Coming Into Focus
Area adults cope with life of ADHD
By David Gignilliat / Illustration by Arthur E. Giron
It’s a brisk, fall evening at the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library, though a chilling wind makes it feel a bit more like winter.
Located in Falls Church, halfway between the Beltway and Interstate 66 on Leesburg Pike, the public library is one of the largest in the area, with a quarter million visitors each year. Inside, to the left, just past the double doors of building’s brick entrance, is a community conference room. Spacious, carpeted, with blank white walls, it’s used regularly as a meeting place for several groups and organizations that claim Northern Virginia as home.
A table is set up along one of the walls with popcorn and light refreshments. A decanter of hot water stands beside herbal tea bags, instant coffee and pouches of hot chocolate. Six large tables are arranged in a rectangle for the evening’s occupants, member of the Adults with ADHD Support Group. Sponsored by the Northern Virginia chapter of CHADD, or Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder, the group meets here the second Wednesday of each month. Active in the area since 2001, the support group’s meetings are free and open to the public. Parents, spouses, friends and partners of members are also welcome to attend.
Nametags, fashioned from oversized notecards, sit on a table near the entrance to the room. There must be about 75 tags, some of them duplicates. Return visitors filter into the room, scan the pile, pick up their cards and grab their seats. For those making their first visit to the group, they fill out a new one, on both sides, so that the rest of the group can see their name.
A large Time Timer sits on one the main tables. A popular tool in the ADHD community, it provides structure and awareness with its simple, visual depiction of elapsed time. The device looks like an ordinary kitchen timer, and uses a red disk to mark the passage of time. As time elapses, the red disk shrinks, like slices cut from a pie, to provide at-a-glance time information.
A few minutes after 6:15, the meeting begins. A dozen or so people are seated in plastic chairs around the tables. One of the group’s facilitators begins with a few questions and statements to stimulate discussion.
Shelley works as a computer programmer for a local technology firm. She listens to music with headphones to block out distractions. At some jobs, this behavior might stand out, but at her company, it’s de rigeuer. Many of her colleagues do the same thing.
A few people walk in late. The meeting continues.
Denise has worked with the military for over 20 years. She characterizes herself as outgoing, but has been admonished in the past for occasionally elevating her voice at the office. She recently had to have a doctor speak on her behalf at the workplace confirming and explaining her attention-deficit condition.
The setting is casual. The mood, friendly and helpful. A few visitors take notes while listening.
Thea is committed to learning more about her ADHD. Her family, however, is not as receptive. They don’t understand her behavior, and they suspect she is suffering from depression.
The topic shifts to depression and other mood disorders. Some members of the group have dealt with depression in the past. After all, it’s not uncommon for ADHD to be present with other conditions.
Attendees are not required to participate in discussion, and a few sit quietly, yet attentively, throughout the meeting.
Ron is a carpenter. He is very good at what he does, but has difficulty restarting a project when clients or colleagues interrupt him during his work. He says he found out he had ADHD after years of marriage counseling. His co-workers and clients do not know. Without health insurance, however, he cannot afford to take any medication. The support group helps him figure out ways to better manage his work and home life.
The meeting winds down. It’s over at 7:45. A few of the attendees mill around after the meeting. The library closes promptly at 8. The after-meeting discussion continues outdoors.
People eventually go back home, having shared their ADHD lives with those who probably understand them best.
Support groups, like this monthly one, are just part of the landscape of services available locally for adults with ADHD. Northern Virginia boasts one of the largest CHADD chapters in the country, and the area is rich with attention-deficit professionals—coaches, psychologists, counselors—ready to help.
According to the National Resource Center on ADHD, adults with ADHD often experience difficulty in one or more areas of living. Some of the common characteristics for adults with the disorder include the following: short-term memory problems, distractibility, focusing, impulsivity, procrastination, inconsistent performance in jobs or careers, losing or quitting jobs on a frequent basis, a history of academic or career underachievement, below-average ability to manage day-to-day responsibilities, relationship problems due to not completing tasks, as well as chronic and intense feelings of frustration, guilt or blame.
For many years, ADHD was seen as a condition unique to childhood, something adolescence eventually aged away. Yet, statistics indicate that 60 percent of those diagnosed in childhood have symptoms persisting later on in life, and that 4 percent of today’s adult population has ADHD.
“We’ve made tremendous progress in understanding adult ADHD. There’s been more research over the last 10 years, and society is beginning to understand that ADHD is not just a childhood disorder. Adults are now more likely to seek an evaluation and get treated,” says Bryan Goodman, CHADD’s national spokesperson. “That’s good because we know that untreated adult ADHD can cause problems in many areas of life, including at work and in relationships. While there has been a lot of progress, there is still a lot of work that has to be done.”
For those suffering from ADHD, it is especially important to understand their weaknesses as much as they do their strengths.
“A lot of adults don’t want to think they are weak at something. They feel that they should be good at everything, especially at something that seems trivial like following a schedule or going to appointments on time. They think they should easily be able to do that,” says Dr. Eleanor Criswell, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Alexandria. “Well, some people with ADHD really don’t do [those things] well. So, there’s a certain amount of self-acceptance that comes in with this—‘OK, I’m late. I’m no good at showing up for my appointments, so what am I going to do about it?’”
For many adults, workplace adjustments—getting extra time on a project, or getting a door for their office, for example—are often made with caution and discretion. While many employers understand ADHD and make accommodations, there can still be a stigma to the label.
