Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Not to Offend

The advice in About.Com said, “Send only business Christmas cards that are tasteful. You may think the Christmas card with a naked Santa is hilarious, but this is not the time to try and find out whether your client has a sense of humor.

The thought of it caused Oldest Daughter to cry with laughter.

“Doesn’t this remind you of dad?” she said through her amusement and literal tears.

Niagara Falls

“Your dad does not send cards to clients. He doesn’t own a business.”   

I responded without giving it deep thought because I was concentrating on grading papers.

“You don’t get my point,” she continued to laugh. “I can see him doing something like that and then get offended because the other person did not think it was funny.”

As I consider it, she is correct. I have seen the younger version of Husband tell jokes or poke fun expecting others to laugh, and when they didn’t he was hurt and held a grudge for many years afterward.

The entire idea reminded me of the story he tells about his mother. It seems she thought it funny to box up a scoop of dog poo and send it to a relative.

It was about 50 years ago when she raised numerous Collie show dogs. She placed a shovel full of it in plastic bags inside plastic bags, lined a mailing box with newspaper, and sent it via mail to the recipient.

The gift was not well received, though Husband and his mother thought it was a most hilarious thing to do.

I suspect the family member is still mad at her even though she has been dead since 1974.

I often wondered if she broke any laws doing it?

We’re talking about impulsive behavior here and lack of social inhibition. Husband makes sense of appropriate behavior based on his understanding from what he has been taught.

He doesn’t mean to be rude, at least much of the time.

I mean he would send one of his sisters an inappropriate card because they have a similar sense of the hysterical, and they would think it is funny, not rude or inappropriate.

He thought the one-eared elephant joke he made during our early dating years would impress me in a positive way. When it didn’t, he got embarrassed, and later told me that I approach life too rigidly!

I think I may have hurt his feelings.

“You’re too stiff,” he once said referring to what I did and did not think was funny.

He’s made similar comments to the kids when they did not laugh at a few of his jokes.  I can imagine his insulted look as he told them they are too much like their mother.

Don’t get me wrong, not all of his humor is ill-fitting. It is sharp and spontaneous like the time he rolled down the window when our son, Crown Prince, was driving. A woman in another lane kept switching lanes and pulling in front of them.

Where’s your signal?  We can’t read your mind. What do you need, a fat crayon and a Big Chief tablet?”

Or it is like today when he phoned to wish his brother Happy Birthday. When the receptionist answers brother’s business phone,  Husband always says, “Is Ebenezer in?”

He says she always laughs, and says. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are asking for.” Husband says, “Yes you do. Now let my talk to my brother.”

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Gotta Dance

“He can spend hours meandering  the aisles of a grocery store,” Husband’s mother once told me.

“Well, he does like to cook,” I defended him. “He gets the ingredients for his recipes there.”

She slightly shook her head, and the expression on her face indicated that she thought I was rather young and naïve.  She may have thought I was totally simple-minded.

Actually I had followed him through grocery stores by then and thought it pure genius that he had such a vast knowledge of foods and how he can use them.

It was long before we settled house together while I raised children and did the mundane of keeping a home.

By that stage in our lives, I just want to get in, get my groceries, and get out. Crowds offend me, and I do not get emotionally attached to grocery items.

On the other hand, Husband delights in an hour wandering his favorite health-food store when I am teaching a night class. He checks the produce aisle, inspects the sale items, reads health magazines, and contemplates the specialties.

When he picks me up after school and says he had been at Green Acres, I know his bag will include asparagus and bananas. It is the things he buys over and again that he remembers.

Last week we decided to prepare a menu of Mexican foods.  On the list I included two bags of tortilla chips. He got home without the chips.

“So ,what is the big deal?” you may ask. “Everyone forgets things now and then.”

Now and then?

It is a way of shopping around here. I don’t even bother checking the grocery bags to see what he forgot.

He will eventually spend extra time going back for the items he missed.

It used to be that when he forgot, he made an excuse for it. Now he merely laments.

I think he forgets because he gets distracted. The rows and rows of shelves and hundreds and hundreds of items grab his attention and melt his memory.

