You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder (2 page)

You Can Do It … Really!

An ADD-Friendly Guide to Meditation

Why Do We Have to Read So Much About Meditation

The Stimulus Junkie

Working with the M & M’s

Upping the Ante

General Health and ADD

Paying for Focus at High Interest Rates

From ADD to Stress to Illness

Chapter 14 Medication and a Few Alternatives
Running Away from Ritalin

There Are No Right or Wrong Answers to the Question of Medication: To Be or Not to Be Medicated?

What Do I Do Next?

Get an Official Diagnosis

Remember, You Are the Customer

Find a Doctor

A Trial-and-Error Process

Exceptions to the Rules

More on Medication

Two Categories of Stimulants—Methylphenidate and Amphetamine

Medication for Work or Medication for Life?

Managing Side Effects

Nonstimulant Medications

Second-Line Medications

Alternatives for Waking Up the Brain

Workouts

Chapter 15 Mental Hygiene

In Times of Crisis … All Bets Are Off

Definitions

Recognizable Bits of Mental Debris

More on Thoughts, Feelings and Beliefs

Emotional Release

Productivity, or “What Am I Here for Anyway?”

Toxic Mental Debris: The Vicious Cycle of Shame, Perfectionism and Procrastination

Chapter 16 Moving Forward

Your Basic First-Aid Plan for Overwhelm

First Aid for Decision Making

More on ADD Coaching

Preventive Medicine (for Staying Out of Overwhelm While Moving Forward)

Action Steps—Breaking It Down

How Can I Be Sure I Have What It Takes?

Dark Humor and What We REALLY Think

You Gotta Start Somewhere (The Couch Potato Shuffle)

Paperwork and Other Busywork (Working with Resistance)

Fear of Taking Action

Using Play to Boost Productivity

A User-Friendly Life?

Epilogue

Web-Based Resources

Suggested Reading

Index

Acknowledgments

Our wholehearted thanks go to all the people who made this book possible. Please forgive any ADD
oopses if you have contributed and fail to find your name mentioned here. While our hearts are full of gratitude, our memories have been known to go south from time to time.

First, we wish to acknowledge those people who made substantial contributions to the original, self-published version of the
Lazy Crazy
book. Rob Ramundo tops the list as the person who put his heart and soul into the publishing
and promotion of our first, self-published edition in 1993. Without Rob, we would never have been able to create and run Tyrell and Jerem Press. His “don’t tell me no” attitude got us major distribution at a time when all the experts were saying that the big guys were not interested in dealing with a one-title publishing house. The book was so successful, in fact, that soon our phones were
ringing off the hook with calls from major publishers wanting to buy it. We can’t thank you enough, Rob, for your passion, dedication and hard work. You made it all possible.

Next, we wish to thank Tony Magliano, who created all but a few of the cartoons you will see in this second edition. We liked his original artwork so much that we basically recycled most of his cartoons from the original
book, using them in various places in the new chapters.

Thank you, Larry Silver, for writing a foreword to endorse our book back in the days when no one had heard of Kate Kelly
and Peggy Ramundo, and very few people knew that the adult form of ADD even existed.

We fondly remember Perry, who manned the phones and took orders for our self-published book from his outpost like
Northern Exposure
in upper Michigan. He had a special talent for getting ADDers off that expensive 1-800 line quickly, without making them wrong. He was a genius at customer service.

David Stull gave us the invaluable gift of the perfect title for our book. We promptly threw out the long list of possibilities when he called us with the results of his brilliant brainstorm.

A grateful thanks go to Rita Stull and
George Schober who made substantial editorial contributions.

Many thanks to the following people who provided moral and/or practical support:

The original Cincinnati ADD Adult Support Group, the ADD Council of Greater Cincinnati, Dr. Bonnie Green, Rob Allard, Billy Stockton, Marjorie Busching, Marta Donahoe, Angela Field, Suzanne Behle, Liz Wymer, Bunny Hensley, Doug Pentz, Tyrell Pentz and
Mary Jane Johnson.

For the Scriber/Simon and Schuster 1995 hardcover and 1996 paperback edition of
You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!
we thank our agent, Jody Rein, and editor, Maria Guar-neschelli. Special thanks to Jody for her ability to rock and roll with all our ups and downs and writer’s heebie-jeebies. Thanks also to Phyllis Heller, publicist.

For the current, second edition of
this book, the lion’s share of gratitude goes to Paul Ravenscraft, Kate’s significant other and our project manager. We could not have pulled it together without his heart-centered involvement and considerable skills. We love you, Paul.

Special thanks go to Dave Brattain, who kept ADDed Dimension Coaching on an even keel while the book was in progress. We also thank him for his contribution to
the meditation chapter.

We also express our gratitude to Doug Pentz and Tom D’ Erminio for sharing their experience treating multitudes of ADD adults at The Affinity Center.

We wish to honor and acknowledge our coaching teacher and mentor, Madelyn Griffith-Haynie.

Thank you, Ned Hallowell, for writing the Foreword and for all that you have done to inspire and encourage adults with ADD.

