

Attention Deficit Disorder:

Random Thoughts of an A.D.D. Mind

By J. Dee German

Copyright Notice : This free book has no copyright restrictions. It may be used and distributed by anyone to anyone.

E-Books by J. D. German

Fiction

The Hermetrius Conspiracy – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #1

The Forsetti Solution – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #2

Revenge, Inc. – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #3

The Malthus Strategy

Hostile Takeover

Peacekeeper

The Priceless Linen: A Fictional History of Christ's Burial Cloth

Non-Fiction

Christian Principles – Food for Thought

Random Thoughts of an A.D.D. Mind

The above books can be downloaded free from smashwords . com / profile / view / jdeegerman (no spaces). They are available in formats that can be read on a PC, tablet computers, and E-readers.
FOREWARD

My Lifelong Affair With A.D.H.D

This book is a compilation of posts – Chapters - taken from my blog Random Thoughts of an A.D.D. Mind. These fifteen Chapter s were written over an eight-year period from 2009 to 2017. They cover a variety of the disjointed thoughts flittering through my mind that may be of interest to someone else. But since I have experienced ADD for most of my 73 years, I will also offer a few words of comfort and wisdom for ADDers and their families. Note that I use A.D.D. and A.D.H.D interchangeably. The medical profession, especially the branch of psychiatry, have formal definitions that try to differentiate between the two based on a variety of ever-changing factors, so I just call both of them ADD, and those who are blessed with it I call ADDers.

Whether you have ADD or not, you'll find these blog Chapters humorous, interesting and enjoyable. I'll discuss how ADD has affected me, some tips on dealing with it, and the insights, wisdom, and humor it brought me. Read, enjoy, and learn.
Chapter 1 – Not Another Blog Site!

This blog is not about anything in particular. It's about the disjointed thoughts flittering through my mind that may be of interest to someone else. I have only one qualification for authoring this blog – I have ADD _[or ADHD or ADHD-I or AADD or whatever acronym the experts come up with next]_. I had all the classic symptoms when I was a child, but back then (early 1950s) ADD wasn't even a gleam in a pharmaceutical executive's eye. So I was "diagnosed" as an unruly boy who couldn't pay attention in school. _[How could I? My mind was off somewhere having adventures with my favorite comic book characters.]_

Unlike many ADDers, my gift persisted into adulthood, so what was childhood unruliness became adult weirdness – someone who never really listened to what others were saying, who was forgetful and distracted from the task at hand, who could not even stay focused on the relationships with his family. But people with ADD or an ADD child shouldn't be discouraged by such labels because the same gene that gave us ADD also blessed many of us with a highly creative mind and the ability to jump from one idea to another faster than a speeding bullet, to leap tall obstacles and see alternative outcomes on the other side, to fly with our thoughts and cover more territory in an hour than a non-ADDer can in a day.

These qualities turned out to be valuable in the profession I drifted into - I grew up to be a research scientist with several patents and a rewarding career that I can look back on with pride. I was fortunate that ADD wasn't a disease, condition, or syndrome when I was young. My parents dealt with me by giving constant reminders to "control yourself", to not talk so much or so loud or interrupt, to concentrate in school so I would learn what I was supposed to. But no doctor told them to drug me, no teacher said that I was too disruptive in class and would have to leave until my parents agreed to drug me.

Getting back to what I said in my opening sentence [After being distracted from the direction I thought I was going], this blog will be mainly about random thoughts and ideas that pop into my mind, often from an unidentifiable stimulus. I will, however, spend a little time in each blog Chapter talking of things related to my ADD experience. But because each ADD person has a different mix and degree of ADD characteristics [I won't call them symptoms because they are simply a part how we are – more on this in a later blog], my experiences may not be relevant to many other ADDers. But I'll talk about them anyway in the hope that someone might be encouraged by my experiences.

Since I've promised you some random thoughts, here are a few that have come to me over the years. I make no claim of authorship or originality in anything I write. Pretty much everything we think of has come to us from outside sources in one form or another. What we really do when we write or think is take the sum total of everything we know and extract bits and pieces, which we reconnect to tell what we want to say. This process of reconnection is called synthesis [or plagiarism if we don't extract small enough pieces from our knowledge base before reassembling them. I wonder where synthesis ends and plagiarism begins?] Anyway, here's my first random thoughts to hold you until my next Chapter .

