tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337681802024-03-07T01:07:54.941-08:00The ADD DiaryMy 16 year old daughter was diagnosed as Attention Deficit Disorder and then, at the age of 57, so was I. A lifetime of struggle was placed into a context that made sense of a lot of failure and frustration. This blog documents and celebrates what has happened to me since.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-76354587591240843672011-05-18T17:57:00.000-07:002011-05-18T18:14:17.121-07:00a pile of bricks...The "special" school levy to upgrade the construction of Grant High School--and other schools here in Portland--failed. The "conservative" (Burke rolls over in his grave every time the grifters and reactionaries are called conservative) types are rejoicing.<br />
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Mostly I don't care about the leaking roofs and the electrical wiring that won't support the needs of the last half of the twentieth century, let alone this one.<br />
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What I care about is the fact that the building is one big pile of bricks--and it's among the many such buildings here in Portland that, come the "big one," is going to come down like...well...like several tons of bricks.<br />
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The "big one," by the way, an earthquake that will rival if not surpass the one that hit Japan this year, is inevitable and it's overdue. Google it. We know it's coming.<br />
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I also know that every school day my beautiful and talented 17 year old daughter, who is blessed with a singing voice that turns heads and a mind that wraps itself around calculus and physics, the one who was a starter on the varsity volley ball team her sophomore year, walks into that pile of bricks as though the plates off the coast of Oregon were not grinding their way toward the subduction catastrophe that is sure to happen.<br />
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I don't have any illusions. If that building comes down when she's there I'm going to be standing outside hopeful/less for a long time before people who know how to do search and rescue will get to Grant. There are a lot of buildings that are coming down--especially on all that fill along the Willamette River. And who knows what the transportation infrastructure is going to look like that day? There I'll be along with a lot of other parents--some of whom may not even connect the "no" vote they cast on this levy with the agony they are part of. <br />
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Yeah, the economy is bad--but Oregonians are not so poor as they claim. Oregonians--including the the human beings driving BMW's and owning two or three homes--have benefitted from massive tax breaks these last twenty years or so. Many of them are also benefitting from the Bush Tax Cuts. Of course, Oregon tax payers who are not human beings have benefitted more from the tax cutting mania than those of us who breathe. So many of the people who claim they can't tighten their belt any further are the ones who loosened them quite a bit to accommodate the financial fat they put on with the defunding of public infrastructure these last few years--including that building that's going to come down like...like a ton of bricks, several of them, likely on the heads of kids like mine. <br />
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If that terrible earthquake hits during non-school hours we can all rejoice in the miracle. If it hits during school hours after mine has graduated and gone I'll agonize and mourn for those who had the bad luck to be born later than she was.<br />
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How am I going to feel--whether my own Honey Bear wins, loses or draws in this waiting game--about those in my "community" who had the ability to help avert disaster but decided they couldn't "afford it." <br />
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I guess that's the point of the de-funders, the Libertarians and the Tea Party types--pull us all apart and pit us against one another. Make us all so afraid for our own that we just shrug when the inevitable outcomes of the selfishness and greed strikes someone else's children. The idea is to make us all believe we cannot rely on one another, that it's all of us agains the rest of us. There is no such thing as "society" or "community" according to them. There's just individuals and families. <br />
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one victim lives the tragedy<br />
another stops to stare<br />
still another walks on by<br />
pretending not to see<br />
they're all out there in No Man's Land<br />
the safest place to be...Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-57545187666024256372011-03-02T12:42:00.000-08:002011-03-02T13:05:15.113-08:00Al From DadevilleSo he's an Alabama football fan who has <a href="http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/02/arrest_made_in_toomers_corner.html">poisoned a grove of trees </a>on the campus of ultra-rival Auburn University. These trees are more than 100 years old and they are an important venue for the cult worship of the Orange and Blue version of SEC football. It was a pre-meditated crime carried out by stealth, one for which he would not have been abducted except that he called a sports radio show and bragged about it. <br />
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He could get ten years (I imagine it's what they would call a felony criminal mischief in my part of the country) in prison. On <a href="http://www.solidverbal.com/">a sports podcast</a> I favor, The Solid Verbal, there was talk about, instead of him going to prison, having him clean up what is a small super fund site (the soil is contaminated and apparently has to be hauled away and replaced), replant the trees and then nurture them--all under the watchful eyes of the Auburn students.<br />
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One of hosts of this podcast said that would amount to justice, more than locking up a 62 year old man for a decade, but doubted that Al would do it. He'd rather go to jail.<br />
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So, I wonder about that. I do think ten years in prison is fine for killing trees--but, hey, I'm from Oregon. We love trees up here and cut them into cookies with chainsaws to celebrate futbol goals. ("We're the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbers_Army">Timbers Army</a>, Who are you?)<br />
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I like the idea Al from Dadeville (a former <a href="http://texas.rangers.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=tex">Texas Ranger-</a>-what position do you suppose he played?) spending the rest of his days cultivating a new copse of trees on the Auburn campus although I think wearing an orange jumpsuit would be the best attire--it's a double entendre for a convicted felon paying dues under the watchful eye of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Eagle">War Eagle</a>. (The War Eagle? What do you suppose porn looks like, down there?)<br />
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Maybe he would refuse. <br />
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Well, OK. Suppose he did.<br />
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Here's the deal, Al. Do the trees or go to an Alabama prison (do you know how many of them there are? <a href="http://www.doc.state.al.us/">Google it)</a> and in that Alabama prison your cellee will be the biggest baddest Auburn fan in the joint. I am sure that it would be easy to find an appropriate candidate in any of the many of those fine institutions. In fact, I wouldn't doubt it if I were told that the Auburn football fans in prisons have a rooting clubs they call the "Double Oranges." (Orange prison jumpsuits, Orange Auburn colors)<br />
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Perhaps, Al, your cellees could be rotated in weekly. I am sure the "DO's" would compete for a week long slumber party with you. (Jeez, maybe someday it would be some guy close to your own age named Newton.) <br />
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I guess, Al, we could actually put you up in that same kind of system in that women's prison near Montgomery. A new female cellee every week--each of them an Auburn fan, each of them a convicted felon. There's a lot of beautiful women in the state of Alabam' (been there and know it to be true) but I'm betting there are women in prison there who could kick Nick Fairly's ass and call it breakfast. Just for you, Al. <br />
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Somehow I'm thinking that to Al from Dadeville a little OJT forestry degree would look like the better alternative. But, hey, that's just me. I didn't name my kids "Bear" and "Crimson," like he did. Either choice he made seems like justice, to me.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-36865988939499783682010-11-01T06:53:00.000-07:002010-11-01T06:53:53.741-07:00if you keep doing the same thing that didn't work before...One Monday Night Football game long ago Dandy Don Meredith said, "You know, Howard, a team that throws 40 passes loses the game."<br />
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I've paid attention to that stat since and have not noticed a lot of exceptions. Last night was not one of them.<br />
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USC threw 49 passes--and lost to Oregon. <br />
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The Duck's usual stuff didn't work very well and so they played ball control to wear down the Trojans. That's "wear down"--as in hit the wall, back up and hit it again. And again. Not the Duck style, exactly, but it worked. USC's five star talent was served up on toast (with a side of crow) by what at least one pundit called a "fraudulent defense," and a team made up, it was said, with only three legitimate players. <br />
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Adjust, adjust, adjust. <br />
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I didn't get to see that game on Saturday. I spent 9 hours on a bus with The Honey Bear and her volley ball team, going to and coming back from one more round in the Oregon high school championship process. In between the bus ride there and the bus ride home, her Grant High team beat North Medford High (from which I graduated), winning three games straight after losing the first two. The Generals scored eight consecutive points in the clincher--with The Honey Bear holding the serve.<br />
