Apr 11th, 2008 | Time, A.D.D. & Aging | 2 Comments
A.D.D.ers spend years in a dream world. Spinning ever more elaborate fantasies (financial conquests, sexual conquests, social conquests) life seems like a far-off horizon, something that stretches out before you in an infinite regress but which you are never able to reach. Today you have failed but you live to fight another day, holding on to the possibility that a future “success” will salve the wounds of past failures. And yet each day brings more failures: a forgotten task, a misspoken word, a missed opportunity.
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.
Dec 19th, 2007 | Time | No Comments
To make sense out of life, one must also be able to make sense of time, that is, understanding one requires understanding the other. In our everyday world they are inseparable. Life requires time and time has meaning because of life. The life of the human being is understood to be "a life" because it occurs in time over time.
If time and life are so entwined, so ontologically inseparable that the existence of one requires the existence of the other and, furthermore, if the fundamental problem of A.D.D. is an inability to understand time, then the only conclusion is that the A.D.D.er can not understand life. After all, to understand life requires one to understand time and time is exactly the concept that eludes the A.D.D.er. It is this inability to understand time that is the source of the A.D.D.ers' problems with finances. It is this inability to understand time that makes the A.D.D.er see life as a series of "do-overs" where every life change is seen as an attempt to get it right this one time. The A.D.D.er has enormous difficulty understanding that life is a linear progression that starts with a birth and ends with a death. The A.D.D.er is trapped in an infinity of "nows" and can not, except with great difficulty and much artifice, comprehend the linear nature of life. It is only based on observation of "the past" and continual repetition of the past (that repetition may be little more than a mantra spoken over and over again) that the A.D.D.er trusts that there is causal link (however tenuous) between an action occurring now and an action in the future. But the A.D.D.er does not truly know this and, therefore, does not truly understand the progression of life.
__________________
Jul 28th, 2007 | Time | No Comments
Dr. Hallowell often states in his speeches that people with ADHD have only two concepts of time – “now” and “not now”. How true that is! If a project or idea is in front of a person with ADHD it gets done now…or, if not now, then perhaps never!
This trait has plusses and minuses in the ADHD marriage.
Starting with the negatives (so that I may end on a positive note!) it means that people with ADHD have trouble planning to do something in the future. Notes, lists and other physical reminders can help, but it is a challenge to think ahead. In addition, they can have trouble anticipating what might happen as a result of their actions. Think about it – if you are genuinely positioned in the “now” when you are doing something, it is easy to see how you wouldn’t be considering what implications your actions might have for the future.
The complete article is here.
Jul 2nd, 2007 | Time | No Comments
It is a recent discovery (for me) that there will come a time that I will not be around and my kids will be going on without me. I visualized it below. I figure that my wife is likely to outlive me (though…it is possible I may outlive her…however…because Alzheimer’s runs on my side of family I may never know it).
So…maybe for non-A.D.D.ers this is not a big discovery. But how often do you sit and imagine you not being where you are right now…how often do you try to imagine life without you? It’s strangely fascinating. (Morbidly fascinating?)
“Discovery” is not the right word. What I really mean is something that I describe as “real knowing” as opposed to just “knowing.” The difference is knowing something intellectually as a concept and knowing something by living it. It is like knowing what it is like to be a parent and then having kids and really being a parent. They are two different types of knowing. [Added July 2, 2007 near end of day]
Of course any understanding of time horizons is in contrast to the Tyranny of Now. It will be interesting to see if there is any permanency to the “discovery” though, as an A.D.D.er, there is no such thing as permanency.
[Last edited on July 4, 2007 @ 10:06am]
My oldest daughter turned 16 today. I took her to motor vehicles to get her learner’s permit and took her for her first drive. I’m not sure how she managed to turn 16 without me noticing the intervening years. It’s as if one day she was 6 years old, another day she was 12 years old and now, suddenly, she is 16 years old. Where was I during all those years? What kind of fog was I in that I didn’t not notice the changes? What kind of mental stupor have I been in? I know that, certainly, this is a result of A.D.D. but, at this stage of my own life, I am living with - and struggling with - the secondary and tertiary symptoms of A.D.D. I know that, for much of this time, I’ve lived in financial chaos and mentally running away from bill collectors has consumed a lot of energy and, obviously, caused me to run away from so many things that I did not notice my daughter growing up.
