It was a long drive to Florida. My best friend and I were making the round trip in a day to pick up his new car.
Three hours in and he was listening patiently as I lamented over a particular hang up that I just couldn't seem to get past: planning. Planning tasks. Scheduling them. Referring to the plan. All of this was foreign to me.
My family didn't do schedules or plans. We were "spontaneous"....I wanted to believe. We were "flexible"...yeah that's a good word... But the truth was, my family was a total mess when I was a kid. And in many ways I still am. I need structure in my life. I have waaaayyyy too much going on not to be organized in my actions. If I ever want to make an impact in this world... or even in my laundry...then I have to embrace and master structure and planning.
But I haven't. I'm still working on it. And thus I found myself in a little white pickup truck, frustrated and fuming.
"I just don't understand WHY I'm still dealing with this? I know what I need to do! I mean, could this be a product of my past?? Am I so averse to schedules and planning because of my childhood?"
I didn't feel stuck because of my past....I've spent years processing and overcoming the issues that arose from childhood neglect and abuse, and I felt like I was pretty much victorious. That didn't seem like the root cause of this particular issue. And this seemed more like a bad habit than a trigger or something...but, regardless, I was still stuck.
"Zipporah," he said, "You can spend the rest of your life blaming your past traumas for every hang up that you have, but you've spent years getting past them. I mean, you just told me an hour ago that your dad doesn't 'have any power over you any more'."
That was true. I had said that....and I meant it.
"Your past is over," he continued. "I don't mean to belittle it, but you've conquered that battle. You can't go back and change what happened and you've already healed from it. But you can focus on the things that you can change now."
Again...that was all true, and I felt it in my soul. I had already won that battle.
"Yeah, but--" I began, but he he interrupted me.
"What might be affecting your planning skills now?"
"Um...."
"What are you forgetting?"
....?????.... I stared blankly at the road ahead, gripped the steering wheel and searched my mind.... My silence and perplexed expression invited him to answer his own question.
"You have ADD," he said with emphasis and probably a little exasperation.
"Oh yeeeeahhhh!!!!!" We both laughed.
We're both ADDers; so are my kids. It's a huge part of my life....but sometimes I still forget. Sometimes I'm oblivious to the impairments in my Executive Functions and how that affects my day to day life.
But herein lay the problem, and I felt it in my gut. He was right. This particular problem wasn't a remnant hang up of the abuse. It was purely a challenge from my ADD.
"You can't change your past," he said again. "Now all you can do is focus all your attention on changing what you can change now."
And... he was right....as usual. (Side note: I highly recommend that everyone find a super smart BFF who shows their love by PUSHING you! But anyway...) At some point we must stop focusing attention on what happened before. We can spend decades processing trauma and healing. We can examine and re-examine our scars...re-break the poorly set bone in order for it to heal straight, etc, etc... But in order to truly heal and move on, we must do just that... move on. Change what can be changed in the now.
For me, that means addressing bits and pieces of my life affected by ADD: planning... follow through... remembering the big picture...cleaning... For me, that means mastering routines and To-Dos and schedules. It means committing to all those things that my family was unable to commit to when I was a kid.
For me, "changing what can be changed now" means teaching my children that schedules are not evil...that big tasks and goals can be accomplished by breaking them down into little pieces...that it's ok to use sticky notes and reminder alarms. It means learning to STOP! ...and think through a task, before I start it. It means figuring out the steps and the tools before I jump in.
But it's okay. But I'm not alone. I have my wonderful, intelligent best friend who pushes me. And I have technology that I am "embracing" to help me keep things organized. And I have countless resources at my fingertips, right here on the world wide web. So I can totally do this. As Eric Tivers of ADHD Rewired likes to say, "We can do hard things."
And you know what? He's right too!
So, I ask you today, my friends, "What can you change today?"