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So, I listened to the game on my radio and up until the third quarter I only heard parts of it. The radio station signals came and went as the bus made its way north, over the Klamath Mountains, to get home. By the time the Trojan faithful were tearing up their tickets and heading for the exits, though, we were down in the Willamette Valley and the reception was clear. <br />
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It would be nice to take the lead, hold the lead and never relinquish the lead. It's not often like that, though. Life is mostly ready for what you normally do. Up against it, it's about coming back and that usually means making the adjustments. If you can't make adjustments you end up throwing 40 passes.<br />
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Washington, Cal, Arizona and then the Civil War game. I won't take anything away from any of them (a couple of them don't have much left and the others have Trap written all over them). It can all go away in an instant; this is, after all, The Duck we are talking about. But if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much room. Besides, when you fall off of a ten story building it might feel, for nine stories at least, just like you are flyingTmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-18960081577164545662010-09-19T05:49:00.000-07:002010-09-19T05:59:18.167-07:00The Packing List...getting there, then and with what I need There was a real psychological struggle involved in beginning to use my Packing List. I am a child of Sixties--one who resists (or used to resist) routines, being in a "rut." One aspect of learning to deal with ADD is to get over that. Routines, I have learned, are just a way to ensure that all the quotidian tasks facing me every day actually get done--not a curse that stifle the spontaneity people of my generation seem to cherish. My life is not a series of routines although I a creating more of them, all the time. Some I do every day, and some are like "plug ins" to my schedule. The Packing List is one of those "contingent" routines, or a "standing operating procedure" that is employed when the situation calls for it. <br />
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I travel several times a month for business and it's all about making reservations for airplanes, car rentals and hotels. It's then about getting my self and my stuff together and getting everywhere I am supposed to be when I am supposed to be there. So far, so good.<br />
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I have used several tools to keep myself organized and I am preparing to use one of them today, as I prepare for a trip to Washington DC, via New York JFK, tomorrow.<br />
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It's a checklist. <br />
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It will be two years next month since I made my first trip and at first I found myself needing something I did not have with me. The first break through on this was the realization that I was not flying to places where it is impossible to buy anything I forgot or didn't think about. <br />
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The second breakthrough, however, was the development of my packing list. I created a document on my computer that lists everything I might ever want to take any trip, anywhere, any time of year, for any purpose. Whether for business or pleasure or for Quaker events this list puts down what I need.<br />
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I print the list out as I start to pack and the first step is to cross off the things that I don't need for the journey I am about to undertake. The second step is, obviously, to go down the list gathering together all of the remaining items. Finally, when these things are all gathered, I begin the actual packing.<br />
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I learned to wait until I have everything together to put things into the suitcase because I found myself gathering things out of the order that things should go into the bags. That meant that I put things into the bag without regard to when I would use them. That is important as I don't actually unpack on the road unless I am going to be somewhere more than one night. Living out of a suitcase is messy, for me. Messy means mistakes, for me.<br />
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Trip after trip the list of things grew. One example is that I learned to include a hand towel to use for such things as replacing paper napkins eating in the airport and blotting up something I (or someone else) spilled on the plane. I even wrapped a cut finger in that towel (and put band aids on the list of things for my carry on, as well as my checked bag) and used it to blot blood off of the front of the white shirt I was wearing at the time.<br />
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The checklist now includes things I want to do before going, in addition to things I want to take. I listed laying out the clothes I would wear the next day, for example, as well as things like downloading hard copies of the files I would need on the road.<br />
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This routine has eliminated a great deal of the stress and the anxiety of all this travel I do. When I get in the cab early in the morning to leave I no longer face a series of panic moments about whether I forgot this, that, and the other thing. Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-7185685984385804762010-05-27T07:13:00.000-07:002010-05-27T07:13:48.797-07:00fresh air and sunshineI have started taking short walks, lately. <br />
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Exercise, I hear, is "good" for ADD. It's not about marathons or morning on the river in a shell, it's about getting up from the desk and walking outside for fifteen or twenty minutes.<br />
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Also, the color green is "good" for the soothing of the impulsive soul.<br />
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The walks and the green go together here in Oregon, at least in this part of Oregon (even when it's pouring down rain).<br />
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Adding walks outside to the "routine" even though they may happen at different times, every day.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-55706916162282812052010-03-26T07:15:00.000-07:002010-03-26T07:25:23.648-07:00RoutinizingI am a child of the Sixties and one of the basics of that persona is to avoid routine. Routine--which has translated to "rut" for me for decades--is the enemy of spontaneity and creativity and of seizing the moment. It runs deep. Just ask the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit or Paul Goodman.<br />
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It aint me, Babe,<br />
no, no, no,<br />
It aint me Babe<br />
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Recently I read, though, that one of the best supports we can have as we live with our ADD and turn it toward the flowering of our "orchid child" trajectory is to have a solid, thoughtful routine for getting things done. <br />
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Old enough now to be flexible, I have embraced that, over the past couple of months. At New Years I even put together a routine to organize my work life and put it on paper, taped it to my work table. It tells me<br />
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1. sync my organizer and my computer each night, so that each will include the things I put down, during the day, into one or the other.<br />
2. in the morning, check my calendar, to do list and file box <br />
3. identify my frog (my least attractive task of the day) and make it the first priority.<br />
4. schedule the rest of my tasks for the day. I have since committed to try to assign a fixed start time and time period to each task I have planned and to put an audible "start time" alarm on each. <br />
5. print out the daily schedule from my calendar/to do program.<br />
(see routine described below, then...) <br />
6. start the work day with eating the frog and tie a bow on that (complete the task) before moving on to another--even if it requires changing the start times for other tasks.<br />
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This "Resolution List for 2010" also reminds me to account for all my time during the day, to check my printed-out list as the day goes on, to take down (in either my lap top or my organizer) the "to do" and "events"items as they arise during the day<br />
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It also tells me to calendar bills ten days and to pay them no later than five days before due and to update my business check and credit card registers each day. I also need to add "start consulting fee billing" to the first of each month and "start doing expense reimbursement forms" on the 28th and the 12th of each month--and "complete" these two days after those start dates.<br />
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So far my results are uneven (especially on updating the credit card and check register), but there sits the plan and I am trying.<br />
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It is like a spiritual practice or discipline in that, if I stray from it I can go back and pick it up again--it's never "over" or "permanently blown." <br />
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It actually is a spiritual practice/discipline in that there are really no compartments in my life in the sense that some other persona runs my life when I am doing different things. There is no "Timothy Committee:" no lawyer Timothy, no father Timothy and so on...there is just Timothy who does it all and aspires to do it all in the same spirit, under the supervision of the same Guide. I digress... <br />
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I do have two other routines.<br />
