A Formal Diagnosis

  

My husband describes himself in a number of ways such as:

My foot is nailed to a board, and I continually go around in circles.

I am an amoeba in a vat of acid constantly reacting to the stimuli.

(My favorite) I can’t find my ass with two hands at parade-rest.

Armed with the list of a number of items we found in Fowler and Fowler’s book, Honey, Are you Listening, my husband made an appointment with a psychologist in our community who specializes in adults with ADHD.

Dr. R.V. began by establishing rapport with my husbanding, and somewhere in that first visit, asked my husband a series of questions about his life and functioning as a child. From that information he concluded what we already suspected, or actually knew.

Since his earliest recognition, my Husband was hyper, did not pay attention, was disorganized, and he failed to pay attention (yes, I said it twice). Those were just the few symptoms they explored. On the next visit, Dr. R.V talked with my husband about his symptoms as an adult. It was the same list with a different twist.

Then there was an interview with me as the spouse. The questions maybe took 10- 15 minutes in which I answered yes or no as quickly as possible to any description given. I was not allowed to elaborate on any of them, although I really wanted to do so.

So the good psychologist talked about his findings in researching ADHD in adults, he came to the conclusion that a computer program he often used would tell him more about the manner in which my husband’s brain worked. In later work, I came to believe it might have been the Continuous Performance Test.

For about 15 minutes, my husband clicked a button whenever finding a specific number or symbol on the screen.  Later, he described it as "30 minutes of this popping thing up in front of my face." Dr. R.V. said the results showed my husband’s brain got tired within the first three minutes, and he wondered how my husband had been able to function throughout the rest of it, or even so well in life in general.

Basically Dr. R.V. said, “You must be a smart man to go through life as successfully as you have. Your brain blinks or turns off every few minutes.”

Ah, ha! I had my first clue why communication between Husband and me was a real problem.

After Dr. R.V. administered all assessments and rating scales, he said something that my husband will likely never forget. The Dr. used a quantitative scale by which he verified an adult was a person with ADHD The score had to be at least -1.9; Husband likes to say his score was -7.9.

I don’t remember number details, and I would likely get them wrong if I tried. The most important result born of this experience was the definitive diagnosis of ADHD.

For those who do not live with ADHD, this may not make sense. If you or your spouse does not have it, you don’t know it. ADHD truly is a complex disorder in which it seems behaviors and tendencies spin and tumble within the individual so that life is an inconsistent jumble.

At least in seemed that way in our lives; a diagnosis gave us something to blame or help us understand why life tossed and turned at speeds greater than items tossed about by our Kansas winds.

We learned that ADHD is not the same for any two people, but we learned that for my Husband, his mind worked in apparent contradictions: he could display huge amounts of mental energy at one point, but then display great amount of sluggishness at others. His mind generated great visions, but he was unable to plan and carry through with them.

His way of looking at the world was skeptical, amusingly remarkable, and original or his very own.

He is his own person ( and sometimes it is difficult to tell whether it is personality or ADHD, or even if there is a difference), but he is not the standard ordinary individual.

This brings me to the question is ADHD truly a disorder? I would suggest not in itself. It becomes a disorder when it interferes with his ability to operate under the unspoken rules of society and when it means he struggles with various comorbid conditions such as depression.

The diagnosis did not change him, per se, but it did give him the starting point for new understanding of himself, including a new appreciation of himself.