ADHD has its positive aspects, too
To the Times: I probably didn’t need the goldstandard evaluation done by a doctor who held a Ph.D and an M.D. to verify the fact that I am the poster child for ADHD. Sixty years at the time provided ample evidence to support his diagnosis. The prescribed Ritalin had the opposite effect and made me more hyper than I usually am, and it probably caused the minor heart attack I suffered while detailing two family cars on a hot summer morning. The Ritalin got flushed down the toilet.
The assessment, however, did give me a chance to examine what lies within my make-up to allow me to do the many activities both professionally and personally that I do seven days a week. One factor jumped out immediately - boundless energy. I’ve never needed much sleep. As an early riser, I approach each God-given day as a real gift, another 24 hours to read, write, teach, garden, prepare talks, exercise, handle many domestic chores, and the like. I must remember to stop to eat and hydrate myself. This boundless energy has enabled me to exceed far beyond what my I.Q. scores which school officials measured and far beyond the prognosis which my ninthgrade guidance counselor held out for me.
In addition to the high-power juices which course through my cardiovascular system lies another element which I believe propelled me to overcome the many obstacles people such as I who have been tagged ADHD — an underdog chip I wear so conspicuously on my shoulder, maybe akin to what the Philadelphia Eagles wear when football analysts and gurus judge them to be underdogs.
I don’t maintain that a chipon-the-shoulder mentality is either psychologically or emotionally the healthiest approach, but it has worked for me. Once when I was doing talk radio, one of my high school counselors called in to question if I were the Sam Alfonsi whom she had counseled in high school and who questioned any likelihood of my ever attending college and who also suggested that I might be better suited transferring to Bok Vocational School to take up the upholstery trade. I assured her that indeed I was one and the same Sam Alfonsi, and I thanked her for providing me with the ammunition to prove so many people wrong.
Today I enjoy every chance I get to mentor and tutor ADHD students, especially when it comes to searching with them for those survival elements all of us ADHD humans possess in spades.