Recently saw an amazing documentary on bipolar disorder on PBS. I won’t go into to much detail, as I think everyone who has any diagnosis or takes any meds should watch it. But it did give me a new insight into mania. One of my favorite movies when I was younger was the black and white Darren Aronofsky film from the mid/late 90’s. I watched it again for the first time in years shortly after watching Ride the Tiger. It is still a great film, but has a very different feeling if you consider the possibility that at is about a mentally ill guy having a manic episode… Either way, you should check it out if you haven’t.

I’m continually amazed at how many people fight the idea of medication so heartily. I’m also amazed at how many of these same folks will think nothing of spending a fortune on supplements, self medicate with copious amounts of caffeine, alcohol, or weed.  Check this program on supplements out. Might make you rethink what’s the “healthy” option..

Everything I do for organization myself and what I teach my clients is based on one very simple principle: Make it easier! Any structure that is complicated and cumbersome is not going work. It has to be simple, easy to follow, and yield tangible results. As I’ve worked to simplify things in my life I’ve always had two voices in my head from my days as a chef. I started my fine dining career at Il Capriccio in Waltham. (Still a great restaurant. Get there if you are local and haven’t been.) Rich Baron is the chef and co-owner. He’s a great guy and a talented chef. I started there on garde manger (salads and apps) when I was on externship from culinary school. He wanted me to stay. I wanted to go back and finish school. We struck a wonderful compromise that I would stay for a year. I owe him a lot for that opportunity, for his seeing something in me, and for many other things. Anyway, when I moved from garde manger to the “hot line” when I decide to stay for the year, Richie pulled me aside before my first night on the grill and and said, “Kid, we get good ingredients. Don’t fuck them up.”  As glib as that advice/guidance may seem, it gets to the heart of why I devoted my culinary career to authentic Italian food. All the technique in the world can’t compensate for inadequate raw materials. And, when your starting point is great raw materials, you don’t have to work so hard to make them shine. The other voice in my head is that of Adam Halberg, the Chef d’ Cuisine at Via Matter when I was a cook then Sous Chef there. Again, I owe him a lot. He, Richie, and Carmel Quagliata were my three most…

So, the last few years I’ve worked like a madman to build my business particularly over the school year. And, about this time of year the last three or so years I have hit a wall. The first year I was actually freaking out and thought there might be something wrong with my medication. Not so. It was/is just my yearly cycle apparently.  So, this year, when I hit a wall about a week ago when I stopped wanting to do anything at all, I was more prepared and less freaked out. Maybe it’s the anti-depressant, maybe it’s the work I’ve done with my coach and on my own, maybe it’s that I’ve achieved a higher level of consciousness?  The bottom line is that I’m accepting it this year. I’m more relaxed and willing to take the break my body needs. Somehow I always gear up again when I need to and seem to make it through. So why stress about it. I’ve enjoyed today spending more time on the porch and in the garden. And, I look forward to more of that in the coming weeks. All the really important stuff is getting done. Everything else can wait until I’m “feeling it” again. Happy Summer! Standard disclaimer: I don’t edit much if at all. This is a deal I have made with myself. It keeps me from being frozen in the metaphorical carbonite of perfectionism or falling into the “Sarlacc” of avoidance behavior. A new post done is always better than a perfect post undone.

I won’t go into the thing that happened today that shook me a bit. But I was left a bit off kilter in the middle of my day. I knew that I wasn’t going to get anything done if I stayed in my office with that unsettled feeling. So, I went to get an Italian sub at Tino’s. While I was there I stopped in at Esprit de Vin and had a lovely chat with the proprietor and picked up a bottle of a cool orange liqueur that he gets from a special producer in Sicily. (And, no, I didn’t sample the bottle at noon.) But simply going out and being with people and having a friendly interaction and getting a cheap lunch reset me. Sounds worth it to me. When I got home, I was relatively productive then had the discipline to get in a quick workout before I had to take my son to his Dr.s appointment. And, I’m relaxed and productive right now in the waiting room. I’d say my Reset Button worked. Makes me wonder why I don’t grab a $5 sandwich more often… Looks like I should start taking my own advice. Standard disclaimer: I don’t edit much if at all. This is a deal I have made with myself. It keeps me from being frozen in the metaphorical carbonite of perfectionism or falling into the “Sarlacc” of avoidance behavior. A new post done is always better than a perfect post undone.

