Let’s Get Serious About Skunk Control and Other Chores

One of my thoughtful adult children talked to me about the blogs I share with you.

“Mom, who writes your blogs? At times I don’t believe they are totally accurate.”

“I write my blogs, and they ARE based on real conversations and events.”

I paraphrase the intent of the next response, “I think you should make them more real.”

Real? How real do you readers want me to be? Just the other day, I told my college-days friend that I would never write certain things about how ADHD affects my marriage or my husband’s life, and I meant it. For one reason, people choose to gossip. Yes, I realize that may surprise my readers, but it is true. For another, family should always honor confidential information.

But back to my offspring’s recommendation, I gave it serious consideration, and in speaking with another of my adult children, came to a conclusion.

From now on, I WILL sporadically share some of the harsher realities of my life as the spouse of a person with ADHD, and I am going to begin with depression.

Persons with ADHD often deal with various degrees of depression, if that is the correct way to express it. It affects emotions and physical actions, and I think it is one of the cruelest of illnesses.  I habitually read and study about depression. I think of it as intelligence gathering just as if I were engaged in a war.

Depression is an enemy in our household. Husband has lived with depression since I’ve known him.

His psychiatrist once asked him how long he had been depressed. “Since about age five,” he answered without really having to stop and think.

Depression hurts, hinders, and interferes with quality of life. It gets in the way of the details of life. For example, take the skunks that have been quite prolific in our backyard this year. Husband looked at me with a flat affect when I asked him to help rid the yard of these uninvited nocturnal pests.

“You expect ME to know what to do?” he asked.

“I hope you will take the advice to simply soak rags in ammonia and then place them all around the yard’s perimeters.”  I said as I placed the rages and ammonia within easy reach.

The materials sat on the table for more than one week before I spoke with him again.  He eventually and reluctantly took action.

Even though I realize it overwhelms him to complete a simple chore, do I get frustrated? You bet. Do I become irritated?  Affirmative.  Not only does his depression bog him down, it sets heavily on my own mind and shoulders.

I will write about depression again soon, but if you want to talk with me about it before then, contact me at McNay &Voth ADHD Services, www.coachADHD.com or 316-771-7557. We’ll talk.

She Thought I was Weird

“I’ll be writing to teens with ADHD about love and romance this week,” I told Husband. “I am trying to decide if I should write about something from your life or to teen girls in general.”

“I like the idea of your writing to teen girls in general.”

“That may be best, but before I leave this conversation, I want to ask you about the time you bought candy for Anna, your high school classmate.”

He knew I attended elementary school with this same Anna, still sadness and pain crossed his eyes for a brief moment.

“When you gave her the chocolates, what did she say?”

“She gave them to her friend standing next to her.”

“She gave them to someone else?”

“The other girl brought them over to me and said I should keep them, and I shouldn’t try to do it again.”

His face registered his sense of rejection.

“You mean on Valentine’s Day, she couldn’t have merely thanked you and moved on with it?”

“It was her birthday. I overheard someone say it was, so I thought I would buy her a gift.”

“Why did she do such a cruel thing?”

“She thought I was weird. Once I blurted out a comment in class, and she turned on me with a vengeance. She was an intelligent girl in English class, and I thought she was smart, that’s all.”

“So you admired her, and she thought you were weird because of your ADHD symptoms?”

“That’s likely it.”

“If I was going to write about teen girls with ADHD, I could write about times Baby Sis felt rejected due to her ADHD symptoms. She didn’t experience the same types of rejections. She did always think people were talking about her behind her back.”

But I kept on, “I am angry Anna hurt your feelings, but she was acting on information as she knew it at the time. The point is not to blame another person. It is the point to know that ADHD symptoms may not contribute to good relationships. Teens and adults with ADHD should learn behaviors that contribute to relationships, not impede them. Besides, I am glad it was me, not her that realized the treasure within you.”

I once told my husband that as a young man, he was often in love with love. Many scholars now bear it out: persons with ADHD can hyperfocus on romance because doing so increases dopamine which increases pleasure-producing neurotransmitters. But that does not necessarily create love relationships. The person with ADHD and his or her partner must take ownership of ADHD by treating it responsibly to manage the symptoms, increase dopamine, and help the brain work as it is supposed to. It is imperative persons with ADHD learn how to override the challenges of ADHD behavior and build the positive skills needed for lasting intimate relationships.

