The Curse That Keeps On Giving
A.D.D. is The Curse that Keeps on Giving. It never stops. It never lets up. It never gives you a break. It is a curse from Pandora’s Box. You can’t put it back in. It stays with you till death. You can’t take a drug that will wipe it out. You can’t get a transfusion or a transplant. You can’t even use sleep to turn it off: it interferes with your sleep. All you can do is mask the symptoms using drugs or behavior modification (more likely both). Your daily existence becomes a non-stop minute-by-minute battle to create a “normal” existence. At any minute you may lose the normalcy battle. 1
A.D.D. is not a gift waiting to be unwrapped despite the bullsh*t to the contrary.2 A gift is something of joy and happiness. Each time you look at a gift you have warm feelings inside. So, how can anyone in their right mind claim that A.D.D. is a gift? Do you know anyone who has the warm fuzzies inside knowing that they have A.D.D.? Do you know anyone who has a gift that they have to fight, coax, corner and wrestle with every waking and sleeping moment of their lives? Pulleeze! Enough of this nonsense. Let’s grow up! A.D.D. sucks and it sucks big time! Sure it helps to fuel my imagination and it makes me the most well liked person in the office but it also carries so many negatives that I rather be a bit unimaginative and less well liked and have less A.D.D. At least if A.D.D. were a cancer it could be removed, it could go into remission, it could give you a f**king break. But to call it a gift? Sorry.This ill-founded boosterism belittles the real anguish of dealing with A.D.D. on a daily basis. I, for one, rather face the truth instead of deluding myself with such nonsense. I rather know my enemy for what it is so I can better control it and maybe, yes, conquer it even if the conquest only lasts a solitary minute.
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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.
- 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.”↩
- 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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Thanks for the shout-out, Jeff, and especially the thank you in your year-ending 2008 post. I’m gratified that my writing on my own personal struggle with ADD has meaning for you.
I certainly was shocked to learn I had it early last year. Then again, it explains oh so much of my life (I know we probably all had that feeling upon adult diagnosis).
There are good days and bad days. The procrastination is the worst for me–married with distractibility, the pair really screw with my ability to get things done. No, ADD isn’t a gift.
Still, the things it does let me do can be far beyond the powers of mere mortals! Bearing down on a blog post or work project in full hyperfocus and not easing up until I’m finished (of course, usually unnoticed hours later) is a neat trick.
So, for that matter, is the way most of us get to make connections between words and ideas and concepts that totally eludes most others around us. I’ve often heard, “I wish I could write like you.” Meh, I don’t think the people who tell me that could stand the never-ending forgetfulness or my ongoing inability to find every typo before I hit the publish button.
I’ll tell you, though, it’s no use to make a fetish out of the alleged normalcy of others, either. In my humble experience, everyone is screwed up to one extent or another. Some people just get to hide it better than we ADDers are usually able to pull off.
The best I can do is console myself that life is no picnic for others, try to maintain a healthy sense of humor about my symptoms, and as I blogged about, most importantly demand understanding from those around me–if they want to remain in my life. Some have said ADD is no excuse for the effect our symptoms have on others (Hallowell says this, as well that whole “ADD is a gift” thing, two ideas I don’t accept in his otherwise progressive take on the condition).
The hell with that! Someone with cancer, or a missing limb, or a life-threatening food allergy, or any other chronic condition that they can’t change wouldn’t go around apologizing for the limitations and impositions arising from their particular difficulty. They would–and should–expect their friends, family, employers, and really, the world around them–to understand, to educate themselves, to be mindful. Most of all, they’d expect those around them to absolutely not criticize them for their condition.
ADDers deserve no less. We have ADD. We do the best we can. We’re not perfect. When it so happens that we’re not perfect, those around us have a responsibility to be compassionate and wise enough to accept that.
If they don’t, we ought to go find ourselves wiser, more compassionate loved ones.
Jeff,
Thanks for the heads up on this note – completely agree with the remarks about platitudes… all the warm and fuzzy stuff doesn’t work with folks in my office. Neuroscience, a systematic approach and consistent follow through can bring the challenges into manageable perspective.
I think I may be more optimistic than you are about outcomes, but meds outcomes are more predictable if ‘all the biologic territory’ is covered, not just throwing some meds up against platitudes and superficial descriptions that only partially cover the presentation.
Thanks,
cp
Mike,
Thank you for offering a perspective I have not really thought of (or heard of…at least as best as my A.D.D. mind can remember), namely that if we thought of A.D.D. the way we think of cancer or a missing limb, others around us would need to, and often would, understand the situation. However, I think the part that disturbs me about A.D.D. is that you just can’t get a break. You can’t have a “day off” from A.D.D. You *can* catch a break from cancer (many times) and you *can* add a prosthetic limb.
