A.D.D Is My Superpower

by Jon Moore

Having A.D.D. isn’t fun. Being a parent with A.D.D is even less fun. I try and explain to people like this: imagine you’re in a crowded room and everyone is talking to you, all at the same time. It takes an incredible amount of focus to zero in on one thing. Here’s the rub, the other things are still going on. They’re not just talking to you. They’re banging pots, doing really funny things, one of them has a cute kitten! A KITTEN! IT’S SO CUTE! Ok, I’m sorry…what were we talking about? Parenting was it? See…you thought I wasn’t paying attention…oh it was A.D.D superpowers. Like I was saying….

If you’ve A.D.D. chances are that your kiddo does too. In fact, I can’t imagine they don’t. I feel blessed I’ve my daughter full time because how I’ve learned to deal with it. I know when to allow it to take over. When to throttle it. When to ignore it. When to, ‘wait and see’. My folks didn’t really do anything about it. I mean, there wasn’t really anything to do about it. Not back when I was coming along. However, I was in special education my whole life. It wasn’t ever addressed in the house. I didn’t even realize i was in special ed until I was in 6th grade and started getting kicked outta school(s). The fact I leaned towards artistic tendencies was really the taboo. Drawing, writing, creative tasks are things I did well with. These things were certainly not encouraged. Artist were bad. being artistic was bad. This was all bad for them. They simply didn’t know how to deal with or nurture a child like me.

Well, having grown up the way I did, I certainly know what NOT to do with my daughter. In our home, I’ve multiple areas for art supplies. I’ve everything in a place easy for her to access and there’s even multiple places. However, it’s evolved over the past year or two and now our front living room is the craft room. It’s where she’s her little craft table, wrapped with craft paper. She can spill glue, color on it, mess it up. Who cares? It’s a craft table.

Frankly, it’s not as easy as having a craft table, a designated toy room or bins. None of that really matters I suppose. It’s about when she’s doing and assignment, getting her to think ahead several moves ahead in the assignment or task at hand. Thinking through it fully. Like seeing all the possible moves and outcomes in a game of chess, after but only a few moves.

This line of thought or thinking unlocks the ‘superpower’ abilities. Now, you don’t even see or hear the monkey banging the pots, the cute little kitten being a cute kitten or the unicorn being ridden by a leprechaun. Now, you’re taking apart a design in your head. You’re building it. Composing it, making it work. It’s not working? How come? Oh yeah, this needs to be over there. This is all before you’ve even put a pen to paper. In most cases, yo’ve finished the composition before yo’ve even begun.

Now here’s where more superpowers are unlocked. Now that yo’ve unlocked this beast and can see things you’ve created already built before you’ve breathed into physical effort into it. You can begin to assess whether it’s even worth your time to complete in the first place. You can see the impact this assignment may have on your goals or path. You can look at it and see what it is you don’t like. In fact, you’re already bored with it and no longer want to engage. (psychiatrist pay attention, this is the real way to spot an A.D.D child/person).

Continuing on this path one can apply this skillset to think things through in life. Many whom are close to me know I’ve an uncanny way of, “predicting the future”. It’s even a joke amongst some. Granted, I can’t predict anything which will benefit me financially…well…we’ll circle around back to this one later. However, I can read about a company and get insight on its potential path. Not from the glorious prospects of its fruits, not really. I look at who’s running the company. They kind of board structure. The product it’s producing. The demand, the marketplace circumstances which affect this demand. However, it really circles back to people and the ability to accurately predict them.

Let’s take a look at something else, tv shows. Something a little easier in the mind field of a creative A.D.D. Let’s take the, once ever so popular, ‘The Walking Dead’ tv show on AMC. Before the credits were even done I knew there were going to be issues with this one. There were a ridiculous amount of producers on this show. I mean…it was a lot. I think there was 7, 8 maybe 9. I don’t remember, it’s been a solid 5-6 years since I’ve watched the show. So, that’s an easy prediction that you simply can’t have that many people in charge. Two or three with various confined roles, yes. However, after 3 you get into vanity. But..that’s not what I’m talking about in this article.

Another tell this show was doomed was it was clear they didn’t allow their characters to do anything which made sense. Outside of the fact they’d been living in this post apocalypse for several years, shit, even months, who cares? You’d think they’d have learned how to handle a weapon by then? Some of the basic do’s and don’t’s. Nope, none on that. They never learned from their mistakes. Took a long time to reinforce an area, have in broken into, conquered the conflict and rather than repair the damage and learn, they chose to move on. That got old. Guess what that leads to, the same mistakes constantly being repeated creates a pattern. The audience isn’t fooled nor even impressed by its “clever” writing.

Well, this is a lot like how being able to “Predict the Future with A.D.D” is like. It’s like watching that dumb, predictable t.v. show where you know who’s going to get killed, get broken up with, get hurt, have tragedy, etc. It’s just as predictable in real life.

Take Uncle Joe for example. Everyone’s an “Uncle Joe”, seemingly. Uncle Joe doesn’t eat right. He drinks too much. He has sleeping issues. etc. Joe doesn’t take care of himself. To you the reader, you can already tell where I may be going with this….but you’d be wrong. It’s a given that Uncle Joe is going to have some upcoming health related issues. That’s not the context here. The context is, that Uncle Joe clearly has self control issues. There’s something underneath which haunts him, which hurts him and he buries his pain in food, alcohol, women, anger, etc. The underlining issue is Joe’s pain. Joe isn’t going to just leave his children fatherless too soon, but he’s also going to create discord in the family. Uncle Joe is the reason we can’t all spend Christmas together or he’s the reason we’ve crappy thanksgivings. All of this has a snowball effect on how you plan your holidays and ultimate, shop. See where this is going? You think Uncle Joe’s stupid choices have no bearing on you or you life, but it does. He does a lot more than you think. If you allow this type of person into your life, this is an outcome possibility.