ADDept Yorkshire Learning & Ability Support Group

TOP	THE GIFT…and not being beige!
	August 2, 2009
	Okay, A.D.H.D is a gift right? As a person with A.D.H.D, I embrace that and at the same time occasionally struggle to understand it. A gift by law, can not be given back, i. e. persons co habit/marry one partner gives the other a gift but when the relationship dissolves they demand the gift back, it goes to court, the normally wounded spouse demands the ‘gift’ back and the judge will say, “I am so sorry it was a gift s/he’s keeping it” (excerpt from judge Judy there for you)…. and it is true to say, occasionally in my life I want to give it back, when I get to a shop and can’t remember what I went for… when I miss an appointment or over commit myself… when I over obsess on being wronged by someone…. when i can’t even begin to think of what I should have done but haven’t… realising I have something v important to do but forgetting completely what it is…and esp. when i open my mouth an something so inappropriate comes out I spend the rest of the WEEK wondering whether that person thinks I’m an illiterate moron or at best just crazy. Actually looking at it is safe to assume the above happen on a daily basis and more than one of them happens more than once in a day, I have found that even medicated I struggle with every day life, especially, knowing what is appropriate and talking with my mother last night, I can actually trace a lot of my problems back to the age of 15 when I had a stroke, it is obvious to even the most casual observer that despite my intelligence I am arrested in certainly my emotional but even maybe my mental development at that age, I have 3 teenagers, two girls aged 13 and 14 and a son aged 17, yet sometimes, -actually scratch that- a lot of the time they act more responsibly than me, I found the meds enable me to prioritise a lot however what they are unable to do is know what is appropriate and of course that is presuming I am going to think before i speak/act and although the meds help with that if you don’t understand that a comment is inappropriate how do you know not to say it? I am friendly and affable and probably a little too trusting and you can’t even begin to imagine the crap my mouth has landed me in and I’m talking big men wanting to kill me crap (as well as big women) sad thing is I never mean what I say and I definitely don’t intend to offend (I’ll admit to a mischievous side that actually enjoys watching people squirm- but in this instance that doesn’t apply) but it can make you fearful of talking at all. IF ONLY THAT WAS ME!! Of course that doesn’t apply to me, because if I could ACTUALLY stop myself talking I REALLY REALLY would, because if I talk and have the realisation I’ve said something inappropriate I then make it worse trying to explain myself, often saying something even more inappropriate than before. I also say things in jest which sound awful and by society’s standards ‘inappropriate’ but in my mind I didn’t mean it the way it sounded and my stupid habit of thinking out loud the ‘in my head out my mouth’ thing or Gobb’s disease as it is better known and that is my primary concern at the moment as with this granddaughter born to my sons 15 year old girlfriend social workers are involved and they seem to have a unique gift of taking what I say and twisting it to sound awful, (instance) I said “I’ve never felt anything like I feel for my new granddaughter (this was b4 she was born) not even when I had my own”! Interpreted to “I love the baby more than my own kids” (??? I mean my kids are total pain in the asses but I love them and had them so long ago I can barely remember what I felt specifically, aside from totally overwhelmed) oh and BTW interpreted as in written in an ‘OFFICIAL’ report! :O The diagnosis of A.D.H.D has totally revolutionised my life, it’s not a label or status it’s a crippling brain disorder caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain and getting it treated is a life changing experience, because once that chemical is replaced and the appropriate counselling is given, you are given back your life! Before I thought I was a screw up, then I learned my ’screw ups’ were a condition, aside from 3 children I had never achieved anything in my life, a pattern that remained for years, I wanted to achieve something but these ‘wants’ were sporadic, then I was given this magic pill and all of a sudden I could maintain a home, I could think straight, I could prioritise, I could see what my strengths were and my weaknesses, it really is a gift because you’ll discover people with A.D.H.D all have compensatory gifts/talents and despite having to take a pill twice a day I don’t feel abnormal or disabled for the first time in my life I can see the amount of talents I have developed over the years make me a uniquely gifted individual it’s like God gave me extra talents to make up for it, I mean I can talk, I’m articulate an can express myself in amazing way, I can paint in great detail and draw and have a great artistic eye and I can make people laugh (even if its at me, rather than with me) because I think differently and a lot of the time what I think comes out of me gob! (So sometimes it isn’t a bad experience BTW) I’m the fun mum, yay, D ( in reality the fun mum means the TOTALLY inappropriate dysfunctional mum, who is actually crap at being the adult, i. e. not very healthy but as you can see that don’t sound as good does it?) but the teens in the area flock here, they sit with me even if who they knocked for (my kids) are out, so I have a gift with young people in getting them to open up, I can talk with them about teen stuff , the serious teen stuff, safe sex, drug miss use as well as what awful sounding band has hit no 1 in the charts or stupid celebrity stuff and they tell me stuff they’ve never told anyone, then I can share with them my experience, but equally I can discuss philosophy and eschatology for hours and debate for England on any given subject. I can write story’s with characters so complete you can get at least 12 stories out of each one, I can paint pictures with words, take you to worlds you couldn’t imagine, because I can imagine anything and more importantly I’m not beige. Beige people are ordinary, boring, sane people, who have agenda’s, schedules, people who have to keep the status quo, guess who that ain’t? These people more often than not stick to the rules, they’re the ones who never take chances and are always the ones raining on someone’s parade, that’s not me I would NEVER rain on your parade I’m the one in the wings cheering you on, (probably in a totally inappropriate cheerleading out fit ) and I love to dance in the rain, I love laughing, I