It occurred to me the other day, ADHD has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. Let's just think for a moment about the jobs I have either lost or been forced to quit, the grades I fell short on in school and of course, my abysmal credit rating. It is expensive to be poor in this country, but it is financial suicide to have an undiagnosed learning disability.
I started out in my professional world working as a PR writer. My first job was writing for the public relations wing of Subway Restaurants. I discovered a letter from one Jared Fogle stating that he lost a few hundred pounds of fat eating Subway. I found it because I was bored out of mind one day and some how couldn't focus on the mind numbing task I was ordered to do as a new hire and was sifting through junk mail to waste time. Ah if I could just have focused on my work, the world may never have met the man who made Subway synonymous with pedophilia, but such as the world of ADHD turns.
My next job was writing as a cub reporter for a weekly newspaper in Wilton, CT. I was good reporter and wrote some decent articles for a defunct subsidiary of The Norwalk Hour, The Wilton Villager. Unfortunately, as was the case for most of my academia, I was disorganized and my notes were a hodgepodge of mess that only I could decipher. When a Fire Captain met me behind City Hall with the first selectman and threatened to kick my ass for publishing a piece about the fire readiness of the McMansions of Wilton, I tucked tail and ran. Apparently, the news that the white privileged yuppies would burn to death in their woodland homes because suburban sprawl did not include fire hydrants did not reflect well on the political elites of the bedroom community of Connecticut's gold coast.I failed to produce the notes that proved that was what the fire chief had actually said and decided my skin was not thick enough for investigative journalism. It was easier to quit than admit I was over my head.
That's when I went sailing. It appealed to my scattered nature and didn't require me to read anything. I was young and energetic and sitting at a desk for me was a fate worse than death. And so I took a job teaching sailing at Longshore Sailing School where my tan would improve and my inability to focus could be camouflaged. I hid behind a sail during the day, and hid behind a control board at night where I morphed from a print reporter into a radio newsman.
Radio for me required none of the attention trappings of print and all of the fun of journalism with no need for reading. The news pieces were at most 60 seconds and the writing was short, pithy and conversational. The key for radio, is to keep it light and short because the world is just as ADHD as I am. What no one told me though is Howard Stern wasn't going anywhere and to make a living in radio was in essence the same as finding a Unicorn. Realizing I was 27 and going no where, I decided TV was a better bet and applied to the Science Journalism program at Boston University.
While all this was going on, I bounced from the occasional relationship to the occasional relationship but never really connecting with anyone. A late 20's man in Fairfield County was destined to get married and have babies IF they had the income to do so. As I was still figuring out how to make a living, a wife and kids weren't in the cards for me. Its well proven that married folks do better economically and my inability to pick an employer, made it difficult to pick a partner and that made it difficult to build a bank account. ADHD cost me not a just a job, but also economic stability.
In Boston, I found focus but not an income. I would spend days on end watching a flickering video monitor in an editing booth overlooking Comm Ave in the BU School of Communications. I loved using a camera, writing a script and making videos but I hated science journalism. That's not to say I hated making videos about Nobel Laureates and writing scripts about mapping the Turkey Genome. Just writing articles for magazines, which is what science journalism at that time was, made my skin crawl. So I tacked left and finished my degree doing Broadcast Journalism and pretending I wanted work for CNN.
Upon graduation, I was told I was three credits shy of a degree due to the fact that I switched programs. To make that up, my adviser told me I could write a ten page article about anything I wanted to write about. Did I mention I have ADHD and he might as well have asked me to drain Boston Harbor with a straw? I puked three pages of drivel onto his desk about ethics in journalism or some damn thing and promised that I would never try to get a job in broadcast journalism ever in my life. He agreed and allowed me to graduate but 15 years later and some $100,000 in student loan debt, I wonder did BU do me any favors?
I left BU and turned 30. I started a non-profit teaching sailing, earned a captains license and muddled my way through the next 10 years. I can't imagine how many things I fucked up in that 10 year period but looking back on the decisions I made and the wreckage that I left behind with Connecticut Community Boating, I can safely assume that I fucked up a lot. I lost my home to foreclosure, defaulted on at least a dozen credit cards and drove my credit rating into the sewer. And then my 40's hit.
