Driven to Distraction

Mom and I had a heart to heart last night. She had me listen to Your Best Life Now on book on CD yesterday. It really clicks with her, but I had issues with it. Primarily because the problems Osteen describes that most people have, do not accurately describe my problems. And after thinking about it some more, it occured to me that like so many 'inspirational' books, it's really just an extended, drawn out translation of "Just Do It." God, I hate those words. I HATE HATE HATE those words. So, I finally came up with two analogies to help explain it to Mom.

Color Blindness
The first analogy I would love to explain to my grandmother, who thinks ADD is something I just need to get over. My analogy is that ADD is kind of like being color blind, in a society where we have no black and white film or photography. One grows up seeing in black and white and grayscale. When everyone else is referring to 'red' or 'green', this person is trying to differentiate between shades of gray. They can't figure out why it's so hard for them to grasp what everyone else gets so easily. And even when they are finally diagnosed as actually having a disorder and not just being stupid, it is still hard for the people around them to comprehend what the problem is, because without having seen black and white films or photography, you'd have no way of knowing what exactly it is that the colorblind person is seeing.

Interestingly, I finally picked up Driven to Distraction this morning and the author makes several references to ADD being like nearsightedness. Also, in Journeys through ADDulthood, Solden describes being diagnosed with ADD as an adult like being blind and never knowing that you are blind until you are fully grown. I think I like my color blindness analogy better, though, when it comes to describing why my family members without ADD are having trouble understanding my difficulties.

Mountain Climbing
And to get back to my disgust of the "Just Do It" phrase, which I remember hearing all of my life (having not been diagnosed until I was 23)... my mountain climbing analogy.

When I was a kid, we had a hill at the end of our court. It was small for a hill (that is, when you are living in the Napa Valley) but you usually had to stop for breath halfway up and it definitely caused a burn in the calves. I feel as though every time someone tells me to "just do it" it's got this negative connotation: "It's just a hill, you just have to get up off your butt and do it. Yes, it's tiring, but everyone else has to do it, it's the way life is. How can you be so lazy/irresponsible/stupid that you can't do what everyone else can do?" Grrr. It's just the connotation that annoys me.

Anyway, I realized that for people with ADD, there is no hill. I can assure you, I've looked and looked and looked: I see no hill. Instead, we get a mountain. And getting over this mountain is not as simple as 'just do it'. We can't just walk up the hill. We have to rock climb up the mountain face. Yes, it's possible. Yes, we can physically do it. But it's not that simple. To make it a way of life, to accomplish what is ruitine to everyone else, we have to find a way to reorganize our lives and our habits and get the outside support we need so that instead of rock climbing, we have found or carved a mountain trail over the mountain. It'll still be harder than everyone else who just has a hill to walk over, but at least we aren't out there with picks and hammers.

The problem is that for me, with my ADD, I'm currently standing in a valley surrounded by mountains. I'm unemployed and trying to figure out where the job is that'll help me afford to go back to school to get the degree I want to get to the career I want. Everyone's telling me to 'just do it' -- "You have to get a job, Jenn. How hard is it to get a job? You can't live here forever." But I can't figure out what job I'm supposed to find. Everything I've tried I'm not qualified for or won't work with me or doesn't pay nearly enough to support myself, my two cats, and my medical bills. "Just do it?" Hah! Not only am I trying to climb a mountain, I don't even know which direction I'm supposed to be climbing. North? South? East? West? I feel like I manage to mountain climb up one face, only to find that it's completely impassable halfway up and have to come back down and try some other random direction. To make things worse, I also am fighting depression. Which means, while ADD gives me these mountains to overcome, my depression makes these mountains f***ing scary!

At any rate, I've realized that though books like Your Best Life Now and Purpose Driven Life are not clicking with me at this point in my life, it's because I'm still struggling with my ADD. So I've decided to finally finish reading all the ADD books on my shelf, when I'm not looking for jobs. It's a good compromise for Mom and I both, because it gives me something productive to do besides play video games or banging my head against the wall after 6 hours of job searching. Anyway, here's hoping.