This was an actual conversation I had one time.
HD: “Home Depot.”
ME: “Hi. Can you put me through to the garden department?”
HD: “One moment, please.”
Brief hold, then. . .
HD, GD: “Garden Department.”
ME: “Hi. I know this is going to sound like a super-weird question, but I promise this is NOT a prank phone call, so please bear with me. I have ADHD and I confuse the names of stuff all the time, and my mom wants this one kind of flower for Mother’s Day, and it’s some plant name that kind of sounds like — and I do apologize in advance for how this sounds, I promise you I’m not some sort of pervert — but it’s some flower name that sounds like the word ‘clitoris.’ I cannot remember for the life of me what it is called and I don’t dare ask my mom again or she’ll know what I’m getting her. Can you please help me?”
HDGD: “Uhhh . . . could it be a CLEMATIS?”
ME: “Yes! That’s it! Oh my God! Thank you so much! You just saved my life!”
HDGD: “No problem. If you need help finding them, just ask for me — my name is Tracy. I’ll be here ‘til five.”
And . . . SCENE.
I’ve pondered the whys and hows of my glitchy brain for a while. Is my name and word confusion an ADHD thing? Or a Denise thing?
I confuse names all too often. I’ve mentioned this to you before — that whole David Byrne vs. David Lynch and Grace Jones vs. Grace Slick conflation. While the Middle East is currently in a major conflict, I’ll confess one more embarrassing thing. I confuse Iraq with Iran. I know, I know. It IS terrible. I’m not proud of it. Can you imagine me as the comms person directing some military operation where to drop a bomb?
Military Bomber Pilot to Me: “Are you SURE you meant Iraq? Not Iran?
Me: “Um. . . hold that bomb a sec and let me get back to you . . .10-4.” (Do military people say “10-4,” or did I watch Smokey and the Bandit one too many times?)
You get the idea. My brain has some weird iambic pentameter thing going on. I recall syllabic sound patterns, not unlike the family dog. “Go for a drive?” or “Go for a walk?” sounds the same to a dog. Either four-syllable phrase incites vigorous tail wagging.
But it’s not just a syllable thing. It’s also a similarity thing. I conflate weird names, like Treat Williams, Tennessee Williams and Tennessee Ernie Ford. (To be fair, this is probably the first time I’ve used the latter name in a sentence, like, EVER.) Wasn’t it Tennessee Williams who came up with that whole “relying on the kindness of strangers” line?
I’m the in-real-life Blanche DuBois. I do rely on the kindness of strangers. A lot.
People are unusually patient with me. It’s like they sense my vulnerability and the courage I muster — in feigning normalcy — to ask humiliating questions. Like the Home Depot Garden Department, or the deli worker who patiently answered my phone call about potato salad variations:
DELI: “Yeah, we carry potato salad. Do you want regular, sour cream, mustard, or German?”
ME: “Uh. . . (my Doppler-Effect-slow auditory processing kicks in . . . awkward pause) . . . like the kind my mom makes for the church potlucks ? Does that help?”
(I’m so painfully Midwestern. . .)
DELI: “Yep. That’s the mustard kind.”
If only my brain glitches ended there!
When someone asks me if a dollar amount is “Net, or gross?” I cannot answer them. I have to Google which one is which. I. Can’t. Remember. I need to print out this visual aid and memorize it:
My other brain glitch is keeping track of dates and times. The receptionist at my chiropractor’s office laughs with me now when I show up a day early. “Oh! THERE you are!” she’ll chortle. “I was expecting you!”
I was never cut out to be anyone’s admin. I was cut out to employ one. A very patient one.
Part of my issue is time zones. I’m never sure which time of year I should say “EST” or “EDT,” so I write “ET” and hope I don’t come off as too big of a jackass. If I had to book a Zoom call with clients overseas plus U.S.-based Mountain Time zones, I think my brain would short-circuit. This could take me hours to contemplate.
And finally, there’s my numbers glitch. I can remember all addition equations with three exceptions:
7 + 5
8 + 5, and
8 + 6.
It’s mentally exhausting being me, trying to do math.
For those three equations, I have to count it out on my fingers, or tell myself “7 + 6 is 13 and then I subtract 1.” And from what I’ve read, many ADHDers take similar circuitous routes to figure out math problems.
The ADHDers I talk to online — particularly the people in creative fields like me — tend to share one common belief about going through life with ADHD:
We would never trade our ‘creative-flow brains’ for ‘normal’ brains.
I fall in that camp. Just don’t mark us down on an employee review (as happened to me) for having too many post-it-note reminders…
NurseNancy I think many of us have similar speed bumps. One of mine is knowing where to put a period…before or after the quotation mark.
It comes down to this. I’m not interested in mastering punctuation.
After living in GA for 10 years, I get lost all the time. Sometimes adding an hour or so onto my local errand drive. Yes, it’s part of having ADD but then again, I’m not interested to know where the nearest post office is, how to get from I75 North to 575 South, then to Cumming by way of 400, before heading south again, driving to the Mercedes Benz Stadium, careful not to forget to exit onto 285 East or West.
Denise, if it’s not interesting, why master it?
Bravo Denise. You said it perfectly!