In our early years we most always shopped together: groceries, drugstores, and department stores. It was exciting because we spent  thousands of dollars in our minds without opening our wallets.

Where I can block the piped-in music to the back of my mind and attention, it grabs Husband’s attention, and he has to respond to it. Just as his mother said many years ago, he must dance.

Several times in those early years as I read labels from shelved items, he would whisk me away from my task and dance with me down the aisle.

He thought it great fun. On the other hand, I with the two left feet hung on until dancing feet stopped. Had you seen us, I was the one with a bright red face.

Stores are the places where he sees people and make comments, a number of which are really very not nice.

I think he picked up making negative comments as a child growing up with his siblings; they loved to make each other laugh with their critical remarks.

Husband has perfected this habit to an art, and his thirst to do so can be insatiable. Sometimes I tell him that he is plain mean or grossly unkind.

Don’t flatter me, Atha,” he will tell me.




Saturday, November 26, 2011

Beef Heart and Other Thoughts

When he was in 8th grade general science, Husband and class studied about the human heart, which he thought was fascinating.

He came home that afternoon to find his mother cooking a cow’s heart for dinner.

He thought, “Yuck! If I have to eat that, I only want a tiny piece of it.”

Later when his younger sister asked what Mother was cooking, he told her, “I’ll give you a hint. You can choose the right ventricle or the left one.”

Mother scolded him. “Don’t tell her that; she won’t eat it.”

I don’t know how the other siblings felt about eating beef heart, but it was the last time she fixed it, even though it was only $.39 per pound.

Later Husband told me that the heart was about twice the size of a human heart and quite tough.  Mother didn’t even clean the inside of it (the clots), but she did fix a dressing side dish for it.

I commented to him that she needed training on how to stretch the limited grocery budget Father-in-law set for her. I felt sorry that she tried hard to stay within her limits since I understand the implications of her possible ADHD.

Husband said, “Instead of thinking of this as water under the bridge, think of it as a sewage that continues to back up.”

He always, and I mean all the time, comes up with clever and comical comments when I attempt to be serious.

Our friends Patty and Gary have told me how much they like my husband.

He is so funny, kind, and caring. He is interesting to talk with.”

What they say is undeniably true. Something about him makes his behavior all worth their while in many ways, and it seems to be that way with other people as well.

People accept things from him that would totally offend if they came from other people.

Like the time he asked a waitress, “Can I switch this chair for another? I am afraid this will not hold my fat ass.”  She laughed aloud, and said he had made her day.

Or when we were in college and he belched and then told me “Excuse me; I usually fart.”

He is exceedingly outspoken when an occasion warrants it for him, and he can do it without flinching. Where others likely would get angry with me, they laugh or receive his comments without resentment

The problem is his low self-esteem.  Often tells me, “I don’t have friends. Nobody likes me. People like you better than they like me.”

You’re kidding me, right?

How about when we are shopping and people will speak to him before they even remember my name?

What about Guy and Willa who would begin to smile every time he came into a room. They bragged on his way with babies and small children.

Or there was Hattie who loved it when he said. “God gave me the talent of cooking”  to which she retorted. “Wonderful! He gave me the talent of eating.”

And all the adults with developmental disabilities will call his name after several years of not seeing us. I was the one who did all the work for them, but it is his casual and practical acceptance they recall as well as his no-nonsense way of helping them control their behavior.

Once he watched a group of cognitive challenged guys watch an X-rated movie. “You shouldn’t be watching that trash,”  he said. “But we like it”, they retorted.

He in turn asked, ” What do you know?  You’re  retarded.”

He totally did not care if it was politically correct or not.

Those same guys seek his attention to this day if we see them in public.

I don’t think it is true that nobody likes him. For one thing, I liked him when we first met, and I like him even more today. Many people like him, and I suspect those who read this blog are among that number.


Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Backed Into a Corner

In a phone-bridge conversation the other night, I heard a familiar whiny tone and words I have heard dozens of times.

“ I am tired of her trying to back me into a corner,” said the voice.

It was a young college woman who felt as if her instructor was making unfair expectations of her. I know this young woman is a self-confessed person with ADHD.

The young woman played a verbal blame game for a full three minutes.

I know because I counted them: tick… tick… tick.

