ADD Flick.. the bad movie that keeps on giving

[Anonymous]

After posting a reply to someone here I had a major moment. I sat down and posted on my Facebook the following note. i felt I should share it here too:

“ADD Flick.. the bad movie that keeps on giving”

Being ADD coming to find out my entire life, doesn’t really come as much of a surprise. t is pretty well the root cause of almost all my failures so far in life. Whether they be direct not having the focus to do a task or the way I learned to do things with a chemically slower brain…

This last month or so has been a journey of rediscovery. Like watching a bad movie again and picking out what you missed the first time(s) through. Sometimes it makes it a better movie and sometimes it changes everything.

I had one of those moments tonight where I was writing in a ADD forum to someone who, had the pieces fit learning he was ADD. School and what teacher’s said about us in school came up and when I brought up my Grade 7 experience. Some people that read this don’t know that half way through the school year, March Break in fact, our Father died of a heart attack. It’s where I went into a tailspin that frankly changed me forever. Of course it would for any one. Young or old.

Here’s where this movie just changed in meaning for me. As an ADD child stability and focus is important. More important because we have a hard time or outright inability to make our own. When I got in trouble or needed to be focused at school or on grades there was only one real place I got that. Dad.

Now before I carry on let me say that Mom was my Mom. Support and nurturer. The one I went to with the cuts and scrapes. I love her for all she is and all she done for us kids and that will never change. She spent more hours with me trying to get me through, homework and projects then she normally would have needed to. But when it came to who you didn’t want to tell about doing something that got you in trouble or give a bad report card to, it was Dad.

Ok. So my movie moment looking back is like playing back old movies of yourself and realizing that in all those scenes where something didn’t fit, the ones you look at and wonder ” How the hell…?”. Only now noticing that figure in the background of every scene I didn’t notice before now was Dad keeping me on the straight and narrow.

Only thing is. This isn’t a movie. I can’t get up and walk out. I can’t yell “Usher! I want my Daddy back!”

This last month has been what I call, the Awakening. I’ve been literally and my new found freedom is bringing with it allot of discovery and opening up all the old wounds. Only this time, I can focus on the pain and can tell you it is very real.

BUT! As with most movies. The main character when reaching a moment like this, after the dramatic realization of their main antagonist and what it’s done to them transforms into the Hero he always had burried deep within. Like Bastian in the Neverending Story who for the first time focuses and concurs his fears and what was holding him back.

Funny thing just thinking of that. The movie started off with Bastian getting a talking to about keeping his head out of the clouds and both feet on the ground. A smart boy but a Dreamer and one who just lost his Mom…

I am now catching up to where I “should be”. My problem now is looking in the foreground. I have a 4 year old Son and Wife that love me. That in itself isn’t the problem. It’s what my ADD is doing to them. What traits is he learning? What am I setting him up for a life of? How many more times can I let them down? I know I do. I see it more now in the way he looks at me when he has to ask me again to do something for him…

I’m damn lucky that I have a patient Wife that loves me. And a Son that looks up to me and loves me too. And I’m lucky that I have made it as far as I have in life even with being shackled down from within…

Welcome to the Story of Shane. The one where he… I… am not riding off wounded into the sunset. I’m riding harder and better then ever and coming straight into out of the new dawn that’s shed light on my darkened past! (And the good thing with this one.. I don’t get shot, or have saddle sores!)

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[Anonymous]

Shane,

Wow, good insight. Thanks for the share!

Like you I’m blessed with an understanding wife who knows how to deal with ADD. I also have 2 sons who both have ADD as well. They got it from me, as I did from my father, and most likely their children wil have a good possibility of having it too. Point being, they love me for who I am, not what I do (if love was based on screwing up, then no one would love me) . It’s the same for you. Now that you are “awake” and aware of what you need to do, I think that you’ll be an even better rolemodel and father. If you son does recieve this gift as well, you’ll be there for him and know what to do, and how help. That isn’t letting anybody down.

In the movies the flawed heros are the ones we like the most, so I think you’re in pretty good company!

Ride on cowboy!

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[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for that

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