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I get up.
I walk.
I fall down.
Meanwhile, I keep dancing
-Rabbi Hillel
When I read
this simple quote by Rabbi Hillel, I was struck in the deepest way
by how it summed up what I had been searching for a way to express
for some time. It put words to the voyage I had witnessed hundreds
of adults with AD/HD-including myself-take over the last twelve
years. People who, after a diagnosis of and initial treatment for
AD/HD, have gone on to live satisfying lives tend to be able to
separate who they are from their AD/HD difficulties and differences,
to distinguish between their worth as people and the problems that
threaten to engulf them on a daily basis.
This struggle,
captured so poignantly in Hillel's few lines, is not about minimizing
the difficulties or idealizing the differences. It is about continuing
to struggle while being of two minds, and on two simultaneous paths.
It is about continuing the lifelong challenge of keeping your hopes,
dreams, spirit, and real self alive and well while struggling with
adult AD/HD.
Over the years,
I've given many speeches on the topic of AD/HD. I often begin a
talk by sharing one of several stories about my own struggle with
AD/HD-to disabuse people of the notion that there is one kind of
end point; to remind them that there isn't a linear progression
from AD/HD to non-AD/HD. I want to share the following story with
you for the same reasons. Even though for a long time I had thought
that I accepted my AD/HD, a recent experience brought very deep
feelings to the surface and forced me to reevaluate basic questions
about my differences from others and my own self-worth.
My husband and
I adopted a ten-year-old girl from Russia after meeting and falling
in love with her one summer a few years ago. After this initial
meeting we had to go through a serious decision-making process that
had a great deal to do with my AD/HD. Even though I have a biological
son who is now grown, I did not know I had AD/HD before he was born,
so it was not a consideration. Now I was faced with knowing extremely
well the challenges of my AD/HD. I asked myself how my AD/HD would
be affected by adopting this girl and, more important, what impact
my AD/HD would have on her. I struggled with the question of what
the essential qualities of being a good parent are, as do many parents
with AD/HD. For me, I worried about baking, cooking, and disorganization,
whereas others might struggle with such activities as getting a
child to school on time. Would it be fair to her if I became her
mother? What did I have to offer?
Friends and
family assured me I had many wonderful inner qualities to offer,
but I was so focused on my more visible liabilities that I wasn't
able at the time to see my true value as a parent. While my concerns
were understandable, they certainly wouldn't disqualify a person
from being a good and loving parent. Although I've been able to
advise others to value their strengths just as much as their deficits,
I couldn't seem to apply this advice to my own circumstances. When
it came to the stark reality of such a life-altering decision, all
I could do was shift back and forth between two images: this child
in Russia in an orphanage versus my omnipresent piles of papers
(a common AD/HD hallmark). I was having a very hard time figuring
out how much weight to give these different realities.
Then at one
point someone I know, who wasn't trying to be mean but was just
wondering, asked me bluntly: "Do you think she will be able to tolerate
you?" I pictured my future daughter far away in her orphanage and
then me and my piles, and immediately I recognized how absurd the
question was. At that moment I could see clearly all that I had
to offer this child.
Whereas a question
like that might have made me upset or defensive or depressed at
an earlier point in my AD/HD travels, this time I was able to laugh.
Even a few years before, even after diagnosis, I would have felt
too inadequate to take on this huge endeavor. I wouldn't have seen
or appreciated that my strengths at least equaled my difficulties.
This, of course, doesn't mean they cancel them out. I wasn't soft-pedaling
my difficulties or pretending they would not have an impact. I just
tried to use all the information about who I am as a whole person.
I tried to be realistic about the impact the adoption would have;
I prepared myself emotionally and got enough physical support for
this difficult but exhilarating challenge.
And so my husband
and I went halfway around the world to bring back our new daughter.
Now at night
when I hold my daughter, I look around at the disarray that at times
surrounds us, and I add a little something to a favorite line of
mine by Ralph Waldo Emerson (my addition is in italics): "What lies
behind us and what lies before us (and what lies around us)
are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
There is a postscript
to this story. My daughter had been with us a year when she turned
to me at the airport as I was leaving to go to speak at a national
AD/HD conference. She was frustrated at my not being able to find
my ID for the fourth time that day. She looked me straight in the
eye and said, "Mom, you're a messy person!" I braced myself and
thought, "OK, here it comes. This is what I knew would happen someday.
Now is the test of my theory about what is truly important against
reality." I asked her as calmly as possible to tell me how big a
problem this is to her. I also told her I was soon going to be talking
to a big group of messy people. "What would you have me tell them
about this?" I asked her. Again she looked me straight in the eye
and said, "Tell them it's not important. What's important is how
you feel about me and who you are inside."
Critical
Turning Points
In every individual
I have seen who goes on to live a satisfying life with AD/HD, there
is a critical shift at some point after initial treatment.
As a therapist,
I began to watch for these shifts, or internal markers, and started
to realize they were points where people crossed a threshold, pushing
through their internal barriers to continue to meet their shifting
challenges. I became aware that some people were able to keep moving
along in their inner voyage while others were becoming stuck. I
listened as people shared descriptions of themselves, their relationships,
and of their own differences. The details of individual stories
were different, but the themes and markers represented in their
continued growth and development after diagnosis were the same in
significant ways.
I continued
to use this model and realized there was a continuum of progress.
When a new client told me her story, I could quickly recognize where
she was on this continuum. And when I had been working with someone
for an extended period, at some point I could perceive the shift
in her development. This progress wasn't measured by how organized
her life was. Instead it was a measure of her self-image and her
ability to "get on with life anyway," to form a postdiagnosis identity,
and to sustain close relationships despite her continuing AD/HD
symptoms.
The AD/HD component
of your life has to be continually dealt with, but it's not your
whole self; nor should overcoming AD/HD be your overall goal or
destination. AD/HD contributes a greater deal to your voyage-its
struggles, storms, beauty. The goal is to embrace your true identity,
to enjoy and derive satisfaction from your life despite the difficulties
of AD/HD. The great challenge is to "keep dancing," even while continuing
to struggle.
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