Hellobee

ADHD is such a common acronym these days, and it seems like everyone knows somebody — or somebody’s child — who has been diagnosed with it. But back in the early ’90s when I was first diagnosed, it seemed like a relatively uncommon disorder.

My mother has always said I came bounding into the world with energy. My early years were spent climbing, tumbling, and zooming everywhere. I could never sit perfectly still, even in the classroom or church, and was always fidgeting or bouncing my legs under the table like a popcorn kernel ready to burst. My parents signed me up for gymnastics, dance, karate… anything to try to get this endless energy inside of me to tire. Many notes came back from school stating that I was bright, but that my academic achievements were being hurt by my lack of attention span and inability to read directions. Sometime around sixth grade my mom stumbled upon an article about this new rising phenomenon in children called Attention Deficit Disorder (some with Hyperactivity). Reading the signs lead my mother to conclude that perhaps there was finally a name for the behavior and activity she had been observing for over a decade: my father also displayed many of these traits, as did my cousin, whom my aunt was also concerned about for similar reasons.

The National Institute of Mental Health defines ADHD as a disorder where symptoms “include difficulty staying focused and paying attention, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity (over-activity).” ADHD is now broken up into 3 different categories: one dealing with just hyperactivity, one with inattention, and one with the combined effects of both hyperactivity and inattention. When I was younger, there were just two categories: ADD for inattention and ADHD for inattention with hyperactivity. On the site it lists the signs as follows:

Children who have symptoms of inattention may:

• Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another
• Have difficulty focusing on one thing
• Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless they are doing something enjoyable
• Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new
• Have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities
• Not seem to listen when spoken to
• Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly
• Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others
• Struggle to follow instructions.

Children who have symptoms of hyperactivity may:

• Fidget and squirm in their seats
• Talk nonstop
• Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight
• Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time
• Be constantly in motion
• Have difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities.

Children who have symptoms of impulsivity may:

• Be very impatient
• Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences
• Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games
• Often interrupt conversations or others’ activities.

I check symptoms in most categories of that list, though less in impulsivity than the others. As a parent I am very watchful for signs in both Drake and Juliet because as much as I identify with ADHD, I also wish to spare them the difficulties that it can bring. ADHD has been tied somewhat to genetics, so I worry a lot about my children inheriting it – especially since ADHD runs rampant through our families. In addition to me, my father, uncle, and cousin all having ADHD, Mr. Chocolate’s father and uncle also have it.

After my diagnosis the big question came to whether to start medication. My mother is a very anti-medication person and felt she could try to mediate the effects of ADHD through other ways. For much of my childhood I still maintained good grades. As the class work became harder and required more time and attention issues had started to come up, I was still getting A’s but sometimes an occasional B would slip in. Nothing to be alarmed about, but still my mother was starting to see the effects ADHD could play on my future and so she tried to combat it with supplements, Chinese herbal teas and medications. She contemplated acupuncture, which I refused, and she dedicated her evenings after dinner to help me work and study.

G R A D E  S C H O O L

We worked at this pace through my middle school years and into high school, but at the start of my sophomore year I received my first C, which was unacceptable in my Asian household. My mother finally relented and conceded to trying out medication, and I started on Adderall shortly after my sophomore year began. I continued on medication through my high school years and weaned off after the start of my freshman year in college due to some effects of the medication, which I will detail later in this post.

When I was younger ADHD affected my school work not only due to lack of attention, but also in the way I would handle assignments. I never liked, and I still don’t like to read instructions before I start, as I often just want to start the work and be done before my attention runs out. The strange thing about ADHD is while it is categorized as a disorder about not being able to focus and stay on task, the opposite can happen when you are interested in something. There is a term called hyperfocus which is also a symptom of ADHD — sometimes if you find something you are really interested in, your mind locks up and you can only singularly focus on that one thing and it’s hard to break out of concentration when needed. The best example of this I can think of is reading a book. If the story grips you so much you can’t put it down and need to see it to completion, which is fine when you have a lazy weekend coming up with no responsibilities; it’s very hard to deal with when you are walking in the door for work on Monday morning expected to do something productive that day.

