ADHD: Attention Disaster Hypersensitivity Disorder

I came across a great article over at Focused Distractions. They covered what it was like to fall asleep with AD/HD. I encourage all reading this column to jaunt on over and give it a read. The article wasn't about insomnia per se, but more about this little symptom of AD/HD called Hypersensitivity and how it affects common activities. They did a capital job explaining the types of thoughts that race through one's head when one attempts to sleep when they are hyperaware of everything around them.

For me, the greatest sensitivity is odor. I must have a dog's nose. I sure don't have a human's nose. I can smell milk going off a week before it thinks about it. I can sense which room my neighbor is sneaking a smoke in. I can tell what my wife had for lunch when we kiss hours later. If there was a superhero team that needed someone with a super sense of smell I'd be their man. I can see the costume now - bright green black checkered spandex covering my entire body except for my amazing nose. Olfactoryman! Wondernose! Mr. Nostrils!! Sometimes this is a gift. When meat is going bad, you want me fighting the good fight by your side.

"Have no fear! Mr. Nostrils is here! Stand back, miss! That meat is manky!"

Most of the time it's a pain in the neck, especially when people don't shower or wear swampy clothes. Then I can't focus on anything but their odor filling my flaring nostrils.

I did a test a few months ago. I had been developing a theory that perhaps I was the only person bothered by these odors. Not that the odors were only imaginary, but that for some reason other people didn't notice them or could ignore them. So when a friend came over and I couldn't concentrate on the movie we were watching because his clothes stank, I studied everybody around me. Nobody was wrinkling up their nose or glaring sideways. After the friend left I decided to throw caution to the wind and reveal my secret identify as Mr. Nostrils. I explained that I was usually hypersensitive to scents and found them distracting. I wondered if anybody else had noticed our friend's odor. Very risky, but superheros are bold and brave! Or I have AD/HD and a compelling urge to destroy friendships that span millennia. Fortunately, I had been practicing on strangers on the bus so my friends weren't offended in the slightest. They also confirmed my suspicions that only I had noticed the odor.

So much angst over odor. It seems a silly topic, doesn't it? Especially if you don't have AD/HD. You probably can't imagine what it's like to have cogent thought pushed off the stage while seemingly insignificant events steal the spotlight. And yet, that's exactly what happens. It's like trying to listen to your favorite radio station on the beach when the guy next to you is listening to another station at full volume. There is cacophony. Frustration. Noise. Likewise, odor becomes noise. Touch becomes noise. Taste becomes noise. They crowd out the other thoughts - like when taking a test and reading the questions over and over again because you can't tune out the guy four seats back tapping his pencil quietly on the desk. It's a problem of magnitude or amplitude. Something in the AD/HD process gives greater weight to background noise.

With effort we can train ourselves to either tune out the noise, or find a way to reduce it's effect. We become such finicky and particular creatures as we learn to cope with these tiny distractions, however. I could completely relate with the authors over at Focused Distractions. My bed sheets have to be just right. Shirts have to fit me a certain way. I don't enjoy wearing contacts because I can't forget that they are there. I can't drink milk that has been warmed to room temperature then rerefrigerated. I don't enjoy food that's been slightly scorched. I can't tune out my neighbors subwoofer at 2am even when I'm tired. In fact, I can still detect the vibrations of his subwoofer even with white noise playing on the stereo, a CPAP blasting in my ear, and my head buried under the pillow. Such hypersensitivity seems unfair and useless at moments like that. Couldn't I be more like my wife? She could sleep soundly if my neighbor was moshing in our clothes closet.

