A$$hole or ADHD?

I am not a visual person.

I’m an “everything is so much more interesting inside my head, ooooh, look at the fancy cerebrum wallpaper!” person. My eyes are permanently turned brainwards to observe the truly interior design.

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t notice things around me. Like, very obvious things. Like the time my friend Candy watched as my husband said, “Shari, seriously?” because I had left

every

single

cabinet

door

wide

open

in the kitchen and I literally had no idea why he was annoyed and Candy thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. I didn’t see the wide open cabinet doors because they were outside of my head.

Inside my head are stories. Mind movies. If I ever manage to focus on anything outside, it’s more stories. Books, movies, podcasts, conversations where a story is being told. If there’s a story involved, I’m there. Inside it, living it, seeing it played against the backdrop of my fancy brain wallpaper.

Which brings us to my gym routine.

When I go to the gym, I want two things to happen.

1. I want my body to grow muscles.

2. I want to listen to my true crime and murder podcasts because they are stories and so that my muscly body will not get murdered or have a true crime committed against it after I leave the gym.

That’s it.

I don’t want to talk, socialize, look at anybody else’s taut body and wish it were mine, shoot the shit with a trainer, or complain to another gym rat that the water in the fountain is tepid and probably full of bacteria and how about that Cyclospora outbreak, huh bro, good luck with that ‘splosive diarrhea, godspeed.

Last week, I was at the gym growing my muscles and listening to a podcast about Paul Fronczak, a baby who was abducted from a hospital in 1964 and a year later they found him and returned him to his parents except IT WASN’T ACTUALLY PAUL because they gave Mrs. Fronczak THE WRONG BABY and she raised THE WRONG BABY his entire life--

My husband entered the gym and waved to me.

I did not see my husband.

--And baby Paul Fronczak who WASN’T really Paul Fronczak grew up and got a DNA test and found out that HE WAS RAISED BY THE WRONG FAMILY and his real name was Jack Rosenthal and his real parents ABANDONED him and he had a TWIN SISTER WHO ALSO DISAPPEARED—

I got on a stationary bike two bikes down from my husband and he waved.

I did not see my husband.

--And years later when they found the REAL Paul Fronczak whose FAKE name was Kevin Baty, he didn’t know that he was A KIDNAPPED BABY and he only got to talk to his REAL MOTHER, POOR MRS. FRONCZAK on the phone one time before he DIED OF CANCER--

My husband pulled out his phone and recorded me pedaling on the bike.

I did not see my husband pull out his phone and record me on the bike.

--Because Jack Rosenthal is STILL looking for his lost twin sister WHOSE NAME WAS JILL OMIGOD YES JACK AND JILL AND WHAT COULD BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT??!

**********

To be fair, in the 1990s, not a lot of folks really knew how neurodivergence presented in women, so no one understood what was happening with me.

Even me. Especially me.

I didn’t want to space out, daydream, constantly lose things, forget to pay bills, miss appointments, suffer so badly from social anxiety that every new interaction felt like facing a firing squad, function well for a whole month and then fall off an emotional cliff, or do great in a highly structured school setting and then barely be able to manage real life.

And I certainly didn’t know why I could lock in on a movie or book so intently that I would be able to remember entire scenes word for word afterwards, but then repeatedly put my purse on the roof of my car while I unlocked the door and then drive away so my purse flew off and my wallet/lipstick/tissues/receipts/Chapstick/gum wrappers ended up on the road.

ADHD Hyperfocus: a state of intense prolonged concentration where a person becomes completely absorbed in a specific task or activity (creative arts, digital media, hobbies, etc.), often losing track of time and ignoring their surroundings. PROS: Boosts deep creativity and accelerates learning. CONS: Causes time blindness, missed appointments, neglect of basic needs, and strained personal relationships.

In the ICOC, we were encouraged to help our brothers and sisters by counseling and “rebuking” one other when we saw what we assumed was evidence of sin, godlessness, weak character, idolatry, etc. Gee, what could go wrong with that? Remember when I talked about a little bit of power effing people up?

I had moved into a “sister household” because I was told I could no longer live with my gay male roommate as it was unrighteous. (Yes, I have apologized to him.) One night in our apartment, I watched the movie “Truly, Madly, Deeply” about a woman who was in despair after her boyfriend died. I did my usual intense lock-in on the film, absorbing it into my bones and afterwards, I couldn’t stop crying from all the emotions it brought up. I went to my roommates, sobbing, full of questions and doubts and fears about God and Hell and Death.

They decided to help me by skipping right over the counseling and going straight to the rebuking.

I was told to get over myself. That I worshipped at the altar of my emotions. That I idolized media rather than the Almighty God, amen. That while I was watching movies and crying about fake people, real people around me were going to Hell. And the big one:

“You are the most self-absorbed person I’ve ever met.”

I think I literally stopped breathing for moment.

Then I sucked in some air… and decided she was right.

All the mistakes, the failures, the distractedness, the scatteredness, the inward focus, the social anxiety, the depression, it was all because I was so selfish, sinful, and self-absorbed.

I held onto this mindset for years. Even after this woman apologized and said she’d been wrong, I was certain it was all my fault and I was fundamentally and irrevocably broken. No great shocker, this thinking primed me for years of bad theology, unquestioned obedience to questionable authority, wonky status games in relationships, and sometimes, outright abuse (many other stories for many other days).

So now, when my husband and friends are amused at my hyperfocus rather than some rando church lady telling me I’m a sinner for listening to podcasts when people around me are on their way to Hell, I feel a tremendous sense of relief. As my friend Nadine says, it’s amazing to not wake up anxious anymore.

BUT CAN YOU BELIEVE THEY GAVE MRS. FRONCZAK THE WRONG BABY?!