I listened to a radio show this morning where they interviewed an entertainer who had ADHD.
It was a late in life diagnosis after her son got diagnosed. She mentioned her mother was sceptical : “We’re just a colourful family, my dear!” The listening audience were supposed to groan in sympathetic recognition of this denial of the obvious, I’m sure. She has found the medications and management tips very useful, so there’s no downside that I can see in her diagnosis..
Her descriptions didn’t awake any sense of recognition in me, though. Methodical, determined, and conscientious is more my line. I like being with people, as long as there are set roles, but I really value time by myself as most relaxing. In fact, social situations have always made me nervous . When I have an interaction with someone I don’t know well, it usually feels like a role play, as if I’m an alien pretending to be a functioning human being.
Imagine my surprise then, the other day, when one of the recovery nurses pulled me aside and said I was a lovely person. “I know we’re not supposed to say that sort of thing, but really you are so nice with your patients, I just wanted to let you know.” Well! You could have knocked me down with a feather. You can fool some of the people some of the time, it seems. Or maybe I’m not as spectrummy as I thought, after all? I got a very pleasant glow from her comments anyway. I toyed briefly with the idea of saying that she was lovely too – luckily she was wearing a name badge so I could have even made it personal – but you know, she’s a perfectly OK nurse but nothing special, so in the end I just thanked her and left. That’s not weird, is it?