“As an ADD person, you’re often challenged in a work situation because you have all these issues. Also, if you make it known that you have ADD, and you ask for some type of accommodation (like less distractions), that might work against you,” explains Stephen, 66, a retired airline employee who now makes his living running his own small business. “‘Oh, don’t give that kind of work to him, he has ADD.’ So, while some are OK, seek alternative work or other accommodations, I think a lot of people don’t want to do that.”
Stephen suspected that he had ADHD at age 60, after a newspaper article about children with ADHD (“a lightbulb moment,” he recalls) inspired him to correspond with the author, a Harvard-educated researcher. Stephen says the diagnosis, self-made after his own extensive research, came as a relief. He had known for many years he had some sort of attention issues, and now he had the whole story and a name for it.
“ADD played a huge role. I was in a busy office with a lot of people. The distraction thing was huge. … They’d be talking, I’d be talking, and at the end of the day, somehow they’d gotten work accomplished and I had done less than expected,” adds Stephen. “I still don’t understand how they could talk and still get work done? Maybe folks without ADHD can do that.”
Dennis worked as a teacher for several years in the Fairfax County school system. He, too, sensed his path was a little different.
“I never really felt like I was part of what was going on,” says Dennis, who received his diagnosis at age 57. “It was always sort of like I was outside looking in, and one of things that I found out with ADHD is, although you can get along with people, there are some social skills missing.”
Though he enjoyed his work, he knew it might be time to move on.
“As I aged, the symptoms were more difficult to cope and control, and so I retired,” he adds.
He now uses his retirement income to focus on a true labor of love—welding. Medication has helped with his symptoms, and his ability to hyperfocus—one of the hallmarks of ADHD—is a real tool for him.
“The very act of welding requires intense concentration. You’re controlling a puddle of melted metal. Nobody’s going to come over and tap you on the shoulder [and interrupt you] while you’re welding, and so it’s very pleasant for me. I can get lost in that,” says Dennis, who has a master’s degree in art. “It’s like looking down a barrel and everything else goes away. My world comes down to about 3 inches in diameter.”
He pauses.
“I like that,” he says.
A Matter of Time
www.timetimer.com
What’s black and white and red all over? The Time Timer.
» The Time Timer incorporates the simplicity of a kitchen timer with a patented red disk display that disappears as time elapses. The device has been especially helpful for children and adults with ADHD, who sometimes lose track of time while completing tasks.
“It’s so concrete, so unflinching, uncompromising. People just stick with it better,” says owner and inventor Jan Rogers, of Cincinnati, Ohio.
» Rogers initially invented the device to give her then-4-year-old daughter a better perspective on time. At first, the only market she thought she might be able to reach was preschool. Nearly 500,000 units later, it’s clear other markets have found her.
“My adult market is really booming, and I never would’ve thought I’d have any impact in that market,” she says. “We all deal with a certain degree of distraction … and for all those ADD kids that are grown up and are doctors and lawyers and CEOs, and still can’t get anywhere on time, it’s become a major resource.”
» Rogers’ company launched an application for Apple’s iPhone last fall. Other products include a Time Timer watch, and a customized Time Timer disk that allows users to load any amount of time onto the disk, from two minutes or 10 hours.
Grasping Hold
Sandy Maynard
Catayltic Coaching operator, about the role she plays in coaching adults with ADHD
» “With the adults I work with, they know what they need to do. It’s a matter of clarifying what it [is] they need to do and how to do it. And, really, having someone there to support them when they backslide. It’s a process, not an endpoint. It’s progress, not perfection. And I’m sort of there as a cheerleader saying, ‘It’s OK. You had a bad week. Let’s get refocused and have a better week next week. And would you like me to give you a call next Wednesday to check in with you?’”
Dr. Eleanor Criswell
Clinical psychologist, on some characteristics of adults with ADHD
» “A hallmark of this whole thing is underachievement. If you have been taking the wrong path. If you’ve not had a good sense of your strengths and what directions you need to be going in, underachievement is a common problem. And adults, by now, have a history of letting people down and failing to do things that they had the intellectual capability to do, but they couldn’t do it because they couldn’t get organized enough to pull it off.
The stress of feeling like you’ve made a mistake and not exactly being sure what it is, that is common with adults. They have trouble relaxing, living with the assumption that they’ve done something wrong, but not knowing what it is yet.”
Anne Roberts
ADHD support group facilitator, ADHD coach, adult with ADHD
» “It was as if my whole life, I’d had flashing neon signs and figures, symbols just going everywhere around my head, like a little cartoon who is consistently confused. And nothing looked more important than anything else, and everything was just jumbled. And sometimes, I would appear to look at the thing that is red and flashing, and sometimes I looked at the one that seemed to be green, or had jazzy letters. They’re all mixed, floating around in the air in my head. And I took the medication for three days, and by the third day, that was almost completely gone. And the things that were important … would suddenly come into focus, and I could prioiritize for the first time.”
Northern Virginia CHADD, 703-641-5451
National Chapter of CHADD, 800-233-4050
Adult ADD Resource Center of Washington, 202-232-3766
Lynn Marcinek, ADHD coach, 703-803-6594, lmarcinek@verizon.net
Sandy Maynard, ADHD coach, 202-884-0063
Dr. Eleanor Criswell, clinical psychologist, 703-748-4900
(February 2010)