We All Struggle with Something

We name things to help us understand them, and to create a shared knowledge with our fellow human beings. I sometimes get fascinated by language, and trying to figure out how even the simplest of words -- dog, cat, dodecahedron -- came to be. Naming things, however, can put people on a slippery slope. Nobody wants to be defined too narrowly by elements of their character or physical presentation.

Look at me and you might think, "White nerd with glasses." You would be right about that, but there's so much more going on. I play guitar, I love the Red Sox and Bruins, I make terrible "dad jokes," I love Public Enemy and Funkadelic, I love to wander around in strange places taking photos, I have arthritic big toes and a bad hip.

One label I don't mind tagging myself with, though, is person with Attention Deficit Disorder.

More than three years ago, I diagnosed myself with ADD (see November 28, 2018, "ADD Me to the List"). Read the linked post to get the full story on it. I want to reiterate one point, though: realizing there was a name for the collective struggles I had battled my whole life gave me some freedom. I no longer worried that I was crazy or stupid or lazy. Finding the right "tag" for myself was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

In my new memoir, Great/Dismal: My Four-Month Tour of Duty on the Battleship Patchouli, amid the highway hijinks and visits to Graceland, New Orleans and Memphis, the exploration of Albuquerque, the punk rock shows, the flashbacks to college, there is self-analysis. I didn't have as much fun during my adventure as I thought I would, and for years I had no idea why.

During the course of writing the book, I began to put together a better picture of why I struggled, with the light finally shining when I realized I had both ADD and executive function issues. Those two things combined make it difficult for me to plan ahead and stay on task, take things as they come and be more spontanous.

We all struggle with something: hearing loss, flat feet, bipolar disorder, taking care of a sick relative, narcissism, a love of REO Speedwagon. I hope my book will show readers that it's never too late to figure yourself out, and that discovering the name for what you struggle against can be incredibly empowering.

Below is "Cross Bones Style," the only song I know by Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall. She has struggled with mental health issues, so I feel it's appropriate to share her song here.