ADHD & Me

being gifted

the Ferrari 3rd grade

My mother and I pretend that each person in our family is a car.

“What are you?” I ask my mother. I am nine years old at the time.

“I have a lot of energy. I think I’m a BMW,” my mother says. “Madison, too.”

“What about Daddy?”

“Your father isn’t as fast; we’ll make him an Audi.”

“What about me?”

“Oh, you,” she says. “You are different but really special. You are a bright red Ferrari!”

I love Ferraris. I smile. “What makes me a Ferrari?”

“Your inexhaustible energy and speed,” she says. “You, Blake, are the only person in the whole world who can exhaust me.”

I think this is pretty good. I can exhaust my mother. She goes on to say that Ferraris are highly tuned for speed and, because of that fact, are more sensitive machines.

“They are extraordinary machines. They are very handsome. They have very powerful engines. But there is a downside,” she warns.

I am thinking, how can there be any downside to being a Ferrari?

“You have to know how to control the horsepower in the engine,” my mother says. “Sometimes, you speed straight down roads, faster than all the other cars. But other times, you are not watching where you’re going, and you zigzag totally out of control. You have to get control of your engine.”

“Just think,” my mother says, “when you are able to control your Ferrari engine. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine what you will be able to accomplish with this gift.”

I thought about it then, and I think about it now. My mother was right, and she always made me feel wonderful.

cause&effect

ADHD means we are different. Our brains work differently. It is like being blue-eyed or left-handed. It is just a normal part of the human spectrum. The condition describes the unique way our brains are wired; it does not mean that our brains function incorrectly. Doctors Edward Hallowell, a former Harvard Medical School instructor, and John Ratey, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, both renowned experts on ADHD, said the “best way to think of ADHD is not as a mental disorder but as a collection of traits and tendencies that define a way of being in the world” (2005).

ADHD has many great qualities! Sometimes kids don’t realize this fact, but the very traits that make ADHD difficult to live with when you are very young also make it a gift as you get older. As Lara Honos-Webb said in her book, ADHD kids are “different and in a way that our culture has not learned to fully appreciate” (Honos-Webb 2005, 5). If you are hyperactive, as many ADHD individuals are, you have boundless energy to pursue many things. For instance, you can channel that energy into taking more classes than the average student, performing well on sports teams, playing an instrument, or finding the hours to actively participate in community service or in the arts and still have time for your friends. You have more energy than most people. You can accomplish more in a day.

If you are impulsive, you often make decisions without thoroughly thinking of the consequences. Don’t let the negative side fool you, however; if you are impulsive, you also have an ability to be innovative, to take risks, and to try new approaches when everyone else is doing the same old things.

If you are passionate about a subject or an activity, you will be able to pursue it tenaciously.

If you are easily distracted, you have a harder time concentrating. But, unlike those who are not easily distracted, you automatically think outside of the box.

If you are easily distracted, you have a harder time concentrating. But, unlike those who are not easily distracted, you automatically think outside of the box. You notice everything and are more innovative because your mind is more expansive, and you can find creative and often unorthodox methods to solve a problem. You are also extremely perceptive and can pick up details that others don’t see.

If you are overly sensitive, this characteristic makes you more in tune with those around you, more caring, and more understanding. You have an intuition about people, a keen perception. You are more aware of what they are feeling and have more empathy for them. Your feelings run very deep.

Dr. Hallowell said, “ADHD is common among creative and intuitive people in all fields and among highly energetic, interesting, productive people. You can find high stimulation in being a surgeon, or a trial attorney, or an actor, or a pilot, or a trader on the commodities exchange, or working in a newsroom, or in sales, or in being a race car driver!” (2005, 25).