That whiny voice and the game of blame grated on the one good nerve left at the end of a long and busy day.

Back me into a corner. Wow! That is one familiar phrase.

I remember when I first heard it. It was about six months into our marriage.  I asked Husband a question, one that I must have thought was innocent enough.

Likely it was one of these:  “How does my hair look? Do I look like I am gaining weight? Do you like this outfit?”

You know the types of questions newly married women like to ask. They are seeking approval, or affirmation, or some sort of social mirror.

The questions are also the ones that make any husband sweat a bit whether he has ADHD or not.

Husband used an angry tone. “I am tired of you trying to back me into a corner.”

Stab. Pain. Ouch! I was taken aback because I had not seen that coming.

Now I can laugh as I realize the answer to any one of those above questions must have been negative. Or, it could be he was off in Me Land thinking about himself, which was and still is his favorite subject, and he merely did not have time to jar himself out of those thoughts to attend to me.

Either way I remember my angry response. “I am not backing you into a corner! Why did you say that?”

Of course, he angrily justified himself.  It was probably one of the coping mechanisms he developed in order to survive. Remember we did not yet know about ADHD and his life-long pattern of pain and constant sense of pressure.

A sense of pressure does it. Examples of other times he has felt “backed into a corner” include:

The soffits on the house were in disrepair for several months.

The second bathroom in our house was not completed.

I made the decision to work on an advanced degree.

Any time he is asked a direct question

I once heard that persons with ADHD often have a three-ring circus going about in their heads.  It is as if they experience the sounds of past and future fears, fear of saying what they really mean, and even trying to figure out what the other person really wants from them.

I am the type of person who shoots straight and wants straight answers and responses.

It does not always make for words and meanings that are the same between us.

The phrase back me into a corner is not on my list of all-time favorites, as readers can likely tell.  It is a defense method when a person knows he or she is wrong, but does not want to accept the responsibility of admitting so.  The person with ADHD must take responsibility for actions and thoughts. In order to help him or her do so, others must offer direct communication.

Returning to the phone-bridge conversation, another member on the line asked our college friend, “How is it that your instructor may be correct?  (In other words, “How have you been slacking off?”).




Monday, November 21, 2011

Is It ADHD or Personality?

Is It ADHD or Personality?

The above question comes up frequently among professionals and family members of persons with ADHD. All in all, do the idiosyncrasies in behavior or speech have a reason? Can we blame all the originality on ADHD and executive functioning?

Today Husband told me a joke: “A man’s wife sent him to the grocery store. ‘Get a gallon of milk and if they have eggs, get six.’ Later the man came home with six gallons of milk. ‘Why did you get six gallons of milk?’ she asked. ‘Because they had eggs.’  he replied.”

I caught it straight way. Husband said his sister told him “It might take you a bit to catch the meaning.”

“Not at all,” said Husband. “I knew exactly what the man was going to do.”

At that, we both laughed because we both knew that Husband knew.

Is it because of ADHD or is it his unique personality?

My adult children tell me I attribute too much to ADHD which they think serves as an excuse or cushion for certain behaviors.

He does those things because he is from his family line,” they claim.

Professionals tell me that after enough trials at certain learned behaviors (all behavior is learned), the repetition encodes the behavior into the personality.

If that is so, then eccentric sayings or spontaneous comments have become part of Husband’s personality.

He has his own lexicon for certain words: His psychiatrist’s office is the wack shack, mall walking is wall mocking, his unemployment benefits were his welfare check, and when he worked at a mortuary, he called it the bod shop, to name only a few.

Many times, I burst into my characteristic unconstrained laughter at his comments. I suppose this is a form of reinforcing his behavior.

He gets certain ideas in his head, and they will not go away. He thought I needed a bike with hand brakes and hand gear shifts. I thought I needed a bike with foot brakes and only the gear that comes on regular retro bikes. We got the one with handbrakes, and when I couldn’t ride it, he bought me a bike like I wanted.

 Later he thought we had too many neglected bikes in our yard, which we did. “So,” he said, “I gave the one with footbrakes to charity and kept the one with handbrakes.”

 That was the bike I wanted to keep,” I protested.

