Inattentive ADHD Stories from my ADHD Home

Inattentive ADHD Stories from my ADHD Home is the first post in a while where I'm sharing some Inattentive ADHD stories and some information regarding how things have been going around here at my ADHD Home.  

Today is  my birthday.  I am feeling like the Inattentive Queen so I thought I would tell you some things that have been on my hyper-focused and inattentive mind for a while...

Inattentive ADHD Stories:

I would like to start my Inattentive Stories by coming clean on several things all at once.

1.  Tess Messer is not my name.  It is not even close to my real name but it is my pen name.  The reason I use a pen name is not because I do not want you to know who I am.  I use that name to protect the privacy of my kids.  If I were writing just about myself, I would not care who  knew what  I wrote about myself, but I am not.

Before we adopted our son we went to several parenting classes about adoption.  One of the things that the social workers stressed about adoption was this.  Though you will always talk to your child about their adoption story, it is not O.K. to talk to other people about their adoption story.  Their adoption story if for them to share, NOT YOU.  I feel that this is true of each of their diagnoses of ADHD.  It is for them to share NOT ME so as much as possible I try to keep their identity private.

2.  The picture that I NOW have on my profile is really me.  The old picture was a stock picture of someone that looked kind of spacey and inattentive but I have no idea who that twirling hair woman is.  I do, however, twirl my hair just like she does and so does my inattentive son.  It must be some sensory processing thingy.

3.  This blog would have been called Predominantly Inattentive ADD had I not been so Inattentive and realized BEFORE I named the blog that Primarily Inattentive was not the correct medical term.

4.  I have made several YouTube videos and have secretly added them to the blog sidebar but have not publicized them because I feel a bit embarrassed about the entire YouTube Video marketing deal.

Ok, that is it on the coming clean front.

ADHD Home

On the 'Inattentive ADHD Stories from my ADHD' home front I will be happy to inform you that I am still inattentive as all 'get out'.  

All the coffee in Columbia has not be able to keep me from scorching three perfectly good pots of soup that I failed to turn off during this very cold winter season.

I managed to add 30 miles to a 12 mile trip home because I got lost beyond all possible imagination (trust me you do not want to know the details).

I have been caught no less than three times walking around with my shirt on inside out (I need to get rid of all  those shirts that have seams on the outside as well as on the inside).

On a more productive note, my Inattentive child has done well in school this year except he has forgotten his flute and his lunch at home at least 2-3 times.  Having an extra copy of his textbooks at home has made a world of difference as has the weekly assignment and organizational system that they use at his school.

My younger son is now only taking 10mg of Adderall in the morning and that has been enough to keep his behavior in check and his mood positive.  He was on 40 mg of Vyvanse so this is a drastic cut in his dose. The Vyvanse seemed to make him sadder, angrier and seemed to stop working as well as it had at first.  The low dose of Adderall seems to work fine at least for now. He too is doing well at school and is almost finished with his auditory processing program, FastForward , and this program has, in my opinion, helped tremendously as well.

My younger son, as you may recall, is Hyperactive/Impulsive and he can be the most disruptive piece of our ADHD home functioning.  What has made the biggest difference  in his behavior this year is that he has been allowed to go to the aftercare program at school if he has finished all his homework. He loves the aftercare program where he gets to play with lots of kids outside.  This program has adults that organize games such as capture the flag, football, baseball and the like and he gets lots and lots of exercise.  This year the school's aftercare program is run by a woman who insists that the kids spend as much time as possible outside running around and this has been really helpful.

I am preparing for summer.  Arranging my work and vacation schedule and the boys schedule as well.  We will travel to London and Boston, backpack on the Appalachian Trail and stay with my sister at the beach in Cape San Blas, Florida.  I am looking forward to all of it.  It promises to be an exciting summer.

Thanks for all your support and please keep me posted, by commenting on this post, on your Inattentive stories and on how things are going in your ADHD home.