ADHD

But wait, first laundry

A couple of weeks ago I was in a car with a friend and she said something so funny or interesting or meaningful to me (can’t remember what it was, but I know it was great. I’ll come back to that later) that I instantly blurted out my similar feelings and then immediately apologized for interrupting her - she laughed and asked if I also had ADHD. I paused because it’s something I’ve been wondering about, but had blown off because I do focus and get a lot done each day and each week. Kind of a crazy amount, but that’s because I don’t have a choice.

I have two kids and I own a business and I write. There are a lot of things to pack into a day, and if I don’t do them, no one else will. In some of my bios I list “plate-spinner” because it feels that way. It’s exceedingly hard for me to sit still, and when I do, I often have a leg bouncing, or sometimes both legs bouncing, much to the annoyance of anyone around me.

It’s hard for me to relax and do nothing, I have to exhaust myself to get to that point. Even my mother, who was always moving, always doing and working and managing and keeping track of things, once commented that I was like a shark, because I was probably even moving while I slept.

I had no real understanding of ADHD, but assumed from the title that it implied an inability to pay attention. That isn’t my issue. Since the friend who asked has ADHD herself, though, and since she’s brilliant, the question rolled around in my head. I may be many things, but when my insightful friends ask questions or give advice, you can bet I’m not going to be the idiot who dismisses them. I decided to do something about it, because I pay for health insurance, so might as well use it.

Tuesday I had an assessment. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t think it was going to be emotional. I figured the therapist would ask me if I had a hard time focusing and completing tasks, I’d say no, and she’d tell me I didn’t have it. Something like that. Instead, she started asking me how I get things done, what my process is. So I explained a typical thing is I’ll be in my studio working, and I’ll realize I need to go into the house to grab something, and if, on the way from the studio to the house I realize there are a ton of leaves on the path that really need to get swept up, I’ll stop to do that.

When I get into the house, if the laundry cycle just happens to have finished, I’ll stop to fold the clothes. If I pass by one of my kids’ rooms and there’s something on the floor, or empty glasses that need to be brought to the kitchen, I’ll stop to take care of that. If my dog wants some love (and he always does), that’s going to happen, too. Then, I’ll get back to the thing I came in for, but if I need to be able to read whatever said thing might be, there’s a good chance I’ve left my readers in the studio.

I will - absolutely - go back and complete the first task, but I have everything at the same level of importance - laundry, empty glasses, clothes on the floor, dog who needs pets. All of these things feel as pressing in the moment as my livelihood - as essential to get done. As I was explaining this to her, it dawned on me that maybe not everyone works this way. It was probably the very funny look on her face that gave it away.

Photo by Craig Tidball on Unsplash

She asked me how long it’s been like this, and I tried to remember. I recall my mother telling me when I was six that my first-grade teacher had said I gesticulated too much, and my mom had to explain what gesticulate meant. I remember sitting on my hands in class after that unless I was writing, or raising my hand to answer a question, and that I felt ashamed any time I forgot to sit on my hands.

I told the therapist I was a straight-A student in school, and always prioritized maintaining that status. My self-esteem was completely wrapped up in the approval and affirmation I got from my teachers, and I knew it made my mother happy to be able to brag about me that way. That was one of the only things she bragged about, other than the way I helped with my brother, so it meant a lot to me.

The therapist asked if I happen to know my IQ, which I do only because my mother had me tested when I was a kid. I’m not going to share it because it feels obnoxious, but my mother lived for that stuff. The therapist said sometimes people with high IQs are able to mask symptoms of ADHD, so it can go undiagnosed for years, even decades. She asked if I had systems for getting things done when I was a kid - and I don’t know if I would have described them that way - but I had very set routines and I would never deviate from them.

