MomMe TV Blog :: "The Silver Lining"

No question I tend to interrupt a conversation if a wild hare pops into my head. I know it annoys people, but I can’t help it. I’ve been getting in trouble for that since the third grade. It also didn’t go over too well in business meetings, come to think of it. To all I’ve offended, I apologize.

Disorganized I’ve pretty much covered in other stories, but losing things, that’s worth a short discussion.

Growing up and even today, I almost daily misplace my possessions: my keys, my purse, my earrings, my gloves, important slips of paper (including very important ones like bills and checks). I realize intellectually that they don’t get up and walk away, but on some level I’ve imbued my possessions with a life of their own. Things so regularly get lost and then miraculously reappear, that I’ve developed a fairly reliable philosophy of, “It will turn up”.

If I just trust my possessions to finish whatever little adventure they’ve taken themselves on, they invariably come home, often returning to the strangest places. My keys have shown up in the refrigerator, my earrings in the dryer. I’ve found gloves huddled in mismatched pairs next to stray checks behind the furniture, as if hiding during their attempted escape from the laundry room.

It’s easier for me to accept this mystical world than to admit I keep leaving things where they don’t belong. I always suspected I operated in a different world theatre but I’d pretty much gotten used to it.

Unfortunately, my problems are getting worse. At least I used to be scattered, but sharp.
As I get older my problems are compounded by the fact that I am also getting forgetful.

Now, more times than I can count, I’ll be in the laundry room starting laundry and the phone will ring. I’ll answer the phone, talk a few minutes and when I get off the phone, I’ll look around the kitchen, realize I need to do the dishes and get busy cleaning up. It might be an hour later when I’ll have some reason to walk back into the laundry room only to discover I’ve just completed a wash cycle with no clothes in the machine. To paraphrase the comedian Steven Wright, I feel I have de-ja-vu and amnesia at the same time- I keep having this feeling that I’ve forgotten this all before.

I’ll admit my behavior can be an inconvenience, but has it really risen to the level of a disorder? I don’t have any objection to promoting the greater understanding of human behavior, but I resent the fact that once someone labels a set of personality traits, they become a dysfunction.

And then once labeled, medical science devotes their resources to coming up with a medicine to make you “normal”.

Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Medical science stumbles on a cure for some personality quirk (most likely while in pursuit of another erectile dysfunction drug) and voila we have a newly labeled syndrome. Case in point; when I was growing up, you’d meet people who were shy. I was told, “Be nice to Melissa. She’s just a little shy”. Melissa may have seemed standoffish at first, but once I gave her some time, we became the closest of friends. Now however, shy people aren’t shy, they have Social Anxiety Disorder. And low and behold, we have just the medication that makes Melissa want to jump on a table and show us her version of the Macarena.

I think we need to leave these innocuous personality quirks alone and concentrate on some real social issues.

I have a neighbor who thinks that every time he sees me, it is the height of witty repartee to say, “Hey Janice, I see you’re still short”. My inner voice says, “And I see you’re still a jerk”, but being the nice person I am, I just chuckle, say “Good one” and get away fast.

If you ask me, I think this man suffers from Stupid Obnoxious Behavior syndrome, or SOB. The thousands of SOBs out there place a much greater burden on society than those of us who are shy or disorganized. Don’t you think it would be time better spent if researchers devoted their resources to developing an anti-jerk pill?

I can visualize the commercials for that breakthrough.

“Are you a complete asshole in public? Do you think it’s funny to make fun of people for their obvious physical flaws? Are you insensitive to the feelings of others? If so, it’s not your fault. You are suffering from SOB syndrome, and now we can help.”

It would be an added bonus if one of the side-effects of this miracle drug was shyness? Then maybe these people would keep to themselves. Or perhaps impotence? No sense in creating another generation of little SOBs.

But let’s not stop there. I also know people who seem to compulsively spend their time gossiping and worrying about their place in the social pecking order. In my opinion, they are suffering from Basically Insecure Truly Calculating Human syndrome, or BITCH.

I might even be willing to hold a fundraising telethon in pursuit of a cure for the millions of poor, miserable, suffering BITCHes - a quite literal bitch-a-thon.

“Are you, or do you know, a BITCH? Sadly, one out of every seven women suffers from this syndrome. This disorder affects millions and no one is immune. Anyone- your sister, your daughter, or your best friend may be suffering. And as you know, if someone in your family is a BITCH, everyone suffers.” The person that discovers a cure for this disorder would surely win a Nobel peace prize.

But once again, true to form, I digress; back to my ADD.

Even given the opportunity to medicate myself into clarity, I don’t think I will. There are a lot of positive things that come out of my so-called disorder. I believe that ADD people are highly creative.

Sure, while jumping from thought to thought I sometime lose that original thread. But often I grab onto an even more interesting thread and weave into a fascinating tapestry.

Most “normal” people, blessed with disciplined, linear thinking don’t have to deal with their mind wandering away. But at the same time, they don’t take the mental journey that allows for those sparks of creative thought.

Can anyone guarantee that if I medicated away my scatter-brained behavior, it wouldn’t take away my originality? I won’t take that chance.

This very story was brought to you courtesy of ADD.

It came to me as follows. The morning after I read that ADD article I took my dog for a walk in the dog park. I noticed one owner and dog playing fetch with a Frisbee and I noted to myself how my dog doesn’t possess that talent. My dog, Cosmo, might start running after the Frisbee but half-way there he’d see a bird, forget about the Frisbee, and start chasing the bird. That got me thinking that my dog must have doggy ADD, which allowed me to momentarily contemplate how dog and owner often have similar characteristics, which brought me back to my ADD, which allowed my mind to write this story in my head as I took a walk - an example of the perfect mind/body exercise. In case you’re wondering, I am that crazy lady chuckling to myself in the park.

Anyway, good, back or indifferent, I am at peace with my “condition”. My mind might wander and my possessions might escape, but in the greater scheme of things, I’d still rather be ADD than a BITCH-y SOB.