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One is work related. When I receive an email message or a document that I might need for later reference I put an electronic "tag" on it, I calendar any events to which it relates, I put a reference to it in Bento (the program I have in which I can compile links to all emails, documents, events and other information relating to specific projects), and then I file it in the appropriate mail box or electronic sub directory. Complicated? You bet! But I can find things when I need them--if I do this with fidelity. Priceless.<br />
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The other routine is my morning wake up routine, before I do the calendar routine described above. I am out of bed early (the cats make sure of that), I make coffee, feed the dogs, and do whatever dishes have been set aside for me to do from the night before and clean the kitchen a bit, trying to do those things that need to be done periodically--wiping down cabinets and woodwork, for example. (I like to do dishes, as long as there are not too many and it's my idea. I recommend doing dishes as a spiritual discipline.) I also make my oatmeal, get Whiskers outside for his morning time, and go down to the basement to put in a load of laundry. <br />
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Then I come upstairs and have a cup of coffee. This is when I do the schedule routine, above, returning from that to do my yoga, meditate, shower and dress.<br />
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(this is, by the way, where I am in that routine, at this moment--I have tucked some blog or other writing time into the morning before starting the work day. ) <br />
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Wow, that sounds like a lot, almost overwhelming as I look at it, here. But it's not, really. It's totally doable and I am getting better at moving through it, every day. It's also not as rigid as I am making it sound. Weekends look a little different, as does the day before and the day that recycling goes to the curb. Of course, I have a different routine for days on the road, which is still under development. <br />
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My newest insight in all this comes from my ADD coach at Kaiser--don't think in terms of deadlines, think about start times.<br />
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Routine is a good thing. <br />
Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-63440703699562150472010-02-07T15:48:00.000-08:002010-02-07T17:05:16.378-08:00still learningI am good with calendars, and with to-do lists. I can prioritize and I know how to "eat the frog" each and every day. Knowing doesn't mean it always gets done, it just means that it when it doesn't get done I know it doesn't.<br /><br />But I did something last week that brought me up short.<br /><br />I took the do list and scheduled all the tasks I intended to do for a specific time, on that specific day. <br /><br />What a shock. I made them all fit into the day on the calendar--but that didn't make it possible for me to do them all in that day.<br /><br />I always knew that things "rolled over" every day but it became clear to me, that day, that things have rolled over from year to year. I have spent my life over-estimating what I could get done in the time, and with the resources, I had. <br /><br />Too many things on that list for just one lifetime.<br /><br />I have to be a father, and a husband and a householder and a child welfare guru and a Quaker minister. If there is anything left over then maybe...maybe I should have put it into being a father, a husband, a house holder, a child welfare guru and a Quaker minister. Maybe I will, from now on.<br /><br />I used to tell the kids in my ecology classes that "there is only so much of everything."<br /><br />There is enough of me, used wisely, for me to be a father, a husband, a householder, a child welfare guru and a Quaker minister... <br /><br />I heard a dharma talk once the theme of which was "what can you give up and still have enough?"<br /><br />I can give up everything but those and have more than enough.<br /><br />Well, yes, of course, we have to throw in an occasional ball game. but most of those come in under being a father. Good thing I brought my girls up right.<br /><br />;=)Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-29876332368865413092009-05-07T05:50:00.000-07:002009-05-07T07:48:35.287-07:00Go with what you know...My oldest is home, her freshman year of college completed--a freshman year that, three years or so ago, none of us really thought would happen. Her high school counselor had her pegged for some kind of "trade school" track. Her mother and I talked bravely about our daughter "taking a year off" to get some life experience, maturing a little, before going to college.<br /><br />A few months ago she and I went to the inauguration of Barak Obama. It was a very big deal for my Econ/PoliSci major girl. Obama is her first political love and to hear her talk you'd think he was Bobby Kennedy, or something. I like him, too, but I never would have gone to stand in that cold to watch him sworn in except that her plans to go with other kids from school fell through. I was pretty glad they did. It closed a 40 year loop for me, and opened one for her.<br /><br />We were listening to a sports radio station as we drove her back to school in North Carolina. The pickin's on the dial were slim in that part of Virginia and she's a big sports fan. Typical talk show format, two guys bantering and blustering about the scores and news and scandal one hears about in late January.<br /><br />One of them asked the other about a kid he was mentoring: how was the kid doing, what was up with that?<br /><br />The mentor answered that things were a lot better for the kid and a big part of that was getting the kid off of all "those meds" they had him on. "Kiddy crack," he called it, and then he went on to say that there was no such thing as ADD--it was all just a conspiracy to sell drugs and turn kids into zombies.<br /><br />My daughter became furious, an ability she has (and one the origins of which I cannot, for the life of me, trace to either her mother or me) and I became sad (my more modulated response the product of a sense of complication that comes with 61 years of getting knocked around because I was furious about something). A striking contrast, I realized, loops opening, loops closing.<br /><br />I don't know if the kid that the man was mentoring was appropriately on medication and now was being deprived of a means to overcome a disability. I don't know if he was, instead, just a "boy" being a "boy" and was medicated in an attempt to make him easier to live with. I know that either is possible.<br /><br />The mentor, however, did not seem to know that either was possible. He seemed to know, and he was telling the world, that only one of those scenarios was possible. He had no appreciation of how ADD and ADHD really work because he didn't really have any experience with it, or, if he did, he didn't have the framework of analysis necessary to understand what 57 years or so of my life was trying to teach me about myself, what learning about my daughter's condition finally taught me about the both of us. <br /><br />He didn't have the last three years or so of our family's experience. He didn't get to see her--with medication and therapy--pull her act togther. He didn't see her talk and write a rap that convinced the only college she wanted to attend--the only one for which she applied--to take a chance on her. He didn't hear as she quite plausibly told them a story about her previously lack luster academic performance taking a sharp upward trajectory in her last two plus years of high school, he didn't hear the insight she had about her potential coming open like bud when her ADD was detected and she learned how to cope with it. He also didn't see her sail through this just-completed freshman year, proving that she wasn't just blowing smoke to the admissions people a year or so ago.<br /><br />There are many like him, in the world, and they do a lot of unintentional harm to a lot of people who suffer with a real disability. Sometimes the person they harm is themselves, having internalized all of the denial and despair, analyzing in black and white, moral and immoral--putting forth one over-heard political, medical, pyschological, moral or religious agenda or another. Often this comes bubbling up from frustration and is latched onto by people who have tried to deal with a difficult situation and, unable to figure it out, fall back on blaming those they were unable to help--including themselves. I once read that this is a very common defense mechanism to which we are all prone when we want to fend off feelings of inadequacy--blame the victim, even when we are the victim, ourselves.<br /><br />But riding along that day Sugar Bear and I knew what he didn't know. We knew she dodged a bullet, a bullet that wounds a lot of kids' spirit, an limits a lot of kids' futures. <br /><br />So, we drove on through the Virginia countryside, with little more to listen to and talk about except the casual certainties of the type one hears a lot on the radio, the kind of stuff thrown off by people who have little grasp of so many things they talk about--and less grasp of the impact the wreckless misinformation they heard somewhere and now spread themselves.<br /><br />A few hours later I dropped her off at her dorm, said good bye. I drove away alone. A part of my tears were just the normal (and wonderful) regret at parting after a couple of days spent with her on a father-daughter adventure we would both remember for rest of our lives. But there were two other aspects of it that I had parsed out by the time my plane landed back here in Oregon. <br /><br />One of these was the overwhelming feeling of graditude and relief that comes from seeing a disaster averted, from seeing that something so dreaded and worried-over is not going happen, seeing the cloud pass over. There may be disasters ahead--but not <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> disaster.<br /><br />The other part, though, was that I was doing the kind of mourning that it is written Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount, the "blessed are those who mourn" kind of mourning. "Blessed," here, has the meaning of "increased" or "magnified" or "matured."<br /><br />Because I know there are a lot of people out there, right now, who are touched by that cluster of disorders we call ADD or ADHD. Some are profoundly disabled, some only a little annoyed by it. Too many of them live in situations in which they don't have benefit of what I have learned about all this. Too many of them "know" what people on the radio have to say about it, too many people on the radio don't know that they don't know, at all.