I was Skyping with a client today and something came out of my mouth that I’ve never said before that stopped us both mid conversation. “A pile is not a system.” I think I’m going to trade mark that. It seems to be a concise distillation of something I’ve teaching for years. At least in terms of paperwork, a system has to involve sorting, categorizing, labeling, an aspect of space efficiency, and a common sense (for the ADHD brain) approach for access the information contained therein. The additional step we need as ADHDers is that they system needs to be super easy, have very few steps, be convenient… or we won’t use it. In that sense. I file cabinet can be even more of a disaster than the piles on your desk. More on this in the future posts. Standard disclaimer: I don’t edit much if at all. This is a deal I have made with myself. It keeps me from being frozen in the metaphorical carbonite of perfectionism or falling into the “Sarlacc” of avoidance behavior. A new post done is always better than a perfect post undone.

I had a good day on today. One meeting 8 client hours, a quick break for a workout. A long day, but a good day. My last client that day is my youngest current client by a few years. She is a great kid. But, in my opinion, she’s somewhat in denial about her ADHD and how much of an issue. This has historically led to less than stellar medication adherence. We’ve been slowly but surely making progress in that area. But, there was still a wall there. It took me really challenging her about her less than successful behavior patterns for her to break down and really admit how hard it was for her to pay attention, even on the meds. y hope is that that emotion was a watershed. Now we’re talking about the real issue. Because there has been real pain under there all along that she’s been avoiding. Now that it’s out in the open, we can address it. And, I’m so proud of this girl for letting me challenge her, for opening up, for allowing difficult emotions to come out, and for her honesty. I pushed. But she responded. I’m glad I pushed the right way at the right time. And, again, I’m so proud of how she responded. I so optimistic for her going forward with the courage she’s demonstrating. Standard disclaimer: I don’t edit much if at all. This is a deal I have made with myself. It keeps me from being frozen in the metaphorical carbonite of perfectionism or falling into the “Sarlacc” of avoidance behavior. A new post done is always better than a perfect post undone.

… at least I hope they’re deep… I’ve been feeling more philosophical lately. Which I think is a good thing. My tendency is to try to manage life by nailing everything down tight. And, that works to an extent. I’ve made a career out of teaching other people to get their “shit together.” And, I’m not saying that my intention is to get away from that. But there are things that are out of our control, can’t be answered right away, require experience to be quantified, or may simply be beyond our understanding or our control. I’m not even sure how to articulate what I’m trying to say here. I just feel like there is an important piece of life experience that I’m trying to teach myself even more than I’m trying to impart to anyone who might be reading this. I guess it’s that knowing what to let go of really does give you more control in a counterintuitive way. Letting go of what I can’t change or can’t control lets me control my mood by not being in a constant and epic battle to fight against an unwindable enemy. I hope this isn’t to weird or esoteric to be helpful to at least one person… I guess the challenge is to balance the need for structure and control that comes with having ADHD with the anxiety that it can produce to try to be in control of everything all the time… Standard disclaimer: I don’t edit much if at all. This is a deal I have made with myself. It keeps me from being frozen in the metaphorical carbonite of perfectionism or falling into the “Sarlacc” of avoidance behavior. A new post done is always better than a perfect post undone.

