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Well into the 20th century, miners sent canaries into coal mines to test for leaking carbon dioxide. If the bird died, the miners would know not to follow.
The image haunts but also inspires me today, as I ponder the important role that people with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder are playing in our new world of multiplying distractions.
To borrow a metaphor from Aldous Huxley, we were born with our doors of perception flung open, easy targets for cognitus interruptus long before the advent of e-mail, Facebook, and one-click shopping. We’re doubtlessly over-represented among overwhelmed victims of the Information Age. Yet the most resilient of us have of necessity become early adapters, and skilled survivors, meaning we now have much to teach others.
On my good days, I count myself among those survivors. I was diagnosed with ADHD at 48, shortly after my first-born son was diagnosed at age 9. This spiritual path has become increasingly common for parents of my generation, due to growing awareness and acceptance of all sorts of strongly hereditary mental conditions. It’s particularly familiar for women, who as girls were more likely to have the “inattentive” as opposed to “hyperactive” form of the disorder, and thus more easily slipped under the radar, sometimes for decades.
Initially awkward as it was to consider myself certifiably mentally glitched, it was also liberating. Finally, I had a simple explanation for all those lost sunglasses and bent fenders. Fears of a damaging “mommy brain” or early onset of dementia receded, and I could plug into the many resources available for people who can identify their special quirkiness with acronyms.
In an only somewhat impulsively early observance of ADHD Awareness Month, in October, I’d like to share a few insights and best practices I’ve learned along the way.
• Once we accept the limits to what we can control, and as Alcoholics Anonymous would recommend, surrender to a Higher Power, things tend to get easier. We learn, for instance, to be more honest with ourselves and others, and also to go easier on ourselves and others.
• We can help ourselves enormously by choosing and nurturing friends, and, if we’re very lucky, spouses, who make us feel understood and appreciated.
• We must recognize a tendency to over-commit, perhaps due to our outsized love of novelty, and grow more adept at politely saying “no.”
• We should take exceptional care to get a good night’s sleep, even if eight hours feels like a luxury. It can make a huge difference in our driving, just for instance.
• We must make peace with our innate difficulty with being on time, and plan to leave the house at least a half-hour earlier than we think we must.
• We do best by practicing abstinence with social media, and counting to 1,000 before sending possibly inflammatory emails. “Net nannies” that block access to email and Amazon’s tempting one-click shopping for periods of time are also helpful.
Remember, the symptoms for inattentive ADHD, my special brand, include becoming bored or distracted easily, having trouble learning new information, and processing information more slowly than peers, all of which, I’m just guessing, are becoming more prevalent symptoms both for those who have and haven’t been diagnosed. That’s why I suspect these tips will be helpful for anyone out there who already feels like you have soot on your wings, and probably also for the supposedly compos mentis miners on the path close behind us.
