Visit ADHDHunter.com!

I have taken a few months to recollect my professional life and in order to do so, I put my ADHD Hunter cape away in the closet. In the past few weeks I had finally gotten my energy back up to push forward into developing the new site. I have had some great breakthroughs in setting up the new environment and needed another week or two to finalize the “beta” version.

This weekend I was taking a quick break to try and breathe life into the kids’ computer which had fallen prey to a deep-rooted virus. I went to look something up on my computer and it was dead – dead at 11 months – 4th dead laptop in about as many years – AAAARRRRRGGGHHH!.

This was not the kind of setback I needed right now. I just can’t squeeze any more time or money out of things. Someone is trying to test my will to the limit or just plain does not want this to move forward. ADHD can bring me to a screeching halt when these moments occur. I am trying very hard to focus on the “baby-steps”. But my focus is nore like pervasive blurriness right now.

Everyone has their limit – their wall. I’m getting pretty close to mine.

To start, on May 23rd, 2009 (Memorial Day weekend), I had gone back to taking Concerta for my ADHD. I had stopped taking the medication for one reason: cost. As I have mentioned, we have been cutting our costs at every possible decision, including my meds and the needed doctor visit to get them. After many months without them, I was convinced that the medication had helped me focus better and act less impulsively. As I still had contact with the doctor for the kids’ visits, he saw that I could use the medication and had resumed giving me the scripts for Concerta.

In the three or four months leading up to this moment, I had been spending over four hours a day, seven days a week, working on the ADHD Hunter’s presence online. As a result, my “day-job” work was suffering for the time. A tidal wave of pressure was building up behind me.

I was stuck square in the middle – not enough time to take the ADHD Hunter to its next step and, at its current level, the ADHD Hunter could not become my full-time commitment. For those of us with ADHD, not having a clear and positive path in front of us on a project can easily lead to “major roadblock” procrastination.

With the re-introduction of the meds, my focus on my “day-job” kicked into gear. Cleaning up outstanding work was creating some satisfaction in my day. But on the down-side, I felt like my creative energy had all but disappeared.

On the homefront, we have been facing substantial challenges ranging from difficulties with the school, in the kids’ last few days before summer break and in transitioning the kids into our plans for them for the summer. (More to come on this.)

I will try to resume writing in the coming weeks. I do not want to give up on the ADHD Hunter. In my heart, this work is much too important and there are too many people looking for someone to help them through the challenges of ADHD. I have been living through the challenges of ADHD and have been helping others around the world with their own ordeals. This vocation has such tremendous meaning to me that I am determined to find my way through to a solution. Until then, please forgive the sporadic updates, while I reason my way through to the other side of this adventure.

With tremendous gratitude to you all,
Chris

You can visit The Gallery here. Thanks once again for your interest and support.

One ad indicated how its product can:

Bold headlines described it as an “All Natural Formula for Guaranteed Success”, by which they of course mean, the product “is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or symptoms including inattention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity”, as they state in their incredibly small print. Thank heavens we all have 52″ monitors to read this stuff. Additionally, in pharmacology 101 students are told that there is no substance that you can put into your body to alleviate any condition that doesn’t have side-effects. None. So when somebody claims that a product has no side effects they are simply lying.

But that’s OK because I also found the “simple, easy-to-follow, scientifically proven way to totally eliminate your ADD-ADHD symptoms in only 2 minutes per day”! But wait! There’s more! Would you believe that these charitable souls have decided to have a one-day sale (every day I’ve looked) “giving” this product away for $27 instead of the $89 its actually worth? (Yeah – neither do I.)

 Oh – and for those that weren’t aware, the “solutions” above will also make you two inches taller and cure your asthma too!

When some parasitic, opportunist wants to share with you all the “secrets the doctors and drug companies don’t want you to know”, realize that they are preying on our fears and weaknesses at a difficult time in our lives. Give them their due attention: ignore them, delete their e-mails, or toss their offers in the trash, where they belong.

Unfortunately, we have struggles and weaknesses, that will only be lessened by:

• good medical and therapeutic advice, taken over time
• increased education and self-awareness
• a network of loving and supportive family and friends.

No magic, no snake oil. But that’s OK – we don’t need them.

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunt in which the participants use a GPS, or a global positioning system receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers called geocaches or caches, anywhere in the world. Typically, the cache is a small waterproof container holding a logbook and some small trinkets as the treasure. This game became popular after the GPS satellite systems were upgraded to become more accurate, around 10 years ago. Currently, there are over 814,000 active caches hidden around the world.

The concept originated about 150 years ago as “Letterboxing”. In Letterboxing, the clues were based upon the tools of the day such as compasses, verbal clues and paces in specific directions from different landmarks. While this is still active, it does not seem to be as active as Geocaching.

So why do these games seem well suited for the ADHDr’s of the world? It is suitable for the young to the old. Some caches are considered “park and grabs”, meaning that you can practically pull your car right up to the site. Others are more challenging, requiring a hike into deep woods or mountains. They often get us out into the therapeutic, green outdoors. And lastly, the novelty of each adventure seems to keep the attention of the ADHDr’s, with our curiosity getting the best of us.

For those who would like more information, I would suggest these sites:

www.Geocaching.com

www.Letterboxing.org

Happy hunting!