What worries me most is that she is now, at this age, so obviously dependent on me and I want so desperately to be able to help her and the help that she needs, most of all, is financial help: car, college, apartment and so on. Yes, she is only 16 years old but heck, it seems like she was only 6 years old a handful of years ago! And she’ll need my help, not ten years from now but one year from now and then for several years thereafter.
I’m not sure what I can or should conclude from this realization. There is no substitute for time and, being A.D.D. means to have no time except for an onslaught of “nows.” Consequently, I have not saved all I could have or should have and I’ll have no choice but to work my way through the upcoming expenses as opposed to tapping into savings from years gone past.
[Section above added on July 17, 2007 @ 10:00pm]
[…to be continued…]
Jul 2nd, 2007 | Time | 3 Comments
Here’s summarization of this article suitable for the A.D.D. mind. 
:
The problem of not being able to understand past, present and future is a serious one and should not be underestimated. It is possible for the A.D.D.er to understand it on a conceptual level - such as in the discussion of such phenomena - but the real difficulty is not being able to live it. Being so consumed by the “now” there is no mental space for even thinking about the past and certainly none for the future. The “now” is just too exhausting and all-consuming.
Now…if you are still with me…here’s some more on the subject.
I believe it was a Dr. Hallowell comment that described A.D.D. as being like a radio that tunes every station at once. Which one do you pay attention to? The problem is that sometimes you try to pay attention to all of them at once. At other times, you figure out how to pay attention (selectively focus) on one. However, it is not like you don’t hear the others…you just ignore them for a while so you can focus on that one station. (Ironically, as a ham radio operator, what I enjoy doing most is “digging out” the hard to hear stations, that is, I literally hear many stations at once but I can focus in on the one that I want to hear and can ignore the others.)
I think of this phenomenon as the tyranny of “now” where everything is continually competing for your attention. Consequently you spend all of your time trying to turn that off. Of course, you can’t turn it off. So you find something that will help you do that: sitting in front of the television for many hours, taking up a hobby that consumes hours of your time and concentration, eating carbs like mad, taking drugs, engaging in sex simply for the release, excercise. (I’ve done all of these things at various times in various manic-like states.)
The problem is that when you are consumed by the tyranny of now you can not find the mental space to think about the future. Every day is a struggle to control the tyranny and doing so is exhausting both mentally and physically (because it is physically exhausting it is my belief that A.D.D. gets worse as you get older simply because you don’t have the physical stamina you had as a kid to control it). Having discovered I was A.D.D. at about the age of 46, it has taken me several years to get to the point where I can do this blog (”journaling” whether on a blog or in a paper journal (I do both) really is therapeutic…it forces the brain to slow down…or at least trains the brain to learn how to slow down…though just a moment ago I got distracted and I’m now struggling to get back on topic. ).
Being consumed by the “now” makes it impossible to prepare for the future. In fact, there is no concept of “future”! I’ve only started to see the linkages between current actions and future consequences but that was something I only thought I understood but really didn’t. On an intellectual level I understood it but I didn’t live it, which is quite another manner.
Others who discuss this issue:
“In some cases the disorder [A.D.D.] goes a bit further and those children are not capable of understanding the idea of present, future and past. That’s why they do live only in the here and now and don’t seem to remember the past. They also are incapable of thinking about the future. Due to this they do never think about the consequences that might follow their actions. In such cases cause and effect should be deliberately communicated.” Source: Effective ADHD Treatments
See this interesting post on The Mental Reset Button and Jennifer Koretsky’s Newsletter Archive
Jun 17th, 2007 | Time | No Comments
The puzzle, or perhaps the contradiction of ADD is that it opens up a future-looking event horizon that allows for Cassandra-like vision (though sometimes a distorted or hysterical version). It also opens up a backward looking horizon (when one reflects on one’s personal history) but, paradoxically, everyday life seems like shattered glass with shards of events strewn about and seemingly no coherent pattern by which to piece it all back together. So the present is perpetual chaos whereas the “past” and the “future” seem coherent and whole.
(Note: This was posted on my original blog in October 2005)
RSS Feed