ADHD also can make you very obsessive and your mind spin like crazy. I can walk by the same mess in my home daily and not mind, but then one day I see a small spot on the floor and cleaning it will lead to needing to vacuum the stairs, hallway and the whole house. I have wasted many a day getting caught in this trap where I need to do everything I see in my mind, which is everything, and can’t break out of the cycle. It might seem wonderful for cleaning purposes but it happens when I’m planning parties (so many ideas) or trying to think up of one activity for Drake’s class. It can quickly spiral out of control making my jobs harder as I load on more ideas, and also sleep becomes impossible as I can’t get my brain to stop spinning. Mr Chocolate hates when I get into these frenzies because I pretty much have tunnel vision and barely stop working on anything but what I have in mind.

W O R K

At the core of ADHD, from my own experiences of course, is the idea of boredom. Boredom is the worst thing that can happen to someone with ADHD. When they are bored they are unfocused and impossible to pull onto tasks at times. When I graduated college, I found an office job much like many new college grads. Very shortly in my first few months I got bored. The tedium of the day in and day out in an office is very slow. The show The Office portrays that, and for me it was torture. I relished busy days with deadlines because I had something to focus on, but most days I sat in my cubicle bored to tears and dying for the day to end. I thought it was the company so I started to look for a new job because I had to get out. But in two years’ time I rotated in and out of several offices, never working longer than a year before bolting.

I didn’t know what was wrong. I had seen my parents and co-workers come in day in and day out and work perfectly contently, while I was trying desperately to find ways to keep myself awake for the whole day. I would come in and finish all my work within a few hours and have the rest of the day to wile away and it was torture. It slowly started to dawn on me that a 9-5 job was not one I could sustain. In one of my short breaks between office work I briefly worked at a daycare center. I loved the work — the days always change with children — and I loved children. But the downside was I was constantly getting ill and calling out because of it. After my last office job I decided I wanted to become a nanny and found jobs with several families before working with one for 5 years. Mr Chocolate is a teacher and I always lament to him that had I known how ADHD would affect my working career as much as it did, I might have gone into teaching because the days are always fluid and I love working with kids. It was no surprise to me when Mr Chocolate told me many of his co-workers have ADHD, and teaching is a profession that attracts a lot of people with ADHD.

ADHD at its best allows me to multi task extremely well. When set with a task or even better a deadline, it can compartmentalize and arrange itself to allow me to know not only the sequence of things I need to do, but also what can be done in between tasks as well. The best way I can explain it is when I nannied, my last family had 2 children with multiple activities and different drop-off and pick-up times each day. This kind of fast-paced multi-layer planning is what ADHD helps me accomplish, and truthfully is when I thrive best because boredom can’t slip in. The other amazing thing about ADHD is the idea of a deadline. It would seem that people with ADHD would hate deadlines because their lack of focus would allow them to slack and forget or never even get on task in time, but ADHD people love deadlines. Deadlines give them something to focus on and work toward. They know they need to concentrate their efforts for a finite amount of time to meet a goal and after that they can go back to inattention. In school I always handed in my reports early, especially if I heard there was extra credit for getting work in early — double the deadline to meet! Some of it, for me, is always fear I won’t complete the work in time, but hyperfocus also helps with getting the job done. With that in mind this only works with real deadlines and outcomes. I have tried for years to set personal deadlines for myself, but I also know that nothing happens if I don’t meet them and so I almost always fail in these personal things. It’s the reason my novel will never be written and I’ll always be a hobby photographer and not a professional one. ADHD allows me to amplify my strengths on one hand and perpetuates my failures on the other.

