Denial about ADHD

Salvador Dali's "Raphaelesque Head Exploding" (click to see larger image)

What does it feel like to have ADHD in a world that doesn’t always “meet you halfway” and can in fact feel devoid of empathy?

What does it feel like to never meet anyone’s expectations or to be constantly admonished for what you’ve done wrong but seldom praised for what you have worked so hard — five times as hard as most people — to do right?

This guest essay below (in the black type) from L. Friesen should give you an idea.

But first some background. For  many years, I’ve read the online “rants” from the partners of adults with ADHD.  A rant is a post wherein the writer releases long-simmering frustration. Typically, the most tortured rants come from those who are living with adults “in denial” — that is, those who cannot or will not see the adverse impact of their ADHD symptoms on everyone involved. Sometimes these adults with ADHD are so lost in their own symptoms they blame everyone else around them for their problems.  It is not a pretty picture.

Yet there exists a parallel phenomenon among adults with ADHD who must deal on a daily basis with people who are “in denial” about ADHD and the challenges they, these adults with ADHD, are up against. The denial sword cuts both ways.

Even though I do facilitate a face-to-face group for adults with ADHD (and receive many e-mails from readers of my book who themselves have ADHD), I’ve not been privy to rants from adults with ADHD (excluding those who flame me as being a Pharma Shill or other anti-psychiatry expletives). Perhaps the adults in our local group are simply polite or else their friends and loved ones are more enlightened about ADHD. I’m not sure, but I intend to ask at the next meeting.

Recently, I received this e-mail from L. Friesen, a woman who had read some of my posts on an ADHD discussion forum:

Months ago I wrote to you about wanting to send you something I was writing. I realised that I was having difficulty articulating what I felt needed to be said. It’s taken months of going back and forth with it and it’s evolved from where I first started.

It’s not all that polished and I apologise for that. I find there are few in the helping area that I truly respect and you write with a sensitivity that is often very touching.  I’m curious about your response to what I wrote.

My response: a  visceral kick to the gut. I’ve always felt empathy for the challenges of adults with ADHD, including the pervasive misperceptions and myths about it, because I made a point to educate myself. But still this essay’s raw and heartfelt emotion stayed with me for days.  My gratitude goes to the writer for allowing me to share it with you, whether her words resonate for your personal experience or help you to understand the people with ADHD in your life.  Now to the essay:

I’ve observed that prefacing what you’re going to say with “I’m just venting” means you are declaring immunity from criticism for being irrational or unfair. You can be irresponsible about the casualties that read what you spew or be as bigoted as you want.

I’m invoking this “right” for myself. You will simply have to put up with my impertinence because as you already know venting is not something allowed to those who are neurologically questionable. For us it is called “making excuses” or, gotta love this one, “being negative.” I don’t care to be objective because it’s my life and my experience, which isn’t an objective experience. I’m out of control, I’m breaking the rules. This is my “oppositional defiance” and not a legitimate “vent.” Legitimacy is only for the normal. So on with my vent in all its offensive glory. Read the rest of this entry »

Who knew that wearing my new t-shirt to the farmer’s market would cause such a fuss?  Instead of my usual sharing of brief assessments about sugar-snap peas or shitake mushrooms with other shoppers, I was drawn into a “debate” about ADHD.

Sure, I’m accustomed to ranting ADHD-denyers on the rough-and-tumble Internet, but not while strolling amid the produce vendors on a sunny Saturday morning.  Still, it was good to know that my verbal “gaslight-proof” skills match my written ones.

First, what does “gaslight” mean?  It harkens to the 1944 film Gaslight, wherein Charles Boyer’s character cravenly manipulates Ingrid Bergman’s character  to believe that she is insane. In psychological terms, “gaslighters” say and do things to make their victims question their perceptions, their knowledge, and their beliefs – all in an attempt to fulfill the gaslighter’s egocentric needs (financial gain, need to control others or to force others to conform to the gaslighter’s beliefs and perceptions, etc.).

Second, this wasn’t just any t-shirt. It was a strikingly good-looking t-shirt created for a Stride for ADHD Pride.  My friend Natalie Knochenhauer, founder of the Philadelphia non-profit ADHD Aware, does all such things with style and substance. Read the rest of this entry »

This week: A guest post from ADHD coach Cynthia Hammer, founder and former executive director of Seattle-based non-profit ADD Resources (click here to visit her blog, “Pinnacle Coaching”).

I’ve always enjoyed Cynthia’s personal essays (look for more to come), and we both appreciate the thoughtful perspectives of Judith Warner, who writes the “Domestic Disturbances” column for The New York Times.
——————-

Do you ever get discouraged about all the bad and inaccurate press about ADHD? That it is a condition that doesn’t exist? That those of us who have ADHD are seeking the easy way out by taking medicine or that we parents give dangerous medicine to children for a made-up condition?

I just finished reading an article by Judith Warner, a columnist for The New York Times who planned to write a book on these kinds of topics, but she kept putting off writing the book—and she finally realized why. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, the headlines this week may not come as news to us. But, following the recent ADHD Hall of Shame entry, science-based reportage comes as welcome relief. The following news sources, among others, report the latest study by NIDA Director Nora Volkow and colleagues showing that, well, ADHD is real. Read all about it.