<br /><br />I know that it's all complicated. When someone goes off on this "there is no such thing as ADD" thing--and working in child welfare, believe me, I hear it a lot--I have to approach carefully, thoughtfully, granting the reality of over-diagnosing and over-prescribing, while at the same time asking for appreciation of the reality of this condition and the need to deal with it, where it exists, as the disability that it is.<br /><br />And in these situations I have learned that I cannot effectively ask for that appreciation by quoting statistics and science. I am most credaible, I find, on the basis of my own testimony--the testimony of results and outcomes in my own life and the lives of my daughters. It's all I know--really--and, I find, it's surprisingly convincing. Perhaps the "ADD deniers" with whom I engage as gently as I can are less convinced but those who are listening in--and these conversations almost always take place where there are plenty of people listening in--seem to be thinking about it in a different way than when the conversation began.<br /><br />Sixty one years and the best I can come up with is a soft spoken"sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't so we should find out the facts for each specific case an act according to them." That's because, truly, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't and we should find out the facts for each specific case and act according to them. It's not flashy but that's the wisdom, here. <br /><br />No matter which side of partiality, here, one is tempted to embrace, H. L. Mencken stands in the background warning, again, that for every problem we face in life there are answers that are simple, obvious and wrong. We are attracted to those answers because they come easily to us, others are glad to supply them to us and we don't have to work for them. Too often, though, we end up working through the wreckage we create by accepting and acting on such answers.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-88589866250251058402009-01-07T03:16:00.000-08:002009-01-07T03:36:07.384-08:00why not then?When I sit in meditation, following the breath, my mind floods with thinking. <br /><br />I plan the future. I write pieces like this one in my head. I analyze things that have happened, processing what I've done, what people have said, things that have gone on around me. I fantasize and rehearse. <br /><br />I do everything except follow the breath.<br /><br />I know this because I name all these things as I do them. <br /><br />"Planning," I say to myself, "planning, planning, planning," and then I return my attention to the feeling in my stomach as the breath comes in. <br /><br />Often I stay there for a breath or two than then it's off to what was said at dinner last night, or some project I have to work on.<br /><br />"Analyzing, analyzing, analyzing."<br /><br />All normal and common for people beginning to meditate. Beginning is a term of art, here, as I have been sitting on the pillow on and off for a number of years. And it is the "on and off" that is the operative term. I am led to believe, and I have confidence that, a more steady discipline would have me better able to stay with the breath for longer.<br /><br />Steady discipline? And ADD? <br /><br />Just sitting on the pillow for twenty minutes without moving is...I digress.<br /><br />But the point of this writing (which I did on the pillow, pretty much) is not the difficulty and slow "progress" of meditation. <br /><br />The point is that when I can do this planning, analyzing, fantasizing (visualizing the future or playing "I should have said/done"), processing and such I don't do it. All this stuff seems very important when I am on the pillow, it's stuff I should be writing down or following up on when I am "done" meditating. It is important, too. Some of it is very important and it is stuff I need to get done.<br /><br />I am going to be on an airplane today for seven hours or so today. And if today is like the day before yesterday, when I flew down here, I will read, play solitaire, listen to pod casts or music--I will do anything except engage in that free flow of thinking that wants to go on, that "intrudes into," my meditation, my concentration, such as it is, on the breath. <br /><br />So, I will try an experiment. On the plane today I will take out my spiral notebook and I will close my eyes and I will think. I'll let my mind go where it will, thinking all those thoughts that "I" (and just who is this "I" that wants to think these thoughts and how is it that this "I" intrudes and pushes aside the "I" that wants to sit following the breath...I digress. ADD, you know.)<br /><br />I will not get hooked on on particular thought, at least not at first. I will make a list of the things I am planning, the things I am analyzing, the things I am fantasizing and visualizing, the things I am writing in my head. <br /><br />Perhaps, from there...ah, don't out-drive your headlights, Timothy. When you are on the pillow you think that you should be keeping track of these things. OK. <br /><br />Keep track of them. <br /><br />Then, after you have kept track, see what happens.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-31145754386640851512008-09-14T14:31:00.000-07:002008-09-14T14:38:18.353-07:00a constant struggle....contstant and perpetual mindfulnessIt's never licked.<br /><br />It will last for as long as I do.<br /><br />On our way to a wedding yesterday I was navigating. The schematic map was a mirror image of what it would be for North and South to be oriented as they were on paper: The words "Portland" and "Coast" at the left and right hand ends of the line representing Highway 26 were opposite of where they should have been.<br /><br />But the fact is that no one else of whom I know was puzzled because no one else had a problem getting there.<br /><br />We were late by ten minutes because I didn't read the words--I just looked at the lines representing the roads and told my wife to turn south when we needed to turn north.<br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br />Attention to detail. Looking but not seeing what was really there.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-91943391596614388872008-09-10T09:15:00.000-07:002008-09-10T09:26:57.397-07:00new challengesI am starting my own business...wowsers!<br /><br />Sure. I am 60 years old, I have a daughter just started college, another four years behind her. I have a good job with good pay and good benefits. Hey, I think I'll become a consultant.<br /><br />An accountant I talked to about handling my books argued with me about the wisdom of doing this but his wisdom was all dollars and cents and lacked sense or even a sense of what was at stake for me.<br /><br />This raises a lot of issues for me, of course, but I want to comment on the ADD piece of this--and it's actually only one ADD piece of this, for me.<br /><br />It's about transitions.<br /><br />Everyone knows ADD is about attention span and impulse and all that. But few appreciate how much it's about the difficulty of making transitions. A therapist I know, who works with children, told me that ADD and ADHD folks make transitions like drivers shift gears without a clutch. <br /><br />The truth of that is something I contend with every day. Short attention span and impulse control--sure, sure, sure. But I linger, sometimes, with a project, rather than move on to another. That's often as big a challenge for me. <br /><br />The whole thing about starting a business--especially a one person business--implicates all the difficulties created by being ADD. <br /><br />It's not about the dollars and the cents. It's about the sense, and the sense of it. It's about a lifetime of self developed therapy that takes the oddest forms, at times.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-41788300812820544082008-06-22T18:30:00.000-07:002008-06-22T18:45:05.392-07:00..easier than parenting...A friends sent me a collection of satirical billboards and in them was one that said "So much easier than parenting...Ritalin."<br /><br />My first response to that was negative, as I am sure that most people feel when the problems they face in life are discounted by satire.<br /><br />Ritalin, or any of the drugs used to even the playing field for people who are afflicted by the cluster of conditions grouped under ADD or ADHD, is indeed easier that parenting--as swimming is easier when an intervention removes the rocks from one's pockets. It's makes parenting easier in the same sense that a splint for a broken arm makes parenting a child who has one makes parenting that child easier, in the sense that an anti-biotic or an immunization makes parenting a child easier.<br /><br />There are children who should not be medicated, who do not suffer from the maladies for which they are medicated, and so a drug regimen is not appropriate or helpful. But two points need to be made:<br /><br />1. Ritalin is not a drug that "chills" a kid out and makes her easier to deal with, and<br /><br />2. Ritalin, alone, is rarely effective even with kids suffering ADD or ADHD. In fact, behavioral therapy is the other half of the equation and, if not included, the course if treatment may well not work.<br /><br />My daughter ran into a classmate this last week who, not knowing her condition, starting spouting what he no doubt heard his parents say over the dinner table--that there is no such thing as ADD or ADHD. And my wife heard a psychologist who works with children "riffing" about how middle class parents are unwilling to accept their children as they are, that they want some of diagnosis and treatment to make their children "better."<br /><br />I went through about 57 years of my life untreated for ADD, pulling together various behavioral strategies to cope with the condition from self help and time organization books. When I was diagnosed, and given medication, things fell into place.<br /><br />My daughters, both diagnosed but not having the better part of a life time of experience trying to figure out how to stay on task, how to transition, how to organize and move successfully through this culture, are now on medication and developing those behavioral strategies through a course of therapy, not "hit and miss" as I did. Their school performance, their life in general, is much more productive and happy than it was before the diagnosis and treatment.