You weren’t riding it, so out it went,” he told me. He had a beautiful three-wheel bike restored for me.

It has handbrakes.

I attribute his actions to the way his brain works. My children say it is because he is his parents’ son.

As I have mentioned before, it is difficult for the person with ADHD to hear all that is said, and to say exactly what they mean. Socially, and even at home, people leave subtle hints. It has been difficult for Husband to pick up on those clues, which in turn causes him much frustration and confusion.

As his wife and friend, it is important I understand him and his behavior. Due to his above average intelligence and natural wit, he has much to offer me and others.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Kitty Fix

At times, Husband will say to me, “Atha, I am going for a kitty fix.”

He does not mean he’s taking cats to have them spayed or neutered.

He does not mean some sort of substance abuse.

Simply, he is going to the pet store to visit the cats ready for adoption into new homes.

He claims they talk with him and share their concerns about being locked up.

Atha, there was a lovely short-hair named Sheba. She said she wants to come live with us.”

Trouble is, he would bring many of them home to live with us, so I have set boundaries.

No more cats. We already have two sharing a house with us and our dog, Rudy.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Husband loves cats. His entire family loves and understands cats.

Husband’s brother once discussed a family favorite named Alice – Big Al, Husband called her.  Al is a great cat,” said my brother-in-law.

I glanced at a large round floor fan where Alice perched, hanging onto the top with iron-grip claws. She had one missing ear – frozen during a previous winter and the other that permanently drooped to the side, eyes that looked in separate directions, and I swear she had tremors and drool dripping off her chin. It was OK about the eyes because she couldn’t see anyway.

Yep, Al was a great cat, Husband agreed.

Husband also claims he prayed that God would open my heart to cats, and he even prayed that God would send us a cat. That was about the time Lady Puddwick, a fantastic Maine Coon, showed up on our doorstep.

“It is an answer to prayer,” he said as she walked into our lives and into my heart.

He even knows how to speak cats’ language. They respond to his prrr with like noise, and when he meows, they rub against his leg.

When they make whatever sounds cats make to communicate, he knows how to talk back to them. It appears to be a real conversation.

Of course, there are times when he never tolerates cats who are spiteful or malicious. After all, cats do have their place.

Once when the children were babies, we got out of the car in our driveway. A cat sauntered across the street in a mosey stroll. It came from the house where two little girls had captured a stray for love and play.

I didn’t hear what Husband said to it as I busily got the babies out of the car. I vaguely remember he said it in Catanese.

I didn’t understand what Cat said back because I do not understand Cat Speak.

However, in a matter of second, I saw Husband’s size 13 shoe connect to the underside of the cat’s belly. He kicked and catapulted it high into the air and into the second front lawn from us.

When the cat finally gained composure, it shook its head as if coming out of a daze.

“No cat speaks to me in that tone of voice,” Husband said.

One thing that cat failed to realize: people with ADHD get angry quicker than other people. They don’t constrain or control it as well as others.

The last I saw, it was running at a sideways  gait out of the neighborhood.






Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The Move

The old house we bought near Friends University was built in 1910. We loved the potential we saw in it, and we were eager to bring it back to its potential.

The previous owner, Mrs. Finley was upset because the mortgage company would not close on the sale until she cleared trash and debris from the yard. She also did not like it when we did a great deal of work to improve the property.

For the next five years, she found numerous ways to harass us and poke her nose into our business. As do many bullies, she involved kowtowing others, our neighbors, in her exploits.

When time came for us to move, we purposely did not post a SOLD sign in our yard. We did not want her to know.

However, we did rent a storage building so we could gradually remove items from the house.

One of the neighbors must have told her.

It was not unusual for her to drive past our house two or three times per week, but we began to see her car every day.

“Someone told her that we are moving boxes,” Husband surmised as he called her several choice names.

Let’s watch out to make certain we are very careful that she does not find out where we are moving.”

Near the day of our move, Husband loaded several boxes into the back of his car. At the stop sign near our house, he looked into his rearview mirror and saw Mrs. Finley pulling out of a neighbors’ drive in preparation to follow him.

The game was on. Instead of turning right, he made a quick left in the opposite direction.  Down and over, in and out of traffic, and back again, he led her on a wild chase until he finally lost her.

