© 2010 - Jeffrey Siegel

I’m excited to announce that I will be collaborating with Zoë Kessler (check out her blog! ADHD from A to Zoë and my post about her blog) in what we believe will be a fascinating examination of the ADHD experience. I’m looking forward to having lively discussions with Zoë and sharing them with you. I think you’re going to enjoy Zoë’s warmth, honesty, intelligence and clear-headed approach to the adult ADHD life and associated life issues.

The impetus for our collaboration is based on our similarities and, of course, our differences.

Similarities: We are both adult ADHDers who were diagnosed late in life – Zoë, four years ago and me, six years ago. We’re 51 and 52 years old respectively; our birth dates are days apart; we use our cars as a drum kit when we drive (and some of our favs are Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Green Day). We both love gardening, cooking, and we each have a diabetic dog…spooky! (Did I mention that we were both philosophy majors?)

Differences: Despite the similarities, a number of significant factors are at play that create important differences. Geography and environment (me, urban American (a New Yawka), Zoë, rural Canadian); gender; career paths; marital status (married with children, Zoë is single); birth status (child of immigrants, Zoë is an adoptee). As we delve into the subject matter we will no doubt uncover many more differences and the effect these differences have had on our ADHD lives.

The “He Said / She Said” Series Will Appear On Zoë’s Blog

Readers of Jeff’s ADD Mind Will Be Informed When New Series-Related Posts Appear

CLICK HERE To Read The Introduction and Part I of the “He Said / She Said” Series

About Zoë Kessler

Zoë is an author and regularly contributing blogger at psychcentral.com. Her popular blog is called ADHD from A to Zoë.  Ms. Kessler is also a contributing writer to ADDitude magazine, MORE Magazine, CBC Radio One, and others on a variety of ADHD-related topics. She’s written, produced and performed ADHD standup comedy, and her upcoming book, Chick-A-D-D (working title) is widely anticipated. Let’s hope she gets over her procrastination long enough to finish writing it!

About Jeff Siegel

Jeff has lived the life of a typical adult ADHDer. In addition to an ever-growing list of unfinished projects, he has had numerous careers such as adjunct lecturer; movie projectionist; shoe salesman and, his current pursuit, web developer. For several years Jeff has been blogging about his atypical life (though typical for an ADHDer). Because of his varied interests, his blog touches on many other topics such as cooking, philosophy, and politics.

When Zoë suggested to Jeff that they collaboratively examine various adult ADHD issues, his response was: “Absolutely! This could be quite exciting. We can bring different perspectives – male versus female – to the very same issues.” Jeff hopes that, in addition to enlightening the readers, they can solve world hunger and usher in a new peace that would last for generations.

Disclaimer: Although the He Said / She Said series is a collaborative effort between Zoë Kessler and Jeff Siegel, each author speaks for her or himself and the opinions expressed are solely those of the respective authors, in both the He Said / She Said series, as well as in their respective blogs: ADHD from A to Zoë and Jeff’s A.D.D. Mind

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Some days I just get tired of having to push myself. I wish I could just wake up and, voila, no more adhd!
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Oh!! Here’s a fcuking eye opener. I have a client who is definitely ADHD. They are god damned psychotic! They drop off the face of the earth and then, blam! they send an email with a gazzilion complaints. They complain about shit I asked them about but they never replied to my earlier emails. Thank god I somehow manage to remember what I previously emailed them. Now I know why people think ADHDers are crazy. That’s because they ARE!
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Did ya ever wake up thinking that somebody in the middle of the night wiped out your memory and yu need to spend the whole day trying to put your “self” back together? That reminds me of that movie with Dana Carvey where every day when he wakes up he has to play a tape recorder because his memory is completely blank and he has no clue who he is.

You’ll like this one. So I contact this client, who really pissed me off, and said, “Hey, let’s talk about 15 minutes or so to see how we can solve your issues?” And you know what? They STILL don’t f–king respond! I’m a pretty patient guy but they’re really testing my patience!!

