You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder (22 page)

Teacher: “I will thank you to keep those opinions to yourself!” You: “Oh, you’re welcome!”

Woman whose place in line you just took over: “Well, excuse me!” You: “Oh, am I in your way?”

An ADDer may fail to say “Excuse me” when he jostles someone (omission) and interrupt and monopolize conversations (commission). He probably knows the rules
but haphazardly applies them. Since these skills may not come naturally to him, he needs to make a conscious effort to learn and practice the behavior expected of adults in our society.

KK:
“When I first lived away from home, I remember being shocked that the rest of the world didn’t function the way my family did. Since most of my family were affected to some degree by ADD, we developed a style
of interaction based on behavior that came naturally to us. Mealtimes were a free-for-all, with everyone talking at once and no one listening. Interrupting was normal behavior. It was a revelation to discover that most people take turns talking and listening to each other!”

PR:
“The ADD Council’s hotline coordinator shared a humorous anecdote with me. He had a conversation with a repeat caller
who usually spoke with one particular phone volunteer.
When he suggested that the caller speak with the volunteer she had previously spoken to, she replied, ‘Oh, I don’t have enough time to talk with “Melissa.” She’s been a great help but she’ll talk so much and keep me on the phone so long that I’ll forget the one question I needed to ask!’”

“I don’t know who the phone volunteer was, but it
could have been me! As ADDers sometimes do, if I’m not careful, I can get carried away with a one-sided conversation. I become so involved with sharing my advice and experiences that I forget the cardinal rule of effective communication: LISTENING!

“I have gotten much better at this but sometimes fall into old habits. I sometimes have to put my hand over the mouthpiece of my phone to cue myself
to stop talking. Perhaps the Council’s phone line coordinator should teach this trick to his talkative volunteer!”

Even if an ADDer avoids clearly rude actions and bad manners, his social life can be hampered by the general fogginess of ADD. He may be unable to clear the clouds sufficiently to really connect with other people. “Is anyone home?” … “Earth to Mark!” … “What a space cadet!” … He
may be so vague and dreamy that he doesn’t seem to exist in the real world.

He may be ridiculed for being out to lunch or rebuked for caring only about himself. He doesn’t mean to be rude or uncaring, but his failure to respond can look like selfishness.

Social Slippery Spot #2—The Telephone:
A great deal of daily communication is conducted by telephone. Telephones are a great invention, but
they sometimes do a terrible disservice to ADDers. It’s not that we fail to appreciate the convenience, but we’re not too crazy about the uncanny ability of a telephone to change our personalities!

Have you ever met someone for the first time after talking to him only by phone and been amazed at the difference? Can this
bright, fascinating person really be the same character who seemed so dull
on the telephone? What about the sparkling telephone conversationalist who becomes almost mute in faceto face encounters?

The telephone can also cause a remarkable change in our dispositions. Perhaps you can identify with this phenomenon of Telephone Transformation:

PR:
“I suffer from TTTS:
T
esty
T
elephone
T
yrant
S
yndrome! A ringing telephone can transform me into a mean, confrontational person.
If you are the unfortunate individual who walks into the room when I’m on the phone, you will endure scathing looks. If you make the mistake of making noise or talking to me, you’ll endure far worse. Simply stated,
I get nasty!
My children watch in continual amazement as their relatively even-tempered mother transforms into a screaming meanie!

“I have never understood the power this inanimate
object wields. When the phone rings, I instantly go into a stance of defense or attack. I wait, hoping someone else will answer the incessant ringing. After the third or fourth ring, I reluctantly answer it, after announcing that ‘Nobody better interrupt me during this call.’ If my warning goes unheeded, my family is in for the assault of the telephone tyrant!”

KK:
“Before either of us knew anything
about ADD, my husband used to accuse me of having a disease he called Phone-a-Phobia. He claimed I inherited it from my mother, who has similar symptoms.”

A phobia is a fear out of proportion to the actual threat in a situation, and people with phobias generally try to avoid the situations they fear. Some ADDers do avoid using the telephone. The avoidance, however, isn’t a phobic reaction to
inappropriate anxiety or fear—they have real problems with telephone communication.

The problem is sometimes an inability to process the meaning of words without the visual clues of body language. Telephone conversations may be peppered with silences, requests for the speaker to repeat himself and charming phrases such as “Uh” and “Um.” An ADDer may forget to identify himself, leave out important
information or abruptly end the conversation.

An inability to filter out background noise also contributes to the difficulty with telephone conversations. An ADDer can become a telephone tyrant as he fights to shut out noises and interruptions. Listening and making sense of communication is hard enough work without having to contend with outside interferences.

Survival Tips for the Telephone

The telephone may never be your preferred mode of communication, but there are some things you can do to make it more user-friendly. Here are a few telephone strategies that may reduce your Phone-a-Phobia and TTTS:

• Rehearse and write down what you’re going to say before you make a call—your greeting, the major points you want to make and the way you’ll politely end the conversation.
  
