by Barbara Stanley

Created on: May 13, 2009

Living with Attention Deficit Disorder is easier when a person recognizes why she does things differently from others. As a child in the sixties, I was perceived as a troublemaker and as disobedient in class. Because I could read before I started first grade, sitting still and listening while the other students read hesitantly, one word at a time, was physically painful for me. There was no ADHD diagnoses during my childhood. I was punished with a rap on the knuckles, lost recess time, or by removal from class to finish my work in the hallway.

It was not my desire to interrupt class or cause problems for my teachers. It was physically painful for me to sit quietly while my teachers reviewed the same material over and over. Once I had learned new material in class, I was ready to move on. This boredom drove me to walking around the room as I sought out those who needed help. My intention was to help the class move on to something new. It appeared that I could not remain on task, although my grades in every subject were 4.0 or better.

By the time I was in sixth grade, I had a teacher who understood why I was disruptive. He took the six students, including me, who were able to work alone and provided a separate work station for us. There, we could proceed at our own speed and move on to the next grade level. From that point in my studies, I was always in the accelerated group, able to move up at my own speed. This was a tremendous advantage in dealing with my ADD.

Once I became an adult, my ADD was apparent in the system by which I cleaned house or planned dinner parties. The following is a glimpse in the day of the life of an adult who has ADD.

I would awake with a list in my mind of things I hoped to accomplish during the day. I would begin after cooking breakfast for my husband and sending him off to work. I would start with the breakfast dishes, cleaning and putting them away. A simple task of dish washing could not hold my attention until I had completed the task. If I found the skillet needed to be scrubbed on the bottom, yet I had no steel wool pads in the house, I would drive to the corner store to pick up some S.O.S. pads. While there, I might see a food item that reminded me of a dish I had been hoping to try. I would buy all ingredients needed to cook the meal and I might or might not remember to get the scrubbing pads.

Once home, I would get back to the dishes. Unless the phone rang, I usually finished and went on to the next task. I would

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