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Is this it? Is this as good as life gets? Is my ride here on earth going to come to an end? Do I get one more shot? Would we be better off like the dumb beasts who have no consciousness of their ending? And this is the sick joke created by God? He is so f–king powerful and yet he can’t make us be immortal? He can’t make us live a gazillion years?  So..what…we should worship Him and be thankful that we KNOW we are going to die? Wow. Some f–king god if you ask me. I want a god that creates a body that doesn’t slowly deteriorate. Oh, here’s one better. A non-deteriorating, non-adhd body. Now let’s see if God  is all powerful!

ADHDers think 2 dimensionally but live 3 dimensionally (they just don’t know they are living 3 dimensionally)

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Ok, so here’s the concept. Non-adhders live in 3 dimensional space defined as x, y and z being time (of course, I should probably have x, y,z and THEN time but, hey , my drawing skills are already taxed as it is). NOn-adhders know that they exist in this time dimension but ADHDers don’t know that about themselves. So imagine that we have a plane bounded by x & y and that plane moves along the Z axis but ADHDers have NO CLUE that this is happening. They are only (next)

aware of the plane they exist in. They move along the Z axis but have no idea they are even doing this.

This is the ADHDer at, say, moment one. And here at moment two, and so on. From the outside observer, the adhder is moving IN time (at least along the time axis) BUT the adhder, because their perspective is stuck in this plane (we are looking at it from the side) has no clue this is happening.

Why does the huffington post publish this new age, narcissistic bullshit? They are undercutting the seriousness of the news they report when they publish this garbage. When huffington post started they were real serious about stuff and tried to put out a different viewpoint. They publish so much of this trash (and lots of pictures of semi-nude women…not that I’m a prude or anything but imagine that the new york times started printing hot pics of women mixed in with their news…would you take anything seriously anything they wrote?) that there are times when I hate  the website. Arianna should decide, you want the site to be serious or shoulod it appeal to all wack jobs equally?

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One outing occurred eight months ago during a lengthy business conversation with a new client. When the topic turned from business to the personal, during which time  he revealed some details of his relationship issues, it seemed an appropriate time to tell him I was A.D.D. His reaction surprised me. Instead of recoiling in horror or switching topics, he described his brother’s struggles with A.D.D. We then discussed strategies that he could share with his brother. My most recent outing occurred last week. I hired a bookkeeper to help me with my financial chaos. When she asked to see my filing system (“That pile of papers? Those are the bills. That pile over there? Tax forms”), I warned her that I was A.D.D. Once again I was surprised by the reaction. We discussed the challenges faced by her 19-year old A.D.D. sister.

While these most recent self-outings have had a positive outcome, there have been times – especially when I was first diagnosed with A.D.D. – when I regretted sharing the news. Once I gave people a label to describe some of my actions, then ALL of my actions were colored by that label.⁵ They were delegitimized and in some cases, simply ignored.⁶

But a major difference between my first self-outings and the most recent ones is my increased  knowledge of A.D.D. in general and how it plays itself out in my life. With that knowledge has come a large measure of confidence. I have a much better handle on my A.D.D. I know when it is interfering and when it is not. Most importantly I can explain it to the non-A.D.D.er in terms they are likely to understand.

I am sure there will still be times when outing myself would not be the appropriate thing to do. Must an employer know that I am A.D.D.? Will that reduce the chances for promotion? Must every client know that I am A.D.D.? It seems prudent to carefully select those with whom I share this knowledge. But when I do share this knowledge I do this NOT for their sake but for my OWN sake. It is not to meant to enlighten them but to lighten my burden. It is meant to eliminate my need to harbor this dark secret. It is meant to eliminate my need to “explain away” my A.D.D.-induced idiosyncrasies. It is meant to momentarily free me of the curse of A.D.D. so that I can simply be me.

