Our ADHD MESSage

I was sitting, waiting to get my hair cut, flipping through magazines for the perfect haircut when I saw this fantastic saying jump out at me from the sea of text and pictures.  "Turn your mess into your message."  Just then my name was called, I closed the magazine, got up and walked off.   I have no idea what magazine I was reading, no way of figuring out what brilliant person made that statement.  Those words have lingered, I haven't been able to shake them from my mind.  So, I decided to use it anyways because turning our mess into our message is what Queen of the Distracted has always been about.

Here we are, a family of nine. Myself, my husband, and our 7 kids.  That right there freaks most people out.  Then I tell them, but wait, that really isn't the messy part.  The messy part is that fact that my husband and 6 of those 7 children have severe ADHD and we seem to be doing our best to cover almost every co-occurring condition possible.  Sometimes reaching opposite ends of the same scale.  We have, for example, members of our family with sensory processing disorders.  In some strange twist of fate we have both those who are super sensitive to sound and one who is under responsive and tends to be very loud.  We have dylexics and I am pretty sure we have some undiagnosed hyperlexics.  

Regardless, of the labels and disorders we are a family doing our best to raise good children into fully functioning great adults.  As we started to walk down the path, discovering all these unique characteristics about our family, we found some things we didn't like.  We found stereotypes, myths, a lot of misunderstandings, and misinformation.  We seemed to be walking the path all alone, even though we knew there were many families like us dealing with similar issues.  Somewhere in between appointments at the psychiatrist for one kid or another and dealing with distraction, impulsivitiy, meltdowns, creative genius, and the need for constant positive stimuli we landed at a crossroads.  Do we keep living our lives, managing and growing our family all to ourselves or do we share our journey with the world and hope that it helps others as they work their way through life and their own unique challenges?

The answer was undeniable, we would share our lives in hopes that other families could find refuge in our struggles and triumphs.  In hopes that others wouldn't feel so alone.  In hopes that many could understand ADHD from real life place instead of technical scientific terms.  In hopes that they could find empowerment.

I am always grateful for the compliments people give me regarding the blog.  It keeps me, a rather private person, continually inspired to keep posting.  I appreciate everyone of those acknowledgements.  Today, though, I have been thinking about some unexpected gifts that have come to our family by sharing the antics, good and bad, with the world. 

Removing the shame and embarrassment of ADHD

I remember visiting with a friend at a reunion and as she spoke of her son's mental health issues her voice lowered to a whisper.  What she didn't know was despite her whisper he heard his name and attuned his ear.  He realized he was the subject of a hushed conversation.  She never saw his face but I did.  To me his face read shame and embarrassment.  She meant to talk in hushed tones to respect his privacy but in the process she inadvertently sent a message that his situation was not one to speak openly about.

It is important that our kids, no matter what they may struggle with (and everyone struggles with something) never come to a place where they feel that they are broken.  I don't care who you are, what your trial is, we all need to feel empowered to be successful.  If we teach our children, directly or inadvertently, that they're broken then how are they supposed to fight to overcome their challenges.  In addition to controlling the message that we give our children we have to fight the messages they get from their peers, from other adults in their lives, from the world.  It's a constant battle.

One way that our message has influenced our mess is by letting our kids know that we are not ashamed of them, that their disorder is just a challenge and that as they work on it they will learn to manage it.  It has been a forum for us to show our children that challenges are just stepping stones to success and to show them that their are many aspects of their ADHD that make them fantastic people.

Growth through self-examination and communication

It was my husband, Mark, who pointed out that the blog has helped us to use our experiences for growth.  We discuss what I write about on the blog as a family all the time.  It gives us the opportunity to break down different situations and rework how we might handle them differently.  That communication is a hallmark in our home and has had the most influence on how our kids are turning out.  In fact, we communicate so much with our kids that it often freaks other people, especially their friends, out.  I can't tell you how many kids have come through our home and said, "You talk to your parents about that?" in bewilderment.

All kids, but especially ADHD kids need to talk things out.  They need to understand how things work and why they work certain ways, it helps them to control impulsivity that is central to the disorder. We sometimes joke about the different phrases our kids approach us with that mean we're in for a long night.  "I have a question," "do you have a minute," "I was wondering," all mean I need help setting the world straight and understanding things that totally escape me.  I think during a couple of one daughter's more difficult years there wasn't a night that we got to bed before 2:00am. However, I wouldn't trade it for the good nights sleep, she landed square in the middle of some deep potholes on her path, but avoided many and I'm sure she avoided some situations that could have led to legal trouble all because of those late night talks.

There is so much that we've been able to help our kids through because they're used to communicating with us and are able to come to us for help in coping with situations and conflicts.  There is so much that the rest of the world takes for granted as innate understanding that ADHD kids and adults have to work at understanding.  It's our job as parents to help them learn those skills; communication is key to learning as is being able to deconstruct situations. 

Our message has given us a great tool for using our mess as a teaching tool.

ADHD awareness turns into self awareness

ADHD is tricky, though it's underlying causes are the same, the way in which it really manifests itself often varies, it's completely individual.  For example all of my ADHD kids and my husband struggle with inattentiveness but there struggle looks different from the outside.  One child embraces that inattentiveness entirely and really doesn't stress about it at all.  Another obsesses about it and quadruple checks everything.  One should be more concerned, the other should relax more. 