<br /><br />"Placebo" said my daughter's class mate, the one who "knows" that there is no such thing as ADD or ADHD.<br /><br />Placebo. <br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br />All you can do is tell the truth, manifest the truth, and wait for everyone else--mostly people who don't have any understanding of the situation except what they might have picked up from a two column inch story in a newspaper or from a professional nay-sayer--to catch up.<br /><br />And, you know, an inoculation for chicken pox? Yeah--from cows, cow pox. It'll make you grow horns.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-88223337293434603932008-06-11T18:08:00.000-07:002008-06-11T18:31:08.266-07:00Graduation TimeOne going to college, one going into high school...<br /><br />Transitions.<br /><br />And we all know that transitions are hard for those with the ADD/ADHD, so this last week or so has hit RR, LG and I with challenges.<br /><br />RR has graduated from high school and is headed for that small Quaker college in North Carolina she wants to attend. It's the only college that she applied for--the ONLY one. Two years ago, at the time of her ADD diagnosis, we were thinking about "a year off" between high school and college for her. But between medication and therapy (aimed at organization and study skills) RR created a record of constantly improving academic improvement (3.5 this last semester) and successfully argued (to that small Quaker college) that this, and her passable entrance exam scores, justified admission despite an overall GPA that didn't make the cut. We were really wondering, two years ago, whether she would every walk across that stage and get a high school diploma and now there she goes...there she goes...off to college. College!!!<br /><br />LG, on the other hand, was "promoted" from middle school to high school last night. LG has the "H" part of the diagnosis--she's ADHD. She is also one of most respected and popular kids in her class--and she's not a "babe." But she has a charisma (and one heck of a volleyball serve) that caused her peers to vote her the Martin Luther King Peacemaker Award last year, and her teachers and staff to vote her the recipient of an award given each year to students on the basis of leadership, academics, attitude, and extra curricular activities. She made the "lead off" speech of the promotion ceremony last night and, at the end, was one of four students who received the award I just described.<br /><br />I am very pleased with them (I have that Quaker scruple against using the term "pride") but more than that I realize that our recognition of their situation--their condition (which they inherited from me)--has made all the difference in the world for them. I see children whose condition is not recognized and who go untreated, and I see them going slowly down the drain. <br /><br />There is such a thing as ADD/ADHD, no matter what some people say, and it can be treated. The course of these children's lives will go one way or the other, depending on how their parents and their communities choose to deal with their conditions. <br /><br />Hey, there is such a thing as ADD/ADHD. And if your children, after professional evaluation, test to be ADD/ADHD then go with the regimen and therapy designed to deal with it. You will be glad you took my advice. Your child's future is at stake.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-52562606958820367532008-01-09T06:41:00.000-08:002008-01-09T07:16:28.024-08:00the clutch...A psychologist I know who works a lot with children once told me that ADD prevents children from making transitions. He said that moving from one thing to another, for such children, is like shifting gears without a clutch.<br /><br />I have thought about that simile a lot, especially when I have been trying to make a transition from one activity to another. It's a good description of what is going on with me. I often linger in an activity or while working on a project when it's time to move on because I am comfortable where I am, momentum carries me along. It seems like a lot of energy is required to move on as I should and I don't want to "get myself up" to do it.<br /><br />There are always things to do--groundwork to be laid--before one gets to do that which one needs to accomplish. There are pencils to sharpen, or tools to gather. One does not, for example, simply take out the trash; one must first get a trash bag, then walk around the house to gather it from the various wastebaskets in the basement, on the first and then the second floor. Then, too, one must gather the recycling stuff (in our house it's in two rooms) haul it down and sort it. Then, and only then, does one actually "take out the trash."<br /><br />When I am writing or reading all of that looks pretty daunting (and it looks so simple and easy laid out on the page like that) and so I want to stay with the writing or reading. That means that the time that is necessary to deal with the trash (twenty minutes or so) slips away and when I finally get into gear to do it I only have seven or eight minutes left. And since this is a part of the sequence of a Friday morning it both pushes the sequence into that ever so frequently attained condition of "late" and causes the performance of the task to deteriorate ("Well, the recycling can wait another week.")<br /><br />This is a trivial example. Projects at work are subject to this same dynamic.<br /><br />And it gets caught up in the procrastination. If there is a time in the future that I can imagine that I will do some task now facing me then I will tend to postpone it until that future time--not acknowledging, or not remembering, even, that I have already procrastinated some other task into that time slot or the almost inevitability that some other task, at that time, will claim it.<br /><br />I can hear my father say, at this point, "Well, so just do it now," as he would say "Get off your fundamental--he, the father of boys, would use another term--and take out the trash." But rationality doesn't always enter in to it. In fact, unless one is working in a self therapeutic (what I guess my dad would call "disciplined") mode rationality never enters into it. It's about inertia, and about impulse.<br /><br />Sometimes it seems that knowledge and insight is not enough to change behavior but I think it might be that it is--at least it is if it leads to "practice." It doesn't lead to instant change, and it doesn't change things in and of itself, I know that, now. I used to say that understanding ballistics will not prevent one from dying of a gun shot wound, and I think that's true. But I also think that insight into how one operates--or fails to operate successfully--is not the same thing.<br /><br />Perhaps the most useful insight I have--in the light of which I do not always manage to operate--is that motivation/inspiration comes after, and not before, a task is begun. At least, that is true when it is not a task undertaken on an impulse--and impulse which too often arises as the result of a lack of motivation/inspiration to get off of my fundamental and do something else that I need to do. Maybe, better stated, it's the lack of motivation/inspiration to lay the groundwork--tedious, tedious groundwork--to do something I need to do.<br /><br />Perhaps it is that laying of the groundwork that is the missing clutch. Perhaps I have habitually tried to move right into the task itself, without doing the groundwork (because I didn't think of the groundwork as part of the task), I have learned that it's "hard" to move into a new task and more pleasant to stay where I am.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-56782456896549966752007-12-01T05:27:00.000-08:002007-12-01T05:48:27.302-08:00So far, Dear Diary, so good.One of my daughters told me last night that she remembers things better when she is "on" her medication. <br /><br />That bothered me because I am always concerned about dependence, here. Kurt Vonnegut once characterized things as "strong stuff" and this medication is. It not only has the effects that make it an effective therapy for ADD (or in her case ADHD) but it also has the effect of creating a feeling of well being and confidence. <br /><br />It's "speed," after all.<br /><br />But sitting here this morning and thinking it over I realize that it would make perfect sense that her retention would be better if she took in information "under the influence," and that is, indeed, one of the reasons she takes it (and I, and her sister take it, as well). <br /><br />I also realize, again, how remarkable this 13 year old child's brain is. She is an accurate observer of her own situation in many ways and this is one more example of that. Insight into oneself--and what is going on around one--is a gift that so many people are lacking in a sufficient measure to avoid creating problems for themselves. <br /><br />She has noticed that her medication "peps her up" (and creates that feeling of well being) but also that it gives her more control over her behavior and actually calms her down. That's a pretty common thing for people taking such medication--and not abusing it--to see. More subtle, I think, and not so obvious to perceive is the result of the changes in the way that information is taken in and processed as a result of the medication.<br /><br />She doesn't have a grasp of the "mechanics" of that, of course--but she sees the result, she notices the difference in, among other things, her memory.<br /><br />This daughter has been taking medication for a year or so; my other daughter and I are coming up on two years of this "experiment." I have been wary this whole time because I know from personal and professional experience how strong the temptation can be to abuse such drugs--to use them simply to make oneself feel good. It's still actually quite tempting to me to take an extra pill when facing a particularly difficult day.<br /><br />But so far no such problem has arisen (and the pill counts don't lie). <br /><br />So far the results have been dramatic, for all three of us, and positive. People have noticed improved performance in all three of us and there is hard evidence to back that up--quite aside from any delusions rooted in feelings of well being induced by the medication itself. <br /><br />So far, Dear Diary, so good.