I have a photographic memory, even though now they say that isn’t a thing, which is funny. I mean, okay, but if I read text and pay attention, I can close my eyes the next day and see it in my head. It helped a lot in school, unfairly. So as long as I paid attention while I studied, I could basically see the text in my head when it came time to take the test. I could see the paragraph on the page. It’s a bit of an advantage when you get rewarded for memorizing details and spitting them back out, which pretty much sums up a lot of the school experience. 

She asked me if I had systems for things today and I started laughing, because friends, I have systems for everything. If I don’t, it all falls apart. I’m from New York City, and there’s a saying that if the city ever stopped for a minute, it would never be able to start up again. I’ve always felt the same way about myself. If I stop, it feels like everything will fall apart, the whole house of cards will be scattered at my feet, and there won’t be any way to get it back together again. I told her my bag - the one I usually carry - always goes in the same drawer, my house and car keys in the inside pocket. When I get home, I slide my readers out from their felt case inside the bag. If I take the case with me, I’ll misplace it. If the keys don’t stay in that pocket, god help me next time I need to drive my kids somewhere, or lock the back gate or the front door.

I’ve been like this since I was little, when my parents split. I was four. I’m pretty sure the first time I got emotional in the session on Tuesday is when I explained to her that I had to be organized, otherwise I’d end up at my dad’s house for four days, having left something at my mom’s that I really wanted or needed, or I’d end up at my mom’s having left something at my dad’s I wouldn’t have access to until the following week.

Sometimes the thing I’d forget was my doll Suzy, and I needed her to fall asleep. There was something about having Suzy at both houses that made me feel tethered - without her I’d cry into my pillow until I’d finally pass out. My parents would call each other and scream about how one or the other of them had forgotten to pack her, but neither one of them would walk the ten blocks to bring her to me. So eventually I’d stop saying I didn’t have her, because the only thing that would come of it was listening to my parents say awful things to each other.

I can’t tell you how many times I was locked out at my dad’s house because I forgot my keys, sitting on the brownstone stoop sometimes for hours, or how many times I beat myself up, badly, for leaving something behind, especially as I got a little older. The voice in my head was incredibly mean. You learn fast to keep your shit together.

Suzy with a birdseye view.

I don’t think I ever focused on the way I’ve been getting things done, just the result. I wrote a book and had a publisher and an editor and a deadline, and oh yeah I was running a business and doing the single mom thing while I was writing. I made my deadline because it was my first book and god knows I didn’t want to piss off the publisher. I also didn’t sleep more than a few hours a night for months on end, because there wasn’t any other way to do it, except to write until 2 or 3am, after my kids were asleep and nothing else needed to be done.

Living this way has become so normal to me, I didn’t realize there were options. These are the waters I’ve always swum in, high stakes, high chaos, lots of uncertainty, and me, in the eye of the storm keeping it together. I’ve written about it a lot, so I don’t think I need to mention here that I grew up in an alcoholic household at my mom’s, or that life at my dad’s was full of drama. Reading the room and trying to figure out if I’m safe is not anything out of the ordinary. 

The second time I got emotional in the session was when she asked if I’d been through any trauma in the last few years. I told her I’d lost both my parents, and that the last year of my mother’s life had been particularly painful. I explained that my mother had blamed me for her ALS, and even though my rational brain knew that wasn’t true, it still hurt like fucking hell. And I told her what happened in the moments after the doctor pronounced my mother’s time of death (3:37am), which is something I can’t write about now, but it’s an image that plagued me for the year after her passing, and still bombards me when I least expect it.

That was the point when there was a flood of tears that caught me off guard, and I found myself apologizing. I caught myself, but the tendency to make everything okay for everyone else is something I’m still working on. I think we can all assume any decent therapist can handle some bereavement tears and trauma, no apology necessary. 