Understanding how their brains are wired, the experiences they are having, gives them a platform from which to dive into managing it.  They each have to be aware that they are inattentive, or impulsive, or whatever quality they're struggling with at the time and how that manifests itself in their own life so that they can figure out ways that work for them to combat it. 

Our message shines a spotlight on our actions, encourages self awareness, self acceptance, and growth.  Our message helps us acknowledge and manage our mess.

I had a dream the other day that we were living in one crazy apartment complex where our kitchen window, which had no glass in it, opened up onto a thoroughfare of complex activity.  When that window was open people could see straight into our kitchen, they watched what was happening in our house, freely would stop by and visit all while gazing into my kitchen.  My kitchen is never clean, despite heroic, monumental efforts, it's never totally clean.  I felt a little awkward with my messy kitchen hanging out there for all the world to walk by and see.  No one mentioned the mess.  That's not why they stopped.  They stopped to be apart of our family, to share in our love and acceptance, to become a part of our mess and our message.

I am fairly sure I had this dream because I am going to be on a local television station tomorrow to talk about ADHD Awareness Week.  I'm nervous.  One thing that our message has taught me is that from our mess there is a valuable message shared.  One that can only be shared by making ourselves a little vulnerable and honestly opening our lives to other.  Truth is, the risk is worth it for us, for our children our message has changed how we handle our mess for the better.

In honor of ADHD Awareness Week I am going to be posting daily, make sure you check back for the latest.  At the end of the week our family has a big announcement to share with you!

Stigma and Stereotypes: The Lessons We Teach Inadvertently

Yesterday was crazy, which I expected.  One of our sons has a strange protruding spot in his ribcage that we've been trying to figure out since February.  Nothing showed up on x-rays, nothing really by examination, but when our psychiatrist ordered a routine EKG our son's doctor thought she might have found the answer.  She thought his heart might be backwards.

You can imagine this totally tickled the ADHD minds in our house.  Especially my son who has named the protruding spot, his alien chest baby, 'Lil Elmo.  We were off to the Children's Hospital in our area where we would spend hours doing a new EKG, waiting, having exams, talking medical history, waiting, and eventually having a sonogram of his heart before getting an clear answer.

All that waiting meant lots of children's programing on every TV in every waiting room.  It made me long for the days of Between the Lions, Sesame Street, Dragon Tales and the other programing of my kid's youth.

In the end we were stuck watching a pseudo-interactive magical word fairy tell stories and teach sounds all with an underlying life skill lesson.  I was tired.  I was hungry.  I was cranky.  And when they started to tell the story of the magical porridge pot illustrating the importance of listening I became mother bearish about the implications.

I actually remember reading the story as a child. This was not the same story.  This was an absent minded, distracted girl whose father gifts her, for no apparent reason, with the magical pot.  Gives her instructions and leaves.  She, of course, floods the house because she was not paying attention, she did not listen, as she was supposed to and couldn't remember how to stop the pot from making porridge.  Listen was the word of the day.

The cranky, hungry mother bear in me saw this as a continuation of some dangerous stereotypes about inattention.  I suppose I saw in this little peasant girl as my oldest daughter.  We had no idea what ADHD was back when she was little.  Every teacher seemed to negate our concerns about ADHD by telling us that she was sweet and meant well.  She couldn't be ADHD because she wasn't disruptive; she was dreamy and creative.  If she could just try harder to pay attention, to listen, she would be fine.  She was the little peasant girl.

Stereotypes and stigma can be dangerous and this show seemed full of them.  First, that kids who don't pay attention do it intentionally.  They are irresponsible, ditzy, and therefore end up being destructive. Second, that if they wanted to, if they understood or respected the importance of the information, they would pay attention and listen. 

Neither of these are true.  The danger of portraying inattention (ADD/ADHD) in this manner is that those who suffer trying to maintain focus, pay attention and fail: not because of their intentions, their desires, or their intellect, will view themselves as broken because they can't remember simple instruction.  Our little peasant girl is 20 now and still fights her feelings of inadequacy and failure.  Equally as stigmatizing would be raising another generation that views others who struggle with the way their brains are wired as disrespectful, careless, and unintelligent.

Of course, maybe the father had it too.  Maybe he's in denial about his own ADD/ADHD.  There is, after all, a strong genetic link to ADHD/ADD.  Maybe this explains why he impulsively gave his young daughter a pot that could flood the house with porridge.  Or why he only gave her important operating instructions once and didn't have her reiterate the instructions or write them down for future reference, just left her alone with the pot.

My husband thinks so.  He was that way once.  Now he embraces his own ADHD and works hard to manage and harness it to his benefit.

Children's programming I feel as though you failed me.

I realize that my reaction came from a loaded place.  I even recognized then that I was overly angry. Nonetheless, I was happy to leave the magical word fairy behind and get back to the business of the day.

It wasn't long before the cardiologist came back and announced that Hunter was totally normal.

Totally normal?  He missed the part seconds earlier where he was wishing he was a shape shifter so he could turn himself into a Muppet. Where he was demonstrating by trying to throw his head all the way backwards, mouth wide open, dancing like a Muppet. 

And the part as we were walking out where Hunter was disappointed that he couldn't tell people his heart was backwards - after all that would've been pretty cool.