I’ve got some  explaining to do … I never knew. I didn’t get it, it was a mystery. And I’m sorry.

I’m sorry about misunderstanding you. You are really amazing people. And most of you don’t get that, don’t understand. Thanks to poor meta-cognition, poor self awareness, you don’t know what you deal with, don’t remember what you’ve dealt with.

And I guess I also fall into this category, although I don’t believe it. I rarely see any amazing qualities in me, although I’m told they are there. If I do believe, I don’t remember for any length of time.

By now, you’re saying “What the hell is he talking about?” Let me tell you. I’m talking about you.

Let me explain

If you take a quick look down the right side of my blog page you’ll see my blogroll, “Places to go …”. It’s a list of places on the internet that, in my opinion, provide help and offer answers to those of us with ADHD. Friends, acquaintances and heroes are listed here. If you go one step farther and click on these blogroll links, and I urge you to do so, you’ll find the words of understanding people talking frankly about ADHD and how it affects their lives. I recognize that my own blog, my own writing is very much in this same category.

But this is different

This morning, however, I was thinking about several friends and how they survive on a day to day basis. As I thought of them, I discovered a new emotion. I haven’t got one simple word to describe it but admiration comes close.

Okay, they’re my friends, I admired them before, but this is new, a new admiration, an ADDmiration if you will.

I was diagnosed with ADHD less than a year ago

Every time I say that, it surprises me. But, I’ve lived with this for over 50 years. The diagnosis only means I’ve had a label for less than a year. Even though I had no name for it, I know what I’ve come through. Even if I’m still connecting the dots, putting the bits and pieces together, I’ve been this way forever. The name is good, but the idea that I’m just now learning how to cope is a fallacy. True, I’m learning more and understanding more, but I’ve been coping for years. So have you.

And now I’m talking to others who are sharing their stories with me. They reel off lists of trials and troubles. They tell me, in succinct statements, that they do this or that to keep themselves functional. That when they lose it, they regroup and come back stronger. They realize there is only one direction to go and while it may take work and persistence, it’s what is left to them and go they will.

They’ve tried. They’ve failed. They’ve learned. They’ve tried again and succeeded … or failed and learned some more.

And I hear them, I’ve been there, am there, am them. I’ve done my share of trying, failing, learning, and a little succeeding too.

And I’ve realized how much these people, these friends, this small band we call our tribe, deserve recognition.

So here it is

I admire you. I don’t care if you’re a successful business woman or a homeless man on the street. You could be a soldier, a lawyer, a priest, a doctor, a farmer, a book seller, a writer, an executive, a house-spouse, a store clerk, a street sweeper, a juggler of chainsaws or account books, a stable hand, a carpenter, a nuclear physicist or an astronaut. You could be all of these things. Some of you maybe have been.

You could be seen as a success or a failure, but if you are one of my tribe then I’m sure of two things about you. First, you are not as successful as you think you could be. And second, you have persevered and overcome so many things in your life that even if you can’t consider yourself a success under any circumstances, you are. You are to me.

And I admire you.

I ADDmire you.

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