ANGER!!! = focus???
I know, I know….. I’m jumping back to “A” when by all rights I should be trudging methodically toward the letter “Z”. If the fact that I keep jumping around upsets you … well then, you’re probably in the wrong blog because you don’t have ADHD. And if you’re here because you’re hoping to gain some insight into the world of ADHD for a loved one then your first order of business should be to embrace this invaluable experience …… it’s a rare glimpse inside the head of one who lives with ADHD. In this blog I have tried to take what is inside my head (no small task) and put it out there in the open for anyone who cares to see it. And I’ve done my best to do so in a way that can be understood by all, whether you are the afflicted or the affected. I hope I am meeting with some measure of success in this endeavor (I welcome all feedback). Today I have decided to backtrack for a very important reason. Well, it’s important to me anyway and I hope it may get some of you to thinking.
Up until this point in my experience I have interpreted anger as a negative emotion that serves little purpose in life other than to function as a relief valve. Just like a steam boiler, if the pressure builds too high the ensuing explosion will wreak havoc and destruction (I have been accused of having an explosive temper in past). The relief valve keeps the pressure in the “productive” range by letting off some steam when the pressure gets close to the danger zone. And this is where my perspective has shifted … a movement that began imperceptibly slow last Spring with a near cataclysmic shift occurring this past week. But first a little context ………
Last Spring we had what I thought was an unusual amount of rain. I was frequently frustrated with my landscaping chores as every time I actually had time to mow the lawn or weed the flower beds it would rain. You can understand the lawn but some of you may be thinking “after a rain is the best time to weed” while the ground is soft. Yes you’re right (a phrase I find myself uttering frequently these days). But I am not fond of working in a torrential downpour and I was off on another effort when it stopped (I have ADHD?). Anyway, I had been bickering with my wife for some time on various topics, mostly because I was frustrated with the knowledge that I was going to have a jungle to rake after I finally got to mow the lawn (I have a 2 acre lawn), when she complained that the front flower beds were looking like a jungle and I should weed them ………
I snapped. I’d been chewing on my anger for too long and I’d had enough. I launched a full salvo of words, generously interspersed with the strongest expletives I knew for emphasis. I honestly don’t know what I said but judging by the surprised and confused look on her face it probably didn’t make much sense anyway. My relief valve had stuck shut and I exploded. But I did have the presence of mind to get out before I’d done any permanent damage (I think) and in that instant my mind became laser-focused on one thing …… WEEDS!!! I stormed outside and grabbed the first weeds I saw, yanked them up by the roots and flung them behind me. I was on my knees hunched over, head down, yanking at weeds with both hands. I was snorting and snarling, growling, huffing and puffing with the effort. I quickly fell into a rhythm … alternating left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand …reach, grip, rip, toss … reach, grip, rip, toss … shift to the left … reach, grip, rip, toss … reach, grip, rip, toss … shift to the left ……
I have no idea how long this continued. I was hyper-focused on the task at hand until a curious thing happened, which I realized upon reflection later that day. My mind shifted focus. Once I had fallen into a rhythm it became automatic, like I was on autopilot. My thoughts went elsewhere, first focusing on how to fix my wife’s “problem” with shared responsibilities around the house, then systematically moved through other areas I had been experiencing problems with either focus or follow through. In fact I think I resolved quite a few issues that day. And when I had reached the point of exhaustion I paused to catch my breath … slowly stood up (my back and knees had just about frozen up by then) and looked behind me.
It looked like the equivalent of nature’s wrecking ball had passed through. There were piles of weeds strewn all over the lawn, some as much as 15 or 20 feet away from where they had been pulled. Then I noticed that I too was covered … dirt spread across my shoulders and arms, stalks and leaves covering my hair and clothes … my knees and hands were a curious color, a muddy greenish-yellow that looked like it had been tattooed on my skin. But the most surprising thing was that I was currently standing almost where I had started ……having weeded all the flower beds around the entire circumference of my house, about the length of 2 football fields. With a satisfied snort a thought flashed through my head, “Guess I showed her!” But somewhere in there was the spark of realization that when I get really angry … I get things done. I’m sure my therapist/coach has something to that affect written in his notes of our conversations at that time, and no doubt he will smile when he reads this. No matter that the primary cause of the anger was the unbearable frustration of things getting out of control and paralyzed by the overwhelming weight of circumstances (trust me, it made more sense in my head). Anger, in a twisted sort of way, seems to be an ally in my struggle with ADHD. But the glimmer of realization faded quickly as I moved on to other distractions.
Apparently though it lingered somewhere in the back of my head, waiting patiently for another opportunity shine. And that opportunity came this past weekend in the form of overwhelming stress … the kind of stress that comes from suppressing the agitation you feel toward someone while they are grieving and you don’t want to be an insensitive ass. There’s no arguing that I can be a real ass, perhaps more than the average man. But I am trying to become a better person and the passing of a loved one it seems can present a prime opportunity for learning and self-improvement. In my case it can also present an opportunity to get things done. Case in point, my home office has been nearly uninhabitable for most of the winter. You know what I mean, mountain of papers on the desk, spilling over onto the adjacent chairs and cascading onto the floor where it snakes its way around the perimeter described by my chair. Getting to my desk, looking strangely like I’m tip-toeing through a mine field, often takes just long enough for me to forget why I was going there in the first place. So I often end up surfing the internet and checking email for a while before getting bored and looking for another form of distraction. Heaven forbid I should actually work at clearing the mess away! But, this past weekend between the wake and the funeral, I got angry enough that I actually went into the office and did not emerge until I had cleared away, organized and filed everything. Call me Mohammed ‘cause I just moved a mountain! I had almost forgotten that the top of my desk was actually brown. The sense of release I felt was immediate and almost profound. I found myself starting to think of all the other things that needed doing … catching up on my bookkeeping … cleaning out my car … organizing my garage so I can actually start to finish the woodworking projects I started last Autumn … writing for this blog … writing down a list of all the things that need doing ………
And that’s when it occurred to me, when I experienced a major shift in perspective. Anger, for me anyway, seems to contain the catalyst required to break the inertial grip that ADHD gets on my life. But is it the anger itself or is there some component of the emotional response that is the catalyst? I began to wonder if it could it be possible to break down “anger” into its individual components and analyse each one to determine its contribution, if any, to catalyzing action? If I could distill the part of the anger responsible for allowing me to focus and take action couldn’t I then find a way to use that to my benefit, to train myself to call upon it at will? Then I could deal with the “mountains” while they were still mole hills (making Mohammed’s job a whole lot easier). I would no longer lose so much precious time and energy treading water and creating animosity. I could then have all the time I would have otherwise spent to instead nurture and grow the relationships with those I cherish. My head began to reel with the weight of all the possibilities. I am eager to explore and learn from this experience and look forward to sharing it with you.
It is said that when the pupil is ready the teacher will appear. Today the teacher appears to be Life itself. How very Zen …………
j.d.
