For as long as I can remember, I’ve had to deal with turbo-charged chaos. This includes everything from showing up to events on the wrong day to rescheduling botched vacations, and from not sleeping well at night to being late for church literally every single Sunday for the past 31 years. In addition to these regular occurrences, there are the not as frequent, yet just as frustrating, instances such as when my AOL account was rendered inactive due to nonpayment of fees right in the middle of conducting research for my term paper or the year I didn’t get my income tax return check cashed in time because it was “put up for safe keeping” under the serving platter in the china cabinet and then forgotten about.Â
In an effort to learn more about the hectic nature of this crazy thing known as “my life,” I decided to spend a Saturday at a conference for children and adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD regional conference). Having attended conferences before for my job, I thought that I pretty much knew what to expect, but as soon as I walked through the hotel doors, I knew that this one would be different. There was an incredibly long line of people at the registration desk, and those 60 people were coherently involved in about 72 various conversations. The woman in front of me was talking about degenerative eye diseases while the man in back of us described a recent visit with his granddaughter. Within a few moments, the conversation between both of these strangers naturally evolved to the color of Angelina Jolie’s baby’s eyes. Huh? It was at that point, that I knew for sure that I was at the right place.
Once inside the meeting room, I took a seat and waited anxiously for the first speaker to begin. I wanted him to help me understand AD/HD and how to cope with it. Before he could get started, my neighbor passed me a clipboard with a sign-in sheet titled, “Atlanta Area Women with ADD.” I briefly examined the page which had space for my name, phone number and email address before passing it along to the next person. I could see out of the corner of my eye that the woman who had passed it to me was giving me a bit of a strange look. She politely asked, “Oh, you didn’t sign it because you don’t live in Atlanta?” I responded, “Actually, I do live here,” I responded.  ”I didn’t sign it because I don’t have ADD.” It was probably my paranoid imagination, but at that moment, it seemed like the whole row got quiet, so I quickly added, “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with having it, but I just don’t.”Â
A bit confused, are you? Well, I wasn’t lying. I don’t have AD/HD, but it was imperative for me to glean all that I could from this conference because the rest of my AD/HD-diagnosed family has been ‘driving ME to distraction.’ Let me explain…I showed up for events on the wrong day, or missed important events altogether, because my mom would lose the invitations and try to rely on her memory to come up with the date. I never slept well at night because my brother and sister were up until dawn laughing and talking under the auspice of organizing the basement, and I don’t even know what the first 20 minutes of the church service entails because my teenage nephews are literally incapable of putting on both socks and both shoes in less than 40 minutes.Â
That time that my AOL account was canceled during crunch week in grad school? That was because my mom misplaced, forgot, lost (choose one) the check that my dad gave her to pay the Visa bill – the same Visa that our family AOL account automatically gets charged to every month. And lest we forget, my mom gave me my income tax return check from 2001 when I was home for Christmas in 2006. She has the uncanny habit of doing such a great job of putting things up for me that she can’t even find them until years later.
My mom, sister, brother, niece, three nephews and a host of extended family have all been diagnosed with AD/HD. That leaves me and my dad to fend for ourselves, and since he was usually (conveniently) at work while I was growing up, it was typically just me. The lone “normal” one…the white sheep of the family. So while I recognize the gifts that my AD/HD family offers (creativity, keen sense of humor, and generosity to name a few), I need for someone to recognize the impact that their less desirable characteristics have had, and continue to have, on my life.Â
It’s hard for me to even write those words because they make me feel a twinge of selfishness, but as the youngest child in the family, I feel like I missed out on all that comes along with being the baby because so much time and effort was spent on my family just trying to make it until tomorrow. The frustration that they felt when deadlines began to approach at work and school is the same thing that I felt when they showed up to my ballet recital after my part was already over. The anxiety that rumbles inside them when it takes four hours to wash the dishes parallels the feeling that I get when they leave my house a complete and total disaster zone after a 15 minute visit.Â
As an AD/HD educational consultant who has appeared on a talk show, been featured in books, quoted in numerous articles and included in an oft-watched educational video, my mom is a crusader for the disorder that went undiagnosed for most of her life. Through her, my siblings and their children have benefited from early detection and sound guidance throughout their treatments. They have been coached on writing lists, developing routines, and playing up their strengths. They know who to go to when they need to talk and are able to immediately recognize when their meds need adjusting. All of this they’ve learned and accomplished, yet they still struggle with the one thing that all of the books and conferences in the world can’t teach them – how to include me, the white sheep, in their inner circle.
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The White Sheep: Living in an ADD Family
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