**Hanging Up**   
I saw the movie Hanging Up (Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow) several years ago and the overall theme had a lot of meaning for me. The theme (at least the way my mind saw it) was:

**If your past calls, hang up!**

The context is that we are all, to some extent, controlled by the hurts, fears and relationships of our past. If we let them, they will dominate our present and future. To break free, we must learn to hang up on them when they call. But there are two big obstacles in applying this concept.  
First, we must learn to recognize when it is our past on the "phone". Just like the sales calls you get at dinner time, your past is very good at disguising itself and its intentions, and will create any number of rational reasons for your not-so-rational behavior. The second difficulty is understanding why the past is calling and why we let ourselves be deceived into believing that it is not the past on the phone. The metaphor for this is the phone salesman who says "You have be selected to receive a $100,000 life insurance policy and it won't cost you a cent." The first time or two we get a telephone call like this, we may believe it, but eventually we learn to see it for the lie that it is and hang up immediately on the salesman. So it is that we must learn to recognize the "lie" that our past is trying to sell us and hang up immediately, before it can start to make us believe the lie . If we can overcome these two obstacles and apply this concept, we will have the power to hang up on our past.

**And a Couple of Aphorisms (Which I'll include in most of my Chapter s)**

_Aphorism – A brief statement of a truth or principle; an adage._

Losing Weight is easy – When your stomach calls, hang up.

It's better to go through life being naive rather than paranoid. A naive person gets screwed now and then. A paranoid person still gets screwed now and then, but spends all of his or her time worrying about getting screwed.

Chapter 2 – Look, a Chicken!

Most of you, especially ADDers, recognize the title of this Chapter from a T-shirt slogan that goes "I don't have ADD. I just . . . Look, a chicken!" The slogan comes, of course, from the apparent inability of ADD. people to stay focused on whatever task they trying to complete. Based on my personal experience, I have found the problem not to be an inability to focus, but rather an inability to keep my mind from jumping to the high-speed stream of other things that pass through it. I'll cover more on this next time, after I capture some other random thoughts that are flying by. But first a reminder: everything in this blog comes from my unique, lifelong experience with ADD, which is of moderate severity. [See Chapter 1]. No one else's ADD. experience, symptoms, severity, or adaptation to the world around them will be the same.

On The Inner Need for Significance

Life is an unending quest for significance. We all have a deep inner need to be "somebody." It starts in early childhood when we seek our parents' love and attention. If they respond, then we know we are important to them. If they ignore us, then we try other things to get them to notice us - misbehavior, temper tantrums, picking a fight with a sibling – anything that will make us feel like we not invisible and insignificant.

As we go through life, this search for significance shows up as the deep need for approval, respect, power, control, and feeling valued. Meeting this need in one or more of the above ways protects us from facing the fear of insignificance. I believe all these behaviors are different aspects of one fundamental need – to be significant.

There's nothing wrong with this inner need to be significant. It's the power source that drives our motivation for good grades, athletic supremacy, excellence in all aspects of our lives and, ultimately, in our search for a lifetime mate who will continually remind us that we are special, at least to them. The problem arises when we let this need for significance control our behavior. It can drive us to words and actions that are wrong – socially, morally and sometimes legally. If this need is strong enough, the inner self may even make us lie to ourselves so that we believe there's nothing wrong with what we are doing. ["Hey, everyone else is doing it."] If we want to be honest, good people we must be constantly on guard against such behavior and rationalizations for it.

To truly know one's self is a scary thing and not to be attempted by the faint of heart. Many people are content to believe they are who they seem to be and who others see them as. But to dig beneath that veneer is a scary thing. It seems to me that a male mid-life crisis isn't about a need to prove that you still got it, but more like an attempt to distract one's self from the emerging inner real self – to keep the psyche/inner child/inner self from making you really look in a mirror and see yourself as you really are. Like I said . . .scary stuff!  [rent the movie "Man of La Mancha" to see a really great metaphor for this.] There are many other examples in fiction and real life that are usually labeled as "a journey of self discovery." My personal experience is that there are many stops along that journey, where you think you have arrived, but you haven't because your subconscious only gives up its secrets a little at a time.