There's no real solution for it. As Spidey says, with great power comes great irritability. Or something like that. Fortunately one can train oneself to ignore sensory distractions. If I learned to sleep with a CPAP mask strapped to my face while being inflated all night long like a balloon in a Macey's parade then I can learn to ignore other things as well. The trick is to not let the distractions irritate you. Don't sit there suffering and irritated and abused. The hypersensitivity that can encroach on our thoughts also gives us an intense life experience for all the positive sensations as well. No matter how much my bed sheets bug me when I try to sleep, I wouldn't trade away this hypersensitivity for a more "normal" existence. Would you?

technorati tags: ADHD, AD/HD, ADD, Hypersensitivity, Hypersensitive, Coping Strategies

New Year's Flies in My Resolution Ointment

Aside from spending the past few weeks sick as a dog with a lingering virus that has moved in and taken up residence. (I'm now receiving it's forwarded mail), I have been paralyzed with indecision. I made my big goals for my 39th birthday, but have stalled on making big goals for my next birthday. I turn forty, so the goals need to be worthy of the event.

I am not the type of person who makes New Years Resolutions. I noticed at a young age that most NYRs were broken within a month of their convicted declarations. People seemed to use them as traditional party hats that looked really good on December 31st but were tossed in the trash the next day. With an angry gleam in my eye I would shake my young fist at the foolish traditionalists and make a declaration of my own: Nothing Changes on New Years Day!

Actually, that was a line from an old U2 song. At any rate, I have a hang up about NYRs that is deep rooted in teenage angst and is therefore silly since I haven't been a teenager for some time, but that's not what is paralyzing me. I live my life by End of Year Deadlines, not NYRs. My birthday is the big event by which I meter my success. Since I hinge my self-worth on whether I can meet these goals, I think about them hard. I like them to be just beyond my reach so that making the deadline requires growth. Over time, however, I have accomplished all the easy goals. Don't forget to get dressed after the shower? Check! Remember to not let the water, and the bottom of the pan, boil away when cooking ramen? Check! The items left on my list are decidedly more complicated and intimidating.

This is what I discussed with my Cognitive Behavior Therapist the other day. I hadn't seen him in over six months so there was a lot to catch up. Besides, I needed a referral so I could pursue further treatment with a neurologist. I had a good year so there was mostly accomplishment after accomplishment to discuss, which is rewarding if not a little unusual even for me, but soon the good news was over and I was faced with my dilemma. What on Earth was I going to do for the next year? And why couldn't I decide?

What's nice about a CBT is that he or she doesn't make any decisions for you. The whole point of the therapy is for you to work out your own problems with the tools and skills you were born with. The CBT often helps you see your limitations as obstacles that you can maneuver around. So much about Adult ADHD is negative. The CBT focuses on the positive. In my case, he just sits back bemused as I pace back and forth in his office while I work out what's troubling me and what I can do to fix it.

I realized when reading my list of potential goals out loud that I had once again chosen too many of them. Jack Palance's character in City Slickers suggested the secret to life is focusing on one thing. One thing? I can think of forty amazing things to accomplish before the breakfast gets soggy! Obviously, I don't have time to do all of them, but I don't always recognize that emotionally. I get hung up thinking I'm supposed to do it all because that's what "normal" people are supposed to be able to do. I was spinning in place spending all my energy ruminating and building anxiety.

The problem was that I was waiting for a shaft of light from Heaven with choirs of angels and a voice from above saying "Douglas, this is what thou art supposed to do. Go forth, my son, and do it!" I had three big projects on my list which could not all be accomplished in a year's time. I wanted to do each one, but couldn't prioritize them properly. Finishing any one of them would have helped me feel I was making something of my life, but which one should I pursue? Then my CBT said something that caused me to sit down in stunned silence. He said sometimes you have to drill a hole in the ceiling to let the light through...that sometimes we need to just decide on something and pursue it in order to find out if it's the right thing or not.

My life has been filled with so many false starts and unfinished failures that I have become quite anxious about undertaking new ones as my fortieth birthday looms in the distance. I have been waiting for the "Sure Thing". Sometimes, though, we aren't really waiting. We're actually afraid to step out of our comfort zone and take a chance. Other times we simply can't see the forest for the trees. While I was waiting I was stagnating which was only making me miserable. Instead, I needed to make an informed decision and act on it.

My CBT still didn't decide anything for me, but he pushed me in the right direction. He helped me see my ADD obstacles so I could stop walking into them like a wall and opened a door to bypass them instead.

