I am so totally ADD.<\/p>\n
No, for real. I\u2019m totally scatterbrained, procrastinate like whoa (just ask Corinne and Kody about how long it took them to get this post from me), and in general have so many wee little thoughts buzzing around me noggin\u2019 that it\u2019s next to impossible to focus on any single one of them long enough to accomplish even the simplest of tasks.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been that way since high school. I had an Enforcer Mom, one of those stern taskmaster types who used her superpowers of Hyper-Vigilance to ensure I dedicated myself to excelling in all things in life at all times (for my own good, natch). She would make me sit at the kitchen table before every exam and study within eyesight so she could make sure I wasn\u2019t goofing off as I was wont to do, and even with all that, I still\u00a0<\/em>couldn\u2019t make myself study. I would sit at the kitchen table and flip through textbooks with a look of intense concentration on my face, while internally I was busy kicking ass on level eight of Super Mario Bros. 3, and then the Shadow Man level of Megaman 3 and then trying to figure out how to beat that damn boss from Streets of Rage 2 and so on ad nauseam. I literally\u00a0<\/em>had nothing\u00a0<\/em>better to do; I was practically super-glued to my chair under supervision with my textbook and notes in hand, and yet still I had an allergic reaction to actually doing anything productive with my time.<\/p>\n Yeah. I was that\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0awesome.<\/p>\n This pattern repeated itself in college (where I dropped out), in most 9-5 jobs I tried (all of which I quit or was fired from) and my attempts to write a book and kickstart a writing career. (Which progressed from taking two years of stops and starts before finishing one 50K book, to then writing a 50K book every couple months and then doing absolutely nothing with those drafts because OMG you guys revisions are hard.<\/em>)<\/p>\n And here\u2019s the thing. I totally knew I had ADD. Wasn\u2019t angsting about it either, like oh noes, I have a messed up brain, I am a Super-Freak, if only there was some toxic ooze to mix with my synaptic misfires and elevate me to full on supervillain status, whut whut. Nah. It was my go-to apology, my self-deprecating trademark shtick for when my usual procrastination pushed me from loveably anti-punctual to just completely obnoxiously LATE.<\/p>\n “Ugh, I am SO sorry dude\/dudette. I can\u2019t believe I took so long getting this to you, I am so ADD, what is my brain I can\u2019t even.”<\/p>\n Said with a smile and a laugh, but the thing was, I wasn\u2019t even joking, I totally knew I had ADD, I just \u2026 didn\u2019t think it was a big deal. I mean, it was just ADD. I\u2019d been this way my whole life, and bad habits aside I still paid my bills and fed and clothed myself and kept a roof over my head without ever actually resorting to a life of crime. (Except for that one time, but that doesn\u2019t count. I was coerced, long story, shush, I had a point here.)<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the thing about ADD awareness as a teen, the first impression garnered from books and shows and movies. It tends to cater to one of two extremes.<\/p>\n The first is, OMG you have ADD but it\u2019s okay, it\u2019s okay baby, just take your magic pills and it\u2019ll all be okay. (Said while stroking a child\u2019s hair as though said child is a wild animal that will bolt if not properly soothed.)<\/p>\n These are the books, shows and movies that are so consumed with making sure people are absolutely clear that ADD is no big deal<\/em>\u00a0and you are totally okay and normal<\/em>\u00a0and no, Mommy’s not crying, she was just chopping onions\u00a0<\/em>that in actuality it comes across like you\u2019ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness and everyone\u2019s trying to be strong for you.<\/p>\n Which umm \u2026 not the best impression you want to give to a child, seriously.<\/p>\n So then you get the second extreme which attempts to normalize ADD by treating it so hyper-casually that it in essence becomes a punchline. Oh it\u2019s just ADD. Practically every other person has it, it\u2019s no big deal, so you\u2019re a little flighty, a little flaky, whatevs, it is allllll good. You\u2019re just ADD.<\/p>\n And then shocker of shockers, you end up with a bunch of attention deficit dudes like me who look at said two extremes and are like, well, I definitely don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m dying so I\u2019m gonna go with Door Number 2 and treat it like it\u2019s barely worth mentioning. It\u2019s just a little personality quirk, pay it no more mind than that. And time passes and I\u2019m working, I\u2019m a semi-productive member of society, I get by. So what\u2019s the problem, right?<\/p>\n Except, you know \u2026 I\u2019m still ADD. And it doesn\u2019t quite work like that.<\/p>\n I finally got diagnosed last year when things came to such a head that I was kinda just like screw it, I might as well look into this whole ADD thing and see if there\u2019s something I should be doing differently. And sure enough, they gave me my shiny diagnosis, and they gave me my magic pills to take in the morning so everything calms down upstairs and I can focus on one damn thing at a time, and I\u2019m still treating it like a punchline. Because partly that\u2019s just who I am, and if someone\u2019s not dying, everything <\/em>is a punchline to me, but also partly it\u2019s residual embarrassment like, why is everyone making such a big deal, it\u2019s just ADD. It\u2019s so ingrained in me that I attempt to treat it like it\u2019s inconsequential even now that I know better.<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the truth about ADD, the impression I would like to see more kids like me get early on so they can ask the right questions and get the right answers:<\/p>\n ADD isn\u2019t an end of the world big deal. It\u2019s really really not. But it is a<\/em>\u00a0deal, it\u2019s a thing. It\u2019s a disability. It puts you on a different default setting. Getting an official diagnosis and medication to help you handle ADD isn\u2019t confirming your super-freak status or accepting that there\u2019s something wrong with you. It just gives you another set of tools. That\u2019s all.<\/p>\n I mean, we\u2019re all just a bunch of hyper-evolved monkeys at the end of the day. Ask any scientist, the only thing that differentiates us from our feces-flinging cousins is our critical thinking and tool-using capacity. Yeah, sure, that\u2019s probably not how they\u2019d put it, but point is,\u00a0<\/i>we all use tools. It\u2019s what makes us human instead of just your average primate. So it really is no big deal if some humans just happen to use a different set of tools than others. The important part is just making sure everyone knows what those tools are, and where to find them if they need them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ADD isn\u2019t an end of the world big deal. It\u2019s really, really not. But it is a<\/em> deal, it\u2019s a thing. It\u2019s a disability. It puts you on a different default setting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[58,80],"genre":[],"age_category":[],"disability":[85],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}