What's Happening in the ADHD Mind?

Like Edward Hallowell, who has written a number of books about ADHD, I "discovered" my ADHD in adulthood while in training to work with others who have mental health and developmental disorders.He is a psychiatrist and I am a psychologist.

In graduate school, I became increasingly conscious of the patterns and themes woven through my daily functioning -- problems with organization, memory, procrastination, planning. I was at the same time very capable academically and professionally, but also hopelessly lost and overwhelmed. It was a relief to put a name to my deficits besides "screw-up."

As a child, teachers seemed to love me or feel extraordinary frustration with me. I was creative and well-read, but I could not write legibly, stay focused on task, or complete work using the procedures they taught. For example, my working memory -- the memory you use to hold information for short periods of time while you use it to solve a problem -- was not sufficiently developed to add columns of numbers. I would begin, forget my place, begin, forget my place, and this would go on endlessly. I learned to compensate by adding families of numbers that summed to ten, drawing lines to indicate that they had been grouped together, and then add the tens and the remaining ones. In 2009, this would be praised by special education teachers. It mystified and maddened my 1960's teachers. My mind ranged endlessly over academic topics, but my grades were often barely passing. One day, in sixth grade, we were learning about angles and triangles. I intuited that if you know one angle and one the length of one side of a triangle, then you could find the ONLY right triangle that conforms to those two facts. I had discovered for myself trigonometry -- but with a mind that can conceptualize math, why was I in the lowest of three math groups? Well, while I was intuiting trigonometry, I was completely unfocused on the task at hand, and could not remember the computational procedures being taught. Concepts were fine for my brain, but procedures -- well, not so much. My grades in ninth grade physical science ranged from an F first marking period to an A the second, before settling into a C for the year, upsetting my chemist-father no end. True to form, I could master science pretty easily -- but could not keep a lab notebook that made sense.

Besides academics, my school life was always a project for the adults around me. I would lose my lunch money constantly. I could not keep an assignment book. I lost watches and other small but precious belongings. I never knew what was due when. In eighth grade I was unable to take finals because I could not find and turn in all my books. I would badly forge permission slips because I would find them deep in my book bag-from-hell on they day they were due to be returned.

At recess, I was appointed Steady Outfielder in kickball and softball because neither team really wanted me to bat -- one of the disorders that frequently co-occur with ADHD is Developmental Coordination Disorder. We are the kids (and adults) who trip, fall, bump into others, and cannot hit a 2.5 inch ball with a 2.5 inch bat. I still have motor clumsiness and sometimes trip over painted lines on sidewalks. They come up at you so fast!

One ADHD writer describes the escalating cyclone of conflicts between kids with ADHD and their adults, I was painfully aware of my cyclone and was constantly worried about disappointing someone important to me. What had I forgotten? What had I lost? What had I done now? Life was and is a very anxious affair.

The developmental deficits (and assets) that come with ADHD do not go away simply because you turn 21. Just as I could not keep an assignment book, I struggle with a checkbook. I still lose my keys and watches and cell phones. I have lost money in the market -- and I mean the floor of the supermarket and not the floor of the stock exchange. I am not always sure when my appointments are, and have to call doctors offices and others for reminders. When I write something important down, I lose the paper. I have taken clothing to the dry cleaners and forgotten which one!

Well, why don't I just try harder? The point of ADHD is that we who live with this kind of glorious ranging mind, our creativity, our resourcefulness, and our painful deficits in memory, organization, planning, sustained mental effort, and attention are working as hard as we can to attempt what others find easy to accomplish. We marvel at the neat and orderly, the organized and efficient, and know that if we could live that life we surely would! Who wants to the smartest kid or adult in the room who cannot perform the simplest rote tasks? Who wants to depend on the kindness of administrative assistants? Who wants to feel constant worry about what is fouled up now?

The bright side is definitely there: I like my creativity, my love of novelty. I enjoy chaos. I have grown as a psychologist because I share some of my patients' struggles and have empathy for the kids picked last for basketball (with apologies to Janice Ian). But - if i could only find my cellphone......

Steve