Clear as Mud: Parenting with ADHD ain’t for the faint of heart
I get it. Hindsight is 20/20. I just wish that the picture wasn’t so unbelievably clear.
When I was a bagging clerk at a grocery store in my early twenties, I worked with a woman who I thought I hated. She was ornery and bitter. But, on the odd occasion when I was bagging for her at her checkout stand, she would share some random, personal story with me that would be poignant and memorable. One such time, she shared with me the day she got glasses for the first time. It took her parents a while to figure out that she couldn’t see a damn thing. So, when they finally took her to the eye doctor, she got some shiny new, and apparently much-needed, glasses. She shared with me the first time she experienced the outside world wearing her new spectacles. She was surprised to see that trees actually had leaves. For her, they had always been green and brown shapes or blobs with no definition. For her, getting glasses made the picture super clear and she was so thankful.
My recent ADHD diagnosis has been kind of like that. My love-hate co-worker getting her new glasses gave her new insight into what the world really looked like. For me, that’s what a late ADHD diagnosis has been like. But having a clear picture hasn’t always been so great. In fact, in some cases, it has been downright awful. Case in point: parenting.
I love my kids. And they are amazing human beings if I do say so myself. They are pretty much grown up now. My youngest is almost graduating high school — he’s got one more year to go. My oldest is in his early twenties and navigating his own mental health journey but that’s his story to tell. Sitting on the sidelines, helplessly watching him navigate all of it, though, has been gut-wrenching, to say the least. In fact, walking beside him through his journey is what ultimately led to my own diagnosis so there’s that? I am unbelievably grateful for that and I am thankful for him being brave enough to share some of his experiences with me. I’m not delusional, though; I know he doesn’t share everything. But, what he does share has been eye-opening and oftentimes really hard to hear.
Just when you think you’ve done better than your own parents, your kid shares a story from their childhood and you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut. Did I really do that? Is that how they really felt? That trip to Disneyland really sucked for them? It’s absolutely mind-blowing how two individuals can experience the same event and have completely different takes on it. And when he has shared with me some of the things from his childhood that have shaped who he is today and his mental health, I now have the ability to see crystal clear how my own undiagnosed ADHD contributed to that. It’s like watching a slow-motion car crash in reverse and there I am screaming, “Noooo!” in that low-pitched, slowed-down voice.
I can’t change a thing. I can’t undo anything. The reality is that I have ADHD and for 52 years, I was undiagnosed. I had to learn, on my own, how to live in a neurotypical world during a time when ADHD wasn’t really well-known or regarded as an actual thing. I had to move through my world thinking I was crazy and inherently broken and try to live a normal life and bring up two kids the best way I knew how. And I screwed up…a lot. In some respects, I was growing up as I was trying to grow up my first-born kiddo. And, he paid the price. I see now how my ADHD created a lot of confusion for my son. People pleasing being one of the biggest culprits. I see so clearly how my impulsivity and complete inability to finish something I started affected him in so many ways. Promises unfulfilled were devastating to him. It’s heartbreaking to see and understand how all of this impacted him.
So, what now? Unfortunately, I don’t have any magic pill to make it all better. I can’t change anything. The best I can do now is be present with him and hold space for his pain. And when he’s not looking, I can cry many tears of regret and feel sick to my stomach from the guilt of knowing that I did that. I can try to help him feel understood. And I can do better now. Maya Angelou once said, “When you know better, you do better.”
I’m trying.
As for my vision, it is crystal clear now. I can see the leaves on the trees and I can see the power of knowing what ADHD brings to my life. The good and the bad. And, as for my co-worker? Well, she actually ended up being an incredible teacher for me. She held space for me during my own difficult time when my father passed away. She showed up at his funeral. Just when I thought I didn’t like her, she went ahead and taught me the power of compassion by quietly showing up and holding space for me during one of the hardest times in my life. And, in the end, maybe that’s the greatest gift that I can pass on to my son and to myself.
Maybe that’s where the healing begins.
Onward.
