ADD/ADHD and the House

When a child, my brother was diagnosed as ADD (now called ADHD). The school wanted to medicate him but my mom refused. She focused on teaching him how to control himself and use this unique gift instead of drugging it away. Today he is a high school special education teacher, private music teacher, and worship leader in a mega church.

I was the quiet little girl in the back of the classroom who silently pulled in A’s on any work I managed to finish. I did have a tendency to forget assignments, but not often enough to draw any attention to myself. 

Or more accurately, when I did remember at the last minute I was good enough at academics I could throw together something the teacher thought was good enough compared to the work my low-income, nutritionally disadvantaged, gang member classmates turned in. 

It never occurred to me I might have ADD (leave the H off, though. I certainly don’t have that much energy!). After all, I functioned just fine.

I began to read symptoms of adult ADD here and there and just brushed them off as trying to sell medicine to everyone. After all, I had those symptoms and I was obviously normal, so they are just trying to expand the Big Pharm market selling unnecessary medicines.

The day I really began to realize I wasn’t so normal was when I picked up the milk for the week. My hubby usually did the grocery shopping (and all you women out there can just stay jealous. He’s mine and I’m not letting him go!), but for some reason I did it this particular week.

I bought the wrong kind. Hubby asked me how that was possible since the lids were color coded. My response was that I was busy thinking about something else and just didn’t notice I grabbed the wrong one. “It’s just one of those things everyone does sometimes.”

“I NEVER do.” He replied.

I got to thinking about it and realized he really never did. I sure married a weirdo, didn’t I?

I have one son who is quite distracted and so I gave him an online evaluation for ADHD. My intent was to get what I needed to help him like my mom helped my brother. Odd that I answered more questions “yes” than he did.

Finally, I read a blog about a woman diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood. Her doctor walked into the exam room, listened to the woman’s complaint, and asked what she was doing to control her ADHD. No one had ever suggested such a problem to her, but the attentive doctor notice the woman had hit five different subjects in three minutes, never finishing a sentence because her brain was racing too fast. That woman took the meds and found herself a different person.

Again her symptoms sounded way too much like my norm. I finally began to “get” it.

Recently I bought “Organizing for the ADD” book to help my son. It is almost depressing how many things they suggest the adult ADD person do to cope with everyday life that I have done for years. I honestly thought everyone (but my hubby) had to do these things. It never occurred to me that I might be the weirdo!

Now I have finally admitted that I function a bit differently than “norm.” And as I look around I see some others struggling with the same things I have and I want to help. 

What I do to not only cope with housework, but to have the time to homeschool all my children and write books as well as manage the church’s website is a combination of things I have learned from many resources. 

No one method works for me. Bits and pieces of each does work, though, and mixed together I am improving every year. I offer this work to spur you on to figuring out how to start improving your life, too.