We
are grateful to the following people and organizations, who contributed ideas, knowledge and moral or practical support:

Terry Matlin, Kathy Aker, Claudia Foster, Steven Ledingham, Wendy Richardson, Sari Solden, Pat Quinn, Kathleen Nadeau, Thom Hartmann, Andrea Little, Neil Anderson, Maegdlyn Morris, Lee Schmidt, Janet Robinson, Michelle Sellers, Ursula Stegall, Richard and Antoinette Asimus,
Mark Stucker, Lisa Henry, Roland Rotz, Sarah Wright, Louise Lavey, E. L. Kersten, Ph.D., Julie Nichols, our many clients, The ADDed Dimension Coaching Group, The New Thought Unity Center of Cincinnati, the folks from GDT and The Designers workroom and The Affinity Center.

Beth Wareham, our editor for the second edition, deserves a round of applause for her unflagging support and encouragement.
She was endlessly patient and never made us wrong when we needed deadline extensions. We honor Beth as a person who leads from the heart.

Peggy expresses a special thank-you to James Richardson—first my daughter’s high school friend and then mine. You seem to know when my now empty nest has me feeling particularly sad.
You appear unexpectedly with your ready smile and encouraging hug. That you
trust me with your private hurts and disappointments is a gift I treasure. Thank you, James, for your unconditional love—know that you have mine in return.

Last, but far from least, we thank our families. Our children Tyrell, Jeremy and Alison have enriched our lives and touched our souls. Kate is grateful to her mom and dad, Barbara and Charles Kelly, for doing a terrific job raising a difficult
child. Peggy sends a special message to her aunt Elizabeth—you have been a rock and anchor in my life. Your loving support is deeply appreciated.

Foreword

T
he title of this book alone would have made it a classic when it first came out, but that it also was a wonderful resource for people who had attention deficits sealed the deal.

You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Crazy, or Stupid?!
now returns for a
new run, updated, refurbished, face-lifted and spiffed up. The authors have applied their usual highly imaginative incantations to conjure up this new incarnation of their classic.

All who read this will learn. Many who do not read it will also learn because someone else will read it for them and tell them about the best parts. That will be a difficult decision because there are so many good
parts.

What I like best is not any one part, but the attitude and tone of the book. Open, warm, honest and funny, this book welcomes the reader and never seeks to do anything but help and entertain. The authors are the salt of the earth: no baloney here, just real meat. They also have fabulous senses of humor. I guarantee you will laugh when you read this book. As well as learn. And maybe shed
a tear or two.

I am happy to open the book with a few words of my own, but the authors do not need any introduction, as the book carries itself like a cork in a hurricane sea. Buoyant, unsinkable and bobbing along no matter what, this cork will continue to float for years to come.

I hope all who read it will come away filled with hope and enthusiasm, as well as knowledge, and strengthened with
the resolve to build upon the talents that all people with ADD naturally possess. The only real disabilities are fear, shame and the loss of hope. This book helps to restore hope, dispel fear and extinguish shame.

What a great gift, indeed.

Ned Hallowel, M.D.
Founder of the Hallowell
Center for Cognitive and
Emotional Health
Sudbury, Massachusetts

Introduction

ADD—Now and Then

It has been fifteen years since we began writing the original version of
You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!
Back then, we were newly diagnosed and fired up with the awareness of the impact of ADD on our lives. It was a profound experience … something like a religious conversion, as a matter of fact. Complete with the intense zeal displayed by missionaries. We
saw the light. ADD was the root of all our life problems … finally they had a name. We saw ADD everywhere and set about trying to convert (or at least enlighten) everyone in our paths. In fact, it took years to develop the finesse necessary to send a message that would actually be heard. Nobody likes the hard sell. ADD enthusiasm is great, but we get better results when we’re aware of our energy
levels—too much force and the audience is literally propelled in the opposite direction.

In 1990, almost no one had heard of ADD in adulthood. The common wisdom then was that kids outgrew it sometime during puberty. Very few girls were diagnosed, mostly because the female version of ADD tends to be much quieter than that of the classic hyperactive boy. Boys with the inattentive type of ADD were
also overlooked.

A year later, with a rough first draft of the book completed, we sent a number of queries to publishing houses, both major and minor. None of them were interested in buying it. Some of the rejection notices were merely form letters … thanks, but no
thanks. A few contained personal notes. All of them, however, sent the message that they didn’t think there was enough of a market
for a book on ADD adults. We thought they had to be kidding … didn’t they see all the ADD around them the way we did? We knew even then that the less than 3 percent number was way off, that the real number of ADD adults was closer to 10 to 20 percent of the population.

We were pioneers, among the first small group of ADDults to realize that we had been in a fog all our lives, and that it didn’t
have to be that way. ADD is often subtle. Generally it takes personal experience, either with your own ADD or that of close family members, to get it. Most of the professionals who work with ADDult clients were drawn to the field because they have “in the trenches” knowledge of the disorder. We became ADD coaches because we were so passionate about helping others traverse the same territory we
had traveled with very little guidance.

Those of us who specialized in adult ADD had to make it up as we went along—in the beginning. When we set out to write the original
Lazy Crazy
book, we did so partly out of our frustration that there was practically nothing written on the subject at the time. A few articles and a book chapter were all that was available specifically on the subject of ADDulthood.
You may be wondering how we managed to write such a long and dense book without much in the way of resources. Well, we read the literature on childhood ADD and extrapolated … drawing heavily on our personal experiences and those of others in early support groups. As far as the treatment aspects of the book, other than the medication, much of the treatment recommendations section was an educated
guess.