You are such a wonderful mother. I saw the picture with the horse too and smiled. A close family full of love, such as what you have between you and your daughter is precious and priceless. Yes, I do see what you mean. However, what you and your daughter have is ever so special, for it to come out of what could be described as turmoil and perhaps even chaos doesn’t take anything away from either of you. So many families, which are considered to be normal, do not have what you two have together between a parent and child.

Thank you for sharing this with me.

Bryan

We do have a choice of lenses through which we will look as we survey our lives and futures. Pasts, too, if only we could remember them on demand, without having to wait until someone else jogs our memory by hitting the right button that unlocks the drawer in which it was misfiled.

I, too, do not need to understand things. I mean, how does a telephone work? Or — as a mother who has given birth — I still don’t really know where babies come from.

When I said ADD is the scourge, I meant it, but good heavens; I do not dwell there. There are so many things to do. And things to see, and sort, and admire and break and out together again and even to write about.

Actually, so you know I haven’t poisoned my daughter’s mind with my regret at not having been born with a standard-issue brain, I’ll tell a short story about our lives. Over many years from age seven through fourteen when I told her to stop trying to make her body take her to school anymore, our long drive was usually a sad one. In the rear view mirror, I could see her face, showing the tiredness of the third night in a row of fewer than six hours’ sleep.

Tears rolled gently down her sweet cheeks as she sat, looking out from under the mass of dark curls, focusing on nothing much. What was a mother to do? I was profoundly distressed by this, we were making no headway with the school, no one got it, I was assumed to be meddlesome (can you say “denial?), and no end in sight. I did what I could: I reached back, patted her leg and said, “Sweetie, I do not know this day what we will do to solve this problem, but I can tell you for sure, I never give up on what is important. And you are important.”

I still say this frequently and I still mean it, and I have not given up and we all have benefited from that. It is not ungenerous of me to say that the cost to me has been severe. I would never even consider doing this life otherwise. There is no getting around facts, though, and some of them – the things I have been unable to do and will never do, now – create grief for me, regularly. Do you see what I mean? I have been unable to go to the coast for two years now; for three years we could not go out to a movie or a restaurant. Vacations don’t happen anymore. I haven’t attended a national AD/HD conference since 2001.

I’ve been hampered by my own Quirky Brain, by hers, and by the ignorance of so many people who ought to know better. Barring that, the least they could have done was listen to the child, and if she was unable to speak, to her parents. I am ready to say “Denial” all over again.

I must admit you are right. Nobody is going to be able to give you any science about it. You have the choice to believe one way or the other. This is the way I choose to consider things in a positive manner. I look at the positives and go from there. That’s the way I choose to ‘look’ at things. No matter who you choose to look at, you can find good things, you really can, if you look for it and those things can be built upon.

One of the best books about ADHD is Russell Barkley’s Taking Charge of ADHD – just in the title alone that’s a very positive statement. It doesn’t mean challenges do not exist, it does not mean people with ADHD do not suffer and it does not mean ADHD is hopeless, but science will point you to the problems and research is there to try and find solutions. Science still can’t explain the pyramids 100% or even perhaps 50%, but there they stand. Let’s not even start about the science of thinking positive or the Law of Attraction or why prayer is so beneficial. In the end, it is just plain easier to give up and give in and think everything is hopeless… let’s not and not say we did…

Thanks for your comment, there is much truth and reality in your comment. I 100% agree that gifts occur in all humans, just being born is a gift, a celebration, but not everyone is going to see it that way…. are they?

There are stories, assertions such as yours (“ADDers tend to be creative and unorthodox thinkers who offer new insights and perspectives which lead to new inventions and creations”) and the infamous Ned Hallowell, but never has anyone actually shown us a shred of science about it.

My thinking about it goes like this: Smart and creative people hang out with smart and creative people. Not so smart people hang out with others who are not so smart. The fact that you are smart and creative means you will be interested in others who are, too. Among them will be some with AD/HD. Then someone always says, “Aha! See, I told you so!”

The prisons are occupied by many people with AD/HD (A much greater proportion than in the rest of society). The drop out rate of people with AD/HD is high — and yes, I know, the schools do not fit them (I am one of “them,” myself). If you consider the ability to be successful adults, while high school is not a prerequisite for it, being able to function effectively is. I am using “successful” loosely, because there are many ways to be successful other than the narrow way it is defined in our society.

A question for you: How do you reconcile your assertion with science, and (corollary) how do you reconcile it with Russell Barkley’s definitive statements which clarify that gifts occur in people without respect to whether they have AD/HD, or not. He also said that AD/HD is the most debilitating of all the mental disorders except schizophrenia.

Respectfully written, I want you to be aware.

BTW: thank you for joining our interactive community on http://www.adderworld.ning.com – we have some very influential members from the medical field who have joined, along with yourself, and that just continues to show how far we have come as a community too.

Gratitude is amazing in its abilitay to heal our lives. Two of my friends, Colleen & Trevor Wigglesworth taught me a great way to harness it. Every morning they start their day sharing the top 3 things they are grateful for.

For example, today I am grateful for:
the sunshine illuminating my day in the Badlands;
the terrific people I have in my life for support; and
the blessings of having my animal companions (Lizzy Maddy & Breosaighe) in my life.

keep up the great work

French Canadian