I suspect my ADHD journey is not too different from everyone else’s, except that since I grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, there was no such thing as ADHD when I was young. I was always in trouble of one sort or another and back in those days, everyone blamed my poor parents for my erratic behavior.
Well, sometime during high school I discovered long distance running. Amazingly, after running ten miles, I found I could sit still and actually study. I basically ran my way through college and medical school, although looking back on it, I was also hyperfocusing—only this, too, was unknown to me.
When I was about forty-five I read “Driven to Distraction” and it became immediately clear to me that I had ADHD. Having a diagnosis explained so much of my past, but it took a lot of work and time for me to understand how this new knowledge could also be used to improve my current quality of life and my relationships.
I always felt like I wanted to give back to the ADHD community and possibly share some of the things I’ve learned along the way. I know there are hundreds of self-help books on ADHD (trust me, I’ve read quite a few), but I never discovered a work of fiction about ADHD. So I finally decided to write a novel in which the protagonist has ADHD and I based much of the story on my own experiences. I’m hoping that readers with ADHD, or with a loved one with ADHD, will find this story both instructive and inspirational. The name of the book is “Band of Wild Ones” and it can be found on Amazon.
Thanks.