My marriage is the high point of my life thus far. It is the one right thing I have done to get me on track and help me build the life I was supposed to have. And it was because I found my wife that I finally figured out that I am ADHD and that I need a little extra help to make it through the work week. A little understanding, a little medication and a little therapy clears the windshield and puts the cockpit in order for take off. I am not saying I am out of the woods quite yet. I once again am in financial ruin and working to dig my wife and myself out of the latest ditch I dragged our life in to. But as of tomorrow I will have completed one month of life after diagnosis, and I think the the coast is clear now.
I started out in my professional world working as a PR writer. My first job was writing for the public relations wing of Subway Restaurants. I discovered a letter from one Jared Fogle stating that he lost a few hundred pounds of fat eating Subway. I found it because I was bored out of mind one day and some how couldn't focus on the mind numbing task I was ordered to do as a new hire and was sifting through junk mail to waste time. Ah if I could just have focused on my work, the world may never have met the man who made Subway synonymous with pedophilia, but such as the world of ADHD turns.My next job was writing as a cub reporter for a weekly newspaper in Wilton, CT. I was good reporter and wrote some decent articles for a defunct subsidiary of The Norwalk Hour, The Wilton Villager. Unfortunately, as was the case for most of my academia, I was disorganized and my notes were a hodgepodge of mess that only I could decipher. When a Fire Captain met me behind City Hall with the first selectman and threatened to kick my ass for publishing a piece about the fire readiness of the McMansions of Wilton, I tucked tail and ran. Apparently, the news that the white privileged yuppies would burn to death in their woodland homes because suburban sprawl did not include fire hydrants did not reflect well on the political elites of the bedroom community of Connecticut's gold coast.I failed to produce the notes that proved that was what the fire chief had actually said and decided my skin was not thick enough for investigative journalism. It was easier to quit than admit I was over my head.
 |
| I threw out the paper where the article I wrote about the Wilton Fire Chief was published- this was a second article I wrote when the next village over's fire chief wanted to respond. |
That's when I went sailing. It appealed to my scattered nature and didn't require me to read anything. I was young and energetic and sitting at a desk for me was a fate worse than death. And so I took a job teaching sailing at Longshore Sailing School where my tan would improve and my inability to focus could be camouflaged. I hid behind a sail during the day, and hid behind a control board at night where I morphed from a print reporter into a radio newsman.
Radio for me required none of the attention trappings of print and all of the fun of journalism with no need for reading. The news pieces were at most 60 seconds and the writing was short, pithy and conversational. The key for radio, is to keep it light and short because the world is just as ADHD as I am. What no one told me though is Howard Stern wasn't going anywhere and to make a living in radio was in essence the same as finding a Unicorn. Realizing I was 27 and going no where, I decided TV was a better bet and applied to the Science Journalism program at Boston University.
While all this was going on, I bounced from the occasional relationship to the occasional relationship but never really connecting with anyone. A late 20's man in Fairfield County was destined to get married and have babies IF they had the income to do so. As I was still figuring out how to make a living, a wife and kids weren't in the cards for me. Its well proven that married folks do better economically and my inability to pick an employer, made it difficult to pick a partner and that made it difficult to build a bank account. ADHD cost me not a just a job, but also economic stability.
In Boston, I found focus but not an income. I would spend days on end watching a flickering video monitor in an editing booth overlooking Comm Ave in the BU School of Communications. I loved using a camera, writing a script and making videos but I hated science journalism. That's not to say I hated making videos about Nobel Laureates and writing scripts about mapping the Turkey Genome. Just writing articles for magazines, which is what science journalism at that time was, made my skin crawl. So I tacked left and finished my degree doing Broadcast Journalism and pretending I wanted work for CNN.
Upon graduation, I was told I was three credits shy of a degree due to the fact that I switched programs. To make that up, my adviser told me I could write a ten page article about anything I wanted to write about. Did I mention I have ADHD and he might as well have asked me to drain Boston Harbor with a straw? I puked three pages of drivel onto his desk about ethics in journalism or some damn thing and promised that I would never try to get a job in broadcast journalism ever in my life. He agreed and allowed me to graduate but 15 years later and some $100,000 in student loan debt, I wonder did BU do me any favors?
I left BU and turned 30. I started a non-profit teaching sailing, earned a captains license and muddled my way through the next 10 years. I can't imagine how many things I fucked up in that 10 year period but looking back on the decisions I made and the wreckage that I left behind with Connecticut Community Boating, I can safely assume that I fucked up a lot. I lost my home to foreclosure, defaulted on at least a dozen credit cards and drove my credit rating into the sewer. And then my 40's hit.
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| On the back of this photo read the words, "The Best Day Ever" in my wife's handwriting. I fully agree. |
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