Reply To: Help me – Help my son

[sdwa]

I would suggest letting him start by looking at a checklist of ADHD symptoms  if you have not done this with the Hallowell books. My preference is for the list provided by Russell Barkley in his book Taking Charge of Adult ADHD. There is also an assessment questionnaire here on Totally ADD. There is something called the Brown Scale, which identifies different areas of impairment – you can probably Google it.

Let him approach this as an exercise in simply gathering information. There is no need to draw any conclusion right away – just check it out, see how it feels, see if it makes sense.

Often we have trouble trusting our own perceptions, and that can make us feel vulnerable to the opinions of others.

If your son decides to be seen for a professional assessment, it is important to find a professional who has specialized training in ADHD. These people are somewhat difficult to find, but they do exist. Whether it’s a psychiatrist or therapist or medical doctor or any other type of treatment provider, it is absolutely imperative that this person have ADHD expertise.

I say this because I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 45 – I probably saw 20 therapists in 20 years, few of whom helped, many of whom made things worse because they didn’t understand the problem. (If I had that money back now, I could retire – I wish).

I can completely identify with your struggle to get help for your son, and feeling like you were being blamed, like it was your problem – this is what comes of the ignorance out there in the world about ADHD. My guess is no one caught the problem before because it is not well understood, and seemingly is only now entering the public awareness.

I understand your anger and frustration. On the bright side, if your son gets diagnosed now, when he’s still young, he will then be in a position to learn about what will help him going forward – rather than endure decades of his adult life with no clue what’s going on and tons of self-recrimination, which many of us diagnosed later in life have experienced.

As for people getting into his head –  it seems to me that the people who don’t understand ADHD are more likely to get into your head – because they will try to make a neurological problem an emotional problem.

He doesn’t have to take medication or do anything he doesn’t want to do.

What I’ve found most helpful is listening to the stories of people with this diagnosis and recognizing the patterns – they are, as you say, like hearing about your own life history. It might help him a lot to hear what other people are going through. Maybe there is a CHADD support group in your area, or a support group sponsored by another ADHD organization like ADDA. There are also a number of online message boards, like this one.

It’s hard to get help with this issue for a variety of reasons – the main one being there are too few qualified professionals, another the financial barrier to obtaining services, and another the mega-hassle of trying to get medication (if desired) due to restrictions on the classification of drug used to treat it.

In my experience, ADHD coaching has been the most helpful form of support.

He might benefit from listening to free online webinars or radio shows like Attention Talk Radio. David Giwerc’s book Permission to Proceed is among the best. Rick Green’s ADD Stole My Car Keys is great for help in recognizing patterns. I also highly recommend Alan Brown’s ADD Crusher videos (you can find them free on YouTube). Checking this stuff out would all be simple ways of finding out if he identifies with common ADHD challenges – without having to make a commitment to any particular action.

My guess is that if you both educate yourselves about ADHD, it will become apparent to you if this is the problem he’s having – because the patterns are pretty unmistakable. ADHD manifests a bit differently for each of us (some do fine in school, for example, while others really struggle with it), but the big picture is pretty much the same. I would imagine that the more you learn about it, the clearer it will become what’s going on. Then you’ll have information you can take to a doctor to explain why you think he might have ADHD.

 

 

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