If you need help in this area, allow Dr. Atha the opportunity to assist you as you seek confidence in romance and love.

Contact us today at McNay & Voth, www.coachadhd.com or 316-771-7558.

 

The Wooden Heart

“See? I am wearing the heart you bought for your Mother,”   I said as I pointed to my necklace.  I wear it annually, several times during the month of February.

Husband turned his attention toward me and the piece of wood hanging on the chain around my neck.

“Looks nice. I appreciate it when you wear it.”

It’s necessary for me to point out when I wear it. Otherwise, it would be a few days before he even noticed it.

“It’s carved from one piece of driftwood, right?”  I asked of the heart that it about two inches long and at least one inch across at the widest points.

He nodded. “I bought that for her Christmas present the year we lived in Seattle,” he remembered, “But I don’t know how much I paid for it. I only bought for her, not Dad. I never bought for Dad unless she shamed me into it.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I said as I quickly moved on to the next thought on my mind. “Was that before you had pneumonia or after? Was that the same year you got sick from the turkey dinner served at school?”

“I was developing the pneumonia the day I bought it for her. I’m glad I didn’t die before I got to give it to her.”

“How morbid!”

“Yeah, it would have hurt her a lot had I died at age 11.”

“Indeed! And your Dad, too.”

“I know that now, but in those days, I only thought about how much Mother loved me.”

“I wear this heart in as a tribute to you as a sweet boy who loved his Mother.”

“Yeah, I really did love Mother. She was the person who seemed to accept me more than anyone else. Sure, Grandmother McNay loved me, and so did Grandma and Grandpa Lutz. But Mother was my best friend when I was a kid.”

“I should tell you that for most kids, it likely is Mother who loves them best. My Mother loved me, and I know how much I loved our kids when they were younger. I still do. It seems arrogant, but I think I will always love them more than anyone could. Even spouses. It’s a different kind of love.”

“I needed my Mother when I was a kid,” he said. “She really liked me.”

“She did. And I loved her, too, because she was interesting and fun in the same ways that attracted me to you.”

“But you’re my best friend, now,” he said. “You’re the one who is sweet and kind to me.”

“I do love you, and I love the fact you were attached to your Mother when you were a lonely young boy who needed more friends and more self-confidence.”

It is essential for the person with ADHD to feel and accept love, just as it is for the rest of us. As you read here, often deep love begins with a child’s feelings for his or her Mother. As the psychologist, Lev Vygotsky noted, Mother serves as the primary social model for a young child.  Although Mother is likely involved in more activities with the young child, Father can also fulfill this role.

If you are a parent of a child with ADHD, remember that you are the essential social relationship in your child’s life, and it is you who can do much to help your child develop the confidence and self-esteem needed for later relationships.

I f you seek additional help with any parenting of a child or teen with ADHD, we invite you to contact McNay & Voth ADHD Coaching services, www.coachadhd.com or 316-771-7558. We can help you as you develop the skills you need.

 

 

Learning Social Skills

“So I’ve been thinking about social skills for the person with ADHD,” I recently told Husband.

“Oh-h-h-?” he drew out the question. “And what about my social skills have you been thinking?”

“How did you know I was applying this to you?” I asked as innocently as possible.

“Yeah, right. You always bring it all back to me.”

“You provide such excellent examples. Well, to be honest, I was  thinking of the sweet story your Mother shared about you at age four.”

“You are NOT going to bring up the times I crapped my pants when I was playing?”

“Don’t be such a spoil-sport. Of course I am. Mother said you would be so engrossed in your play at the far end of the half-acre lot that when you realized you had to go, it was too late.”

“Don’t tell me. I remember.”

“She said she would see you make a mad dash toward the house with your little legs running as fast as possible. Then, you would stop and get that panic look across your face. She and I laughed at the thought of toddler you doing such a thing.”

“Not funny. And it wasn’t funny when she made me clean my own underwear.”

“Well, she had to teach you to become aware of your bathroom needs before she sent you to school the next year.”

“She should have taught me about the under-arm pads,” he mused into the distance.

“What does that mean?”

“Do you remember the deodorant that came on the round pads? I wore mine.”

“You WHAT?”

“In high school, I wore them. One day I told Mom that I didn’t like them. They didn’t stay in place all day.”

I bent over laughing as he continued, “She said ‘Honey, you’re not suppose to wear them. You apply the deodorant with them.’  I felt like a fool. Of course, throughout high school, I felt like a fool.”