Here’s a sampling of the breaking headlines, followed by the press release from the researcher:

• BBC News: ADHD Brain Chemistry Clue Found
  US researchers have pinned down new differences in the brain chemistry of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They found ADHD patients lack key proteins which allow them to experience a sense of reward and motivation. Read the rest of this entry »

Introducing: The ADHD Hall of Shame, a new ADHD Roller Coaster department.

Inaugural inductees: HBO show host Bill Maher and his guests Arianna Huffington, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). Two liberals and two conservatives who could agree on one thing only: It’s okay to bash ADHD.

“Paddling a child is inhumane but drugging a child is the way to go?” began an indignant Kingston (R-GA), implying that there’s nothing about ADHD that a good whupping won’t cure. Read the rest of this entry »

This week, I’m preparing a presentation for the CADDAC conference on ADHD in Toronto May 30-31. Here’s the description from the program:

“When The Acorn Falls Close to the Tree: Parenting when Both Parent and Child Have ADHD”

Your child has been diagnosed with ADHD, you’ve learned that this condition is highly genetic, and now you wonder: Could ADHD also be an issue for you and/or your partner? Even well into adulthood, ADHD can present challenges in staying organized, managing time (and mood), and maintaining the routines that stabilize and nourish a family. Learn how unrecognized ADHD symptoms in a parent can affect parenting skills and focus on strategies for success.

My desk is awash in copies of studies and articles on how ADHD in a parent affects the child. It doesn’t take a brain scientist to know that when a parent has difficult ADHD challenges in organization, initiation, motivation, and mood regulation, it doesn’t bode well for the child — especially if the child has ADHD and similar challenges. But here I am at my desk, trying to parse the studies in this area. Along with anecdotes and years of observations, it’s good to have data. Read the rest of this entry »

These days, I feel like Gilda Ratner’s character Emily Litella. No, it’s not because I’m mishearing “Youth in Asia” for “euthanasia” or “presidential erections” instead of “presidential elections.” Instead, I’m listening to news and analysis about the federal “stimulus package” but in my mind I keep hearing “stimulants package.”

Now that’s an odd thing, you might say. But consider this: Only one in 10 adults with ADHD in the U.S. are thought to be diagnosed, and only one-tenth of those adults are pursuing treatment. We also know that adults with unaddressed ADHD symptoms earn less, are more likely to be underemployed and unemployed, and are more likely to file bankruptcy and for divorce. In other words, many of these adults — 10-30 million Americans in all — stand at the very edge of our widening financial abyss. And their partners and children stand with them. Read the rest of this entry »

Is ADHD a modern “invention,” created by computers, fast food, or even…Big Pharma? Recorded history says no. In fact, a recently discovered medical text from 1798 describes, in some detail, disorders of attention, including the observation that some are likely hereditary.

Physician Alexander Crichton (pictured right, at his Cambridge University graduation) provided the first known medical description of disorders of attention in his three-volume medical textbook. Moreover, “he certainly deserves credit for being the first to describe adults with attention disorders,” says ADHD expert Russell Barkley, Ph.D., writing a commentary about Crichton’s work and its modern relevancies in the February issue of The ADHD Report, a newsletter that follows research and trends in the field of attention disorders.

Until the discovery of Crichton’s three-volume textbook (by the two Washington University researchers who wrote a paper introducing it), most medical historians acknowledged physician George Still as providing the first description of symptoms of what we today call ADHD, in children.

Specifically, in his lectures before the Royal Society of Medicine and later writing for the medical journal Lancet in 1902, Still Read the rest of this entry »

A physician with the World Anti-Doping Agency contends that ADD (as he calls it) is being overdiagnosed in major-league baseball. More importantly, it is over treated with medication. On what does he base this? The fact that he has rarely diagnosed the condition throughout his career.

Fail to see the logic? Me, too.

Just when I think this blog can move on to topics other than ADHD medical treatment, another flagrant show of ADHD ignorance makes the headlines. Being a big believer in speaking truth to misperception, I just can’t let it pass.

Besides, it’s pretty good timing. You know those physicians-in-denial-about-ADHD that Dr. Charles Parker wrote about last time? This physician serves as a good example. Read the rest of this entry »

We hear quite a bit about people who are “in denial” about their ADHD. But there’s a flip side to this phenomenon: An adult with ADHD dealing with denial in friends and loved ones who simply refuse to “believe” in ADHD or that this adult has it.

I just reviewed my friend and fellow blogger Bryan Hutchinson’s list of his 11 most popular posts for 2008. I enjoyed each in their original posting, but the one on facing this aspect of denial strikes me as particularly useful.

Like Bryan, I often hear from adults diagnosed with ADHD who can’t understand why others rail against their diagnosis. Bryan offers a list of what he considers the 10 most common reasons.

If you have ADHD, has this kind of denial been a problem for you? If so, how did you deal with it?