This ethnopoetic essay performs some of the professional, interpersonal and political challenges presented by ADHD and some of the ways in which non-visible disabilities intersect with other axes of privilege and accessibility.
Open letter to a colleague on occasion of insensitive and inappropriate behavior to which my attention deficit disorder was a significant contributing factor:
I know that it is unacceptable for professionals emails to have so may missing letters, words misplaced apostrophe's, unexplained spaces, sentence fragments. The truth is "close enough" is the same as perfect my proofreading eye.
If we understand that symbols don't exist as symbols until there is a knower prepared to know them, the typos were not, strictly speaking, there when I tried to know them with a mind prone to skip from known to known from known to known ad infinitum…
I know it doesn't matter that I spent hours reading aloud, editing, revising. I know the proofreading is in the pudding and mine is soupy, sloppy, slimy, not-yet-constituted "spilt mercury, running and beading" 1 and lack of knowing is the opposite of my problem, plagued as I am with a pathological knowingness, perpetually planning more and doing less.
I know too that when I was late you worked harder in my stead
covering once to do that which I should've done twice to mask that labor as though t'were none three times a lady forgiving, with a compulsory smile, my soupy head.
I did not mean to be late But the lateness was not, strictly speaking, late until you met it so you bore the brunt of its meaning in my absence
As some are blind to color, I am blind to time 2 This is unavoidably true
In fact, I was born two months pre-mature Thus time-blindness: one of the very first things that was true of me.
One of, but not the very
Lest we forget the blurry picture through which I was decreed male with all the privileges and (ir)responsibility heretofore pertaining.
In the most easily verifiable version of the story, doctors gave my mother IV alcohol to mask her labor to keep me from emerging inopportunely 3 The booze failed and the fetus emerged, 4 just north of 7 months just south of 5 pounds. Hyland membrane: structural immaturity of the lungs; not enough oxygen in the brain. 5 the former perpetually gasping for air the latter for knowledge both in short, compulsive, un-satiated bursts. "If he lives," the doctors said (and they had good cause for that "if," a brother, born but a year before, had not) "he will likely have severe brain damage." Lungs might heal but brain will gasp, nauseating both knower and known ad nauseum amen.
In mother's version of the tale, the one I've heard most often, The church ladies prayed me back to heath God, it was clear, had big plans for the little man and look how well the baby's gasping brain worked and look how the guardian angel protected him when he ran away from home at the age of 3 because he was too bored to take a nap. and look how curious and look how adventurous and look how charming and look how every report card proves those doctors wrong.
In the story behind that story, narrative threads untangled by therapists and theorists alike, The truth is that "close enough" was the same as perfect to the professors' proofing eyes.
If we understand that symbols don't exist as symbols until there is a knower prepared to know them, the diagnosis was not, strictly speaking, there when they tried to know it with minds prone to skip the errors of the privileged The now clear signs were masked by then clearer signs: White Male Cys Straight Plus the constant fear of being hit across hand by a teacher's ruler, dragged by an ear out in the hallway, shamed for an outburst spanked by a father who claimed, always in anger, to act only out of love.
Privilege, however great, is not lack of any problems, only of those caused by oppression on the axis of advantage in question.
Problems, however severe, are not an excuse for ignoring those axes rendered most invisible by privilege.
Stellar transcripts don't show: classes dropped in a panic because of unfinished papers, spelling mistakes hiding behind barely legible handwriting the in class, closed book final exam turned in three days late covered in macaroni and cheese and peach juice because I simply forgot the substitution of self-loathing and anxiety endured adrenaline for executive function how many times I missed out on things I wanted because of something so trivial that it would only have taken a moment to correct but for which I never found the correct moment: how often I wished for death while learning how to live.
In another version of the story I was to be a grounded, headstrong, driven Taurus but was born early and became a soupy, slippery, slimy Pisces.
The woman (not at all interested in church even less interested in being called a lady) who read my chart said, "You have two water grand trines and one fire grand trine. No earth or air to speak of" I asked her what that meant and she said, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry" And recommended I spend an hour a day in complete physical privacy, preferably in water. and wished me better luck on my next karmic go-round. And repeated "I am, truly, so so so sorry." And I hear her hollow— though doubtlessly sincere— apology echo in mine to you and I know another sorry will only exacerbate the problem even as I hear it come out of my mouth even as I see, (late again) the exhaustion on your face so so so a needle pulling thread pricking, mending, pricking, mending addendum, addendum, addendum addendum.
I know, further still, that my desire to know you, to ally our struggles, had a moment of promise before I pushed analogy past utility, before my care crossed, through sheer volume if nothing else, from supportive to intrusive and back again so many times as to blur with the barrage of micro aggressions that make up too many of your days I am left in the last place either of us wanted me to be In the center of things. As you retreat, Understandably, from the well-meaning but dangerous dance of my persistent, privileged presence.
Another version of the story haunts me most every time I read a newspaper,
I shoplifted for a few years. Not sometimes, but almost anytime there was something to steal. Shorts. T-Shirts. Posters. Gum. At first: An impulse I didn't regulate well. An unforced error. But soon: An obsession. not just the stuff not just the thrill but the focus that came with the adrenaline a moment in which there was only one thing on my mind and my mind was only one thing. A period. Not, for once, an ellipsis. Caveat emptor, Only stolen goods offered this only-one-ness thus they were discarded immediately after acquisition, like so man other prosthetic executives before and after. When I finally got caught, I blubbered away my Miranda rights, hazel-green eyes dropped buckets of tears down rosy red cheeks and white cops took pity and called white parents and did not, as for so many counterparts of color, consider me nuisance, threat, or monster. My ill-thought-out indiscretion was cause for mockery, but not harassment, violence, fear. I am not in the least bit blind to how my color (or, in the inaccurate popular imagination, lack thereof) is an ADHD comorbidity a compensating commodity or to how many of neurological kin made other through racial injustice overpopulate our prisons 6 or to how quickly any one of those glorious periods could have become a life sentence in a different syntactical context.