“It saddens me to hear you say that.”

“It is true. I didn’t have problems making friends. I had problems keeping the right kind of friends. I couldn’t keep my smart comments to myself, and I was too emotional and moody. As you know, my low-self-esteem caused me to do stupid things just to feel like I fit in.”

“I fear readers will not believe how often our conversations actually do turn back to your poor self-esteem and social problems in your adolescence. It continues to haunt you, and I wish I had been a part of your life at that time, so I could have helped you.”

“That would have been a disaster. I think that you would have learned to dislike me, too.”

Persons with ADHD often experience social problems. In fact, it may be that up to 75% of them have abundant interpersonal problems.

If you are one of those persons, I invite you to contact McNay &Voth  ADHD Coaching Services. Allow us the opportunity to help you set new social goals and to develop new social skills. Contact us at www.coachADHD.com or 316-771-7558. We are waiting to help you.

 

 

Let’s Talk About Organization

This afternoon I asked Husband if he would discuss organization with me. He got a pained look on his face and frowned.

“No, I am not organized.”

“So what do you think about organization?”

“I think it is one of the nicest things ever invented for other people.”

“I guess that means not you?”

“That’s right. That’s exactly what it means,” he said as he turned and purred at the cat.

“Why not you?” 

He turned his head away to think, “Well, That means I would have to remember what I organized and where I put it, and that is virtually impossible.

“You keep your dresser drawers organized quite nicely.”

“I do that to keep me from embarrassing myself publicly.”

“Why is that?”

“You know. People don’t like it when you go out in public without underwear and socks and things like that on. They get all excited and call the police about your public exposure.”

“Other than your undies, when do you think you have been organized? Ever?”

“When I took certain college classes and at work I had to know when and where documents were to be delivered.”

“Are you saying it is a matter of incentive or motivation or external reason?”

“External? No, not really external; more like internal huh, what’s that p word? Policy. Internal policy. That was the motivation.”

“Why is it difficult for you to be organized?”

He repeated the question under his breath.

“We’ve been married more than 38 years; you tell me.”

“If I knew the real answer for that and a sure fix for perpetual disorganization, we could bank the profits.”

I continued asking, “What was your desk like when you were in elementary school?”

“A trash can with pencils and pens and lots of papers that should have been turned in, but I couldn’t find them at the time.”

“Did anyone try to help you organize your desk?”

“Sometimes a teacher would put the garbage can next to my desk and tell me to throw away anything I didn’t need it in, and turn in the ones I should have turned in.”

“Would it have helped if a teacher asked you to do that every Friday before school dismissed?”

“Not really. I did the same thing with my locker in high school.”

“And then you graduated from your locker to your messy car?”

He merely nodded his head with a sad expression across his face. “As I matured, I realized organization is a personal matter. The way I organize my things may not be the way others organize their things.”

As personal as this conversation may seem, I expect thousands of adults with ADHD can relate to Husband’s experiences. They are more like him than different from him when it comes to organization. Possibly as he has done, other adults with ADHD have learned across time how to organize their work or personal space. Possibly also like him, organization is more difficult at home than at work.

If you or someone you may know with ADHD have problems with organization, whether that person is a child, teen, or adult, we invite you to contact McNay & Voth ADHD Coaching at www.coachadhd.com  or phone us 316-771-7558. Let us help that person develop his or her own sense of organization.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

 

 

Five Easy Pieces

Being in one of my frequent reflective moods, I asked Husband: “Do you remember the movie ‘Five Easy Pieces’ ?”

“Yeah. It was the movie that got Jack Nicholson noticed. What about it?”

“I really don’t remember much except the title, but that  really fits well into my way of thinking. I search for short and easy approaches to much of what I do.”

“It was a typical movie of the early 1970’s. It’s OK not to remember much about it.”

“My point is that the title serves me well as a type of idiomatic expression.”

“Nicholson played a gifted pianist who rebelled against his talent and affluent lifestyle. Standard kind of stuff for that era.”

“OK, but my point is the value of learning how to put life into easy steps and make it simple.”

“How do you do that?” Husband asked as if it were a ground-breaking concept.

“Do what?”

“Think about simplifying and organizing and making life easier? How do you think like that all the time?”

“One of us needs to. Besides, I always looking for ways that assist you and others with ADHD to live up to your potential.”

He put me on the spot for a moment when he said, “So tell me five easy steps you discovered to help me.”

