My ADHD Hyper-focus

It's exactly what happened to this blog. ADHD comes with the characteristic of hyper-focus. It can be a huge problem OR it can be brilliant! If you notice the dates on my blog posts, they start in 2010, picked up again in 2012, and are restarting now in 2014.
During the first round, I thought to myself, "hey, my kids are all diagnosed, people might be able to relate to our family, I should start a blog."  The second round came with a new business venture, It Works. If you were following my blog because of those posts, I've deleted them. Sorry, but they really didn't fit into my idea of what I meant for this blog to be about. However, at the time my hyper-focus kicked in and I had grandiose notions of making millions with those products. Intrest waned...bye bye It Works.
This is now my third attempt at blogging and, of course, I find my ADHD self obsessing over it. With the explosion of social media, I feel compelled to link everything to everything else. So my blog is tied to a twitter account (@jennsbusyhouse), I'm sharing on ADDitude Magazine's discussion boards, I Pin all my posts to my ADHD board on Pintrest, and I'm still trying to decide if I want to give myself a shout out on Facebook. The hyper-focus is driving my blog at this point, but I hope to push past it and follow it through, if anyone finds it interesting that is...
Other examples of hyper-focus in my life include:
- reading for pleasure: I have to plow through a book in about a week, otherwise I completely loose interest.
- going to university: I didn't decide to go to university until I was 25 (mostly because I always believed I couldn't be successful there). When I finally decided to go, I started in spring intersession because I could never have waited until September to start. I did my entire BA and my BEd in three years because I was hyper-focused on it and knew I could let up.
- It Works business venture: my hyper-focus for that only lasted about 4 months. I hadn't made any significant money during that time, so I couldn't be bothered anymore.

Do you find hyper-focus to be a positive or negative in your life? What kinds of things do you get hyper-focused on? How do you cope with it?

ADHD is Fake?!?!?

WOW! I was just reading a blog post by someone who believes that ADHD is nothing more than kids behaving badly, that it can be cured with a good old spanking, and that it is a disorder made up by pharmaceutical companies! He also claimed that dyslexia, celiac, and fibromyalgia are creative inventions.

I first skimmed to the bottom of the page looking for the punch line, then left the page because I could literally feel my blood pressure rising! I triple dog dare him to come and spend a day in my school or my house for that matter!!! Grrrr!!! My logical, rational side is very aware that there are many ignorant people in the world, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and that there really are cases of over diagnosis and unwarranted medication of children, but my emotional side wants to throat punch him!

He clearly has no experience with children of any variety. He doesn't know how heart wrenching it is to see the look on my child's face when they are struck with the realization "oh no, I did it again, didn't I?" Our kids literally try so hard to be good and do the right things, only to be taken off track by their brain's inability to send and receive all of the messages properly. If this was not the case, stimulant medications would have disastrous effects instead of actually treating the biological nature of this disorder.

I am all about focusing on the positives and super powers that come with the gift of ADHD, but I am not blind to the struggles. We need to take the bad with the good and play on our strengths. Sure, ADHD wasn't diagnosed as much in our generation, but how many of us got to grow up feeling stupid, worthless, and like we would never amount to anything because of it?

By not diagnosing, treating, and providing early intervention to anyone with any type of mental illness, we are doing that person a complete disservice! Treatment only evens the playing field for neuro-typical people and all the rest of us. Everyone should have the opportunity to live up their their fullest potential, if some people need help to do so, then so be it. All human beings are valuable and should be treated as such! If only there was a treatment for ignorance and discrimination...

Soap box rant over.

It's like five steps backwards for mental health advocates!

Why Would I Want to Get Rid of my ADHD???

So...my son is now 10. He's bright, beautiful, and bouncy. He has too many awesome qualities to list. But, one of my favourites is that we can now have deep, meaningful conversations, like this one about his ADHD:

Me: Casey, I was just reading an article about nutrition and food choices that could eliminate your ADHD.
Casey: No thanks.
Me: But, it's possible that you wouldn't have to take your pill anymore.
Casey: It's ok.
(as you can see he's a man of many words)
Me: But, don't you think we could try it for maybe two weeks and see how it goes?
Casey: (starting to get annoyed, with an accompanying are-you-out-of-your-mind look) MOM! Why would I want to get rid of my ADHD???

Touché

For this one, I give myself a pat on the back for always focusing on the benefits and positive qualities of ADHD. Ba-BAM, my son loves his ADHD!