Episode 057: What if I could choose my own adventure?
David and Isabelle grapple with flipping the focus from ADHD symptoms into strengths, as survivors in a neurotypically-geared world. From questioning why we don’t use our toes more often, to the Boxcar Children, to maybe "outgrowing ADHD" is more connected to growing up, having more power, and choosing your own adventure.
——
Isabelle struggles with going in and out doors, getting on/off escalators, and also not injuring herself or others in revolving doors—it’s like the old Far Side comic, “Midvale School for the Gifted” where the kid is pushing on the pull door. David names that it’s an engineering flaw, you’re supposed to intuitively know which way to open a door, there should be no handle on a push door, for example, it’s not all our fault. Most of Isabelle’s family does not live in this country, and she has memories of different light switches, or doors, or the placement of things in bathrooms, or where the handles are on shower heads—the way you habituate yourself in your space is so engrained. Every time they clean the little island on casters in the kitchen is moved, and the next day is a series of humans hitting things a lot and going “what?!” Isabelle would walk while reading a lot, she couldn’t handle transitions and she needed something in her hand to do, and as David points out it increases the degree of difficulty. She was reading Boxcar children, and also—what were we reading? It was going to be the best to live in a boxcar? And half the book was “and then Violet made curtains" and she oddly wanted to make curtains. And because she was walking and reading and she learned to pick up things with their toes. She can hold a pen with her toes, and she can probably write something with toes—why do we forget our toes are just foot fingers? If anything looks like it wants to be helpful, it's a toe. It wants to do more than just stabilize you while moving. Isabelle remembers flying across the Atlantic and is by herself (as a kid, maybe 10 years old) and she was sitting next to an older teen, backpacking, he was really nice. They were talking, and she never forgot this and she was a very nervous flyer and it meant a lot to be distracted by this, and had a regular size middle finger, and his middle toe was the exact same length as his middle finger. The middle toe was proportionate to the other toes, the foot looked normal, and it was a large, basketball player sized foot, he must’ve been tall? He had regular sized fingers, but his toe was the same size. David doesn’t know where to put this in his brain: in the black box never to be revisited. I mean, literally there’s a foot out there that can drive a car if needed, and also what is this happening to a 10 year old (he felt like a chill camp counselor, not creepy at all), and then you think: could you cook with it? Could you be flipping eggs on the pan? You learn how to do things with your feet—is it just a social norm that we don’t do things with our toes? Did you know that when you’re born blind you can’t have hallucinations—you have zero chance of having schizophrenia, because hallucinations can be smells, feelings, lots of things. When you don’t have eyes, the whole part of your brain gets usurped, their senses are so much more sophisticated, they can’t have random errors. What about ADHD brains: we are so used to having lots of thoughts in our brain, and it lends us to be in situations where we cannot have dysfunction where other people do. How a blind person doesn’t have any form of hallucination. There are a lot of environments built for us that make our differences disappear. This is not a one-size fits all for everyone: when people get their environmental needs met with ADHD, there are not problems. To someone having auditory hallucinations, that part of the brain that is activated when they hear someone talking, it’s actually happening (same part of the brain is happening)—to that person it’s indistinguishable. The other parts of the brain grow into that region that’s missed—more parts of the brain deal with other senses, and your brain is use-dependent, and it just fills it in and becomes more sophisticated, and it's very easy finding the ghosts in the machine. It’s better at picking up “this is not matching the pattern of reality” and because they’re using all their senses. Isabelle references a radiolab episode where a man uses echolocation, and using clicks, and can ride bicycles and stuff, and they’re picking up on the space and materials and everything just from the sound. Whatever the brain does it gets better at. As someone with ADHD, we’re superpowered? David is saying we are, and referencing D&D. Make some stat categories super low and others super high —I don’t care about wisdom and coordination, but my reflexes are really high. David, for example, looking at what teachers references: also likes to talk, really distracted by helping people, wants people to feel better, also highly distracted, food motivated. We get caught up on getting little David to do homework. We don’t get caught up on “that little David is so good at building social emotional connections to people.” How do we get that better? Little Susan is insanely good at video game play and programming—how do we get them MORE of that instead of “get them off the screens.” Is your strength just sitting in the car driving fast? That’s a strength. We (ADHD folx and people in the world) have to be careful to not see the negative first, we have to see the strength first. David can clearly see, take a minute listener and think of the people you knew were really good at, what did you want to do when you were left alone. How do those things line up with yourself now? “I used to have ADHD and then I grew out of it!” NO, you grew up and got old enough to choose your own adventures and now you’re fine! We have peaks and valleys and we have to think about the peaks more.
Midvale School for the Gifted Far Side comic by Gary Larson
What were we reading? The Boxcar Children
Radiolab with echolocating man is actually an Invisibilia episode about Daniel Kish
-----
Cover Art by: Sol Vázquez
Technical Support by: Bobby Richards