Me and ADD

Warning: This is not a how-to article. Don't cut the red wire. Too late.

I have spent almost my whole life in work hell. It seems like one job after another ended in a spectacular explosion - kind of like an episode of MacGruber. Sometimes the jobs start off great. Sometimes they don't, but the ending has almost always been the same. MacGruber, you have 10 seconds to defuse the bomb. OK, I'll cut the green wire, no red...BOOM!

I was the youngest manager for Radio Shack in the Seattle district, worked for a Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), have been a jobber, sold motorcycle parts and accessories for a wholesale distributor, worked as an Army propagandist in the war on drugs in Central America (by the way, I did such a great job we won the war and I had to find a new job...maybe not), and incredibly I was an amazingly good file clerk (hello irony) for a market research firm.

Even in the jobs where I did well, I almost always found a way to blow it up. MacGruber has nothing on me in the spectacular dis-assembly department. Most of my working life has been spent in sales. Most of the time I hated almost every waking moment of the work day and sought some escape from pesky customers, ever climbing quotas, and the inevitable mind-numbing paperwork. Ah, paperwork, what more could an organizationally challenged ADDer want from a job?

The only job I truly enjoyed (most of the time) was my job as Psychological Operations Specialist (PSYOP [Propagandist]) for the U.S. Army. It was a weird, wonderful and ever changing world. It also was very odd because half my time was spent in Guatemala working on counter drug advertising campaigns. I had a degree of authority and autonomy. My creativity was satisfied writing radio spots, brainstorming new ideas, and meeting interesting people. The other half of my time was spent at Ft. Bragg, NC being reminded that I was a mere peon, incapable of pushing a broom without adult supervision. The very best thing that came out of my time in Guatemala was meeting my wonderful wife Silvia who has been through a lot on my ADD journey.

Almost two years ago I was working an odd combination of merchandising jobs. It was a mess. I wasn't working enough hours at any one job to fill a 40 hour week. The driving was killer, and juggling the jobs was a nightmare. At some point, I just gave up. I was down to one very small job, when my wife put her foot down and said it was time to get a job. So, desperate to find work, I went to a temp agency. It didn't take long before they found a manufacturing job. Now, at first glance, it seems like an odd choice - and it was. The physical environment at the job was not comfortable, the work was physically challenging and the hours were long. However, the job had some saving graces. The people I worked with were fun and different. My supervisors were friendly and funny and praised me for doing a good job. I was free to be myself. I really enjoyed the physical activity. So, what initially seemed like a detour has turned out to be more of a destination. I went from working on a line, to becoming an assistant supervisor, to being a supervisor in charge of a shift.

My management style is laissez-faire. I believe in treating people like adults and don't like to micromanage. I like to have fun and make jokes. I don't have a problem if someone makes a joke at my expense. In fact, I kind of like that (imagine). As long as the work gets done safely and people treat each other with a degree of respect, allowances can be made. I find I learn something from each person I work with - from the new guy to the person who has been around a while.

So, sometimes you find the right job in an unexpected place. Be open to possibilities you haven't considered. People with ADD / ADHD frequently make the same career mistakes over and over again. We don't always learn the lessons life is teaching us. If you're unhappy with the same types of work, it may be time to look for something different. You might be pleasantly surprised. I was.

Well, surprise, surprise - I hadn't originally intended on writing about this, but recently I made the decision to cut back on some distractions - specifically email and Facebook. My email was a real mess. I'm very interested in politics, activism, etc. and had subscribed to every email list under the sun. I was to the point where I was receiving well North of 100 emails a day. It was unmanageable, so I decided to start pruning. I started with the obvious emails from companies I had purchased products from. In the past I also did some odd marketing and merchandising jobs for a number of companies. Although I am no longer doing that type of work, I hadn't bothered to unsubscribe from automatic notifications of new projects. So, those notifications were unsubscribed and eliminated.

Then - although I did so with some reluctance - I eliminated almost every other email. Even emails from causes I found interesting or cared about was unsubscribed to. I figured that I can either go to their web site, subscribe to their email if I truly miss it, or simply keep up-to-date by checking my Twitter account from time to time. Don't even get me started on Twitter. We'll save that for another time.