[Image Source: Mixed Nuts]

1. The “wonder” drug of the year, IMHO. Thank you, Gina, for suggesting it.
2. At this stage I don’t care what other people think of me.
3. And, I should add, experiencing the sturm und drang that comes along with such special friendships
4. This redesigned website is certainly a manifestation of my self-outing.
5. “You are angry because you have A.D.D.” “You are not happy with my business decision because you have A.D.D.”
6. There are other reasons why the assertions of an A.D.D.er may be delegitimized or ignored. There are those who truly believe (though wrongheadedly) that A.D.D. does not exist. There are also those who deny their own A.D.D. by denying the existence of A.D.D. The logic being “If A.D.D. does not exist, then I cannot have A.D.D.” even though, somewhere in the recesses of their mind, they suspect they have A.D.D.

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{ ========== //\\ ========== }

This post was originally inspired by Mike Doyle’s post, Equal and Opposite. I apologize to Mike if I went far afield.

1. Keep in mind that A.D.D.ers don’t know what normal is. The fact that you have to battle with yourself to create a normal existence is, in itself, not normal. Someone who is truly normal does not have to think about being normal, they just are normal. It is not a conscious decision. A “normal” A.D.D.er is just an approximation of normal. I wrote in A Job With Benefits that “This concept of A.D.D. normalcy is, one might say, asymptotic in nature (think calculus, here). The A.D.D.er gets infinitely closer to “normalcy” but never reaches it. Normalcy always eludes the A.D.D.er. The A.D.D.er is always in a state of Becoming normal but is never in a state of Being normal. To put it another way, the train of normalcy is always approaching the station but it never arrives.”
2. For an interesting look at the bullsh*t from two people who should know better – Drs. Hallowell and Handelman – see their site Unwrapping the Gift of A.D.D. Even the name of the site makes you want to throw up. At a later time I’ll take a closer look at their shenanigans. They should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating the fraud of A.D.D. as a Gift. Please…take this gift and shove it…I don’t want it anymore.

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To be human is to be confronted with choices. Each choice, like a fork in a path, takes us in a different direction. Some choices are inconsequential while others are, literally, life changing. Collectively these choices make up who we are at any point in time.

We live our lives as if we know that a particular choice will lead us in a particular direction. In actuality we do not know this with any certainty. All we can do is imagine where it might lead.¹ Each choice can, at best, be seen as possibly improving the probability that we will reach our imagined endpoint but, again, it is a probability, not a certainty.

For A.D.D.ers, the human condition can be a living hell of choices. Since their defining leitmotif is an inability to make choices, A.D.D.ers may follow a path and then, frightened as to where it may lead, suddenly switch to a different path. After years of switching paths, A.D.D.ers become profoundly aware of, and profoundly afraid, of the effects of their choices. They prefer to keep all options, that is, all choices, on the table thereby, in effect, choosing nothing.

Now that I am on the other side of fifty years old, I am still confronted with choices. But the number of choices has shrunk to a mere handful. On the one hand this relieves me of the burden of choosing from an overflow of choices. On the other hand it means that there are many lives that I will not live, paths that I will never be able to follow. I am also profoundly aware that, at this stage of life, there is no time for a do-over, no time to double back and try again. I cannot leave all options on the table. This is depressing and liberating. Depressing because of all the lives I wanted to live and will never be able to live. It is liberating because, for once, I believe that I am following a single path.

{ ========== AFTERTHOUGHTS ========== }

• We need a new phrase to capture the human condition, something like esse est facere electio which roughly translates as, “to be is to make choices.”
• The A.D.D.er is the quintessential existentialist.
• For a fascinating story (allegory?) of life’s paths, see Borges The Garden of Forking Paths.  A complete translation is here (sorry, link to translation is no longer valid) and an interpretative plot summary is here.
• One way to achieve happiness is to make your dreams conform to your current reality.