So… you have a meeting with Dave. It goes well. Dave is interested in doing business with you, but he has to check with his bosses. What do you do? (This is a two part question, really. How do you handle Dave and how do you handle the resulting “tasks?”) I will say, “Great, Dave. Glad you’re interested. Don’t want you to make a premature commitment. How long do you think it will take to chat with the powers that be?”  Dave will likely say, “Couple of day, definitely by the end of the week.” To which I will respond, “Fantastic. But, if I don’t hear from you, MAY I FOLLOW UP WITH YOU NEXT MONDAY?” So, I’ve given him the power to say no. In other words I’m not being pushy, but I am capitalizing on his good feeling and our positive momentum. I sorta makes him commit to the time frame he gave me. And, it gives me permission to contact him again at a certain agreed upon time without being annoying. Everybody wins! That’s a great tip for business, relationships, boundaries, self-doubters, etc that I picked up somewhere over the years. I regret that I do not remember where so I can’t give credit where it is due. But, what do we do now? We have ADHD and Monday might as well be the end of days. (Will it come? When? Will I know what’s happening, when it comes?…)  Here’s my suggestion. If you read my blog, work with me, or have heard me speak you know of my devotion to the To Do List (as I teach it.) So, you’ve got a bad ass, super functional to do list. And you know that you can’t put stuff on your TDL that can’t be done. It’s Tuesday.…

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. And, when I say “sometimes” I mean pretty much all the time. I’ve had a few clients lately have “issues” with taking their meds, either remembering to take them or remembering IF they took them. In both cases, problems would have been avoided by cases… pill cases. An staggeringly simple solution to a straightforward problem. They cost under $2 and last for years. But, most people tend not to buy and to use them until something goes wrong. Be ahead of the curve. Get one (or more) before there is a problem. They are actually giving them away for free at Wegman’s in Westwood… for what it’s worth.

Since I was diagnosed with ADHD about 27 years ago there has been a lot of movement in terms of our society’s ideas about mental health. Almost all of it has been in a positive direction. I feel that we still have a long way to go but that we are identifying and treating more people who need help now than every before.  My personal experience is that talking to people about my ADHD over the years had evolved in this way: Circa 1988: Only one other kid I knew had ADHD and not for being called down to the nurse every day for my meds, I probably wouldn’t have told anyone.  Circa 1995: I was just another kid with ADHD and I was taken with a grain of salt. But, I had more or less come to terms with it and was open about my issues and struggles. Circa 1998: Still considered a “childhood disorder” and there were little to no “services” or understanding at UMass. Circa 2003: I felt like this was around the time that ADHD was really becoming recognized in main stream society. If you mentioned it, everyone knew what it was, even if they didn’t understand it or “believe in it.” Circa 2009: By now I felt that the stigma related to ADHD was largely removed… at least where I live. But with this acceptance came dismissal of severity and importance. I’ve gone from “What’s that?” to “I think everyone has some of that,” in a matter of a few years.  So, where are we now? I don’t know. With more people getting the help they need than ever before. Good thing! But, there is an increasingly vehement faction of society that rallies against increased diagnosis and treatment as a bad thing. This creates another whole issue, and…

Sometimes it is difficult to identify ADHD even for people who have it or have some experience with it because it doesn’t always look the same and act the same. It has been my experience that on any give subject related to ADHD a large percentage of ADHDers, say 80% will react in one way. But, the other 20% will react differently… in a way that is completely opposite. For example, how does the “average” ADHD kid react to a long car ride? I can tell you that being in the back seat of my parents Volvo 25 years ago with “nothing” to do that was stimulating for the two hour drive from Boston to Hartford was my idea of hell. If not for ska/punk and pod casts it still would be my idea of hell. I think most ADHDers respond in a similar way. Of course we have many more ways to amuse ourselves in the car than we did a quarter century ago. And, the average neurotypical kid expects to be entertained full time also. But, I digress. So, let’s say 70% (random guess) of ADHD kids find long car rides to be torture. What about the other 30%? Usually, they are perfectly content to stare out their window, twirl their hair, and enjoy their rich “inner life.” Or they are the lucky few who love to read or draw and can stimulate themselves that way. So, the mother with the rich inner life of who is inattentive, may not connect with her daughter’s struggle in this situation if the daughter is more physically hyperactive and my have “more” ADHD. Some of us are Tasmanian Devils. Others are space cadets. Doesn’t mean they aren’t both ADHD. Standard disclaimer: I don’t edit much if at all. This is a deal I have…