When the shiny wears off

I’m feeling very excited about a very pessimistic syndrome.

It works like this:

You’re an adult with ADHD.

You’ve been diagnosed, perhaps medicated, helped by a coach or therapist. Maybe you’ve been inspired by a book. (Focused Forward, I hope.) Things seem to be coming together--your personalized strategies, your ADHD-friendly schedule, your relationships and your general sense of well-being. But then, with no advance notice, your systems go buggy. Once again, you’re fighting with your spouse. You very likely have something to apologize for, but you don’t seem to remember the language of apologies. After all these years, you’re acting like a case history from Driven To Distraction, published in 1994, and you’re out of ideas.

OR

You’re a therapist.

One of your favorite clients, an adult with ADHD who is charming and funny, sometimes tortured but very intelligent--that adult, who was doing so well, suddenly sounds like a case history from Driven to Distraction. You try reviewing strategies that worked in the past, but your client with ADHD wants something new and shiny. Is, in fact, pretty desperate for that shiny new thing. They say:

Everything feels matte. 

What’s wrong with me?

Why am I letting everyone down/having no self-discipline/late on all my bills/depressed?

I thought ADHD went away.

I know someone who was (magically) cured!

Both you and your client are experiencing what I call intervention fatigue.

Intervention fatigue is real. ADHD seldom “goes away.” Plus, the ADHD mind is hardwired to be restless in a way that guarantees most treatments have an expiration date.

That’s just the truth--and I say this as both an adult with ADHD and a therapist who treats adults with ADHD. And I’ve discovered that accepting this truth, which at first seems so stark, can be a positive and powerful experience.

Of course, that’s just the beginning. What happens next? That’s what my second book, When The Shiny Wears Off, is all about. Stay tuned!