 - Chris

1. Always show love, acceptance and support – our love is not dependent on our children’s behavior.
2. Provide our children plenty of opportunities to make the right decision and celebrate the good ones immediately.
3. Never bait them into a trap – if you know they did something, don’t ask – state that you know it and discuss the situation.
4. Explain why they should do something, remind them of the rewards for doing it, the priviledges lost for not, then let them decide.
5. Be persistent – It’s not easy saying “turn off the TV/Computer” over & over – let them know it’s important enough for us to follow through.
6. Don’t punish for every infraction – redirect and move on.
7. Set clear rules for what’s totally unacceptable (hitting, etc.).
8. When possible, allow for choices, rather than a single directive. Allowing our children the chance to choose between options often will reduce the battle that can result with forcing them into a task, completely on our terms.
9. Medication, if used, is not a crutch – it is an opportunity for our children to relieve some pressure while they develop new skills and tools for coping with the effects of ADHD. They need skills, not just pills.
10. Know when our children function well – if attention spans are depleted and frustration triggers more easily by dinner time, don’t put our children in the unrealistic position of challenging them at these times – resolve difficult issues earlier or wait until the morning.

Each of these rules could easily be its own post and maybe we will do that someday. As I said earlier, we are not perfect. We often can break some of these rules, but always return to them, as we see their importance.

What rules have you implemented for helping your kids?

It is an article at the New York Times talking about an issue before the Supreme Court (the U.S.’s highest court). It looks at the obligation of schools in the U.S. to either provide an appropriate education for our children, or to reimburse parents that feel compelled to find that education on their own.

I’ll keep this brief, as the article is fairly long and it deserves your attention more than my ramblings do!

(Special thanks to my wife Dawn for pointing this article out)

In my internet travels, possibly including here, I have mentioned the huge costs we have incurred with health insurance and out-of-pocket medical bills. I make a nice income, but when your medical costs are running over $50,000 each year for the past few (which requires gross income of around $75,000 just for the medical costs) it gets hard to keep up. On top of that, we live in an area with a very high cost of living and some of the highest taxes in the country.

My wife is a stay at home mom.  She would love to be working and contributing to the household income, but with some of the events in the earlier posts focusing around my kids, it is clear that she needs to be home for them.  A couple of years back, we downgraded our home. We have sold many items of worth we felt we “needed”.  Today, my wife cut off the house telephone and “cable” TV. I have a slow leak in a car tire, that I am hesitating to fix, out of a fear of spending the $4 or $5 it will cost to fix. I have lived at the top. I am now plowing through to the bottom.

I have been stretching myself thin between work, which is paying all of the bills (well, the ones that can get paid), and trying to establish an online presence and voice. My hopes were to find a way to turn this into a source of additional income, possibly through the writing of a book, or even by making this a full time vocation. Before you think it – this was not meant to be a get rich quick, on the backs of others concept. My intention from day one was to provide some true value for whatever rewards it might generate.

I have some concerns that are building. First, I see an audience that often has their own financial struggles and sometimes those struggles are substantially worse than my own. Second, my current vision for my work here needs a few thousand dollars more than I can pull from thin air (please don’t take this as any kind of request for support – it’s not). Lastly, I fear that my neglect for my regular work, to keep this going, is putting me at greater risk then I can afford.

Add to that, the events of today. My wife realized that my son, PJ, used the last of his ADHD meds this morning. She set an appointment during the day to take my son to the doctor right after school, for a new prescription.  She mentioned it to PJ in the morning, but he had forgotten and nothing definite was set. After school, my wife reminded PJ that they needed to run to the doctors.

PJ doesn’t like surprises. He first determined that he would not go. After prolonged discussions and pleading, after making it clear that this was not going to be a moment for choice, after physically wrestling with him and getting him in  the car, we finally gave up. Dawn calls the doctor, to inform him and they agree that she should at least make the 45 minute trip to get the prescription and discuss the situation. She gets in the car and now PJ runs out, saying that he is coming. I get a call a few minutes later from Dawn. PJ wanted to go back to the house for his Nintendo DS. She explained that they were already late and that she couldn’t go back. Now the jumping out of the car game begins. He is opening the door saying he is going to get out. She finally told him to do exactly that. He gets out and tells her that he knows she’ll come back to get him. I told Dawn to keep going and that it was time to call his bluff. She did – in tears.

About an hour later PJ came home to me. I explained to him the danger he was putting himself and others in with his behavior in the car. We talked at length about how those kinds of distractions in the car could get someone killed. He felt very badly. He always does at times like this.

As I had started this post, it has been a rough couple of days, which is seen in only fragments here. Certainly not all bad, but from my perspective, at the moment, certainly not all good either. There will be better days ahead and sadly a few worse, most likely. Sorry for the uncharacteristically dark tone. If it doesn’t read that way, trust me – it’s there.

Peace

 - Chris

Welcome to the alphabet soup!

We’ve all seen it before: Ignatius Stockdale, M.D., Lawrence Tuttleworth, Esq. or Mary Ellen Peabody, Ph.D.

Then, with a knowing wink you look at me and say, “It works a little different in our world, doesn’t it!”.  In our world it goes a little bit more like this:  “Hi, I’m Bob: ADD-I, OCD, ODD” or “Hello! I’m Susan: ADHD, LD”.

Those few letters are abbreviations, yet speak volumes. They are a code we share.  They help us understand the challenges the other might be dealing with.  Those letters paint a simple picture of what our daily lives might be like.  A handfull of jumbled letters can create a sense of unity and membership in an otherwise lonely world.  Those few letters are the beacons we hold out to each other in the online networks and rabbit holes we have found that seem to lead us closer to understanding and acceptance.

Maybe, a day will come when we proudly display those labels for all, as we reach acceptance of ourselves and find a pride in our unique personalities, warts and all.

Till then,

Peace