Exploiting Feelings of Guilt

marketing to people with ADHD

I explore the internet just about every day. It’s my favorite thing to do that doesn’t involve whiskey or women, and sometimes it does. More and more often, I run into an advertisement suggesting there is a link between ADHD and procrastination and offering a thirty-five-dollar online course where you can listen to some woman coach you out of ADHD-induced procrastination on your phone with pre-recorded videos.

First, she’s correct. “Procrastination” is a word often associated with ADHD, as are “lazy,” “stubborn,” “distracted,” and “undedicated.” My favorite is when ADHD kids are labeled as “problem students.” Making people with ADHD feel guilty about how their brain works is how most cultures deal with us.

This woman wants me to send her thirty-five dollars because I feel guilty about my ADHD, which I do, of course, I do, but really, that’s none of her business, and I know when I’m being exploited; thank you very much. I know what she’s offering is worthless because I’ve tried so many different doctors, tutors, and coaches, all specifically working on my ADHD, and they’re all the same. You can’t teach a pig to sing; it frustrates you and annoys the pig.

They used to say that ADHD was very specific to your gender and your ethnicity. White and black boys were thought to have it most often, and Asian girls rarely had it. The thinking now is that these differences are probably due to the cultural bias of the tester, not a genetic disposition to having ADHD. If you consider how East Asians feel about productivity and procrastination, then you can see how that might impact how their children are diagnosed. Current thinking is that all children have between an eight and ten percent chance of having ADHD. Even Scottish children like me.

Sometimes, it’s difficult to explain to people we’re now calling “neurotypical” what it’s like to have ADHD. (If I were ever called “neurotypical,” I’d be offended. It’s like being called “average.” Nobody wants to be average.)

Imagine if you’re trying to watch and pay attention to a play while simultaneously trying to converse with your friend. Your friend cannot see the actors in the play, and the actors in the play cannot see your friend. Both are annoyed that they don’t have your full attention, and neither knows why.

Sometimes, people describe ADHD as “background noise,” and it is like that, but it’s background noise that you feel you should pay attention to. Part of what happens with ADHD is that your brain treats all this data flowing in from your senses the same, and the same as your inner voice, which, for people with ADHD, can often be two or three voices at once. What you interpret as “background noise” we interpret as cacophony. Sometimes, these desperate inputs merge in our brains and become what elision is in music; sometimes, it’s just a maddening roar.

I loved my time at St. Andrews, I really did, but I have to be honest with you: most of the guilty feelings I have about my ADHD come from there. Even though Mrs. McEntyre and Mrs. Wills are why I was tested for ADHD and Dyslexia, they weren’t trained to deal with it—although they tried. I would venture to say that in the early seventies, hardly any teachers in Mississippi were trained for this.

I loved Mike Barkett; I really did, but I must have seemed like some demon child to him. Adding extra discipline is a pretty common response to ADHD, but it rarely works. Mike was never like this, but if you ever saw the film “Full Metal Jacket,” you’re familiar with the plotline involving Private Leonard 'Gomer Pyle' Lawrence and Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.

Private Pyle is a Southern Boy who has trouble paying attention and often fears the events around him that he doesn’t understand. Gunny Seargent responds by applying more and more discipline to Pyle. At first, it seems like it’s working, but eventually, the extra discipline causes Pyle to snap, breaking them both.

Watching this at the newly built Northpark Cinema, my companion kept asking, “What’s wrong?” for the rest of the night. Private Pyle is the last person you want to associate with in the film, but I think Kubrick intended for you to, at least as much as you do Private Joker. Kubrick often makes you sympathize with an unlikeable character. He’s making a point.

When I was at St. Andrews, some teachers didn’t understand, but some did. Elizabeth Goodyear said I might be the smartest person in my class. I thought she was trying to make me feel better, so I didn’t believe her. Later, Tom Stemshorn, Dan Rose, and Mitch Myers all expressed similar ideas. I didn’t believe them either. It’s very hard to make an ADHD kid believe they’re supposed to be that way.

As the years wore on, I learned many tools and tricks for dealing with ADHD. It’s very hard to weed out the negative voices and negative feelings about ADHD, but over time, you learn to deal with them. Most writers find procrastination is their biggest problem. I don’t have that. All I need to write is to be awake; then, the words flow right out.

I learned to use writing to deal with my inner voice and inner conflict, and since that’s always there, I can always write. It doesn’t become a matter of forcing it; often, it’s more a matter of stopping it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll write something and realize I have to cut out about half of it because it’s unreasonable to ask people to read all that.

My father didn’t have ADHD. He could focus like a ninja. Daddy rarely used a calculator. I often marveled at his ability to add large columns of numbers in his head. At our monthly management meetings, he would ask each of the seventeen division heads to predict what they would collect and what they would sell in the coming month and write it down on a legal pad. Moments after hearing the last number, he would write down the total on his pad, calculating the collum of seventeen numbers in his head. Since he didn’t say what the total was, most people didn’t know he was doing it, but since I sat next to him, I could see it.

Daddy wanted me to be like him. He thought it’d make me happy. It probably would make me happy if it were true, but it wasn’t. Daddy had been dead for ten years before I ever learned that sometimes he would use his rather imposing presence to correct the thinking of teachers who said I was stupid. I see these people at parties now, and I think, “I’m so sorry he did that to you.” and I am sorry, but he wasn’t wrong. I’m not stupid. I’m not even lazy. If I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I can be the most productive person you ever know. I know people who have been paying their bills with writing for many years and are amazed at my daily output of words.

Now that I’ve “found myself” and made peace with my condition, both of my parents are gone. They never knew me as a fully actualized person. That makes me sad. I think they knew there was always that potential; they just might have wondered if I’d ever get there.

People never used to talk about ADHD. Now that they do, I suppose it’s only natural that somebody try to make a few dollars on it. I’m sure this woman on the internet is perfectly nice. Maybe we’d be friends since we both have ADHD. I won’t be buying her course, though. I can’t say I’d recommend it to somebody else, either. Feelings of guilt and inadequacy are the biggest problem with ADHD, and exploiting that is no way to start a professional relationship.

Self Portrait 1986