 “One: You need an encourager. Two: You need external prompts or motivation. Three: Since you lose basic such as keys and your wallet, you need daily organization. Four: You need to unclutter on a regular basis. Five: You respond well to rewards such as praise.”

“It never ceases to amaze me that people can gather their thoughts in such a concise manner.”

“It never ceases to amaze me that you cannot or will not think with such logic, but that is a topic for another blog.”

The person with ADHD often feels frustrated or clueless about how to approach the daily tasks of life, especially at home, work, or school. Based on our personal experiences, I recommend five easy steps to success:

1.    Connect with an encourager such as a spouse or close friend who can provide support when you are confused or have questions. In addition, seek help from an ADHD coach.

2.   Choose an extrinsic reward system along the lines of your paycheck, a passing grade in a class, an item for gifting yourself when you complete a task. Make it a goal to earn this reward on time, and develop a reminder system that works for you.

3.   If you are a student, create your own study space where you keep the tools and resources you need. Make certain it can be as quiet and private as possible. Make certain you study only in that space. If you go back and forth to your job, allocate a briefcase, book bag, or table space where you place the items you need for the next day, then ask your encourager to help you develop the habit of placing items there before bedtime.

4.   Schedule one day each week for tidying your work space both at home and on the job.

5.   Ask your associates and family at home, work, and school to point out when you have done well completing a task or project. Write notes to yourself on how proud you feel when you accomplish even a small task.

Are you currently seeking an ADHD coach with experience and expertise? We invite you to contact McNay & Voth ADHD Coaching at www.coachadhd.com or phone 316-771-7558.

 

 

Time Command Center McNay

I expect it seemed a strange place to think about this, but last week as we used the bank drive-though, I philosophically mentioned, “Do you realize that 1963 was 50 years ago?”

Husband didn’t even look up from his paper work. But I saw the shadow of misery pass across his face.

“Why do you look so sad?” I asked.

“Why did you ask such an asinine question?” At that point he turned his body toward me as with a most puzzled expression all across his face.

“I saw you write 2013, and thought that I never dreamed I would really live to see this year. I did the math, and fifty years ago was 1963. I was just entering my teens, and now I plan ways to detain retirement.”

“Where did the time go?” I continued.

“It went too quickly,” he agreed, “and most of the time I wasn’t even aware of it being present in the first place.”

“Fifty years ago, we thought time would stand still, which we now know it does not. We thought time was a thing we could control or hang onto.”

“You tell me that we cannot control time; we only control ourselves. So much for self-control.”

His musing reminded me of how time-control methods evolved in our household.

“I think we learned to do it best when we learned to make it a group effort.”

“Meaning?”

“We kept a family calendar, or at least the kids and I did, and reminded you frequently of your part on it. And, I think it is a system that works best in many households of persons with ADHD. We try to hold those with ADHD responsible for time management, but it seems most successful when there is a command center, so to speak. Ours was in our kitchen. Remember?”

“ Hardly. Well, maybe, barely. I recall I wrote on it a few times myself.”

“The successful part of it for us was that you were not responsible for maintaining it. Of course, I mostly used calendars designed for mothers, but in doing so, I learned to write down deadlines and important dates. The kids learned to use it, too.”

“Where is our command center these days?” he asked.

“You’re kidding, right? It’s my day planner. As a result of the family calendar, I began carrying a day planner and keeping it where I always know where to find it.”

“Oh, yes. The red book. At least it was red last year.”

“I record all your appointments and mine, my daily work goals, and ideas or other thoughts that come to me. My use of it came to me over time, but I now read that experts recommend similar uses for a day planner.”

“I doubt I will ever really use one,” Husband declared. “I know I won’t. I would forget what I want to write in it.”

“You’re highly resistive to changes and effort like this. The thing you could learn is to immediately give me your appointment cards. Or. now that you have a Smartphone, you can also learn to use your reminders application.”

Many adults with ADHD fail to use a day planner or even calendar as a way to record deadlines or dump their spontaneous ideas. However, we reassure you the day planner is one of the most effective ways the adult can learn to control his or her time.

If you are a person with ADHD and find that you cannot successfully use a day planner, don't give up. You may need to have the learning process broken down into even smaller steps. You may need assistance from a strong support system and the guidance of an ADHD coach.

Contact us at McNay &Voth ADHD Coaching at www.coachADHD.com or phone 316-771-7557, and let us help you learn skills for time management.