The Invisible Demon of ADHD and ADD

I call ADHD and ADD the Invisible Demon for two reasons.  The person living with it has been taught to not use their "disability as a crutch" and they shan't be allowed to play the ADHD Card to excuse failure by not getting the job done.  They have received condescending remarks their entire life and taught they have to work harder than others.  Perhaps this has resulted in a form of overcompensation that gives birth to new neuroses created by plenty of others both malicious and well-meaning.  They try to figure out in vain what the hell the world wants from them and what will it take to get to the opposite of this!  What does someone have to do to earn some amount of credit and compassion from the outside world?  Damnit!  What will it take?  I have been going through this for much of my life with being on the autism spectrum.  If someone had handed me a bucket of cow urine and assured me that drinking it would purge the socially-unacceptable behavior from my body...I would have only asked for a straw.  (Just so you know, this is only a metaphor due to the fact that I avoid straws because of my environmental beliefs.  Other than the straw-thing, I mean it.  Ha!).  At some point during this unpleasant journey of hard knocks, I realized that the shield of Asperger's syndrome would not protect me from consequences for being inappropriate.  These efforts proved to be futile in the sense that it solved some problems and created quite a few more.  Not everybody was impressed or cared.  Some people simply said, "You try too hard" or "Why are you so uptight?"  At my age, I am trying to force myself to give up and choose the wrong that is right for me and will wreak less havoc.  A person suffering from ADHD and ADD also tries so very hard to not let their disability be the excuse for failure and will do everything possible to suppress it...trying to make it seem invisible within themselves.

The second reason I refer to ADHD/ADD as the Invisible Demon is that not everyone sees it the same way as the person living with the condition.  The drought in blog entries has been ended by someone very wonderful who I have worked with in the past.  She has the features to be a model and is extremely kind on top of her physical beauty.  One time I witnessed a person yelling at her for no apparent reason.  I am sometimes a very small man and would have tried matching wits with this other person or taken it extremely personally considering I had done nothing to provoke such treatment.  But she just took it in stride and realized that sometimes dignified silence is the best weapon of all.  This woman enjoyed an office similar to a CEO in the executive quarters.  (People do not get such a beautiful office by being a flakey and incompetent screwup!).  But she once confided in me that she has been a lifelong sufferer of ADHD/ADD.  How could I have known unless she told me because it seemed invisible to the outside, naked eye.

What I want to say about this particular woman is that I admire her greatly and do not see the ADHD or whatever others in the past have said is "wrong with her."  I just see her and the impact she has made in my life to buffer those in this past workplace who were committed toward cruel office politics.  If someone wants to find a reason to make someone's life a little bit harder, they will do so and we are forced to work with people who do not have our best interests and self-esteem at heart. There are a few things I would like to tell this particular woman who may sometimes think she is flawed as a result of having attention problems related to a common disability. For one thing, she has inspired me to be bold enough to post this material and shed all sense of fear of saying the wrong thing.

I have been afraid to compose blog entries for quite some time due to events over the past year that have made me extremely sad. Unfortunately, there are a very small minority of people who attempt to get me into trouble by deliberately distorting certain things that are harmless and innocuous in nature. Someone told the authorities that my revelation about sending acquaintances elaborate birthday cards was a reflection of me being a "stalker" and not respecting boundaries. Years ago, I had the debut of my first book nearly destroyed and was tricked into briefly walking out of an important event in my honor because of a hoax. Someone from my past made up an elaborate, albeit very convincing, hoax that Dr. Phil was interested in putting my book on the air. The rage was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life after working on this thing for four years of my life. I had confided in my blog entry that I fantasized about killing this person. It was how I felt at the time but did not mean it literally, of course. I am indeed sane and would never ruin my life due to a crime of passion. Someone who has had their life savings decimated by the infamous Bernie Madoff could also say something along those same lines, but obviously they would understand the law would not protect them from such a crime no matter how justified it may have seemed under the circumstances. I have been terrified of writing blog entries due to occasionally having things misinterpreted on purpose!

Unless someone is acknowledging her good days when she demolishes a previously uncrossed To-Do List, their opinions are almost as valuable as the Want Ads from a 1990s newspaper that employees put on the bottom of the bird cages.  That is correct.  Their opinions are ALMOST as valuable as the yellowed newspapers from about thirty years ago that are now covered in canary shit!  At least the soiled newspapers actually serve a purpose by making the pet shop feel like they are recycling to some extent!  In the adult world, bullying takes a different form.  We do not typically have fellow adults telling us that we are "losers" who also physically mistreat us for the crime of being different.  Such things may now be considered a crime to harass someone for absolutely no reason.  But there is another form of bullying in adulthood that I like to call, "finding."  People who are finders will never stop finding something that is wrong with this woman and myself.  They will let us know there is something wrong and will never be completely placated as we grovel to them in vain trying to fix it!  I hope this woman is learning to dismiss the finders who will never contribute anything positive to her life and shall always find something that is wrong.  Somehow...I will try to do the same little by little to do the same.  Perhaps the finders will not be happy or will remind me of everything wrong I have done this past year.  But damnit!!  Take a look at this accomplishment that others may not exactly chalk up as a huge success!  It is with great horror that I realize this blog has not been updated since September 5th, 2023.  According to so many who love toying with my fragile self-esteem, I should be ashamed of myself but am not.  Hopefully this friend/co-worker of mine is also finding ways to rage against the finders, too.  We will fight the good fight together...united as one...along with the others reading this particular blog post who have also been conditioned to feel like they are never going to be good enough.  Now...how do you like them apples?!