Where's the Gaffers Tape?

Been a little busy the last few weeks. 

My husband, Mark, has been working on a film for the last two and a half years, Finding Hope Now, in addition to his regular day job.  Most of that time he has spent working the day job then going straight to work on the film for another 8 to 10 hours at  ""the studio."    By the time he would finish working on the film at night there was no way he could have been safe to drive the hour plus it takes to get from the studio to our home in the foothills. So, we decided, all week he would sleep in a recliner, at the studio.  Then on Saturday afternoon he would come home and be home until Monday morning when he would head to work to start all over again.

This has been our life and routine for the last 2 years since the movie finished filming at the end of June 2009.

Now that the presentation cut of the movie is done, in the hands of those who will sell it, and is already winning awards at film festivals it was time to move the operation back to our home. Time to set up a home office to finish the details on the visual effects.

This physical transition started a couple weeks ago and has required a lot of help.  We needed to move every item in the living room/classroom so that we could accommodate an office space.  Moving stuff, sorting stuff, throwing out stuff, cleaning stuff all take a great deal of focus.  On a good day, when everyone is medicated, I am not sure we could hit that mark.

But the physical transition is nothing compared to the mental and emotional transition.  

In the last couple weeks we have mixed our exhaustion from this long hard two and a half years with anticipation, excitement, anxiety, and a whole lot of ADHD.  We have hit on just about every ADD/ADHD nerve in one way or another.

I have noticed a few things during my 20 years of marriage to my husband and his ADHD.  Transitions are hard.  He puts all his heart, soul, and hyper-focus into a project.  He stays driven and fixated and when it ends there is a sense of loss that comes with it.  Even a feeling of being lost.

Mark is a very positive person.  He can maintain that positive attitude through experiences that seem too dark and dreary for me.  When a project ends, however, it is a totally different ball game.  That is the time he is most vulnerable to depression.  This is true even when he is heading right into another project.

The process of coming down off these intense emotions, fixations, urgency, and hyper-focus of a project is like plunging into deep water off the edge of a cliff.  There is a moment, near the bottom, where you are trying desperately to find which direction is up, you are hungry for air, you may even think you are going to drown.  I have seen it repeatedly.  Enough to know that he always finds his way.  Enough to remind him of all the other times he felt the same way.  Enough for him to recognize that it is happening.

I do not believe that even knowing it's coming will keep it from happening.  It is how his brain is wired, how it chemically functions.  The most important thing that years of similar experiences has taught him is to watch for it so he can curb the experience a little.

Finding Hope Now is the longest personal project he has ever done.  The longest he has had to maintain those intense emotions to finish a project.  It's also not completely finished.  It is transition of stages.  While the bulk is finished, the presentation cut, as they call it, the details are still being worked on.  This is a good thing.  If everything were to change at once it would be a much harder.  As it stands he can focus on the beginning of the transition while preparing for the rest of it.

First, we had to deal with moving the studio home.  The studio was quiet, almost silent, and solitary.  In our house quiet and solitary are two things we have heard of but are not really convinced exist.  The first day he was home was so over stimulating that when one of the kids indicated that we might be short on butter for dinner he jumped at the chance to drive to the nearest store, a half an hour away, to get some.  He just needed to get out and clear the slate a little before he got too overwhelmed.  The last thing he wanted to do was lose his temper or tell everybody, "I have to leave for a little while."

He worries that we might think he prefers the quiet solitude of the studio to being home.  He feels guilty that he gets overwhelmed and needs a break from the excited, frenzied energy that radiates here.  He would prefer to be home; but, he does have to get used to coping with the over stimulating environment.

To add to it all the kids are transitioning too.  They are so excited and happy to have him here every night.  It is, however, a little surreal after his absence the last couple years.  He can't move with out someone jumping to ask, "Where are you going?"  Poor guy can't change his clothes after work or go to the bathroom without the third degree.

It reminds me of a time when the kids were smaller.  He had been working a lot of overtime, in order to spend time with the kids before they went to bed he would come home for dinner and then go back to work.  One night he fell asleep on the living room floor.  Those little darlings tied his arms and legs up with his neck ties so he couldn't get away.  He slept through the whole thing.   He was a little shocked when he woke up.  If I were him I would be a little worried, they're all older now and he has taught them the usefulness of gaffers tape.

We talked on the way to go get butter, that first night back.  We decided that documenting his journey, our journey through this transition would be good to post on the blog.  Most of the time I'm focused on raising our ADHD brood but truth is, it effects our home from all angles.  All of these kids will grow up to be adults with ADHD.  Their struggles will change as the demands of the adult world take over.  They will need the experience of others, especially their father, to help them avoid the pitfalls, anticipate the cliffs, and deep water.

I have to admit I am feeling a little possessive too.  That week of him being home passed too quickly and rolled right into his trip to Houston, Texas for the Houston WorldFest International Film Festival.  It was hard for everyone to let him go after we just moved the office back home.  It was a successful trip though, he came home exhausted and passed out asleep in his chair.

I have one question,  where's that gaffers tape?

It's Been Too Long

It seems like forever since the last post.

I have to admit that I have been overwhelmed the last couple of weeks and while I have been writing and have lots to write about (too much really), I have not been finishing them or posting them.  It makes me feel guilty sometimes.  Mostly, because blogging has brought to the forefront of my mind what a perfectionist I am.

Yep, that is right, a perfectionist in a house dominated by ADHD.

