This post will be so personal that I have doubts about sharing. But authenticity requires honesty. Besides, I desperately need to get organized and disentangled, and a blog I already pay for seems like a perfectly good site for that effort. Maybe someone else will benefit from my efforts to get myself together.

I read that line and think “Aspiring Life Coach Alert! Emergency! Everybody to get from street! Emergency! Everybody to get from street!” For those who have never seen the movie “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” here’s a fun link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El03KPUeQc4.

So what am I realizing as I relax and write in the blue room, or Marianos, or the hospital bed, or wherever? The fact that I am ADHD to a high degree does not come as any lightening bolt from the cloudless, clear, blue sky. I knew that. What I did not realize was the extent to which my job protected me from that fact. As the literature indicates, many ADHD persons are capable of what is called “hyperfocus.” To steal a definition from the internet: “Hyperfocus is the experience of deep and intense concentration in people with ADHD. ADHD is not necessarily a deficit of attention, but rather a problem with regulating one’s attention span. So, while mundane tasks may be difficult to focus on, others may be completely absorbing.”

Well, ummm… yes. I always did my homework in loud restaurants, beaches or other public venues when possible. The more noise, the easier it seemed to concentrate. I still work to music and the TV regularly. “Cops” helps me concentrate. I can’t think how many papers I have graded with Cops, Family Feud or Snapped in the background. My attention span seems to benefit from excluding background stimuli. I can sit for longer when the world’s less quiet.

I am frequently at my best in a crisis, at least the right kind of crisis. Problem-solving mode kicks in and, damn, do I enjoy solving problems. Critical thinking under pressure suits me. I think that’s why I chose the job that seemed to mystify many of my friends. Why do you teach there? They would ask.

My job was a perpetual crisis of one kind or another. On some level, I liked that. I liked swerving around the glass in the parking lot. I liked talking down hysterical students in hallways. I liked helping kids who genuinely needed my help, and North Chicago was filled with struggling kids who needed an advocate, not to mention a whole lot of remedial math and English. In many ways, the job was perfect. Even the grade level might have been perfect; when you are looking for trouble, finding a seventh grader has to be good place to start.

But I am realizing now that I relied on that craziness to keep me organized. Ironically, managing 12 tasks seems much easier to me than managing 4 tasks. The job forced me into hyperfocus, where I was at my best, or at least my most efficient. I am dropping balls now unintentionally and postponing tasks that are not urgent. I am scattered. Where is that stupid charge card? Why do I have to pick up the phone charger from the hospital?

Eduhonesty: I am going to have to create a more efficient system for managing my daily life, filled with lists and phone alerts, until I get a handle on the new routine. Then I strongly suspect I will turn off the phone. Or I will lose the file and/or paper on which I have recorded my new system. I may just neglect to look at that file as it sits waiting for me on an electronic device somewhere.  I am pretty sure daily routines are not me.

But I could use a few more of them. Work made those routines necessary. I did not appreciate that advantage to my position until recently.