People's reactions.

My 'no unspoken thought' personality makes it impossible to keep the ADHD to myself and so I have embraced the label and decided to tell people as and when the mood takes me.

Once or twice, I've felt like telling strangers, like when I tried my pin number on my cash card 3 times at the Co-op till and it locked me out.  I casually remarked, 'Sorry.  I've got ADHD.  I'll be back with another card in a few minutes', and off I went.  I didn't look up to see what his reaction was, but when I returned, he didn't bat an eyelid when I reappeared with cash and dropped the change all over the counter.

I've posted my blog on facebook.  That's an interesting one.  It's been completely ignored, as far as I know, as no-one's remarked on it.  Maybe it's just no surprise to anyone!  Maybe I've not made it explicit that it's my blog, not someone else's that I'm interested in. 

Telling people I know face to face has been a lot of fun though.  I told my mentor at one of my volunteer jobs.  She laughed openly, asked 'At YOUR age?!' and then asked me some sensible questions about how I was feeling about it all and what it meant for me.  She was great.

I told 3 of the students I'm working with on my MA in special needs education.  One said, 'That explains a lot!', one said, 'Well now, that's not a surprise, is it!' and one said, 'Congratulations!'  All of them were very supportive.

I told the people I work for.  They have organised access for me on a system I don't normally use, so I can store my stuff on it, so I don't have to spend hours looking for where I saved it on my own computer!  (I work from home.)

I told my neighbour.  She seemed a bit baffled but was none the less cheery and optimistic about it.

I told my son's new teachers.  He has some special needs too - short term memory and visual attention deficit.  After explaining the kinds of things that help him, I remarked that I may not always remember to make sure he's brought in his homework/water bottle/reading book, and told them why.  One laughed, then realised I was serious.  Then thought for a minute and mused that maybe she's got it too!

My favourite one was a friend whose son also has ADHD.  His comments about his own experiences, his unsurprised reaction and his desire to get together to swap coping strategies really made a difference.  We've spent a fair bit of time together, as families, having dinner, going out walking etc, and neither of us know what was going on for the other.  

Aside from these more fun moments, it's actually been a very difficult week.  Our friends' son was involved in a serious accident.  I don't want to talk about this, as it's obviously personal to them and not my place to tell the story publicly, but needless to say it was very worrying for all of us, devastating for our friends and certainly put my 'coming to terms with my ADHD' problems into perspective.  Although this is quite big news, it's not a negative thing.  I know about it and that gives me power to find ways to control it.  While we were waiting to see how our friends' son would heal, we had no power over anything.  Being helpless is a frightening feeling.  However, he is making genuinely remarkable progress.  He is having surgery next week and is expected to make a full recovery.  

What I did realise though, was that I don't always know whether I'm just being 'ADHD' or whether my clumsy/confused behaviour is brought on by stress, just like anyone else.  In the hospital restaurant I stood, with what I realise was a bewildered look on my face, and tried to order my dinner.  I simply couldn't make a choice between chicken casserole and pasta.  The woman was extremely sympathetic when I said, 'I have no idea.  Do you think maybe you could just pick something warm for me to eat, please?'  I realised when I sat down that I probably looked like a worried mother and I felt really guilty for giving that impression - like she'd wasted her sympathy on me.  

Later though, I realise that it wasn't about the ADHD.  I'm usually able to choose a meal by myself!  I was worried sick and my brain just froze.  With a strong, healing child resting well after his ordeal, I'm now able to wonder why the ADHD symptoms can be so similar to the symptoms of such high levels of stress/worry.

Choosing dinner wasn't the only time I struggled in the hospital.  I got lost a LOT.  Once, I even got in the lift, got back out, walked round, got in the lift again and ended up back where I started without realising what I'd done until I found myself outside the ward I'd started at.  Staff kept stopping to ask if I was lost (the expression on my face?!) and one must have recognised me from the day before and asked, 'Are you lost AGAIN?!'  She showed me where to go very kindly, but she looked amused by my incompetence.

Amazingly, despite all the stress of everything that was happening, my friend's husband didn't miss a beat when I launched into a completely random, non-linear full speed ADHD conversation about stuff that needed to be sorted out - the IKEA delivery was unfortunately due to arrive in the middle of all this and we've been helping out where we can.  It would have been perfectly reasonable for him to turn to my husband and sort everything out in a calmer way but he just somehow unpicked what needed to be sorted out from the detritus of my brain-dump and we got it sorted.  He's even offered to give me some ideas on how to manage my symptoms a bit, as he has experience of this through his job.  

