A Carnival In My Head
I’m coming out of the closet. I have ADD. I was diagnosed about 10 years ago, when I was 15. I once read a great description of what it’s like to have ADD- that even when I appear to be at my most serene there is a carnival going on inside my head.
It’s not like my “official” diagnosis was a shock to my parents. I had always been rather, um, energetic and restless (there are pictures of my mom sitting with me in the rocker she used while nursing where you can see the playing cards that my parents taped to the head rest for when I was being burped- if I had nothing to look at I would start screaming…..or so they tell me).
There are both good things about having ADD (creativity, passion, energy, the ability to think outside the box) and frustrating things (getting bored easily, being impatient, the inability to streamline my thought process, speaking before thinking, having trouble visualizing exactly what this entry should look like w/o veering off-topic too much).
Let me circle back around to what I had planned as the main point here:
There have been many advances in the care and feeding of the ADD child since I was a kid. There is even a company that lists the top 10 toys for ADHD children. Somehow I feel that this might be overkill. I made it through an entire ADD childhood with out any special toys. Granted I did not like less stimulating games, like chess and most board games (no patience on my part to have to wait my turn) and opted to spend a lot of time playing with Barbie (‘creative, open-ended play’ as today’s kiddy shrinks might call it) or running around outside climbing on things and exploring (I once got my head stuck between the bars of a neighbors stair rail and was eventually freed by the mailman). But there were no ‘special’ toys. I certainly have always felt different from my peers (even when I was little, way before being officially pronounced as someone who has a ‘disorder’). But at least we had the same toys.
Which brings me to a question- does having such a category of toys make life as an ADD child easier? Or does it make a child more stigmatized, branded as ‘different’ or ‘special’?
It’s not like my “official” diagnosis was a shock to my parents. I had always been rather, um, energetic and restless (there are pictures of my mom sitting with me in the rocker she used while nursing where you can see the playing cards that my parents taped to the head rest for when I was being burped- if I had nothing to look at I would start screaming…..or so they tell me).
There are both good things about having ADD (creativity, passion, energy, the ability to think outside the box) and frustrating things (getting bored easily, being impatient, the inability to streamline my thought process, speaking before thinking, having trouble visualizing exactly what this entry should look like w/o veering off-topic too much).
Let me circle back around to what I had planned as the main point here:
There have been many advances in the care and feeding of the ADD child since I was a kid. There is even a company that lists the top 10 toys for ADHD children. Somehow I feel that this might be overkill. I made it through an entire ADD childhood with out any special toys. Granted I did not like less stimulating games, like chess and most board games (no patience on my part to have to wait my turn) and opted to spend a lot of time playing with Barbie (‘creative, open-ended play’ as today’s kiddy shrinks might call it) or running around outside climbing on things and exploring (I once got my head stuck between the bars of a neighbors stair rail and was eventually freed by the mailman). But there were no ‘special’ toys. I certainly have always felt different from my peers (even when I was little, way before being officially pronounced as someone who has a ‘disorder’). But at least we had the same toys.
Which brings me to a question- does having such a category of toys make life as an ADD child easier? Or does it make a child more stigmatized, branded as ‘different’ or ‘special’?
posted by Lyss | 11:41 AM
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