Have you ever had that dream where it is the last day of a semester and you realize all of a sudden that you have to take the final exam but you had forgotten that you signed up for that class and you have never attended it?
I used to think that I had that dream because of my inattentiveness. I thought it was an anxiety dream related to always feeling like you were falling behind. Well, come to find out, everyone has that dream, or a very similar dream. I don't know why but that makes me feel a ton better. It's not that misery loves company as much as it is a sense that those of us with ADHD are really not that different from everyone else.
One of my all time favorite books about ADHD is called Delivered From Distraction. It is written by Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist with ADHD. He takes the stance that ADHD is only a disability if you do not take steps to manage the negative symptoms of ADHD. I agree with this stance. I feel that there are all kinds of minds and that all of us think and learn differently. I am always delighted when one of my sons surprises me with an approach to a problem that would have never occurred to me.
My youngest son has Sensory Integration issues as many kids with ADHD do. He is extremely tactile sensitive (though, amazingly, much less so now that he is medicated). He would not wear socks where he could feel the seams, he, even today, will not wear underwear, he would not wear pants with a certain type of elastic, his shoes had to be just so.
On one, exceptionally frustrating, spring morning when I was trying to get him dressed for school I could not find a pair of pants that he would wear. The Nike sports pants that he loved were muddy and beyond wearing. He found a solution. He put on his muddy Nike polyester pants, jumped in the shower, washed the pants completely with shampoo, toweled the pants until they were pretty dry and went off to school. He also suggested that I go to the thrift store and find him a few more pants that looked like the Nike pants. That very day, I bought him three more polyester sports pants for $1.99 each and we have never had a problem since.
Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder
the seams of the socks have to line up..... oy. sounds familiar. I think I need to go look for that book! :-) KC
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