I really wish they wouldn't call it that
-- Attention Deficit Disorder. People tthink that those of us with ADD
can't focus on anything. Actually, it couldn't be farther from the
truth! We can focus. The problem is, we focus on everything! And
because of that we have so much vying for our attention (that others
usually can just tune out) we aren't able to focus on the one thing
at hand.
In faculty meetings at school, I sit at the
large table with the other teachers and the principal, who is just to
my right. He is talking about the important stuff principals talk
about, and I am hearing bits and pieces of what he is saying. Not
because I am not interested. Not because he is mumbling. He is two
feet from me, but I am only catching snatches of his
announcements.
Why? Because the two teachers over in the
corner keep whispering...and the fluorescent lights overhead are
buzzing...and the psychedelic screen saver on the computers in the
lab where we meet are distracting me. The chair I am sitting on is
slightly lopsided, and wobbles if I even breathe. I hear the coffee
pot out in the hall making a low sound that reminds me of the call of
an orca.
I remember being in my third grade classroom.
The whirring and creaking of the ceiling fan overhead was something
you could feel, but it barely moved the heavy, tropical air. As a
streak of sweat trickled down the side of my neck, I slid my feet out
of my shoes and pressed them to the cool, tiled floor. Through my
thin, white socks, I could feel a crack in the tile.
Sister Marcelina was pacing slowly down the
aisle two rows over. I had time before she would be anywhere near my
row.
Seeking the crack that had caught my attention,
I looked down at the yellow-and-grey-swirled tiles, and suddenly was
reminded of the swirling, crashing wave I had been caught up in the
day before. As I remembered being tumbled over and over by the huge
wave that had caught me off guard, I marveled again at how even
in the terror or the suffocating moments tumbling under water, how
the quality of the light shining through the tumultuous waves had
been so stunningly beautiful. How did I miss that wave,
anyway...?
Gripping my pencil tighter, and leaning over my
workbook to hide the fact that I was writing with my left hand,
I concentrated again on what I was supposed to be writing.
Painstakingly I wrote, "L...i..."
Outside on the street, a woman cackled loudly.
I wondered what had make her laugh, and glanced out the window to see
if I could see her. All I could see between the frosted glass louvers
was the top of the basket of fruit she carried on her head. Hmm...
Mangoes and papayas.... Mangos make my mouth blister... I wondered
what was for lunch in the lunch room. I hoped it wasn't stewed goat
again.... Goats... And my mind leaped to the funny-looking goat with
the crooked horn I'd seen in Skov's pasture on the way to school.
The woman lets loose another raucous laugh and
a string of choice words.
Whack!!!
Sr. Marcelina's heavy, mahogany stick came down
across my fingers. (But she was two aisles away!! How did she
suddenly appear next to me?!)
"Betty...!" but, though I stared up at her in
horror, none of the rest of her words come through as I wonder for
the hundredth time why she insists on calling me
Betty.
Besides, I knew the speech. I'd heard it all -
indeed said it to myself - a million times before: "What is wrong
with you?" "Why don't you get your work done?" "Why are you such a
lazy girl?"
But I am not lazy. Nor am I dumb. I taught
myself to read at the age of three - though I tend to be slightly
dyslexic. I am very creative. I am amazingly perceptive, and notice
things no one else does. But sometimes I miss things altogether! I
have a quick wit that makes people think I am incredibly clever -
though I'm forever kicking myself for being so dumb.
I sometimes put the laundry in the washer, and
then get distracted and forget it - only to find it mildewed the next
morning -- or two days later.
I have to turn down the radio so that I can
taste the spaghetti sauce, or smell the roses. My son hates that, and
says it is stupid.
I sit in traffic, frantically pushing buttons
to find a news station with a traffic report so I can find out why in
the world traffic is so slow. Ahhh! Finally, a traffic report. ..!
But suddenly the report is over and I haven't heard a word of it! My
thoughts have hopped, skipped and jumped through the maze that is my
mind.
I have remembered the phone call I didn't
return before I left home...and leaped ahead to the inevitable, "Mom,
what is for dinner?" that will be the first thing I hear when I get
in the door...and wondered what that personalized license plate on
the Bronco up ahead is supposed to mean...and remember that I have to
make something for potluck this weekend at church. And I've missed
the entire 45-second traffic report - AGAIN! Why do I do
that?!!
And I tired so hard this time!
My brain just goes from A to Z to C to
W...instead of A to B to C like a linear-thinker (or "normal person"
as they call themselves.)
Welcome to the mind of the
ADDer.