After backtracking to the storage unit, he came home to discover her hiding on the back porch of her rental next door to us.

He could see her shadow, and since the houses were quite close to each other, he picked up a clod of dirt and hurled it at the side of her house.

I heard it inside our small bungalow. WHAM! It sounded like an explosion.

He could see her jump back almost in fright.

You old dog, don’t you ever do that again,” he yelled at her.

Another clod of dirt hit the side of her house. Another loud explosion.

I know you hear me, you stupid old hag. If you ever do that again, you will really have to deal with me. Do you hear me? I know you understand what I am talking about.”

He landed a third large clod of dirt on her house for a third and loudest explosion of all.

I have to admit, I thought  he was masterful  about it.

Mrs. Finley seemed to lose interest in our move from that day forward. We did not see her drive past our house or visit neighbors. She seemed to disappear.

Several months after we moved, I asked the single woman who bought the house from us if she ever had contact with Mrs. Finley. She had not, and even the neighbors steered clear of her.






Sunday, November 13, 2011

It's a Trap!

It’s a Trap!

“Well, Nosey, What do you think?”

I was stunned  when I saw the note taped on the inside of the our front door. It was a tiny piece of paper one had to step up close to read.

“What is this for?” I asked Husband.

It’s for The Drunks. I guessed they would be looking in here when we left.”

Husband must have been correct because when we got out of the car, I noticed The Drunks sitting on their own porch. As I looked in their direction, they turned their heads as if to ignore us.

After I read his note, I turned toward them and laughed heartily.

Earlier that day our carpenter had begun the job of framing in our front porch. The house built in1910 near Friends University needed a front entry room, and the porch provided excellent space for it.

The problem was that for the two years of our remodeling and improving the property, neighbors on either side of us reported all our work to the former owner. Husband said we improved the place merely moving into it, but we also added decks, removed dangerous out buildings, painted, and landscaped.

The Drunks, two houses north, paraded the sidewalk several times to gape at Mark at work. They were the same family whose Doberman Pinscher dogs attacked and tore at our letter carrier earlier in the year. Obviously they came onto our porch when we left to survey the job more closely.

Husband has a keen sense of knowing when people will be devious and underhanded. He claims it is because it takes one to know one.

Be that as it may, the note must have made a huge impression on them. Both sets of neighbors decreased their efforts into our business.

Husband took his skill a step further one year when our children were in middle childhood. By that time we had moved to a newer and larger house in far-west Wichita.

It was Christmas which meant I had filled our closet with numerous presents and goodies for them. Fortunately, I wrapped them in case curious eyes made their way into our bedroom.

In the spirit of shopping, one evening Husband and I decided to leave the kids home alone before we left for the mall.

We were about out the door when Husband excused himself and went to our room.

Later, we heard the story.

Our son, the Crown Prince, came running to his older sister with a clip board and a pen in his hand.

“Here, we are have to sign this.”

The note on the board said, “If you have been peeking in these presents, sign this note.”

He had gone into sneak, when he saw the clipboard.

Don’t do it. It’s a trap,” she screamed at him, at which time he dropped the clipboard and ran to his room.

She replaced it, so it would appear nothing had been disturbed.

Of course, their keenly observant dad could tell it had been moved, and called them to our room.

When it was all confessed, I again laughed heartily. I hadn’t even thought to lay a trap for the kids, but Husband had.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Digging a Hole

Husband’s parents owned a house with a large backyard. In fact it was about a half-acre that stretched straight back from the house.

During our courtship, he showed me around the space because when he was a child, it was sacred and special to him.

At the point between two rather tall trees that his mother had planted 25 years before, he stopped in solemnness before an obvious indentation.

“This is where I would dig my hole,” he said with a tone that often accompanies a hallowed moment or ritual.

“Dig a what?” I said in my spontaneous infidel reaction.

I would dig in this spot beneath the shade of the trees. I got a shovel and dug and dug until it was large enough for me to sit in it.

It was cool and comfortable, and I could be out here all by myself.”

“No one bothered me out here.”