Actually, it is a trait that both my husband and I share.  The difference is he is never afraid to act, despite his perfectionism.  I am sure that has a lot to do with impulsiveness and other ADHD traits.  I am always afraid to act, almost paralyzed in the face of things not being perfect.  Really, the translation is, I want everything worded right, I want the right pictures and stories.

It trips me up and as much as it may help me, in certain circumstances, it freezes me in others. 

In the mean time, all these day to day things are happening and I don't get them up. I get a dashboard full of half written posts and you don't get to know the little things.

Like Jaren standing in the front yard with goggles on, shaking his fist at the sky, wooden stake in hand.  Screaming at the top of his lungs, daring the vampires to bring it.  Did I mention it was the middle of the day. 

My daughter keeps telling me I need a Twitter so that I can just post life as it happens.  A constant stream of ADHD.   I haven't decided yet, I am just trying to get the actual Queen of the Distracted website up at the moment.  So we can expand and add some of the features that we have been waiting for the website to add.

In the meantime, there are about four posts almost ready to send out into the world via internet.  So check back often.  Lots has been happening in our family; good, questionable, and crazy.

Down the Rabbit Hole of Distraction

Rachel sings as she works - the little woodland creatures have yet to come join her and help like they do in Disney movies but I guarantee you they can hear her.  She is a vocalist and boy does she have a set of lungs.  She insists that this helps her work but I am seeing more wandering, singing, and staging than working.  I keep asking her to take the volume down but clearly we define quieter differently.

In the mean time, there is a raging argument about whether spoiled milk should be kept or thrown out.  I know, this seems like a no-brainer decision, but Mary is a junior scientist.  We got her a book for Christmas with all kinds of things that can be made out of stuff you have at home.  She has found the grossest one and latched onto it.  She is going to make plastic out of milk and some other things.

She is trying to defend keeping the curdled milk in an effort to not waste the good milk.  Mariah and Fernie are disgusted by the thought of keeping the spoiled milk.  I suppose they are pretty sure they will accidentally grab it early in the morning and it will glob out onto their cereal.  They are getting pretty loud about it.  They are working in the kitchen.  Though there is definitely more arguing going on than working.

I will resolve the issue by telling Mary that her experiments are worth using good milk.  It is not a waste to me.  I don't want curdled milk in the refrigerator either.

Hunter is supposed to be cleaning the living room.  He has found Sid's tennis balls that are floating around the house.  Sid is our Aussie, she is obsessed with tennis balls.  The tennis balls have reminded Hunter that he is learning to juggle.  He has now totally forgotten that he was cleaning the living room and is jumping around trying to dance, juggle, and is singing circus theme music. He needs redirecting to remember he is doing a job.  He spends the next 10 minutes repeatedly apologizing for getting side tracked.  I repeatedly tell him to stop apologizing, I know it was not intentional.

Jaren is also on living room duty.  He is trying to convince me that he can do plenty of work while holding his spy case in one hand and with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and head.  I am not buying.  Seems to me that two hands are better than one.

We know attention deficit -- we see it when one distraction leads to another and another.  We live while trying to stay on task as it seems everything is pulling you in opposite directions.  Even though I am not ADD/ADHD I can see that my husband and children often feel drawn and quartered by their own thoughts.

It definitely gets frustrating when you are trying to get things done, like daily chores.  When I see the quickest path between two points as a straight line and everyone else sees no lines.  Frustrating for me because life seems to move so slowly in the direction I need it to move.  Frustrating for them because they are trying so hard to control their direction but can't seem to resist the diversions.

Hannah, who doesn't have ADHD either, and I exchange glances that scream, "It's time for a non-ADD day."

Some might say it's time for some heavy discipline.  Crack the whip, so that they won't get distracted during chores.  Punish them for not staying on task.  I am here to tell you that no amount or type of discipline will keep them from getting distracted.  It is the way their brain functions chemically that leads them down the rabbit hole of distraction.   Like an asthmatic can't completely control their reaction to an irritant in the air or a diabetic can't completely control their blood sugar by willing it to be so.  A person with ADHD cannot completely control their intake of  the stimuli around them. 

Coping mechanisms are our goal. We define a coping mechanism as a skill that helps you cope life.  A skill that helps you make life work for you instead of against you.  It is not just skills that help you when you are overwhelmed or in crisis. 

Coping mechanisms are everyday skills.  In this case it is what do you do with the stimuli when it hits you over the head or tugs on your shirt and tempts you?  How you judge what reaction would be appropriate for the time and place?  Is it okay to embrace the diversion, maybe even run with it?  Learning to control what they do with the stimuli has been more important than just getting whatever task needs to be done.

Someday they will be out of the house and their won't be singing, and tennis balls flying, and arguments raging.  Someday they won't have me to walk around reminding them what they are supposed to be doing.  Certainly, no one there to ground them for not paying attention.  Then they will need to know how to redirect themselves.  Punishment, alone, while it may make my life easier now will not make their lives more productive later.

For now, chores take as long as they make them take.  If they can control the diversions then they will finish pretty quickly and move on.  If they are sucked in by the diversions then it will take them a long time to finish.  Natural consequences are the greatest tool in our toolbox.  That combined with a little "learning experience" (as my mom used to call them) to point out the natural consequences.  That is how we manage and teach. 

I will have to admit, though, it is hard not to laugh at their diversions.  Redirecting someone with any sense of authority is difficult when you are laughing. Then again how do you not laugh when after the window air conditioner is removed and the window is standing wide open your teenage daughters start singing songs from Titanic and acting like they are standing on the bow of the ship in the wind.

They say that life is what happens when you have other plans - in our house life is often what happens when we are distracted.