09/24/99

How ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) Feels

Q: What does ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) feel like?

A: I've observed many young people with attention problems and watched them struggle to maintain focus in busy classrooms. However, I've only experienced occasional attention problems myself, and I usually know why (I'm overtired, anxious about something, distracted by loud noise or getting sick.)

People with chronic, persistent attention problems can rarely pinpoint a cause. Kevin, a friend of mine who has suffered from attention problems (diagnosed as ADD) throughout his school years and into adulthood, describes how it feels as follows:

KEVIN: I'm walking down a hallway in the University of Hartford's student center, just off the main lounge. I'm literally walking in circles, or triangles, jerked this way and that, like a hooked fish, as this and that memory, fantasy or present stimulus grabs me and yanks me. I'm an airborne iron filing in an arena full of magnets. Time for class, so off I go, but then I think I'll make a quick stop at the bookstore, so I stop, spin around, and head in that general direction. But wait, I have to go to the bathroom before class, so I do an about-face past a bulletin board. What's that multicolored notice there about student trips to South America? I stop, read the notice, fantasize about South America and then snap out of it. Later, I tell myself, I've got too much to do now. I walk through the crowded, noisy lounge, bombarded by stimuli, almost dancing to their tugs and siren songs.

I walk down another hall, check the time on a wall clock. It's ten of three, and my philosophy class starts at three. I almost forgot it, so I immediately jerk around like a yanked puppet and fast-walk in the general direction of the liberal arts building, where that class is held. Then I realize I'm missing my jacket, I've forgotten it and left it somewhere. When and where did I see it last? Hmmmm.. it's back in the cafeteria.

I think I draped it over the back of a chair (though that could be last week's memory,) so I spin about and walk-trot toward the cafeteria. But maybe I left the jacket in the bookstore downstairs, so I spin again in a new direction. Then I see a woman with a goofy paper flower on her hat, and THAT jogs a memory of a notice I'd seen earlier today, in the main hallway of this building (I think) about a public lecture somewhere on campus about carnivorous plants.

I wrote down a note about the carnivorous plant lecture, but where? Is it in my bookbag? I write notes everywhere, on scraps of paper, inside books, on paycheck stubs, in checkbooks, on business cards in my wallet, in course notebooks. I can never find most of them later. I should buy a small notebook for jotting down these random notes, but I keep on forgetting to buy one.

It's now a choice between philosophy class and carnivorous plants ... wait, I still don't know where that plant lecture's going to be ... I can't remember. I frantically scan the hallway bulletin board for a copy of the notice. I'm not sure I gave the board a thorough scan, so I do it again, then I'm still not sure, so I do it again. I'm daydreaming while I'm looking, remembering a television documentary on carnivorous plants I saw last month.

No notice. Not here. Well...I check another bulletin board, and, hey, there's the notice! Nope, just looked like it. I'm starting to feel teased, made fun of. I get caught up in my mounting peevishness, staring at the board but not really paying it any attention. Close by, a girl calls out to her friend and that snaps me out of the trance. Then I realize that the notice I'm looking for is right there in front of me. "Luring and Capture Strategies of Carnivorous Plants." When? Today? Wait, WHERE? In Room 301 in the Life Sciences Building. Tuesday, says the notice, and yes, it's Tuesday today. I've got four minutes to decide between class and lecture, so off I go, trying to cut down some distance between me and the class and the lecture.

Then I remember the jacket again! I left it...somewhere. The cafeteria! No, the bookstore! The bookstore's closer, so I run downstairs, reach the bookstore, shove my bookbag into a cubbyhole out of habit and there's my jacket. It's in the bookbag, its sleeve hanging out. It's been there all this time, in a side compartment where I rolled and stuffed it earlier.

Fighting down a burst of rage as corrosive as battery-acid, I think, "Now I'll miss class AND the lecture. OR the lecture. Which will it be? I need the class but I want the lecture. So, I tell myself to compromise. I'll go to class and stay for five minutes and if it's not interesting, I'll leave and go to the lecture. Although I know full well that I won't want to leave in front of the teacher. At least the decision mobilizes me and gives me a temporary course of action.