The sheer volume of mistakes though which I have been able to gain what little mastery I have over my soupy mind is itself profound privilege.
According to another story, one I hope to share more widely, An estimated 5% of the population has ADHD The disorder is approximately as heritable as height, indisputably neuro-chemical (though environmental factors make it worse and these are spread unequally) It manifests differently in different people, but its chief characteristics are poor attention span, poor impulse control, poor organizational skills, poor follow through poor handwriting poor tact interrupting others excessive talking losing things doing dangerous things without considering consequences intense courtship followed by painful break-ups inability to stay on topic missing deadlines procrastination bad financial decision making inappropriate generosity forgetfulness difficulty remaining seated general dissatisfaction with life and a sense that one could be doing better if only one could put one's mind to it but that one's mind will never stay where it is put. 7
Things from which most people suffer from time to time but from which we suffer All. The. Time. An estimated 60% of those of us who have the disorder, which is to say an estimated 2.4% of the entire population, have debilitating symptoms well into adulthood 8 Even when we learn that we really can do math when we put our minds to it Even when we stop fidgeting and pacing Even when the hyperactive H gets internalized as self-hatred and anxiety. Even when we remain undiagnosed and untreated (as do about half of us). Even when we remain misunderstood (as do almost all of us).
In your version of the story, the one that brought me to write this letter, one that I've been telling myself versions of for years
Even a modicum of decorum would have told me to not speak without thinking, to not interrupt, to not be so easily familiar, to not be so aggressively self-disclosing.
I know that it is not fair I know it is too much to ask
but the truth is that I needed others
not to help me think
—as though we could fairly call what this mind makes when others aren’t there
thoughts—
but to think at all.
When I have occasion to feel that I know any one thing in particular it is because
you—or someone who shares your gift for being present even in uncomfortable
situations (and there are not many)— have made a momentary stream
consciousness out of my swamp-mind.
I know that stream often comes at you like a firehose and you feel trapped at the very moment I feel most free.
I know it is not right that I made an only-oneness of you, a flesh and blood human with your own complex needs and desires.
I know depending on how exhausted you are when we meet I either often or always annoy the shit out of you I know it doesn't really help to tell you that I annoy the shit out of me too. But I do. All. The. Time.
I know that the charms on which I rely to climb out of the holes I'm always digging are not available to everyone.
I know that, from anyone, but especially from someone who looks like I do, talks like I do, moves like I do, benefits from the status quo like I do. You are wise to sometimes understand my immaturity as calculating, condescending, colonizing. Although it breaks my heart, you are not wrong to protect yourself from me at times.
I know that you, too, have a story (and competing versions thereof) to tell. I will sit on my hands I will turn off my cellphone I will snap the rubber band against my wrist I will doodle I will ask questions of clarification I will take my medication (as long as my insurance covers it and my afternoon routine was not
disturbed so I remembered to get it refilled and my morning routine
was not disturbed so I remembered to take it at the right time) I will have a few beers (but not too many) I will only give you advice that you ask for I will trust your good will when you tell me I've screwed up It's not my strong suit, but I will listen. Most especially when you tell me that you are too tired to labor, yet again, on my behalf or when you do not mask the fact that labor is labor behind a smile to spare my feelings, to protect yourself from judgment.
When I fail, and I fail I will, please tell me that I have. If you have to choose, err on the side of neat and direct over nice and discrete. I've got muddy, soupy, slippery half-thoughts to spare. I crave clarity even when the clearest truth is simply this: my privilege is showing.
I do, desperately, want to know and be known by you in whatever way is most appropriate and least appropriative. Although I am not, and will never be, an expert on either appropriateness or appropriation, I can, with your help, at least do less harm. I bring one strength to the sticky, thorny work of coalition building: I am accustomed to operating in messy situations.
Endnotes
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Edward M Hallowell and John Ratey, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 275
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On ADHD and "time blindness" see Russel Barkley, "Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Self-Regulation, and Time: Toward a More Comprehensive Theory," Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 18, no. 4 (1997): 271-9.
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On links between ADHD and prenatal alcohol exposure see Jim Henry, Mark Sloane, and Connie Black-Pond, "Neurobiology and Neurodevelopmental Impact of Childhood Traumatic Stress and Prenatal Alcohol Exposure," Language, Speech & Hearing Services In Schools 38, no. 2 (2007): 99-108.
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"At 34 weeks gestation, the overall weight of the brain is only 65% of what it weighs at 40 weeks gestation. Therefore, many researchers speculate that premature birth results in disruption to the maturational processes of the brain." Dina O'Brien, "The Relationship Between Prematurity and ADHD," Hand to Hold: Fragile Babies. Strong Support. http://handtohold.org/resources/helpful-articles/the-relationship-between-prematurity-and-adhd/
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Zappitelli, Michael, Teresa Pinto, and Natalie Grizenko, "Pre-, Peri-, and Postnatal Trauma in Subjects With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder," Canadian Journal Of Psychiatry 46, no. 6 (2001): 542-549.
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People with ADHD make up approximately 5% of the overall population but approximately 25% of the prison population. They also show significantly higher than average rates of recidivism. RF Eme, "Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and correctional health care." J Correctional Health Care 15, no 5 (2009): 5-18.
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Hollowell, 245
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Susan Young, and Jessica Bramham. ADHD in Adults : A Psychological Guide to Practice. (Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, 2007): xiii.
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