The Real Secret to Life

Apologies to everyone who saw my last post, which was obviously not intended for public consumption. Please delete it. Thanks.

Here is the post I intended to send out.

When one of my kids was diagnosed with ADHD, I remember how conflicted my feelings were as I sat with the specialist in his office. There was no question on the diagnosis. But one thing the specialist said was, “When I asked your kid how smart they were compared to the other kids, your kid said they were the smartest in the class. And based on our testing, that is most likely true.” I was a bit embarrassed by this, because I’d been taught as a kid that being smart was embarrassing. But the specialist said, “You have to understand, most kids with ADHD come to believe, even by this age, that there is something irretrievably wrong about them, that they are stupid because they can’t do stuff. But your kid knows just how smart they are. That’s kind of a miracle.”

I think the specialist might have been trying to say that I was not doing a terrible job of mothering this kid, despite how difficult it had been, despite that this one kid took up the energy that all my other 4 kids took put together. I knew they were smart, fucking brilliant. It shone out of this kid in every interaction. This kid read the Encyclopedia for fun. Literally, during summer vacation.

And then this specialist said one last thing that changed my life forever. “Your kid is always going to have ADHD. But you need to understand that it doesn’t limit them. At least, it doesn’t have to. If you just remember that there are things they are good at and things they are not good at, they are like everyone else in the world. People have good lives when they focus on the things they’re good at. That’s it. That’s the secret.”

It is, in fact, the secret of life. Finding the things that this kid did well and then making sure that they got to do them took up a lot of energy, but it was the most important thing I could do for them. Finding those things wasn’t easy. I definitely had some hit or miss moments where I got it wrong. But when I found the right things, I didn’t have to push or shove. This kid just blossomed and thrived. People began to stop seeing the problems. Sometimes they would even give me a look as if I was lying, if I told about early childhood problems. The ADHD didn’t disappear, but it became such a small part of their life that it hardly mattered anymore. The good things took up so much space that the difficult things shrunk dramatically.

And then came my experience with a diagnosis. This specialist didn’t know I had autism. He might have suspected there was some kind of neurodivergency in me, but he never said a word about it at the time. I’ve always had certain weak areas. I struggle in large groups. I take things literally. I don’t get other people’s jokes. I have what might now be called “special interests” in nerdy things like languages, Star Trek, and romance novels, among other things. I sometimes take over conversations and forget that other people might have things to say. These can and have made my life difficult and have made it hard for me to have normal relationships or normal jobs.

But when I have been able to show the ways in which I’m brilliant and hard-working, and found people and work environments where those things matter more than the other things, I’m seen as a valuable member of the community. As a writer, my tendency toward bluntness and honesty, my precision with language, are benefits rather than deficits. My need for perfection and hyperfocus likewise. I’m good at cooperative work if there’s a single editor involved, and I can even do interviews if I focus on one interviewer. There are things I’m not great at in my current job. But because there are things I am very, very good at, people tend not to focus on those things as much. Yes, they are noted as areas that I can improve in, but I’ve lost most of my fear that I’m going to be fired because I can’t be as good in those areas as I am in the others.

Just like my kid, I have a good life when I focus on the things I’m good at. I happen to be terrible at a lot of things that other people think are easy. I’m also good at a lot of things that other people think are hard. I live in upside down world, but I can make it work if other people allow me to shine in the ways I shine. The secret of life for me (and maybe for you) is doing the things I do well spectacularly well, and getting better and better at them. And forgiving myself and getting others to offer me grace and sometimes trying to get just a little better at the stuff I naturally suck at. Just enough to get through life. That’s all you need. Then the rest can be focused on the shine.