Do you work long hours and feel like you are working harder than others? Is it because you love your work, because you have trouble saying no, because you work inefficiently…or all of the above?

Writing a book was easier for me than writing progress notes after a day of psychotherapy sessions, but both created problems. Writing a book involved long stretches of laser-focused attention on a project of my choosing, which was stimulating at the time. But the intense focus on one task contributed to losing awareness of time, other priorities, and other people. I would practically forget that I had a spouse and a cat until I encountered one of them on the way to the bathroom. Writing progress notes, on the other hand, involves multiple breaks in the action, allowing time for my awareness to shift to “I’m hungry!” or “I’m about to miss the news!” or “I forgot to return a call to the client I was just writing about!” There seems to be no in-between for us…nothing between excessive focus and excessive distraction. 

Working in large offices in my early years, I was most productive when working late. When co-workers and clerical staff were gone, and there were no distractions or interruptions, I worked more efficiently and got more done. But getting home late every night created other problems. Are you finding ways to decrease or eliminate interruptions and distractions while others are still around?

I recall once asking an engineer who had too many bosses how he could stop them from interrupting his workflow, and he solved the problem like an engineer. He asked that everyone with an urgent request (and they were all urgent) write the request on an index card and pen it to his bulletin board beneath the most recent request. His colleagues, previously unaware of how many urgent requests he was getting daily, could see them all at once, and they became more respectful of his priorities.

Managing tasks and priorities requires spending some time in an open state of awareness before jumping into a focused state. Adults with ADHD often don’t think of prioritizing and planning as working. We tend instead to jump right into tasks willy nilly without a plan. You may have an aversion to it, but the most basic plan before starting a project can contribute to seamlessly staying on task.

In their Book, The Couple’s Guide to Thriving with ADHD, Melissa Orlov and Nancie Kohlenberger offer some tips for “balancing work and life.” They suggest that if we don’t achieve that balance, we are likely to have problems in our relationships. And God knows we don’t need to create more problems!

I saw “Maudie” this past weekend at the Belcourt Theater in Nashville. It was the best movie I’ve seen this year. Sally Hawkins’ performance as artist Maud Lewis was extraordinary.

In one scene, Everett (Ethan Hawke) wanted Maud to tell him who had thrown rocks at her as she walked down a country road to his house in Nova Scotia. Maud appeared undisturbed by the incident. She was accustomed to being taunted, having limped with arthritis since childhood. She was labeled a “cripple” by her family and people in the community. She told Everette that the rock throwers were only children. “Some people don’t like it when you’re different,” she said.

Indeed, some people don’t like difference. Spouses who once liked the excitement of dating someone with ADHD don’t like partnering with the difference in marriage. They often want the ADHD fixed…for them. I have heard many spouses say to their ADHD partners, “I’ve been in therapy fixing me; it is time you fixed yourself.”

Well, I wouldn’t mind having a “fix” for my ADHD, but I don’t expect to get one as an anniversary gift! And anyone who believes the ADHD difference is only a gift should tell me where I can exchange mine! I’m not that different from those troubled spouses; I like what is good about my ADHD brain and dislike what isn’t.

Being different from your spouse’s image of an ideal partner is not easy. But who is responsible for your partner’s choice to live with you, and for their response to your symptoms? Adults wishing to live well with ADHD can benefit from useful feedback that a partnership can offer, but also from not accepting sole responsibility for their partner’s happiness. The work of partnership is for both partners. 

Some people don’t like it when you’re different. John Elder Robison knows that well. The title of his second book about autism is Be Different. Maud Lewis dared to be different and was abused for much of her life. She paid a price for her difference, but she thrived by creating…and her patrons paid a price for her art.

Have you ever gone for weeks doing the same thing every day—driving the same way home from the office, bringing work home and ignoring it, eating fast as if meals are in the way, having the same thing for breakfast each morning?

What do you think would happen if you intentionally stepped out of your daily practice of mindlessness? What would it feel like to dance rather than jog early in the morning, to prioritize playing your guitar in the evening instead of watching television, to drive a different way home from work, to listen to different music, to read poetry?

Doing the same thing over and over, day after day, is not good for your brain. I once heard a neurologist say that having conversations with people who disagree with you is good for the brain because it is more difficult than having conversations with likeminded people. Respectful discourse has become so rare that the thought of it might feel dangerous in these times! But honestly, I think there are many who long for dialogue across the spectrum of opinions and ideas. Imagine the possibilities if everyone pulled their heads out of social media for a week or a month? 

Mindfulness us not the exclusive right of meditators. It is possible to sit mindlessly on a meditation cushion; I know that from personal experience. Sitting is the rule rather than the exception these days. Twenty-five centuries ago in India, people were moving around a lot more than we do now. Even in the first half of the twentieth century, when Mahatma Gandhi was meditating, he was stepping out of his normal practice of walking long distances. My father grew up on a farm with seven siblings and a mother who would not have allowed her kids to sit and do nothing. For many of us, stepping out should involve movement. 