1. This “imagination” is the essence of visualization as a method of guiding one’s life.

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Special thanks go to Gina Pera for her thoughtful and encouraging comments. I highly recommend that you read her blog ADHD Roller Coaster: Is it You, Me or the ADHD? and her book Is It You, Me, or A.D.D.?. The blog and book offer a well-needed, and often too sobering, view of A.D.D./A.D.H.D. Since I'm dispensing thank yous, I'd like to thank Mike Doyle of Chicago Carless. He's written some inspirational posts such as The Best Part About Having A.D.D. and sobering ones like Equal and Opposite and has also contributed comments to my posts. In addition, I'd like to thank Tara McGillicuddy of My ADD/ADHD Blog and John W. Mackenzie of Adult ADD And Money for reading my blog and linking back when you found something of value. I apologize to anyone I may have left off of this list. My A.D.D. only allows me to remember the immediate past.

Carpe Diem

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The non-A.D.D. world marches forward and leaves you further and further behind. Every day you re-imagine the trajectories of your life (what if I married that person instead of the one I am married to now? what if I take that job instead of the one I have now? what if I suddenly win the state lottery?) Your life remains mired in “becoming” but never quite “being.” You never quite arrive at a whole, consistent “you.”

And then one day you find you are fifty years old. Your children are older and, somehow, more dependent on you than when they were small. The financial burdens have grown as you are faced with college tuition and, gasp, the unthinkable, YOUR possible retirement. But at age fifty you now see things you did not see before. You now see the trajectories that are closed off. Though fantasies remain, the biggest fantasy of all, the possibility of following a different life trajectory, is basically over. Yes, you can get divorced and marry that attractive young woman who works in your office but, let’s be realistic. Can you really do that? And even if you could (and DID!) what does that really mean? You will not be a thirty year old with a young woman…you will be an old man with a thirty year old. You cannot relive being thirty and having a different wife. You cannot relive those moments. They are gone. They cannot be recaptured. They cannot be replayed. Unlike in childhood, in real life there is no “do over.” There is only “do once.” Maybe, if you are lucky, “do twice” but at some point you are faced with “never be able to do again.” And while “never be able to do again” may seem like the death of an A.D.D.er, it is, at the same time, liberating because you can now ignore the lure of the path you might have taken. Your focus becomes sharper. You are still A.D.D. but the fantasies lessen as reality and, yes, mortality, becomes a very real thought. Your Cassandra-like qualities sharpen and life becomes a very serious pursuit.

I had thought that becoming fifty years old would be the most depressing event of my life. As an A.D.D.er, it is, interestingly, one of the happier moments of my life. Part of that happiness is a result of a shortened time horizon. I am not looking at a career that stretches for the next forty years of my life. Instead, I am looking at a much more manageable ten or fifteen years. This is a time horizon that I can see, that I can plan for, that I can trace its likely trajectory. It is not an abyss of empty time but a usable and manageable block of time. It is a slice of calmness and sanity which too often eludes the A.D.D.er. If I could freeze time I would not want to be thirty years old again or eighteen years old. I much prefer the calmness and intellectual acuity that comes with being an older A.D.D.er.

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Quite accidentally I found a way to regain some of that ability to intentionally hyperfocus. After a decade and a half break, I started running again. There is something about that physical activity – being outdoors and moving – that just clears out my head.³ And while my stamina may not be exactly what it was in the past, the running cleans out the mind sufficiently so that focusing on what needs to be done is just easier to do.

1. This definition from Wikipedia: “sustaining prolonged stressful effort” sums it up nicely. See: Stamina. In addition, see this footnote from one of my earlier posts.
2. During my college days, for example, I never worried about writing papers. I knew that when the 3 day mark came – that is the paper was due in about 3 days – that it was almost time to start writing that paper. Usually when the 36 hour mark arrived that’s when I’d hyperfocus and write the paper.
3. Dr. Hallowell, among others, have examined this phenomenon of the beneficial effects of physical activity for A.D.D.ers.

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