At that moment, I thought, “Well, yeah, the other kids were playing games or riding bikes. Who is going to want to come and sit in a hole with a sullen kid?”

Instead I asked him what it meant to him. Didn’t he get lonely?

It was because he felt lonely and rejected that he began digging his hole.

Earlier his mother told me how he spent a great deal of time alone in the backyard.

One of her favorite recollections took place when he was as young as four years old.

He would play so intensely, he would lose track of time or even if he had to go to the bathroom. I would see him begin to run as hard as he could toward the house from far back at the end of the yard. Then about half-way here, he would stop and get a terrified look on his face. I would know what he had done – crapped his pants.”

Since I was madly in love with him, I said, “ OOhh! Didn’t you think that was cute?”

“Only the first time. After that it was stinky, and I got tired of cleaning his underwear.”

“What did you do?”

“I made him clean his own shorts. He gagged and gagged as he swished them clean. I think he vomited, too. After that, he made sure he came into the bathroom soon enough to do the job there.”

Mother-in-law told this to me with her characteristic smirk and laugh. I thought it was hilarious.

However, I did not bring up that story as we stood respectively before The Hole.

Some days, I would spend eight hours at a time out here.”

“Wouldn’t you eat or go to the bathroom?”

He looked at me as if I had made the most inane comment ever.

“Well, I brought food out here with me. I could pee behind that tree.”

“What did your mom think about this?”

“She left me alone. It kept me out of her hair.”

I suspicioned she kept an eye on him from the kitchen window.

“How old were you when you sat in your hole?”

“I started when I was about six, and would dig it bigger each summer. I think I stopped sitting in it about the 8th grade?”

“Eighth grade !?!”

I had a difficult time imaging a nearly adult-size body in the hole.

Today I know about the comorbidity of ADHD and depression, and I know just about how depressed Husband was as a child.

Depression and ADHD frequently coexist, but not in a peaceful way. Sometimes it is the first symptom that sends the person with ADHD to a psychiatrist.
I think The Hole was an allegory of Husband’s childhood depression.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Another Communication Blunder

Today I broke a cardinal rule when communicating with my ADHD spouse.

I confused him with my body language.

He had the refrigerator door open to get a snack for Rudy, our new dog. Since Rudy was trying to get outside where we did not want him to be, husband was tense about the situation.

I had my tote in hand intending to go to work. I didn’t tell him I wanted in the refrigerator to get a Diet 7-UP.

The kitchen door was slightly askew as if I was going to open it.

My first mistake was not to explain myself. My second was to take part in this conversation while exhausted from lack of sleep.

We both used loud tones and harsh words.

“What are you trying to do? Get out the door, so this stupid dog does not bolt and run.”

“Stop body-blocking me. I’m trying to get a can of pop. Why didn’t you let me in the refrigerator?”

“You have that tote aimed toward the door. How was I to know you wanted in here?”

“Rudy isn’t going anywhere as long as you have that piece of ham in your hand.”

He and I said other things. Whatever popped into his mind came out his mouth. It was not a pleasant way to begin our day.

At times I think he can be totally unreasonable. Likely he thinks the same about me. I realize I am not as forthcoming as I should be.

Husband saw me with my tote and formed an idea in his mind of what he expected I was trying to do or convey.

He didn’t get the message, and I should have known better. He often jumps to conclusions.

He does not pick up on innuendos, and he doesn’t control irritation well at all.

Just like his mother told me nearly 40 years ago, don’t expect him to catch it. You have to be direct with him, so he knows exactly what you mean.

Possibly I should have said, “Just let me put this tote down and show you how to control your anger.”

That is one innuendo he can read.

Likely it would have made both of us laugh. He would have look down from his 6-foot-three-inches to my 5-foot-two inches and caught the implication.

Ridiculous, huh? Humor he does catch.

Even after all these years, I must remember the effective ways to communicate with him. Social cues or body language may not be best practice. Many people with ADHD do not pick on them, which can cause misunderstanding or even rejection.

It causes him to become confused, which in turn leads to anger. He thinks he is somehow out of it, or that he has done something wrong.

The only one who scored during this conversation was Rudy, who kept getting tidbits of treats. Husband was distracted, and the dog was smart enough to take advantage of it.