I got my guitar out of its case tonight for the first time in…I don’t know how long. I keep it near a piano that occupies a corner of my home office. Although I often look in that direction, I seldom actually see the piano these days, much less sit on the piano stool. You would think there is a sign on it that says “Do not touch the keys!”

Although it is easier to play tunes on the stereo and experience music passively, I can also go months without playing my favorite John Coltrane or Miles Davis tunes. It is shameful to admit this. So, I am committing right now to stepping out more often and hope you will join me. If you want to enhance your mindful awareness in some other way than sitting still on a meditation cushion—and most adults with ADHD hate sitting still—experiment with stepping out in your own way. Then write a comment in the box below about your experiment and the effects that you observed.

I’ve been reluctant to blog about my sideview mirror. The story is embarrassing, and I don’t embarrass easily. It illustrates the inconvenience and expense of ADHD and impulsivity.

Years ago, my wife told me that I was driving my car too fast into the garage. “You’re going to hit the side of the garage one day,” she said. I told her not to worry. Entering the garage quickly was like shooting a free throw in basketball, which was my sport. There is one obvious problem with that analogy: No one makes 100% of their free throws!

I hadn’t accounted for the growing collection of lawn care supplies along the left wall of the garage, which was narrowing the opening that I had to navigate. My entry was getting closer to the right side. The first time I missed my free throw, I just barely clipped the sideview mirror, taking off only a small piece of the casing. The mirror remained in tact, so no big deal…only a cosmetic problem. The second time that I missed, a bigger piece came off, and eventually the mirror took a big hit and was no longer useful. I lost count of the missed shots, but I was still shooting over 90% from the free throw line, which would be competitive in the NBA.

I thought it might be best if I used the garage less often. But just like in basketball, when you don’t practice, you don’t shoot as well.

One morning last year, in a hurry to get to the office, I failed to exit the way I had entered the night before. The crunch is a horrible sound. This time, the mirror fell out quickly. It hung by the electric cords that normally would allow me to adjust the view.

I found some blue packaging tape in the garage that would keep the mirror secure in its white casing. I adjusted the mirror to where I needed it and applied the tape. My wife didn’t like the color of the tape. So, I switched to a transparent packaging tape. I tried to adjust the mirror after taping this time and cracked the mirror in the process. The transparent tape didn’t last too long in the humidity and rain of a Nashville summer, and so I resorted to rubber bands, which don’t last too long in humidity and rain.

The mirror isn’t functional now, but I still have to keep it attached and in the casing, or else it will hang by the cords and bang against the car door. I keep tape and rubber bands in the car now so I can change them frequently. I’ve learned to turn my head around like an owl before changing lanes on the freeway.

If you wonder why I haven’t replaced the sideview mirror, then you’ve never priced one. There is a silver lining in this story: The car is fifteen years old with a good engine that gets an oil change every 3,000 miles. It will be on the road for years to come. In time, it will have its third sideview mirror on the passenger side. It will be a pre-owned mirror!

I wish I could consistently think before I speak, or at least pause and consider the timing of what is on the tip of my tongue. Maybe biting my tongue would help. But if I did that as often as needed, I would not have a tongue. That might make my wife happy, but it would make it hard for me to taste my food.

We ate out last Saturday night and were seated on a patio very close to a table of heavy drinkers who were loud talkers. They were louder than the traffic nearby. The more they consumed, the more they cranked up the volume of their chatter. Our table was so close theirs that we were, in effect, sitting at their table, exposed to the nonsense that seemed to amuse them. I was annoyed, distracted, and barely able to hear my wife.

Normally, it is more noble not to have heard your wife than not to have listened to her. But on that night, hearing proved to be the bigger problem.

The waitress came to the table to ask if we wanted dessert (I’m lactose intolerant and never order dessert). I didn’t hear my wife’s answer. As the waitress was walking away, I asked my wife if she ordered dessert. Her judgment detector heard this: “Why are you adding more calories when you are on the Adkins diet?”

“Why did you ask if I was ordering a dessert?” she asked me later. “Why was that important to you?” I told her that it actually wasn’t important to me. “Then why did you ask?” Now here is the part in a conversation that stumps the partner with ADHD. I honestly didn’t know why I asked. I paused to contemplate the question. I wanted to give her an honest answer. Being unable to provide a quick and succinct response was all the evidence she needed to conclude that I was not being honest.

Next time, I will just smile, take her hand, and ask if she is enjoying the evening. But even if I had done that Saturday night, on that noisy patio, she wouldn’t have heard me, and she would have thought this: “He is taking my right hand so I cannot grasp my my fork…he is trying to distract me with a cheap smile…and now he has the nerve to ask if I am enjoying the eating.”