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-29127828824681083562007-06-15T20:56:00.002-07:002007-06-15T21:05:26.523-07:00A Friend in need...My daughter has a friend at school who is ADD. At least, that's our diagnosis and, as they say, it takes one to know one. <br /><br />But it's not just us. Her family doctor has also suggested following up on his impressions with the normal kinds of screenings. But although this junior in high school is failing her mother--who is, using the clinical term, a mess--refuses to accept any explanation for her daughter's hard times except that she is stupid. <br /><br />After needlessly explaining to my daughter that giving her friend any of her own medication would be distribution of a controlled substance, and, in Oregon, doing so within 1000 feet of a school, which makes it more serious, I suggested that her friend go to the school clinic. Because she is older than 14 she can consent to her own medical treatment in Oregon. But she cannot afford the cost of medication ($125 per month, or so, if one is not covered for prescriptions on a medical plan). It was my hope that the school clinic would refer her somewhere that could perhaps tap into her mother's coverage, somehow and get it done.<br /><br />But the school clinic nurse was a man who accused her of drug seeking, said she was "just" depressed, and who wouldn't like to have a little "performance enhancement." He sent her on her way. <br /><br />By the way, after a D in AP history first semester my daughter got an A this semester because she not only had medication for her ADD but she had structure and therapy designed at teacher her organizational and study skills. I'm glad no one sent her on her way when her way was not promising.<br /><br />How many kids are out there right now spinning out of control and desperate to figure out how to get out of that dervish dance of failure? And how many parents ... how many school nurses ...Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-16852189203820211682007-06-15T20:56:00.001-07:002007-06-15T20:56:38.238-07:00Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-1166882927355930782006-12-23T05:47:00.000-08:002006-12-23T06:08:47.366-08:00transcription errorsI just finished a very interesting book called Misquoting Jesus, by Bart Ehrman. I recommend it to anyone who reads the Bible but that's not why I bring it up.<br /><br />For as long as I can remember I have marked up books as I read them. I most frequently use with some kind of highlighter, although I have also underlined in pencil. I began thnking a long time ago that I should at least go back, at the end of a reading session to look at what I marked but I didn't until quite recently. A month or so ago, as I was reading a college text book (again about the Bible, as it relates to the history of the early Christian movement) I started each morning's reading session by reviewing that which I had marked the previous day.<br /><br />I have also thought that I should take some of what I marked and transcribe it somewhere, in some form, that I could find things, again, when I had need of the source of some reference. But I never did that, either, until I started with this book. Doing this, creating a digital file called "Notes: Misquoting Jesus," was not just, it turned out, a useful process of abstracting for later reference, it was also both a discipline (in regard to "overcoming" my ADD) and it was an object lesson in what this particular book was about.<br /><br />As I transcribed passages from the book (some of them quite lengthy) I made mistakes--in just the way the author describes one of the ways that the scribes who copied the Biblical documents made mistakes. Not paying attention, letting my mind wander--whatever it can be called, there it was happening, right before my very eyes. I was doing it. <br /><br />The discipline of this transcribing is really good for me. The kind of concentration that I want--which I imagine (quite wrongly, I am certain) that everyone in the world has who is not ADD--requires me to consciously concentrate. And that is something I have to practice. Perhaps some day I will have that kind of concentration without constant self reminding and perhaps I will not. I would hope that this habit, and the medication, would result in that. But even if the habit and the medication only result in my consciously concentrating more often I am still the winner.<br /><br />I have been doing the Concerta for about eleven months, now. What I have learned about it, thus far, is that it is not a cure, in and of itself. I struggled for fifty odd years trying to come up with a set of habits, a modus operandi, to do better work. At times I did think I was ADD but I never followed up clinically, partly because I didn't really think I was ADD (after all, don't people "outgrow" ADD?) and partly because I would be seen as a "drug seeker." But I did read the self help books and the books on organizing one's life (want to borrow some? I still have a modest shelf of them), in so far as my disability allowed for it, I was introspective about myself and the way I went about things. I built up quite a repertoire of strategies that I employed inconsistently. The results were inconsistent. But the medication has enabled me to be more consistent in employing the strategies.<br /><br />Damn. I wanted this to instant and painless and forever. It's work. But it's really, really working.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-1164377893128791222006-11-24T05:32:00.000-08:002006-11-24T06:33:26.186-08:00Subtract, don't ADD<strong>The word "focus" has been surfacing in my thoughts, recently. I have so many things going on and I am having trouble making progress with them. Classic Attention Deficit Disorder.<br /><br />The cycle is as old as I can remember: take on tasks, make lists, figure out when things will get done, add more tasks, make room for them on the list, procrastinate when something comes along that looks more interesting than what is on the list (procrastinate meaning "figure out a time in the future when you could do what you should do now and then decide to do it then"), add more stuff, take more time away through an impulse or accommodating an unexpected task or just to escape the pressure of getting all this stuff done and--voila!!! I am completely overwhelmed and it comes tumbling, in way or another, down.<br /><br />Impulse underminng Focus.<br /><br />Impulse. Focus.<br /><br />Aside from the mundane, quotidian things in front of me (keeping the house going and in order, doing laundry, getting the children where they should/want to be, getting the cars serviced, the yard taken care of, the dogs and cats to the vet--and there's a lot on tht list that needs a lot of attention at this moment, at any moment), I have several other projects on my list that are calling my name, right now. In so far as I actually deal with them it is most often in a haphazard way, determined by which is the closest to sending me over the edge; where is the most pressure coming from at the moment.<br /><br />When I was young there was a juggler I used to see on the Ed Sullivan Show. He would spin plates on sticks on a long table on the stage. The plates were balanced on the top of these sticks and they would go until their momentum was exhausted and then they would fall. Well, they would have fallen if he had let them, but he didn't. He got many plates spinning at the same time and would go from plate to plate, spinning the sticks between the palms of his hands to keep the plates going. As one plate needed more of his energy he would go to that plate and give it attention. There was one on the end of the table that he would neglect (on purpose of course) until the audience was screaming at him to spin it. He would get there on the last possible wobble, of course, just before, for lack of his attention/energy, it would crash to the floor.<br /><br />I have often compared my life to that collection of spinning plates. Sometimes one or more--sometimes almost all--of my plates have come crashing down for lack of ability/energy (and skill) to keep all spinning.<br /><br />I have never been good at limiting the scope of my activities. And I have never been particularly good at most of them. I have always tried to do too many things to be outstanding at any one of them. I have, most usually, tried to do so many things that I was never even very competent at any of them. <br /><br />And I have serial enthusiasms. I am interested in something for a while--to the exclusion of other things in which I am interested or should be doing--and then I lose interest and move on to something else. Often I go back to one of these interests but I will move on, again. <br /><br />There are so many interesting and attractive things to do, in this life. There are so many things that have distracted me, in this life.<br /><br />My energy gets scattered in this way. A big chunk of it is invested in novels that will never be finished. Another chunk can be found in a baseball card collection that is in dissarray and will never be otherwise. The latter activity goes back to my childhood, the former to my adolescence. There are a lot of other artifacts of my energy around. <br /><br />It is not all gloom. I can see things into which my energy has gone and much has been accomplished. My relationships with my children and with Lynn and with (some) other people, my legal knowledge and expertise, my teaching skills, my spiritual development. Yet, even in these things the pattern holds true, to some extent.<br /><br />Focus. Impulse.<br /><br />There are some things I want to get done, both in the short and the long run. (And at 58 there isn't such a long run, left). I am realizing that it's going to be about taking things out of my life, now, and not adding any more. Or, if any more is added then some things have to be taken out.<br /><br />The spiritual tradition of the Society of Friends is of that type. The simplicity that grows from that kind of direct and transformative relationship with God/Spirit is the result of recognizing things that conflict with it and removing them from one's life. It is the work of the Adversary/Devil to keep one's life so complicated that we are out of right relationship with ourselves, those around us, what's going on around us, and with God. Confused and exhausted and frustrated by complication we are lost and we are unable, and convinced that we will never be able, to do (let alone see and understand) the work that God has for us to do. <br /><br />Medication, the process of being matured and transformed by God/Spirit, worldly experience, reasoning and sorting things out over time--put it all in a jar and shake it until smooth. The product is a realization that I have to focus, in big ways and small. Whether it is laying down some project altogether in favor of another or just not picking up a magazine on the way to the bathrooom to prevent myself from getting getting interested in an article and taking an hour away from the project upon which I was working, the point is to focus, to eschew the influence impulse, and don't take on as many tasks/interests/activities as I can remove from my life.