joined the Navy. This was good, mostly because it gave me a place to get the paycheck that adults need, and some stability that, as I look back, I needed for so many years to finally get a better look at myself. People say that folks with ADD do well in the military because of the heavy structured environment. That’s BS. We do well in the military because we can just slide by. And for 14 years, I just slid by. I tried, and I tried, but in reality, despite my multiple best efforts, I just slid by. I made many mistakes. Got into tight jams. Put myself in debt. Made some very impulsive and stupid decisions. And I only then started to very slowly understand why. As I neared 30, I really became okay with who I am, and finally settled a little into trying to make me better. At 32, I left the military. Suddenly, I’m left without my crutch, and am getting a crash course in how to cope with real life.
I still struggle. I often find a bill I missed. This is especially noticeable now that I get medical bills. I didn’t have those before. My husband tasks me with trying to help with various appointments that need to be made, and issues that need to be resolved, and I can’t seem to keep my head straight. I’m a full time student now, and find myself still procrastinating. Often I’ll have a big report that I have had several weeks on, and don’t even start until the night before it’s due. Then I’m up all night in a hurried rush to fix it. Apparently I don’t work well unless the pressure is really on, something I had noticed in the military too. I don’t handle stress well at all, but I do require a large amount of it to get a job well done. I have trouble reading text. I read fine, but get into text, and I’m in trouble. Even stuff I’m interested in, I can’t always put the sentences together to and understandable level to my brain. I don’t understand some things that are very basic to most other adults, but I can so an enormous amount of understanding to things that many other adults don’t get. I miss appointments over and over and over. I shop impulsively and by the time I get home, I realize I may have gone for milk and bread, but by the time I get home I have a car full of stuff and have spent $400. And so, here I am.
Flash forward to, well, now. Now I’m a mother to three beautiful children. My eldest has ADHD. Okay, I haven’t had him tested and diagnosed, but it’s pretty obvious. He’s just like me. He has a heart of gold. He’s very intuitive to the feelings of people around him. He often cares more about others than himself and is willing to go through great sacrifice to make the people around him feel better. He’s brilliantly smart, but he gets so frustrated that his frustration gets in his way. But when you watch him, no matter how hard he tries, he physically can not slow down. He’ll think he is, but he’s actually bouncing off the walls. If you watch, you can see him try so hard to sit still, but his body defeats his efforts, and his frustration grows. He acts completely on impulse, and often doesn’t even realize it. His brain works to fast for his clumsy little body. His teachers all say the same things mine did. He tests our patience nearly every minute of every day. As I write this, he’s supposed to be sitting still at the table eating his dinner, but he’s walking circles around the table. I remind him he needs to be seated, and he does. He takes a few bites, and without thinking, he gets up and wanders around the dining room again. It even has to be pointed out to him that he’s doing it. He really doesn’t realize he’s doing anything until you show him.
I see him at six, I remember me at seven, and I worry that we too will lose him at seven. I wonder if that’s when his world will seem to crumble, and when I won’t be able to help. So I’m beginning my battle with myself, with the school district, with the doctors, with the world, and with Eldest Son. I’m doing my best to battle by his side, not on the opposite side of the war. The one thing I do know, I can’t help him if I can’t help me. I can’t understand how to conquer ADD, until I learn to conquer my own.
I’m at the library weekly, bringing home pile after pile of books. I’m on the phone with Tri-care to find out where our coverage can help us. I’m constantly on the doorstep of his school looking for every bit of help I can. I’m knocking on doors and picking brains. I’m only starting this mess, but I’m going to win. I can’t afford to fail, because if I do, I fail my son.
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