It occurred to me that I was probably drawn so strongly to yoga because it was my first experience having a quiet mind. A QUIET MIND. I don’t know if you can understand what a huge thing that was for me, because maybe your brain is wired differently. Maybe plate-spinning is not something you do. For me, it was like a revelation, and the awe has never worn off, thirty-plus years later. One thing I always notice is that about three minutes into my practice, even on days when I have to drag myself to the mat because I’m tired, I always find that I’m smiling. My entire self feels like a moving thank you. I think it is the relief and joy of quietude, of being in my body, fully immersed in what I’m doing - or when I’m teaching - sharing what feels like the best gift in the world. Like, look, check this out, you can feel this relief too. Isn’t it grand?

Seated meditation almost always makes me smile because I can feel my brain settling down the more I get interested in sensation. There are days when it takes longer to settle, and thankfully, I’m at the point where I can laugh about it. The good news is I have made friends with myself. It took a long (long) time, but I do genuinely care about the state of my inner landscape, because I know if I’m not okay, I’m going to spread that not-okay energy, and if I’m at ease, I’m going to share that ease. I’ve learned over time that conversations with people are a different kind of meditation, the kind when you’re so in the moment with someone, everything else fades away. Human beings are endlessly fascinating to me, there’s almost nothing I like more than really connecting with someone on that soul level. I feel pretty sure that’s the best stuff in the world.

James Vincent Knowles Photography

I had that experience with the therapist. She was so full of empathy and so focused on our conversation, I felt seen and heard and safe. She told me that it’s very common for people with ADHD to learn how to compensate, to have systems and coping skills and ways to override, but the toll it takes is real, and that it’s even more common for the system to start to collapse when you get pushed just that little bit too far. I think my system has been pushed to its limits for a while now. I think the grief and loss of the last few years, and some of the more traumatic parts of all that have really depleted me, and the systems, methods, lists and alerts in my phone so I don’t forget anything along with the constant moving have become not a lot of fun at all.

For years I’ve been attributing these behaviors to Type A perfectionist tendencies with a tiny dash of OCD sprinkled in, but these have been my own tongue-in-cheek self-diagnoses, certainly not a professional’s. Sometimes (probably a lot of the time) we’re so used to a thing being the way it is, we don’t question it or think there might be some underlying cause. We’re just going about our business, assuming it’s like this for everyone. Haha, another case of assumptions and projections leading to blindness. I read the therapist’s notes after the session, because wouldn’t you? Her assessment:

ADHD

Bereavement

PTSD but not affecting daily life

So there’s that. Like anything, ADHD doesn’t manifest the same way for everyone. I can’t work or live in a mess, I need order or I lose my mind. But when I say I can’t work or live in a mess, I mean that literally, I can’t proceed unless everything is in its place, which is not a typical symptom (according to what I now know, I’m no expert).

Time management is not my forté, I am forever thinking I can cram more things into an unreasonable and unrealistic amount of time than is humanly possible or desirable. So I’m considering my process a lot. While I was writing this essay I stopped multiple times for multiple reasons, but as you can see, I finished. I always finish. I haven’t decided what, if anything, I’m going to do about this ADHD thing (and I’m not looking for advice, though I appreciate all of you). I’m just getting to know myself again, through a new and unexpected lens, and while I did have a lot of tears during the session, I’m also laughing at myself.

Life is so interesting to me. I love that there are always more surprises. I’m thankful I’ve grown smart enough to not decide things without investigating them. And as ever, so grateful to be able to share this weird, heartbreaking, joyful, twisty adventure with you all. Oh, and remember that thing I said I was going to get back to you about? That thing my friend said that was so meaningful or funny or important? I still don’t remember what it was, but I do remember that I told you I’d come back to it. So that’s something. Stay loose out there.

If you’d like to meet me in real time to talk about process - about the way we’re doing whatever we’re doing on any given day - and the effect it can have, I’ll be here 4/26/24 at 11:15am PST or you can wait for the Come As You Are podcast version. And if you’d like to meet me in Portugal in June, there are still a few spots left and I’d love that so much.

P.S. I included an audio recording of the essay by request this week. The podcast is a conversation about the topic, and I’d like to keep it that way. If you enjoy the audio recording, please let me know and I’ll keep doing them when I publish the essays!