Another aspect of ADHD which I have observed not only in myself but also in Mr Chocolate’s father is the bouncing around of ideas, or rather hobbies in both our cases. I think it has to do with the nature of both interest (hyperfocus) and eventually losing interest. Since Mr Chocolate has known me I have taken up fascinations with dog breeding, crocheting, cooking, crafting of every kind, blogging, and photography.

P A R E N T I N G

Mr Chocolate could probably write a blog himself about what it’s like to live with someone with ADHD (I think he would use the word frustrating on good days and aggravating on others). When I had Juliet I transitioned from a WOHM as a nanny to a SAHM. All my life I had wanted to be a SAHM because both my parents worked. Juliet’s first year was like a typical newborn’s first year — sleep deprivation, breast feeding problems that lead to more problems, trying to balance a screaming newborn in one arm with a screaming toddler in the other. It flew in a blur but eventually the dust settled and we finally found a routine.

But then I discovered something else that shocked me: being at home all day with my children bored me to tears. I could only read so many books, chat about so many animals, and play so many repetitive games without wanting to turn the TV on all day and run to my computer screen to fill my mind with activity again. Juliet’s napping schedule and Drake’s school hours trapped me in the home for many hours each day, and I found myself needing to escape the house with the kids at least once a day whether it be to mindless walk around Target or just spending time outside in our backyard. I say this with all honestly as I am a better parent when I am outside the house without the temptation of the Internet to pull me away from my children. Outside the home my mind feels stimulated enough by all the surroundings that I rarely need to glance at my phone, but it’s almost imperative that the children and I leave the house for this to happen. This is easy in the summer but in colder weather I find it much harder to escape the doldrums of life trapped in our home. Drake often consumes more TV on days we are stuck inside, I find it difficult to engage and be present and am glued to my computer and it feels exactly how it sounds….crappy.  Because I know this about myself I try to combat it, I try to read more to them because we all love books, and oftentimes I take to my hobby of photography to keep me interested without turning to the Internet.

M E D I C A T I O N

I fluctuate a lot on whether to return to medication honestly. While I originally took medication to help me focus on the specific tasks of schoolwork, I wonder if medication at this stage in my life would allow me to get a job and stick with it, as well as make me a more focused and attentive mother. When I took Adderall in high school it did bump my grades and allow me to focus my time and not waste it. When I entered college I ran into an issue though — ADHD medication acts like a huge dose of caffeine. Once taken you are wide awake and will stay that way for 12-14 hours. It’s wonderful when you have a set routine like in high school and work a certain amount of hours per day. College however has a fluctuating schedule that kept me up or asleep at unpredictable hours and I felt that this disruption was too much of an issue with my daily life. Even before I stopped taking it, I never took medication on weekends or during school breaks and holidays because I didn’t need it then. Getting off of it was as simple as not taking it anymore, without any side effects or weaning period, and by that time I had better learned how to control my ADHD and make it work for me.

For many years I have never even thought about ADHD medication. But as I see myself daily with my kids, as well as the long term financial loss of my not being able to work a regular job even after the kids are all in school, makes me consider it. My mother, still anti medication, and Mr Chocolate both feel I don’t need it and I can manage. For now since we want to TTC a third as well as attempt breastfeeding I am not considering it since I’ll have to stop soon anyway, but I think about it after all the babies are done. Right now I try to manage it by forcing myself to get off the computer and play with the kids at certain times of the day. I try to plan daily activities with Drake so that he doesn’t end up watching TV the entire time his sister naps, and also allow myself some Internet time to balance it so I don’t go crazy too. It’s not easy and it’s a daily struggle for me, but I try to be aware of it and work around it as best as I can. Some days I’m successful, and some days I’m not.

For me having ADHD is very much a part of how I see and define myself. As a child I always felt different and that I saw the world in a way that seemed odd to everyone else but me, but as an adult I embrace the way my mind works (even if it aggravates me a lot as well). It can truly be a blessing and a curse though.

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Do you or anyone you know have ADHD?