• Keep your notes in front of you during the call to jog your memory.
  
• Stick to your script to avoid the “wandering” conversation.
  
• Make your phone calls in a quiet, distraction-free place. Also, get yourself a cordless phone with a headset. This arrangement will cut down on the background noise and allow you to wander around while you talk.
  
• If someone calls and catches you off guard, briefly excuse yourself, saying you’ll have to switch phones, answer the door or return the call later. Then take a few minutes to compose yourself and gather any written information you might need for the conversation. If you have taken the call in a noisy area of your house, take the time to request quiet or switch to another phone.
  

On the Other Hand …

You may be surprised to discover
that the telephone can become your friend. We wrote this section on the trials and tribulations of the telephone many years ago, before doing a lot of ADD recovery work. Believe it or not, we both now happily spend many hours per day on the phone, coaching our clients. If you remove the surprise factor by answering the phone only when you are ready to take a call, the telephone can be neutralized
as an instrument of torture. Phone headsets also make a big difference.

One of the big advantages of phone coaching is that the visual distractions are decreased. We also know from experience that it is a lot easier to talk about embarrassing things when you don’t have to be face-to-face. Most ADD coaching is done by phone. Don’t let your phone-a-phobia stop you from taking advantage of one of
the most effective tools for ADD recovery.

With this general framework of communication and interactions in place, we’ll turn our attention to the art of relating in group and one-to-one encounters. As you consider these issues, your guiding principle should be the theme of this book—maximizing your strengths and minimizing your weaknesses.
Don’t attempt to become like people with calm temperaments. You’ll fail miserably and lose sight of the plus side of your inventory. Since we’re advocates of the open-book test, we encourage you to keep your inventory notes handy as you continue reading! We’ll test you at the end of the book. (Only kidding …)

Relationships: A Play with Multiple Acts
and a Cast of Many Characters

If the world
were filled with fellow ADDers, many of us would probably do just fine in our relationships. With our personal experience with ADD, we would understand the “quirks” of the ADDers around us. Of course, the world is made up of a variety of different kinds of people, many of whom can’t figure us out at all! If we’re going to fit in, we have to figure out how to communicate with and relate to others.

You may need to completely reprogram your mental computer to improve its interfacing capabilities. You may have unique strengths in this area and need only minor adjustments to your program. You may already be using your identified strengths to bypass any weaknesses in this area of functioning. You may have a keen sense of humor and vivid imagination that attract people and repair the damage of
a social faux pas. You may be judiciously using your disinhibition—saying or doing things
other people censor—to develop a frank and open communication style that disarms others and puts them at ease.

Act I: The Art of Relating in Groups

We live, work and play in groups—families, social clubs, meetings and committees. We can’t avoid these interactions even if we wanted to. If you are like many
bright, enterprising ADD adults, you may face group situations with about as much enthusiasm as you do a trip to the dentist! What can you do to prevent the social suicide you fear? To help you with this issue, let’s observe some social situations in action.

Michael

Michael is standing in a cluster of four people who have been talking about a variety of topics. He hasn’t added much to the conversation
because he doesn’t know anything about the latest software or the movement to protect endangered caterpillars. His brain is racing to think of
something
to say before somebody asks him something he won’t know how to answer.

He is preoccupied with planning his verbal entrance to the conversation and vaguely hears a comment about recent activity in the Oval Office. Since he’s a builder with a specialty
in custom renovation, he eagerly jumps in with his account of an interesting circular room he once built.

It suddenly occurs to him, halfway through his story, that something isn’t quite right. He looks up to see four faces etched with question marks! He gradually realizes the enormity of his blunder and slinks away with a halfhearted chuckle: “Oval Office … White House … I knew that. I just
wanted to see if you were paying attention.”

Amanda

Between bursts of small talk with her two companions, Amanda twists around to watch her friend Michael humiliate
himself. She asks of no one in particular, “Can you believe he just said that?” She quickly switches gears as she observes that her companion’s tie looks just like the one her uncle Joe used to wear. To her companion’s comment about
the benefits of using glass instead of paper products, Amanda asks, “Do funeral directors recycle the dearly departed loved one’s clothing? The reason I’m asking is that your tie looks exactly like the one Uncle Joe wore at his funeral.”

She laughingly assures both men that she’s only kidding and wonders if they’ve noticed how many people have already left the party and if they have any suggestions
about what she should say to Michael about acting so stupid.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth is standing with a large group near the buffet table. An animated conversation about the plight of the homeless is so engrossing that everyone ignores the delicious food. Elizabeth is the only person in the group who isn’t saying anything. Her eyes look glazed and her face is expressionless. To the woman who asks
her opinion about this serious topic, she replies with a yawn, “Oh, I don’t really know.” Someone else offers to drive her home in case she’s been drinking too much and needs to sleep it off.