While I agree normalcy isn’t exactly the grand prize of humanity, well…let’s say I’d like to try it…just for a week or two. Anything that will make it easier to remember all of the things “normal” people remember, heck, that’s gotta be an easier way to live.
Doc Parker,
I’m trying not to be too optimistic or too pessimistic but more of a realist. There really is no cure for A.D.D. Every day is another battle and no matter what great strides you make…you sometimes just lose that battle.
As I’ve noted in some other posts…I noticed that it (the A.D.D.) *does* get better over time. Medication works wonderfully in that regard. Still, I rather have the equivalent of A.D.D. penicillin that makes it go away once and for all as opposed to just making it manageable.
Hi Jeff,
For years, I’ve met people with ADHD who feel the way you do but who don’t broadcast it. So, thank you for sharing your perspective.
Why do they hold back? It could be fear of unpleasant blow-back (which I’m sure you’re getting).
But in some I think it’s also a feeling of, “Well, I have ADHD but I’m not that particularly funny or charming, and I could never run an airline. So, what hope is there for me, lacking the ‘Gifts of ADHD’? I just want to remember to get the damn laundry out of the washer before it mildews.”
Lacking a more realistic alternative, some people with untreated ADHD and low insight fall a little too hard for the “gifts” thing — much to their peril. I met one 50ish woman who had just lost the last in a string of short-lived jobs. “My ADHD means I’m creative!” she said. “Why couldn’t my boss help to keep me on track. She just doesn’t understand ADHD.”
“Well,” I suggested to her, “while a boss can help with some accommodations for ADHD, she can’t be your external prefrontal cortex. The boss has her work to do, too. And what you think are your creative gifts at work might be making everybody else’s lives miserable.” Honestly, this woman looked as though she had never thought of that.
The very symptoms of ADHD can limit self-observation and insight. There can also be an aversion to the merest whiff of criticism and “negativity.” (Credit this partly to an overactive limbic system unmitigated by a strong prefrontal cortex and partly to a lifetime of negative feedback.)
It’s not easy to reach these folks with a message of hope that also includes a healthy dose of realism and practical strategies. It’s a lot easier to pander.
I tend to agree with Dr. Parker.
Plenty of people with ADHD settle for poor medical treatment — because they don’t know it can be better. And plenty of their physicians don’t know, either.
The MTA study showed that children with ADHD who received clinic-optimized medical treatment “normalized” to 90% (meaning, compared to the control group, they were 90% symptom-free).
By contrast, the children who received “community care” — meaning, average treatment in their communities — normalized to about 35%.
This study involved children, but I would argue that the results for adults would be the same, if not worse. When children are treated, physicians have third-party feedback (the parents and/or teachers). When adults with ADHD are treated, physicians often don’t know they should seek third-party feedback.
Thank you thank you thank you. I rant about this all the time.
ADHD is a gift like my depression is a gift. Both of them make living life the way I want and doing the work I love (scholarship, teaching, academe) extremely difficult.
I value my creativity and my associative thinking skills, but the truth is that no one wants to pay me money to sit around (or wander around) and be creative, clever, and associative.
I get paid to teach well organized classes and (eventually) to produce knowledge that contributes to my field and makes my school look good. These tasks are hard for anyone. With ADHD, it sometimes feels impossible and like I will never be able to succeed at the career I want—that I have wanted all my life, and the only work I haven’t been bored doing.
I have already started trying to get used to the fact that I’ll probably work more/harder than many people in my field and appear to do less, therefore getting less recognition in the field and less pay. Because of how my brain is wired. A mindful approach helps, but I still get despairing of how it seems unfair.
I might end up doing better than I think I will, but it will only be because I have spent money and time that would otherwise be free/relaxation time on getting coaching, an editor, working on “strategies,” developing systems to manage everything so it doesn’t fall apart, always aware of the danger of feeling myself shut down and completely run off the tracks.
Tell me how that is a gift, Hallowell. I mean, really…
It was a gift to find out I have ADHD instead of living with its effects for over 30 years and thinking I just had character defects and was inferior because for some reason I could not hold my life together and get work done. It was a gift to learn there was a reason I was taking twice as long as other students to reach the milestones on the way to the PhD—that it wasn’t because I am not as smart as them or am lazy or not committed.
(Actually it wasn’t a gift because I had to shell out A LOT of money I’d rather have spent on something else to get a neuropsychological evaluation that took 1.5 whole days of my life (that I’d rather do something else with). But you know what I mean.)
That was a huge, great relief until the “oh shit moment” of realizing the stuff you said above about having to manage and fight with my brain for the rest of my life. When I realized that Adderall did not make it any easier to assess the passing of time, or determine how to break large work down into doable pieces, or a million other things that “normal” people also need to do… but they do it without getting sucked into spending half a day on it and wanting to crawl under their desks and cry.