I run to class, make it in time and stay the five minutes only to realize that for once I'm enjoying it. Wouldn't you know it? The one day I want this class to be boring, it's interesting. Does someone or something plan these ironies in advance? The teacher is talking about classical and medieval notions of evolution. I don't want to leave, but I don't want to miss that plant lecture either.

I get a sudden, irrational fear that I often get in similar situations: I might miss something of major importance to my future plans (I can't guess what I'll miss) if I skip the plant lecture. Then I think the same about this class. If I leave, I might miss something important here. But now I realize I haven't been following the teacher and have lost track of his lecture while arguing with myself. I try to pick up the thread but I can't, so I might as well duck out and try to make the plant lecture, even if I'm late. I hang on until the last possible moment, still undecided, hoping the teacher will say something really interesting to keep me there. Instead, the intracampus phone rings and the teacher picks it up. When he turns his back on the class to talk on the phone, that's my chance. I leave.

So I get to Life Sciences and head for...what room? I can't remember. I look for notices again, and luckily I spot one right away. Room 301. Great! I dash up the stairs, down the hall to Room 301, and nobody's there. The room is empty, the lights are off and the door's locked.

What? Did they cancel the lecture? Postpone it? Move it to another room? I ditched my philosophy class for this lecture that I was really looking forward to and it's been taken away from me. Downstairs again, red and flustered, I stop in the main Life Sciences office and brusquely ask the crabby-looking secretary about today's lecture on carnivorous plants.

"WHAT lecture on carnivorous plants?" asks the woman, puzzled and annoyed. I try to explain, becoming more irritated, because now I can't remember the exact title, the lecturer or even the room number. I can't think coherently at all, at the moment. All I remember is that it was supposed to happen today, Tuesday. I try to explain, go tongue-tied, feel foolish, grow more irritated. I start getting rude and arrogant: "There are notices all over the place. One right out there in the hall. I'm sure I got the right room. Shouldn't someone put a notice on the door if it was called off or whatever? I skipped a class for this lecture, and I ..."

The woman I'm addressing gets defensive and deals me a no-nonsense stare. "Just a second, please," she snaps. She slowly pages through a desk calendar and scans a list of upcoming events. Is she deliberately doing it slowly to get back at me or am I just imagining it? Finally, she says, "There's no lecture on carnivorous plants here today...or anywhere on campus as far as I can see."

"But I SAW the notice in this building and in the student center."

"Are you sure it isn't an old notice? Some of those sheets stay up there for months after the event ..."

"Yes, I'm sure!" Is she playing games with me? "It wasn't there last week. I would have noticed it, and ..." I'm hanging onto what's left of my temper, becoming more convinced every second that some cosmic trickster has arranged all this in advance to make me look like a fool. Am I being punished for something? I'm starting to realize that I've made a mistake somewhere. I'M to blame -- always that word, BLAME -- I've screwed up again. Soon, I know, I'll be paying the customary price in embarrassment, regret and self-loathing.

"I'll make a call. Just a minute, please," grumbles the sour-faced secretary, whose demeanor has gone downhill from lemon to lime to malt vinegar. With insulting slowness, she picks up the phone, dials numbers and waits.

"Hello. It's Doris, downstairs. Is David there...the one who handles scheduling of events? What? He's out to lunch? Is there someone there who can help me? There's a very, ummm, upset young man here [shoots me another acidic glance] who said something about a lecture on ... [to me] plants?"

"CARNIVOROUS plants," I tell her.

"Umm, carnivorous plants, he says." She smiles, then chuckles. I do neither. "But he can't remember ..."

"Was it scheduled for today, he's asking?" Pause. "It hasn't been changed?" Another pause. "Thank you. I'll tell him. Sorry to bother you...okay, 'bye."

Doris hangs up. "That lecture is NEXT Tuesday, the fourteenth. Not today. It was scheduled late. That's why I didn't see it on the events roster or the calendar. The fellow from upstairs says that the announcement sheets were put up this morning. With the corrected date. Sorry for the short notice."

I huff out of the room without another word. I have fantasies of throttling the secretary, Dr. Stevens (the plant lecturer) and the philosophy teacher, starting a plague that wipes out humanity, knocking the Earth off its axis with a well-aimed asteroid and cursing the gods for doing whatever they did or didn't do to me to make me like this. And that was a TYPICAL DAY for me. Non-typical days were usually worse.

Please send questions or comments to bbruno@snet.net.