am the one dancing in the super market queue coz it is boring!!! (Whilst my daughters squirm with embarrassment) Inappropriate? YES! But not BEIGE!!! YAY!!! I am SO cool its untrue Lol! and this gift? In reality, I wouldn’t give it back for the world, would you? Because in reality what the ‘label’ of A.D.H.D does, when it is given its true distinction (treatable disorder) is return your self esteem as well as your life! BACK 2 TOP Medication The side effects aren’t always what you think they are! August 5, 2009 Medication sounds like something for the terminal ill or at least the terminally insane, I hope I’m neither although suspect the latter, but the stigma surrounding it is something I find difficult to understand, I personally have no pre conceptions, negative or otherwise, for me it was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the ‘magic’ pill that would make it all better. That being said my only experience with it before diagnosis was my son, who went from being a hurricane (an annoying hurricane) to a placid thoughtful child within minutes of taking it, he sat on the sofa and you could almost hear a gentle humming coming from his brain. A friend of his however states he will never go on it again and at the end of his teenage years has made the statement that he no longer has ‘ADHD’. However he then proceeds to tell you how he was the youngest person in the country to go on medication, then we take into account the difficulty his mother had even getting the school to allow him to take them when in their care and the obvious fact he almost definitely was made to feel ‘abnormal’ and ’sub – human’ for having to take them and his desire to separate himself from the disorder is painfully clear. I myself, remember his mother explaining to me his disorder and what the meds did, she always had a problem giving them to him, they are a controlled drug, he felt like a drug addict taking them, that is indisputable harsh for a child and as an adult he will possibly, no almost definitely go through hell before he realises that the chemical in his brain that ‘was’ missing is still missing, he actually now believes his mess ups are due to something else, but refuses to even consider his ‘former’ disorder, he won’t even look up adult ADD on the web, my heart goes out to him, I have a very big soft spot for this lad and all he’s been through as one of the first people in the country, certainly his diagnosis and treatment were the reason my son was diagnosed and treated, the first person I knew diagnosed with this disorder, it’s like he was a test subject and what ‘we’ learned from his diagnosis, we benefit from, but he has obviously been scarred, because he even adheres to the media’s labels telling me “…it is just a label, just a status symbol, like ASBO…” that’s so tragic, but for me its devastating he is highly intelligent, but has had such a bad experience he can’t see how diagnosis and medication is a God send, it reminds me of repentance, within the church some people use repentance as a way to ’sin’ all the time cause they can repent, instead of seeing it as a way they can stay ’sinless’ any mistake made can be wiped clean by repentance, its a freedom, for me the medication is a freedom, I can take it and it controls the bad things of ADHD without removing the benefits, such as blinding personality and personal excellence in interested area’s. I wish he could see it and its through him I do understand the stigma, for him taking medication makes him ‘abnormal’ instead of it restoring him, it takes something away from him, I love this boy as thou he was my own son and feel desperately sad medication doesn’t set him free, but I do believe he is not a isolated case and maybe we need to think of repackaging the whole ‘medication’ stance, not just for ADHD but for all mental/psychological imbalances. I’ve known through out my life people with disorders such as schizophrenia/Bipolar and they too felt having to take medication confirmed their illness, confirmed their mental instability instead of controlling it and we’ve all heard the tragic stories in the media, one in particular was extremely tragic of a mother who after not taking her meds murdered her own children, there is a stigma, a REAL stigma and its destroying lives, something needs to be done to educate the general populous on this subject because mental illness affects a large percent of the population at some time in their timeline and people like my sons friend are being robbed of ‘normality’ because they believe the thing that will make them ‘normal’ actually makes them abnormal, when I say normal, I mean a life of balance, lives free from problems their disorders cause, a life free from poverty. People with unmedicated mental disorders are rarely wealthy, unable to gain the stability the drug offers they flit from job to job and nearly always stay below the poverty line. Not to mention the children whose untreated parents abuse or even kill them. Social services are useless at the best of times but even they don’t realise the risk they are taking by not addressing these issues and if you approach them, they use it as an excuse to place an at risk order over a child instead of using it to open services up to the young person, so you keep your mouth shut, meanwhile persons involve are still involved and sit there like a ticking time bomb. I would LOVE to have the marbles to be an MP or someone in a place of authority and address this issue but I’m not, I am attempting to take an access course into social services in October, but its still at idea’s/possibility stage rather than definite. Of course with the recession and MP’s expenses at the forefront of media coverage issues like this don’t get a look in, but a simple input of education, maybe a public service announcement wouldn’t be impossible to arrange (or all that expensive) The Stacy Bipolar storyline in Eastenders may address a few issues, but it is just as likely to spread even more fear. Do they not realise addressing these issues will half the crime in the country, reduce unemployment? They are told yet they completely ignore it, it’s worth mentioning it’d clear most of the accidents in A&E (impulsivity) For me, personally, medication has allowed me a new lease of life I feel I can start again at 35 with 3 children and a grandchild under my belt but how many uneducated (in this area) people don’t get that chance or find out too late? Although one thing medication has opened up to me is it is NEVER too late! A young boy diagnosed with ADD/ADHD will look at the world, look at the media and think, ‘it makes me that’? That needs addressing QUICKLY! Just a thought! A bloody long thought! Posted by asha BACK 2 TOP