Finally, I decided to "kill" my Facebook account. Recently Facebook has been under attack over privacy issues, but that wasn't my greatest concern. Facebook is making an effort, through its Social Graph, to allow users to share even more information from more sites on Facebook. To see what you, or others are sharing, check here. As if Facebook weren't enough of a distraction, now a whole bunch of other sites connect to Facebook and allow you to waste even more time sharing where you are wasting your time on.

The most important reason I left Facebook though was because it didn't make me happy. Sure I could go there and interact with "friends" - very few of who were friends in the traditional sense of the word. People who are truly friends (including family) I already know how to get in touch with them. Plus, I have a wonderful wife at home who I want to send time with. So, instead of frittering my valuable time keeping up with FINOs (friends in name only) I decided to try and reconnect with the real world, my real friends, and my real family. It isn't easy for me to do, and less so with ADD, but I am trying. If I am going to spend time on the computer, I prefer to spend it blogging about ADD, reading, blogging about politics on my Liberty Stop site, taking of care of the many things I have been putting off, and spending time with my wife. Facebook is just a waste of time, distraction and disappointment to me. I have a real life, and Facebook doesn't fit into it.

Here is something I wrote for my sister-in-law about ADD. She has a son who has ADD, so I wrote this for her to try and explain what ADD is like for the person who has it, and to give a few ideas how to relate to someone who has ADD.

Note: I have ADD. For the sake of simplicity I will refer to non-ADD persons as you and those with ADD as me, I, etc.

ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder, is hard to explain to the person who doesn't have it. First off, ADD is a misnomer. It isn't a deficit. Rather, ADD is the inability to direct and focus attention at will. A person without ADD can complete a routine, albeit uninteresting task simply by deciding to do so. Someone with ADD lacks the ability to consistently direct their attention – especially on tasks that are not stimulating.

ADD is an upside down world. I know because I have it. I can drink Diet Coke and coffee all day and sleep like a baby at night. My brain isn't the same as yours is. When you decide to do something that requires focus/attention certain parts of your brain “light up”. Those same parts of the brain will turn off if I am faced with a task that is not highly stimulating. You might say, “Concentrate!” That's easy for you to say. It is probably fairly easy for you to do. It isn't for me. Some tasks are incredibly easy for me. I can look at complex situations and make sense of them easily. Several times I have started a new job and almost instantly understood what the business needed to do to improve its results. I once even worked for a pizza franchise and quickly realized that they were going to lose their franchise because they refused to invest the time, money and resources necessary to satisfy the franchiser.

On the other hand, I am an inconsistent manager of my money. I have had major money problems several times during my life. I should have learned my lesson the first time, but people with ADD tend to make the same mistakes over and over unless they have support systems and people around them to keep them on track. Part of the problem is poor paper management. This is not uncommon for someone with ADD. Unfortunately, poor paper management combines with “out of sight, out of mind”. If a bill or other important paper “disappears” into the piles of paper I have lying about, then I will likely forget about it. That results in unpaid bills, taxes or other important paperwork not being handled.

You might wonder, “Why not just get organized?” Buy a file cabinet, get some file folders and get to work. I have done this before, and it always works for a while. Then, it stops working. Organizing files and maintaining them over a long period of time requires focused attention. I don't have that. It's ironic because I once worked as a file clerk for a company that conducted market research. I managed their archives. They had an entire house, plus the upstairs of another building almost completely filled with file boxes of surveys. I organized these files and could lay my finger on any file without fail. Do you think I can do that with my paperwork? The answer, sadly, is no.

ADD is difficult to live with. It's disappointment are many. I have started untold projects, career paths, and made untold sincere promises only to end up disappointing myself and the ones I love. I have lived with the often unspoken but still felt judgment of others and myself. There are endless judgments including that I am:

*Lazy
*Unmotivated
*Unambitious
*Disorganized
*Unfocused
*Dim-witted
*Indecisive
*A daydreamer
*A slacker
*The black sheep of the family
*Uninterested
*Don't care
*Happy to let others carry the load

I could go on and on. The point is, none of those things is true. I am not satisfied with failure. However, ADD has caused me to redefine my life dramatically. Success now is often much simpler than the grandiose dreams of my youth. Success if being present for my wife. Being able to help her is important. I have spent years living in, if not the land of confusion, the land of distraction. Success was finally recognizing that I had ADD and beginning to confront that reality. Success comes in fits and starts. Some days the progress is amazing (for lack of a better word). Success is being able to clean my van that has been stuffed to the roof for years and be able to finally see the floor. Success is the much cleaner, much more organized garage that I did without anybody nagging me to do it. Success comes with each insight gained with my counselor who specializes in Adult ADD. Success is seen and unseen. My successes may seem small to some, but to me they are thrilling. Each success lays the foundation for a better life where things get done.