Calling ADHD a gift is insulting to ambitious, intelligent people who experience ADHD as a severe impediment to reaching their goals. I suppose the advice of Hallowell and Co. is to redefine our goals so that ADHD doesn’t interfere with them so much. Sure… I could lower (or, let’s not judge… shift) my aim in life away from what I actually want so I can feel successful. Um, somehow I’m aware enough to know that, OK I’m meeting these goals, but they are not the goals that I wanted.
If someone can tell me how I can translate my great abilities and gifts of: –reading across my extremely broad interests instead of focusing on my very specific field (curiosity) –having great ideas I’m lucky if I sketch out in notes before forgetting and going on to the next thing (creative) –having to write down everything fact/idea I read that might be useful or I’ll never, ever find it again (living in the present? umm..) –knowing I’ll find great ideas and arguments to use but will forget I found them and never use them (?) –seeing how everything is related so much that I often can’t tell what the important relationships are (associative thinking) –and often taking an hour to write a paragraph (cognitive processing bottleneck yay?) into a successful academic career without struggling against myself constantly and feeling my ADHD is a hinderance instead of a gift, please get in touch.
Argh. But. Yes. I’m glad to see someone who has some level of visibility in the ADHD community saying this.
Jeff,
Bravo!
I’m tired of the “gift” theme, too. I believe that without the ADD, the strengths, abilities and all the other positive things folks have, would simply be more accessible.
Keep up the great work here!
I think Kristina said it well, “ADHD is a gift like my depression is a gift.”
If you think of ADHD as a collection of symptoms, how it manifests in most people, it surely is a “curse”. If you think of ADHD as a mental “state”, you could point out the positives and negatives of it, but there would likely be more negatives. I tend to think of ADHD as an added challenge in life – I’m not sure whether the ADHD population is any more creative than the rest of the population or not, but I know the kinds of troublesome things I deal with – impulsivity, rudeness in cutting people off, distractibility, absent-mindedness etc., make “normal daily life” more difficult for me than it seems to be for non-ADDers around me. They would probably say *I* make my life more difficult.
I think ADHD can be seen as a blessing/gift, not in the sense that it seems you’re debating – like the gift of creativity or the “positive side of ADD” or whatever, but in the sense that every personal struggle creates growth in a person, and that we can “rejoice in our sufferings” as the apostle Paul says in Romans 5.
I struggle daily with my rudeness, snapiness, restlessness, and over-talkativeness due to ADHD, but I take some comfort in knowing that this daily struggle within, if dealt with properly, can lead to a kind of perseverance that can’t be gained when there’s nothing to challenge you at your core.
Hope that makes sense…
I dislike the use of “gift” to describe ADD.. I gave 14 years of my life to my husband’s ADD, and almost gave up who I am, thinking for years there was something seriously wrong with me, and that I had to change myself. I am a patient, giving, intelligent person – and my husband’s behaviour ie lack of empathy, no emotional support, lack of focus etc led me to believe for years that I was not good enough to be bothered with. I love who my husband is, creative and passionate, full of ideas and perspectives that I might not see, dynamic and ambitious… and I realize that ADD is not something you cure, not something that you grow out of, and there can be positive aspects to it if they are fostered.
Unfortunately, some of these traits are not condusive to adulthood, parenthood. I describe myself as being all “gray responsibility” and my husband is the color LOL.
It’s definitely more of a double-edged sword, or maybe a double-bitted axe..than a gift!
“Gift?” Yeah, like that white elephant, glow-in-the-dark wine cork shredder that nobody wants at the Christmas party. I was diagnosed at age 40. Good to know I wasn’t retarded (I mean that in a clinical, not derogatory, context) for the previous 39 years.
I sat at my computer a half hour ago to look up some other info and then –where does the time go?– now I’m responding to posts. I piss off everyone and feel like it’s only a matter of time until I start getting in trouble for incompletes at work. I’ve managed to start making my wife feel unimportant (how the **** do you forget stocking stuffers for mommy?) , and I’m growing sick of myself.
Rytalin made me happy for awhile, but the stupid shrink who prescribed it only seemed to care about my wife’s work and never inquired about how I felt or my progress. I guess she got her $100 or so per 15 minute visit, so good for her.
It’s really tough on yourself to know what you should be doing, yet not do it, despite countless books, drugs, and negative consequences. Like now. I have to finish my original task. Thanks for the vent; I’m sure I’ll be back…
Crimson,
Perhaps that IS the gift…a double-bitted ax!
Mattman,
Hang in there…you’ll get back to your original task. As an A.D.D.er you need to give yourself that outlet to let off some steam so you can refocus on the main task at hand.
Mattman
I think that is the hardest thing for me – to watch the frustration my husband deals with and not know how to help – how to fix life, how to make it better for him. Then I beat myself up because I’ve failed.