You believe that red lights and slow drivers make you late for work.
You have a fat file at AAA Road Service.
You can’t explain your scrapes and bruises.
Your cat is afraid to sit in your lap.
Your least favorite teacher gave you preferred seating…outside the classroom.
You forget to remember that you forget.
You often say you have plenty of time; you’ll do it later.
You often say you didn’t have enough time.
You give the wrong answer when a patrolman asks why you were speeding.
You are sick of the squirrel joke!

Do what you like and like what you do. Adults with ADHD have difficulty sustaining attention and effort when engaged in tasks that are not personally stimulating, or when working in a distracting environment. One of the best non-medical treatments for adult ADHD is finding the best match for a career. The wrong work environment can contribute to disabling symptoms.

Parents of college students with ADHD might be wise not to discourage unorthodox choices for academic majors, or even postponing college. One of my colleagues listened to experts who encouraged her to get a serious agent for her daughter, a gifted actor with ADHD. The daughter became a television star at age nineteen. She lives and works in Burbank, CA and could easily have been a bored college student, possibly underachieving, had she been forced to take a more “practical” path.

As a teenager, I escaped my father’s grocery store, where I had been sentenced to stocking shelves and bagging groceries. My dad just wanted me to work, no matter where, and allowed me to find jobs that provided more varied tasks. The best was working in a hardware store where I learned some useful skills. As a young adult I had a few part-time jobs in radio, getting paid to play music and read news for pay. Long before knowing I had an attention disorder, I recall often thinking that the worst thing someone could do to me is force me into a boring life.

In the early years after college, I experienced both boring and stimulating jobs. Some were about as interesting and challenging as watching the grass grow. Others were not the most stimulating jobs, but they provided opportunities to travel and expand my horizons. The best has been my career as a psychotherapist, allowing me to be useful, to have a relationship with many interesting people, and to meet with clients in a quiet environment with no distractions.

What is your ideal career? What have been the least and most stimulating jobs in your life?

ADHD researchers and experts like Dr. Russell Barkley and Dr. Thomas Brown have suggested for years that emotion regulation problems are prevalent in adults with ADHD. Although they do not appear in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual) among the specific criteria for making the ADHD diagnosis, they are almost as prevalent as the inattentive symptoms of ADHD and more prevalent than the hyperactive/impulsive symptoms, according to Dr. Barkley. He says that most adults with ADHD report having problems with being easily annoyed, impatient, quick to anger, easily frustrated, overreacting, and easily excited.

Living well with ADHD does not mean”controlling” feelings, but learning to observe and tolerate them, and most importantly, knowing the difference between feelings and thoughts. When I have asked clients what they felt in situations that they have described to me, they almost always answer with a thought instead (e.g., “I felt like my husband was just refusing to listen to me,” rather than, “I felt angry.”). When we experience an abrupt shift in our emotional state, the physical sensations in our bodies deserve our respect and acceptance, but we often react from our story line—the meaning we make from those feelings. We are more likely to respond throughfully when we first pause to observe our mental activity.

You can only feel what you feel, no matter that your well-meaning parents may have tried to teach you otherwise (“Cheer up, you have no reason to be depressed…don’t be afraid…don’t be so angry.”). Unless you have an untreated mood disorder, feelings are not a problem; wishing not to have them is. When we wish not to have a particular feeling, we are likely to look outside our own minds for the assumed source of our mental anguish. We are at risk for an impulsive outburst.

No doubt, our feelings often serve us to assert ourselves or solve a real problem. But the stronger the feeling, the more we are at risk of reacting impulsively—from the feeling—rather than observing it without judgment and proceeding thoughtfully. When we simply observe the feeling first, with acceptance and curiosity, we are more likely to respond to situations with equanimity, which is a nice word for balance of emotions and thought.

In my support group last night, participants suggested a number of ways to respond skillfully to strong feelings:

Take a deep breath before speaking or acting.
Exhale consciously, exaggerating and extending it like a long sigh.
Practice meditation routinely (emphasis on practice).
Practice accepting and respecting your feelings.
Pay attention to the physical sensations of your feelings.
Ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that can happen?”
Observe your reactions (e.g., observe that you are “white knuckling your steering wheel” in traffic).
Breathe deeply when stopped at a red light (They are supposed to turn red sometimes!).

I’m grateful to NAPO for allowing me to present my ideas about communication that can discourage ADHD clients and alternative communication that can empower them. I’m grateful also to members of the addnashville support group whose suggestions were incorporated into the presentation. We are helping many other adults with ADHD indirectly with the information shared with the organizers. I continue to be impressed with this profession, especially with the acceptance and sensitivity shown to persons with ADHD. Thank you NAPO organizers and members!

Visit napo.net for more information about the profession and to find an organizer in your area. Locals can check out professional organizers in the Nashville area by visiting naponashville.com.