ADHD: The Blind Leading the Blind

Two nights ago I asked my thirteen year old daughter for help. I told her I needed her to get me two things from upstairs, but when she asked what they were my mind went blank. I stood there and wrestled with my thoughts to remember what the heck I needed her to get. Soon the neurons in my mind recalled each other's location and I remembered what items I needed, but when I made sure I had her attention I forgot them again so quickly I didn't have a chance to say what they were. She just laughed and laughed. I could have felt frustrated. I certainly felt sheepish, but instead I laughed along with her.


I mention this only so you know what type of brain we're working with here when I tell you that last week a reader named Bekah asked me for advice. She shared with me how frustrated she felt when her son, who has ADHD, became frustrated whenever he encountered problems. She wanted to know what she could do to help him. I believe the working theory was that since I had AD/HD I was infinitely qualified to give advice on the subject. Unfortunately for me, I am overqualified.



AD/HD and frustration go hand in hand. Sometimes, what we seek is just a bit beyond our memory's reach, like when we go to the store and forget why we're there. Other times, there is something obvious we have overlooked that will provide a ready solution to the problem. At worst, we have inexplicably forgotten something important that has caused mishaps at work or school or home. It is no wonder some non-AD/HD people hold us in contempt and treat us as stupid. However, we don't need outside influences to shape our self-esteem for the worse. We are usually our own harshest critics. I watch this at work in my seven year old daughter.


Sometime before Christmas she sheepishly pulled out a math test and showed it to me. The teacher wanted her to work out the mistakes and turn the test back in. Most notable amidst the mistakes was 1+1=0. My daughter berated herself for being stupid as she squirmed by my side and averted her gaze. The beginnings of self-loathing had begun its creep into her developing mind, and I sat stunned for a moment not because she had jotted down the wrong answer to the most fundamental mathematical equation in the world, but because she was developing self-loathing despite all the love and support we gave her. I was looking at myself.


Bekah wanted to know what her son expected of her in moments like this. Obviously individual needs may vary, but our children are not so different from we who have carried ADD into adulthood. A little love, respect, and forgiveness can soften the sting of failure, and perhaps a nice hug, but no amount of hugging will undo the damage. Take my old boss, Jerry, for example. If he had started snuggling me when I pasted the sports photo upside down on the front page not only would I have been alarmed and embarrassed, but his beard would have been chafing. No, instead he kept a secret dossier of all my mistakes and presented them during my three month review as a testimony of my uselessness. He compiled evidence in hopes it would get me terminated. Nice guy. The AD/HD person learns over time to expect ridicule, chastisement, contempt, and dismissal. How different things would have been if he had approached me months before and had a good laugh with me over the doofy upside down photo. Bekah's boy and my daughter need a wiser approach.


I knew that I couldn't hug my daughter's feelings of disappointment away. She was a bright, intelligent kid who has been well aware of what one plus one equals for several years. This mistake was a crushing blow to her ego despite it being a simple case of subtracting instead of adding. So I put my arm around her and agreed with her that it was a stupid mistake, but then I suggested she had probably been distracted when taking the test. I suggested with full confidence that she knew what the answers were and should quickly correct the mistakes. Only when she came back with a corrected paper did I help her laugh at the mistakes. Making light of the errors after she corrected them helped her accept her momentary limitations but not hate herself because of them.


The trick to disciplining the adhd child without destroying their self-esteem seems to be the same trick to supporting them when they grow frustrated with themselves. Teach them how to control negative behavior, teach them they will have negative behavior but they are OK, and teach them about their positive skills and find ways to encourage that behavior. It doesn't hurt to help them laugh at their mistakes instead of beating themselves up over them, either. Incidentally, this is the same advice I have learned to give myself.


I hope the advice was helpful. This is, of course, one shining moment out of many less stellar ones, but I like to believe I'm on the right track. But what do I know? After all this time I still don't remember what I wanted my other daughter to get for me.

technorati tags: ADD, ADHD, AD/HD, Self-esteem, Advice, Frustration, Parenting