Okay. Let’s start with the last one first. I don’t know you well enough to talk about my sex life just yet.

I’ve been buzzed since I was a kid. More accurately — buzzing. Like a bee, from one thing to another. I could never sit still. Still can’t. When I was a kid, I drove my mom crazy. “Why don’t you just light somewhere?” she’d yell, exasperated. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized she meant, sit down already!

When I was growing up, there was a TV show called All in the Family. It was about a stereotypical all-American W.A.S.P. family in the early 70s. The head of the family, Archie Bunker, was fond of telling his wife Edith to stifle herself, something no man would say to me — and live. And yet, for the first 47 years of my life, I didn’t need a blue-collared patriarch to tell me to stifle myself — I learned to do that on my own — or pay the price.

Egads! Whose idea was it to give ADHD girl Google Analytics (GA)? Like, do I really need to know where all my blog visitors come from? Do you have any idea how much time I can waste scrutinizing the minutiae, analysing statistics, and enjoying the pretty colors of the pie charts? Wait, that makes it sound too academic. That stuff’s important to me, but it’s only a small part of the seduction of Google Analytics to an ADHD mind.

In Part I of our three-part series of ADHD basics, we talked about the pros versus cons of embracing the label itself. In Part II, we tried to find a definition for ADHD.

We conclude this series by asking, “Where does ADHD come from?” (and it ain’t from the cabbage patch).

“The tremendous good news is if you get the diagnosis and you get proper treatment, not only can you avoid all those disasters, you can achieve spectacular success.”

– Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, in A.D.D. & Loving it?! Trailer on totallyadd.com

Woo-hoo! I like the sound of that! I’ve also come across the message that, of all the mental health disorders, ADHD is the easiest to treat. If only. For me, it’s like being the guy who drowns, just before they decide to install life preservers at the beach because of the guy who drowned.

In Monday’s blog post, we weighed the merits of name-no-name: are we cool with being labeled with ADHD? I came down on the side of, yes, I am. My goal is to learn everything I can about what that means for me, and to eventually transcend identifying with the label ADHD.

I couldn’t wait to read Here’s the Deal: Don’t Touch Me, Howie Mandel‘s recently published memoir. Finally, it arrived in the local library, where I’d put it on hold. The first thing I noticed was the cover: it looks like Howie’s standing inside a giant white currant. Gardeners like me will like this.

Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

–Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Ah, the famous Shakespeare quote from Romeo and Juliet. Silly, silly Juliet.

What’s in a name? Plenty, sister. My salvation, for one.

“Just as a pair of glasses help the nearsighted person focus, so can medication help the person with ADD see the world more clearly.”

–Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., and John J. Ratey, M.D., Driven to Distraction

Huh?

Did I read that right? I better go get my glasses…