One of my amazing commenters noticed my description, a few posts back, of Minx’s aversion to reading – and suggested it might be due to ADD. Looks like this assessment is bang-on.
I’d considered the idea before that Minx has attention deficit issues, but dismissed it because he doesn’t talk like the one guy I know who’s been officially diagnosed (Officially Diagnosed Guy’s conversation went all the fuck over the place in baffling and hard-to-follow ways; Minx stays on topic and makes sense). But when the idea was brought up again, I started really thinking about it and it made a lot of sense. In addition to not being able to read long passages of text, Minx:
-Has specifically told me that he doesn’t retain verbal instructions well, so if I’m telling him something important I need to make sure I’m making eye contact with him and that he’s paying full attention;
-Talks really fast (it takes a while to be able to understand him…I’m used to it now but friends of mine often have to ask him to repeat himself when he speaks);
-Interrupts me a lot*;
-Needs to be flagged down several times, sometimes, before he realizes I’m talking to him (hence my having to say “LIGHTER!” eighty times in a row if he’s massaging me and accidentally uses too much force);
-Gets “bored” when doing physical tasks unless the TV is on in the background;
-He’s said that he thinks he has auditory processing disorder because he can’t talk to someone in a busy place without accidentally focusing on the background noise instead – I’m thinking this is actually an ADD thing, too.
Anyhoo, I asked Minx to take an ADD self-test online. I expected him to get defensive and hostile (This was shortly after the New Year’s Eve fight when he went ballistic and accused me of being depressive and “constantly negative” and I thought maybe he’d see my request as “You think I suck but I bet you’re fucked up too so nyah nyah!”) but actually he was totally intrigued by my proposition and did it right away. According to the test he took, it’s 78% likely that he has ADD.
Turns out Minx has suspected this about himself forever – he brought it up to his family doctor when he was a teenager but the doctor dismissed it for some reason so Minx gave up. So we’re both relieved to realize that there’s an actual reason why Minx does some of the things he does. We spent a few hours looking up tactics for dealing with ADD (like instructions for teachers with afflicted students, for instance) and reading anecdotes. Minx is interested in going to a doctor and trying to get some meds, but this will no doubt take forever because his ADD makes him forget things and his anxiety makes him hate making phone calls. On one hand I’m curious as hell to see if medication would change Minx for the better, and really really want him to experience (even for a few days!) what it’s like to be neurotypical so he at least has some basis for comparison. On the other hand, I kind of hate the idea of medication because I had horrific experiences with antidepressants**. So it’s not driving me too crazy that Minx hasn’t contacted a doctor yet.
The important thing is that we know there’s actually something going on with Minx’s brain and he’s not just a jerk. Hopefully this will help me to be more patient with him when certain issues come up.
Oh, and I have to say, I love that Minx’s reaction to realizing he probably has ADD is “Okay, let’s Google some things and find the best ways of dealing with this” instead of “HA! This means I’m allowed to ignore and interrupt you! I have a brain thingy! I can’t help it!”***
The irony here is that interrupting me (or not noticing that I’ve even spoken) mashes my “frothing rage” buttons like almost nothing else (chalk it up to growing up with a father who, I think, literally believed I was an inferior species completely unworthy of consideration)…and I’ve ended up with a boy who’s predisposed toward doing those things whether he means to or not.
Ah well. I’m in too deep to walk away now.
*Not so much finishing my sentences (a classic ADD trait) but having something to say and just blurting it out even though I’m already talking. Sometimes it gets kind of ridiculous, like I repeatedly try to say something and he cuts me off five times in a row with different additions to a thought he’s having.
**They always had horrible side effects (every single fucking SSRI they ever gave me cut off my ability to orgasm, and there were sometimes other side effects as well) and they always eventually stopped working. For five years, either my brain or my crotch was functional, but never at the same time…
***My dad would almost certainly do the second thing, which is why my mom hasn’t told him he fits all the symptoms of Asperger’s.
Sounds hopeful, I hope you two find something that works well for him!
I take buproprion (Welbutrin) for my depression. It isn’t an SSRI and the worst side effect that I know of is slight weight loss. I’ve been on it for two years now, with no problems.
As for the ADHD stuff, believe it or not there are some indications that caffeine could help some individuals. A problem with ADHD brains is that the front lobe tends to overfire (not a great explanation) and mild stimulation helps the rest of the brain catch up. I’ll try to find exact information, but I believe the “magic number” was around 250mg of caffeine per day – roughly three cups of regular coffee.
I’m not a doctor, so don’t take this as gospel. Just some info I’ve picked up with my own struggles.
Unfortunately, Minx is very sensitive to caffeine – it gives him leg twitchies and other uncomfortable side effects. So that might not be the way to go. But thank you for the information!
Heh. Try growing up in a family where basically everyone has ADD. I swear my mother’s family have it as a character trait. It totally overwhelms outsiders, because we all talk really fast, constantly interrupt, but mostly follow the multiple conversations. Strangely we all have relatively high-pitched voices too, possibly to cram more intelligible syllables into each second.
Non of us have tried medications since I was ~5 years old and some donkey tried to sedate me into submission. The only result was that we discovered that my birth-father is allergic to those sedatives. Also, sedatives don’t work as painkillers. But I’m curious about the state of the art these days, so please do let us know what happens (assuming Minx is ok with that).
The anti-depressant/anti-orgasm thing I’ve also seen in a partner. She found that exercise and therapy worked most of the time for her, with bouts of medication when things got on top of her. Orgasms made it worth the exercise (also, exercise = riding her bike, and I didn’t realise how successful that was until she wimped out one especially rainy day. She was about an hour late home that night. She walked in and said vehemently “Fuck this shit! I am never taking the bus again! I am going to ride even if it snows” (it doesn’t snow in or near Sydney)).
I really need to start exercising more. Sadly, I’m not terribly motivated right now…I don’t have a job to bike to, or any kind of structure in my life or reason to go outside, really.
Every odd behaviour doesn’t need a diagnosis with matching drug. People are just…people. The need to medicalize every behavior is just stupid.
Every odd behaviour doesn’t need a diagnosis or treatment, but some of them do! Depression, for instance, is an actual mental illness, as is schizophrenia.
ADD does seem more likely to be just…a certain behavioural pattern that a bunch of people have in common. From what I understand, the meds for ADD don’t correct a chemical imbalance; they’re just stimulants that would help anyone focus harder than they currently do. But if someone with ADD takes those meds and they make his or her life substantially easier, what’s wrong with that?
Minx is terrified of having to look for work again because, historically, his inability to concentrate has been interpreted as sloppiness or stupidity and his employers have yelled at him for it. He worries that he literally won’t be able to get and keep a job. Should he really dismiss the idea of medication just because he may not actually be sick?
Hey Sam – glad your life is so wonderful you don’t need any help to get through it. But whether you want to believe it or not, some people cannot. To come along and say they are stupid for seeking out qualified medical help for legitimate problems shows a profound lack of respect for them and an even more profound ignorance about medical advances in the last half-century. Beyond that, it shows that you lack the ability to treat another human being as if they are capable of making an informed decision about their life.