"Despite everything, I don’t regret my ADD – I love it!”
There are lots of pitfalls, obstructions, and challenges summarized in the preceding pages. The ADD life is a fierce undertaking, a daily struggle – too often, an endless parade of disappointment and loss and fatigue.
But it is also wonderful! Astonishing, fascinating - deeply gratifying in so many ways!
We ADD adults live lives that others cannot know – lives filled with gratifying accomplishment, marvelous surprises, and unexpected joy. Those superpowers of ours are magical! The assets of our character, forged in the fires of turmoil and heartbreak, have made us human beings of integrity and principle and empathy, well worth the love and respect of others.
I am decades into my life as an ADD adult, and I’ve long since accepted that I’m different. I no longer mind! I’m proud of my differences, I take delight in them. I spent so many years apologizing for who I am, and those days are over.
June Silny says it much better still:
“Even though I have to deal with the rolling eyes of naysayers who think that I’m making up excuses, lies, and stories, I wouldn’t change a thing in my brain. My ADHD allows me to love passionately, and to see color where others see black and white. I live outside the boxes and the lines. I fly without wings because amazing things do happen. Change doesn't scare me. It excites me. I embrace it. I see light in the darkness. I can stay up all night working on a project and deliver it the next morning with an Oscar-worthy performance. Some call it a burden, a disorder, or a deficit; I don’t think so. To me it’s a precious diamond that I need to guard closely and polish often — smoothing out the edges to discover new sparkling dimensions every day.
“Give it up? No way! My ADHD is me. It’s in my heart and my soul. I love it that way.”
June speaks for me. Her words express exactly how I feel about my ADD.
I read a story in an article about ADD not long ago that told of a young Asian piano prodigy. She was a dazzling talent, attracting much positive attention. In the midst of all this, she was diagnosed ADHD, and put on meds. Her talents vanished.
The same thing happened to me. After I was diagnosed 15 years ago, I took Strattera – and after a few weeks, my ability to write began to fade. I switched to Concerta. No help.
There was no way I was giving up my hyperfocus. It was too much a part of me. (It was also how I made my living, which was no small consideration.) I gave up meds instead, and looked for other ways to manage my ADD.
If you’ve read this far, it’s very possible you feel the same way. Meds or no, you have accepted your ADD as an essential part of you, not to be tolerated or borne as a burden, but as a cornucopia of blessings.
If you feel this way, and if you’ve taken your partner/friend through the various dialogs above - clarifying those traits, foibles, and strengths that make you something unique and special - you’d do yourself an injustice if you didn’t express your embrace of your ADD and your satisfaction with who it has made you.
You might say something like this:
“You’ve been so patient, letting me tell you about this part of me. But I want to say one more thing: even though ADD has its challenges, and sometimes makes my life truly difficult – I wouldn’t trade it for anything! It lights my way, it fills me with wonder and energy, it is an endless flow of gifts. It is a source of unending beauty and adventure. I feel like it makes me special. I not only accept it, I celebrate it! I’m really hoping I can share this part of myself with you in a way that helps you appreciate it, too. I feel like we’re going to share an incredible adventure!”
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