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.

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.

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.

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.

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 8^th 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.

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.

The Pink Robe

“Get in here,” I yelled at Husband one Sunday afternoon, “If you are going to work in the garden, you need to put on something other than that pink robe and your new Florsheim Imperial shoes.”

“Why!?!,” he yelled back. “I’m covered to my ankles.”

“Yes,” I said. “But I paid over $100 for those shoes, and besides, you look dorky out there.”

In 1974 $100 was a fortune for shoes, so that part is his fault.

The robe was my fault.

The year we married, Husband made arrangements with Roy and June, his grandparents, to buy me a portable sewing machine.

For many years Roy and June owned the White Sewing Machine outlet in Wichita and housed it in the old Innes Building at Broadway and William.

By the time we married, they had retired, but kept several machines for inventory and parts for when Roy repaired older machines.

Roy and June stood firmly behind their machines, and they were happy to accommodate us with a new model. I loved it and immediately set my dreams into motion on how I might use it.

One of the first projects was a Christmas present for Husband. Since I worked days teaching in a junior high school, and he worked second shift at Cessna, I had long stretches in the evenings that I filled with shopping for fabric and with sewing.

A fabric store was within three blocks of our apartment, and during one of my explorations for sales, I ran across several yards of pink denim at a huge bargain price. Armed with a pattern for a male caftan or long tunic, I delighted in sewing it into a highly serviceable pull-over robe for my beloved.

He instantly liked it and slipped it on to wear the remainder of our first Christmas morning. He wanted to wear it to Mom and Dad’s for Christmas dinner, but I convinced him it was not appropriate apparel.

There was something about the ease-of-wear that spoke to Husband’s desire for simplicity. We had been highly influenced by hippy wear, so the pink robe was a mere half-step beyond, or possibly below, that influence.

He merely had to pull its V-neck opening over his head and put his arms in the sleeves, and let it drop straight down past his ankles. The fact it was a soft rose shade of pink did not offend him at least.

He wore the robe until he outgrew it three or four years later. Our oldest newborn lay in his arms as he wore it to watch cartoons. He wore it to cook, and he wore it to watch TV.

And of course, he liked to wear it outside when he gardened.

He also liked Mother Earth News, so the robe fit well with his dreams of self-sufficiency and back-to-nature ways of doing.

The robe was as far as he got on that dream because back-to-nature and self-sufficiency require a farmer’s way of thinking.

Husband is a hunter.  

Thom Hartmann explains that concept quite well in Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception. Hartmann pointed to the fact that persons exhibiting symptoms of ADHD had once been treated as “bad”. But since we now know it is a genetically-based disorder, Hartmann surmised that in the development of human cultures, two main types appeared: hunters or gatherers and farmers. Hunters (persons genetically set with ADHD) “Constantly monitor their environment and throw themselves into the hunt (Hartmann, pg. 24).” Hartmann goes on to say that Hunters are quick to be off in new directions and are visual thinkers.

On the other hand, Hartmann suggests, Farmers are team players who see the long-range picture and are not easily bored with slow and steady effort. They also tend to the details.

If Hartmann’s theory is true, Husband is most definitely not a farmer.

According to the “Hunter” explanation, persons with ADHD don’t take time for niceties when it is time to make decisions. In typical terms, we might say they lack in social niceties.

I don’t think Hunters are abnormal. In fact, I see them as color and texture that describe visual characteristics and tones that enhance the canvas of humanity.

Just like wearing a pink robe.

Hartmann, T. (1997). Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception. Grass Valley, CA: Underwood Books.