A cool thing about ADD is having an off-the-wall sense of humor. God knows there are times that the only thing that makes life bearable is the ability to laugh. My wife and I spend lots of time joking and laughing. Sometimes the laughter is at our own expense, and that's OK. I am a bit of a smart-alack and she claims that I taught her how to be one too. I'm really glad I taught her something that's only going to get her in trouble. I often say whatever comes to mind – which is often hilarious. I've gotten better over the years pausing before I speak – especially with my wife. I've said some stupid things in jest that were hurtful, so I guess humor is a bit of a double-edged sword. At work, humor is a must. I work at a facility where we recycle irrigation piping. The work is dirty and hard. If we didn't laugh we might have to jump into the shredder and end it all. Seriously, it's that much fun. But seriously, the day goes by quicker if you spend some of it laughing. Try it. It beats the heck out of crying.

I think ADD is as difficult, if not more difficult, for the family of the person who has ADD. It is hard for parents to put away their expectations, hopes and dreams for their children. You may have been an excellent student and always been able to navigate from point A to point B without much trouble. Your ADD child very likely is either a poor student, or an inconsistent one. They may navigate life in a serpentine path that doubles back on itself again and again. If you're waiting for them to get things together, make up their mind and plot a strategy straight to their dreams you may need to adjust your expectations. If you thought your child was not very bright, you might be pleasantly surprised that they are much brighter than you thought. If you thought your child was bright, but lazy or unmotivated, you may find out that motivation was never the issue. For many children and adults medication will help dramatically. It did for me. There are some excellent stimulant (and non-stimulant) medications that “wake-up” those areas of the brain that normally are under-active. This will allow your child to better focus their attention and shift gears between tasks when necessary. Medication doesn't work for everyone, but for most it makes a world of difference.

It can be hard as a parent letting go. You have dreams, expectations, hopes, etc. for your child. Your ADD child can do great things, achieve goals and be successful. You may need to readjust your expectations. I'm not saying to lower them or expect less. Your child is different – perhaps from you, perhaps from other children – not better or worse, but different. Some things that others take for granted will likely be difficult. Your child may need lots of help to cope with tasks you assume are easy – organizing paperwork, paying bills, making plans, setting goals, choosing a career, etc. On the other hand, your child may be wildly creative, have brilliant insights, an incredible sense of humor and the ability to solve complex problems. In the right career, those are some great characteristics to have. Be sure to see the good in your child. With ADD, it's the good that is going to help overcome all of the challenges. The weak points can be improved, and it may be critical to shore up some weaknesses. But, the strengths are what will help your child survive and thrive. Be sure to appreciate the good that is already there, encourage it and praise it often. The ADD brain loves a compliment. Especially a compliment right now. ADD brains aren't wired for delayed gratification so don't save the praise for later – do it now.

I think discovering you have ADD as an adult is a bit like the grieving process. There is shock, denial, anger, guilt and acceptance. I suppose you have to go through all of the stages, but it's best not to get stuck in any one stage for too long. For me, to a degree there has been anger. I think, however, guilt has been more difficult. My counselor had a good point about guilt. You shouldn't get caught in it. The past is past. The ADD brain can get caught in obsessive behavior, so it's better not to hold onto guilt. Let it go. Ask for forgiveness and be forgive yourself. You may have done some bad things before discovering you had ADD, but is wasn't like you sat around plotting to hurt others. It happened. Now, you're learning to live with ADD, as are the people who love you. Since they are still in your life, you can be sure they love you very much. They have stood by you during good times and bad. Now is the time celebrate. It's time to learn. It's time to build a foundation. It's time to live. It's time to be present. You can't be in two places at once. The past has passed. The present is where you can build and enjoy a beautiful life. Live there. There is so much to live for and you have so much to offer this world. Don't forget that and don't give up. Everything else will pretty much work itself out.