Take a deep breath and remember you are a human being – not perfect, and leave the screwups behind..keep stepping forward, but ther are bound to be a few steps back.
As a person with ADD who has been a therapist for years, I must say that my experience is that MOST people don’t know what “normal” is. Now I realize that my “sample” is derived from people who come to a therapist for help and is therefore a scewed sample.
Still I’m fairly sure that this concept is a “misnomer”. The “norm” or “normal” is defined by Webster as a” set standard or development or achievement usu. derived from the average or median achievement of a large group”. Who knows what that “median” might be in our population today? Large numbers of people appear to be “lost” and “dysfunctional” as evidenced by what (normal?) people seem to find meaningful in popular entertainment. (TV programs for example.)
When I work with people with ADHD OR from addicted families, OR with crippling depression and anxiety OR with learning problems or any of the host of things people struggle with, I daresay ALL of them would say “When I was growing up, I didn’t know what normal behavior was”. Just the groups i have mentioned above constitute a large part of the population. So, ADDer’s are not alone in these feelings.
We all have to eventually grow up and learn to work with what we were handed. We have to take those “lemons” and make lemonade as much as we curse while we do it (which I do frequently thanks to Jeff, “Some f***ing gift!”) It could be a lot worse, and often is for many.
Ah, yes…what is normal? Normal is what we say it is. (Circular reasoning…no?) Then “normal,” as you correctly note, Charlotte, can (and does!!) shift over time. In a society that devalues the use of the hands and body for “earning a living” and instead, relies increasing on the mind (knowledge workers…sitting still), that’s a difficult norm for many of us to adhere to. Is it no wonder, then, that A.D.D.ers don’t fit in to today’s society? Whereas 75 years ago those same A.D.D.ers may have been carpenters or shoemakers or cabinet makers and so on, these trades have disappeared (at least from these shores) and we are left with sitting at our computer (much like I am doing now as I listen to my IPOD and rock back and forth in order to maintain concentration) as a means of earning a living.
On a different note, I have a problem with a phrase you used though I understand the sentiment that lies behind it. The problematic phrase is “eventually grow up.” This phrase has a pejorative sense to it especially to an A.D.D.er’s ears. It is the phrase most often spoken by non-A.D.D.ers about the problems of A.D.D.ers. Perhaps a better phrase is, “eventually control the A.D.D. impulses and learn to work with what you were handed.”
ADD is a curse, and nothing in having it is a gift. This is just me saying that,because the more I learn,the more I see how it has affected me.
That dose’nt mean I am unhappy with life, or that I have been defeated. No,I just see the truth, and realize,the more I give credit to ADD, for the good things I see in myself,the more dependent I will be on a disease that will only hurt me if I fall for the “Gifts” lie, that some try to sell me.
The lyrics of a song “Venom Wearin’ Denim” by Junior Brown, has a witty verse that contains the words: “If you give her a diamond,you get a Diamondback”…It jumped right out at me,how this could be used to describe the vemon in the bite of ADD,and how it can deceive me,if I don’t “see” what it realy is.
My personal opinion only, about my own ADD….Scott.
Jeff,
You said, in #4 comment to Doc Parker, something I can see in myself. You said:”As I’ve noted in some other posts…I noticed that it(the A.D.D.)*does* get better over time. Medication works wonderfully in that regard.”
Very true in regards to medication. But also, in my case, I see the improvement in my own comments, as time goes by.(even though my comments are still so “off the wall” in a weird sort of way)
But what I see is> Me falling for the “gift” thing,in some of my 1st comments. Then gradualy, via of this blog, and the revelation of the obvious “fraud” of the “Authors”(Thats a nice word,but I have better words,to describe these frauds)that are putting out books about “ADD Gifts”.
So, education along with medication, in regards to my A.D.D.,is the key for me. It is (A.D.D.) still a curse, but if I don’t fight back when I am being attacked by it, I will need alot more band-aids to patch the wounds.
Scott.
Scott,
At the beginning I too, fell for the “A.D.D. Is A Gift” snake oil nonsense. After all, wouldn’t you rather think you’ve been handed a gift instead of a curse? But in my post “Science versus the ADD Self” (http://jeffsaddmind.com/science-versus-the-add-self-481.htm) I try to grapple a bit more with that middle ground and I think I kind of hit on the answer, namely that we need to live in the world of illusion (like the flat earth) while knowing, on a deeper level, that we are intentionally fooling ourselves.
Jeff,
Very good point,and I agree. Having this A.D.D. mind,that comes with very few(if any)”Rest Stops” on it’s map to…where-ever it leads, we sometimes have to pull over and make our own “pretend” rest stops.
But we realize if we don’t do that, we would be very uncomfortable on a never ending journey.
Scott.