<br /><br />Just say no, is, the phrase that comes to mind. Say no to others, say no to myself, say no to the demands of the momentum/intertia of my life and the things I am carrying through it. Simple, but not easy. ADD wants to add things--things that crowd out other things until those things, in their turn, are crowded out and until all of the energy put into all of them creates little, if anything, that endures beyond the moment of its release.<br /><br />Simplicity gets a good Quaker boy to Harmony.<br /><br />Subtract, don't ADD.</strong>Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-1163427329361512302006-11-13T05:36:00.000-08:002006-11-13T06:15:29.683-08:00Bowling, too.My younger brother was in town for the weekend and we went bowling. <br /><br />He and I have a history with bowling. Our parents taught us to bowl early and kept us in junior leagues until we graduated from high school. They didn't need to force us to do it. We liked it. Neither of us were great bowlers, for different reasons, but we both had a good time, most of the time, although we were both frustrated by our inability to do as well as some others. We were low middle of the pack in our abilities.<br /><br />He kept at it, over the years, and has developed into a decent bowler. He is actually in the Southern Oregon Bowling Hall of Fame but mostly because of his work with junior bowlers and with Special Olympics. He works at a bowling "center" (we are not allowed to call them "alleys" any more).<br /><br />I didn't keep at it. I bowled for a while in the Marine Corps and actually saw my average jump about thirty pins. I left off, in high school, in the low 150's and got up to the low 180's. But I didn't see any reason to keep it up. It still frustrated me. I had an unbreakable tendency to rush the line, to (I now understand) get to the line before the ball did, and then to throw the ball hard. That lack of timing and hard throwing ruined my form and made me inconsistent. Inconsistency in something like bowling is an assurance of erratic--and mostly poor--performance. Such performance is frustrating and a low tolerance for frustration is made even more damaging to a person when a lot of frustration is what their poor performance brings them. I think they call this a cycle of some kind...<br /><br />I did take a bowling class in college when I needed a PE credit and it was ok to be at the top of the class. How many years did I have behind me, at that point? It was a bunch of beginners. I felt like Dick Weber.<br /><br />I have had a ball in my hand a time or two since then, usually when my brother and I got together. Mostly it was after my girls were born and they wanted to try it. Each time I went I realized that I was not really good at this, that the middling skill I had developed once had eroded and left me erratic and frustrated. One time I would throw a beautiful strike and the next time I'd knock a couple of pins off of one side. Spares were really hard. I had no desire to do it again very soon.<br /><br />But last night was different. Last night was the first time I bowled since my ADD diagnosis and since I started on medication. Like so many things I have done a lot in my life (and not done very well), I found bowling a much improved experience.<br /><br />I was able to concentrate in a whole new way. I always knew what I was supposed to do to be able to bowl well. It was never lack of knowledge of the technique that held me back. It was always an inability to control myself, physically, mentally and emotionally that was the problem. I "could" not employ the technique I knew I was supposed to be using.<br /><br />The setting last night was not conducive to good performance, for me. Lots of distraction. It was open bowling, with young children on lanes on both sides, who knew nothing of the taking of turns. They rushed up when they were ready and hung out at the foul line--often partially on our lane--as they watched the results of their rolling (or bouncing) of the ball. And my own family was not "centered" on bowling the way a team would be, so it was not always easy to keep my mind on what I was doing. Finally, of course, I was caught up in the good natured (?) competition with my brother.<br /><br />But I realized, almost from the first ball, that things were going to be different, last night. And different they were. I didn't set the world on fire but for one who had not had a ball in his hands for a long time, I did very well. I was thinking, all the time, about what it was I was supposed to be doing and was able to actually do it a lot of the time. I realized that I could, with some time, to get back into the groove, be much better at this than I ever was before. I wanted to join a league, do this regularly. I felt, as I have so often felt since I started on medication, to revisit the "site" of previous humiliations and conquer. Yeah, you know, like going back to the seventh grade and taking science, again. Or going back to that first date...or the second or third one, for that matter.<br /><br />Will I do it? Will I make bowling a part of my life? No. Not likely. Who has time? My life is already full and too full. But, standing there, holding that ball, looking at those pins, I had another reminder that I am disabled, and have been disabled all of my life. A lot of the frustration I have felt in my life at being unable to perform as well as I wanted to was not due to something about which nothing could be done, something beyond my control. I was not, as I believed (and still on an emotional, habitual level, believe) doomed to a life of being "no good" or "substandard." I can do something about it, now. I can.<br /><br />I don't have to go back and show myself, in every situation in which I failed that I can succeed, although it would be satisfying in some ways to do that just to show some people that I am not as bad at things as they thought I was. It's plenty to be able to move forward with what is happening in my life, now, to apply what I have learned to what's on my desk, today.<br /><br />But, man, I wish I could have another shot at playing baseball as a kid and as a young man.<br /><br />ps. I saw a great cartoon in the New Yorker recently. Typical drawing; man is on the couch, psychiatrist sitting there with his pad. And the psychiatrist says "If you're happy and you know it stick with your dosage."<br /><br />I read that and grinned, from ear to ear.<br /><br />Golf! Oh, my! Where are my golf clubs?Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-1162158948316156692006-10-29T13:49:00.000-08:002006-11-24T06:50:12.776-08:00does medication for ADD/ADHD lead to adult substance abuse?some studies re use of medication for ADD/ADHD and future substance abuse and addiction<br /><br />http://<a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/111/1/179">pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/111/1/179 </a><br /><br />(Conclusion.Our results suggest that stimulant therapy in childhood is associated with a reduction in the risk for subsequent drug and alcohol use disorders.)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />http://<a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/111/1/97?etoc"></a><br /><br />(Conclusion. This study concurs with 11 previous studies in finding no compelling evidence that stimulant treatment of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder leads to an increased risk for substance experimentation, use, dependence, or abuse by adulthood.)<br /><br /><br /><br />It does seem to be well established that ADD/ADHD, themselves, untreated, do have a high correlation to adult substance abuse. a study representative of this is found at<br /><br />http://<a href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/152/11/1652"></a>Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-1162053533140708532006-10-28T09:05:00.000-07:002006-10-29T13:29:37.876-08:00A legislative fix...At a Joint House and Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this week I heard a presentation on methamphetamine. Members of the Oregon Legislature are very interested in the problems posed by methamphetamine, as well they should be and what they were hearing from a panel of scientists was background information to aid them in making policy on law enforcement and substance abuse treatment.<br /><br />At one point in the hearing one of the Senators asked whether giving "all those amphetamines" to children wasn't setting them up to become meth addicts. This was a question off of the topic that the scientists who were testifying were there to address but after saying that there was great disagreement about that in the scientific community it was also likely that pharmacological treatment of neurological disorders like ADD and ADHD prevented some who undergo it from becoming addicts later. <br /><br />True. <br /><br />I know from my work co ordinating policy for the drug and alcohol treatment courts in Oregon, as well as from person experience as one with ADD, that this latter "likelihood" is far more likely true than the former. (In fact, although I do not claim a comprehensive knowledge of the scientific literature I don't think I have ever heard anyone say that prescribing appropriate medication for ADD and ADHD made one more prone to meth addiction than children who were not. Perhaps someone has some data...)<br /><br />But I know that people with conditions within this cluster of neurological disorders do self medicate and some of them use methamphetamine (as well as dexies, bennies, and cocaine. And alcohol. And caffeine). I once heard a judge ask a woman, a drug court client in court who was a recovering meth addict, how we would know if she had relapsed and was back on meth. The woman said, "I'd be sitting here calmly." The woman, I believe, suffers ADD and was self treating herself with meth.<br /><br />My own life--including alcohol and substance abuse as a young person--is a testimony to this kind of self medicating strategy by people who have this disorder. One of the many benefits of my beginning to take Concerta is that it has cut my drinking of alcohol down to below what is considered an "acceptable" level. I drank alcohol more before beginning medication.