I've never doubted for a minute how lucky I am to have a family and friends round me who let me be myself and never make me feel bad about who I am.  That's probably the one thing that will make the biggest difference as I'm sorting all this out.

So, ADHD is embarrassing.

I realise that the ADHD has probably been responsible for a large portion of the embarrassing situations I've found myself in throughout my life.  So I thought it would be fun to share them.

I once sat peering out of my tent door when on holiday with friends enthusing about how good Colgate toothpaste is.  I was holding up the tube to show everyone at the time.  The others began to laugh.

I was holding up my tube of contraceptive jelly.

I once went to work in odd shoes.

I speak before I think.  At a very smart restaurant, my friend asked for information about the steaks and was told by the waitress that the butchers were very good and she was sure they were well hung.  I asked, 'And what about the steaks?'

I once fell asleep in an exam.  I woke with a noisy shout when I was disturbed by an invigilator.

I set a T shirt on fire by throwing it over my shoulder onto a lamp with a very hot bulb and I didn't notice where it had landed.

I once set my bed on fire and didn't notice (though to be fair, I wasn't alone and was quite busy at the time.)

I once burnt myself by walking into a door when I was carrying a tray of muffins straight from the oven.

I once set my hair on fire when I was climbing into a tent with a candle.  I didn't realise the burning sound and smell was coming from me and I frantically tried to put out the fire by bashing the side of the tent with my free hand.  No-one I was with came out of their tents to check if I was okay.  My gasps and panicked mutterings and 'Oh NO!'s were so frequent that no-one even noticed.

When I was 13, I forgot that I needed to wait for the school bus to stop before I got off.  I bounced alongside the bus until both the bus and I came to a halt.  Fortunately, only my ego was bruised, as all the children in my class had seen me do this, glasses bouncing on my nose as it happened.  And to add insult to injury, a dear old lady got up off the park bench she was sitting on to let me sit down.

How does someone FORGET to wait for a bus to stop before getting off?!

I turned up at the hospital with a suitcase ready for my planned surgery - a week early.

I can look back on these and smile, and of course some of them are quite funny (to me at least) but there is a slightly more serious point (apart from wondering about the excess of fire incidents)  I've always used self deprecating humour in social situations.  I actually don't like doing it, but I've done so many stupid things that it's an easy fix in a situation where I feel like I don't know what to say.  I'm not overly comfortable with people knowing everything about me.  I like privacy, but most people don't know that about me because I blurt out whatever comes to mind and it's usually something embarrassing about myself.  So people end up knowing far more about me than I'd really like and I end up knowing far less about them than I'd really like because I can't remember what they've said or I wasn't listening properly or, you know, I spotted a squirrel when they were talking or something...

There's no real point to this entry, except that maybe I'd like to try to use self deprecating humour less or even  do fewer embarrassing things in the first place!

Now there's an ambition!  That's more of a challenge than learning to drive I suspect (and that took 8 years!)

'Coming out'

I went to Ikea with a friend yesterday.  It was very pleasant at first - good company and neither of us cared if we were going the wrong way or stopping to look at random things we didn't need, but as the day wore on, my brain seemed to frazzle - whose doesn't in there?!

As we were sitting having lunch, I kept forgetting what we were talking about and I was with someone who knows and cares and doesn't give a hoot if I lose track.  So I could confidently say, 'I've forgotten/I'm lost/Where were we' and not worry.

The scene in Ellen where she shouts, 'I'm gay!' sprung to mind and I had an overwhelming urge to stand up and shout, 'I've got ADHD!'  I contained myself, but only because I got a fit of the giggles.

We actually left without buying what we needed because we lost track of time and didn't get to the checkouts in time to do all the sorting out at the end, lugging boxes off shelves and arranging delivery.  So we have to boldly go again later in the week.  Ho-hum.

Today, I decided to follow my desire to just not bother hiding this part of me and I found myself telling a complete stranger.  It worked out okay.  I was at the desk in a play centre with my son and the cashier remarked that he was 'full of bounce'.  I laughed and said it wasn't surprising as I have ADHD.   It was a really positive moment as she looked at me with empathy then remarked that she has OCD.  Apart from the acronym overload, it was a moment of understanding, compassion and solidarity and I'm really glad I told her.

Of course later, as I tried to pay the bill, she had to call me back to give me my cash card as I'd walked away without it.  The spark of 'fitting in' in the world that I'd felt was extinguished, but what I had in its place was a smile and a nod from someone who understood.

Onwards and upwards!