<br /><br />I talked to the Senator later in the hallway and explained that the "amphetamine" that ADD and ADHD children are presecribed is not meth, while it is a related substance. The scientists who were on the panel, also involved in this later conversation, validated my explanation that related drugs are do not have the same effect on people--that good, healthy results can come from a medication that is very closely related to an unhealthy drug (and that a medication that has a good effect on one person can have negative effects on another).<br /><br />She explained that she was relating what they said to a negative experience she had as a young woman when a doctor, thinking she was overweight, prescribed "amphetamines" for her. She said it was a negative experience and that she couldn't take them very long.<br /><br />I hope that the Senator heard what we were telling her. I hope she understands that her reaction to whatever she was prescribed was very different than that of children who are appropriately prescribed things like Concerta to regularize neurological functioning. I hope she understands that, while, in a way, her wondering about drug addiction and the use of pharmacological treatment of children with ADD and ADHD "made sense," she also understands the actual complexity of that about which she was wondering aloud. <br /><br />There is a lot of bunk being promulgated about ADD and ADHD (I heard someone on a local radio station who wrote a book saying that ADD and ADHD are the result of bad parenting--that it comes from indulging children prior to the age of three). Some people are reluctant to believe these conditions exist because it cannot be "seen." <br /><br />But it can be seen. The results of the clinical evaluations undergone by my daughter clearly show the manifestations of the disorder--as clearly as looking at a thermometer shows the manifestation of a fever, or the digital readout (used to be the reading of a dial) shows the manifestation of high blood pressure. And, of course, my life clearly shows that it exists.<br /><br />I am realizing, as I openly talk about my own condition, and that of my daughter, how important it is for people who have experience with ADD and ADHD to speak out and to make it known what's going on and how it has to be dealt with.<br /><br />Taking a "drug" is only part of the picture. A pharmacological regimen also has to be bolstered by developing behavioral strategies to overcome the limitations on functioning. Oddly, I developed the strategies before the medication, while my daughter is using the medication and then developing the strategies. She was diagnosed at 16, I was diagnosed at 57.<br /><br />Here's a book that gives general, introductory information about treatment of ADD and ADHD, as well as other aspects of the disorder. It's probably not of much value to someone on the well versed but, for beginners, it can be a good start.<br /><br />Attention Deficit Dosorder and Learning Disabilities. <br />Barbara D. Ingersoll and Sam Goldstein<br /><br />It makesa the point, by the way, that learning disabilities are very frequently co-occurent with ADD and ADHD.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-1160701460788533542006-10-12T17:56:00.000-07:002006-10-12T18:05:47.986-07:00tell them the truth...I was presiding in a delinquency case recently and the young man was entering a plea on a probation violation. His counselor told me that he had stopped taking his meds and that this was a major part of the problem. I asked what meds he was taking and the counselor said "Concerta."<br /><br />"Really," I asked. "ADD?"<br /><br />"ADDHD"<br /><br />"Ah," I said, "with the hyperactivity component."<br /><br />"Yes," said the counselor and the young man nodded his head<br /><br />"What's the dosage?" I asked.<br /><br />"Fifty four miligrams," the young man said.<br /><br />"you don't like to take your meds?" I asked.<br /><br />He shrugged. "i don't think I need them," he answered and then he looked down at the floor for a moment. Looking up he said, "but everyone says I'm better when I take them so...so...so, I'll take them."<br /><br />"Good," I said. "You know, I took 54 miligars of Concerta this morning."<br /><br />He, and several other people in the court room looked at me.<br /><br />I nodded. "Yes," I said. "I don't have the H component, but I sure have the A, the D and the D."<br /><br />He just looked amazed.<br /><br />"You wouldn't want me to be your judge," I said, "if I wasn't taking my meds."<br /><br />The room was completely silent.<br /><br />"Take your meds," I said.<br /><br />He nodded.<br /><br />I went on to pronounce the sentence for his probation violation.<br /><br />it is important for the world to know that there are some of us who have grown up with ADD and have not ended up in prison or a mental institution. It's very important to struggle agains the myths.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33768180.post-1157239428786346712006-09-02T14:48:00.000-07:002006-09-02T16:23:48.796-07:00An Old DresserIn my Labor Day garage cleaning I got around to the old dresser. It was a cheapie, from that famous Swedish furniture and what-not store. It was in RR's room for ten year's or so, and after a lot of hard use it was replaced. Today I took it apart, so it would take up less room in the dumpster.<br /><br />It was just a matter of undoing the hold of the screws and fancier hardware then tapping the plastic covered particle board pieces so as to break the hold of the pegs that were glued between them to create the joints. Drawer after drawer I followed the same procedure; I removed the handles, placing the screws in a pile and throwing the handles, themselves, into the trash. Then I put the screwdriver on top of the freezer and picked up the hammer. A top on each end loosed the front of the drawer, which I stacked neatly to one side. Putting the hammer down I put the side and back pieces of the drawer on top of the front pieces, next to which I put the thin pieces of pressed board that made up the bottom of the drawer. Then I picked up the screwdriver and repeated the process on the next drawer.<br /><br />On the third drawer I realized how methodically, deliberately, I was working, as though I had all the time in the world to get this task done. And I realized how different that was from the way I worked when I put that dresser together, a decade earlier. I worked then like I did on most assembly projects I ever undertook, like most projects of any type that I ever undertook. I did not lay the pieces out, I did not read the instructions all the way through, I did not gather the tools I would need in advance. I worked as fast as I could and made mistakes that required me to undo and redo, along the way. I was frustrated and angry when I finished, and I am sure I had several drinks which, considering how much coffee I drank that day (as I did every day, in those days) I probably would have had, anyway, that evening.<br /><br />It wasn't as bad, of course, as projects I undertook in the thirties, or my twenties, or my teens or pre-teens. I had learned something from a life time of going at things, as my father used to characterize it, as though I were "killing snakes with a hoe." He also used to say that I would go off "half cocked," and that I didn't have my "head and ass wired together." Through years of bad results, and of reading a lot of self help, time management and organization books, had given me plenty of strategies to work around it, but the basic pattern was the same: I did things in an impulsive, rushed and distracted way. I did not plan, I did not prepare, I did not anticipate or think things through. <br /><br />A part of why it went better taking the dresser apart than it did when I put it together has to do with those strategies. I worked hard to develop those strategies, the ways to compensate for what was "wrong with me," and those strategies have helped me to accomplish more than a lot of people who didn't seem to have the problem I do. But that was only a part of what made today's effort more successful and more pleasant. The other part was Concerta; 54 milligrams in a twelve hour, time release, tablet. Better living, as they say, through chemistry. <br /><br />A lot of people have a lot to say about Attention Deficit Disorder, and about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Setting aside, for now, those who say that there is no such thing, some people who think about such things believe that therapy (i.e., teaching people strategies to improve performance) is the way to treat ADD/ADHD, while others advocate medication. It does seem to that each approach seems to actually work, for some people, while the other does not. <br /><br />As for me, when I went through the evaluation process I learned about those strategies and learned that I had already figured them all out, on my own, right down to working at a stand up desk. Even though those strategies helped me, when I began taking medication things starting going a lot better for me.<br /><br />Interestingly, for my daughter who, at sixteen, did not have a lifetime of learning from bad outcomes and so had not developed the behavioral strategies, did have a major improvement in performance with medication, but still struggles. Why? We think, now, it is because she doesn't have those strategies. She doesn't have time management and study skills strategies. But we are working on those, now.<br /><br />Since I began on medication, six months or so ago, I have often stopped and reflected on what was now going on with me, as I did, today, dealing with that dresser. I have also thought that I want to share this with people who have had similar struggles, who may be still struggling. I am a success story for overcoming ADD (I do not have the H component, which is one reason it took so long for me to be diagnosed) and I want people to know that there is such a thing (as ADD and as a success story). I especially want people who might benefit from getting evaluated, or having their children evaluated, to know that it can be better than it is. <br /><br />So this blog is about how it's going with me, documenting my experience living with ADD both before and after beginning this regimen of medication. I will also be documenting my daughter's experience, beginning, as she is, dealing with this condition in her teens, rather than in her fifties.Tmothy Travishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02788311873771605510noreply@blogger.com0