"Do not let your perceptions become your reality." Pastor Adrian Rogers
Chapter 3 - The Fully Engaged Mind

_I found a web site with hundreds of completions to the sentence_ _You know you have ADD when..._. [http://www.fdisk.com/cgi-bin/add/youknow.pl] One that I liked was "You know you have ADD when your condition is diagnosed as ADD without Hyperactivity, and you find yourself envying the ADHD crowd because they can move faster-than-light when they hyperfocus, while you're stuck on impulse power." This is an example of what I brought up in Chapter 2 and promised more thoughts on it. The problem is not necessarily an inability to focus, but rather an inability to keep the mind from jumping to the high-speed stream of other stuff passing through it. Here's my hypothesis on this:

The ADD mind has a need to keep itself fully occupied and, when it's not, it will turn to other thoughts to fill it up.

If what the ADDer is trying to focus on can provide this filling, the mind won't be as likely to look for other things to make up the "thought deficit." If this is generally true, then ADDers should find ways to make the task at hand keep their mind running at full capacity (speed and quantity of information.) I see two ways to do this: (1) provide a faster input, or (2) provide input that is more of a mental challenge. The most effective and widely useful approach in applying #1 to written material is to learn speed reading. Computer software is available to train you in speed reading, but taking a course would provide the structure and discipline an ADDer would need. The high rate of input that speed reading provides will keep the high-speed ADD mind more fully occupied, even if the material is not particularly interesting. Another useful approach to employing strategy #1 is learning speed-typing for the computer. Isaac Asimov typed 160 words a minute, but didn't bother with punctuation and capitalizing. He fixed that later when it wouldn't interrupt his thoughts. Using flash cards is a good learning approach for children because the cards can be flipped quickly to keep up with their fast-moving mind. Adding a per-card time limit with the flashcards helps increase the mental challenge. Later, switchng to a per-deck time limit would help the student learn to allocate time under pressure, which is a useful tool for effective test taking.

Strategy #2 – making the input more of a mental challenge – means selecting reading material, conversation partners, or audio-visual input that is inherently complex. If you're sitting there listening to a boring lecture, there's not much you can do about it. However, with practice, you can learn to partition your mind and mentally multi-task, keeping track of two or more progressing thought tracks at one time without losing focus on either. For example, at a typical business meeting you only need less than half your mind to catch the important things you need to hear. The rest of your mind can be focusing on whatever you choose, like your plans for the weekend. The key is to make it something you choose rather than letting your mind grab a random thought passing through – like how hot the new secretary is.

_Aphorisms by Dee_

"You seldom can change other people's behavior. What you can change is how you react to it."

Chapter 4 - Does ADD Make You Smart?

_"Intelligence is the ability to solve problems through reasoning and creative application of knowledge." A cynic's rejoinder: "Intelligence is whatever an intelligence test measures."_ _Robert Pearson, psychologist and intelligence testing expert._

A web search will turn up conflicting opinions about whether ADDers tend to have a higher intelligence than "normal" people – both as children and adults. The key to understanding this issue is the age-old question "How do you measure intelligence?" Is the best measure a standard I.Q. test? Or maybe it should be one the more recent metrics such as emotional or social intelligence scores.

In my opinion, none of these metrics are necessarily valid for determining the intelligence of an ADDer because scoring high requires that the subject stay focused and work quickly. But staying focused is exactly the behavior that is so difficult for ADDers, and why should working quickly have anything to do with intelligence? Most ADDers can think faster than a bluegrass fiddler. In fact, while part of their brain is trying to figure out the answer to an I.Q. test question, the other 90% is flitting from idea to idea like a butterfly in a flower garden. It's an even worse tragedy that I.Q. tests are often used to diagnose ADD! In this case, a low score is merely a measure of one's ability to pay attention and stay focused and has little or nothing to do with I.Q. But guess what? That low I.Q. score labels the ADDer as "dumb", guaranteeing that he or she won't be afforded the educational attention provided for normal and bright students. Furthermore the ADDer, upon learning of this low score, will suffer an added blow to an already low self-esteem.  
So, how do you determine the true intelligence of an ADD child or adult? How about testing their creativity by asking how quickly they can come up with a dozen uses for a hammer, or a pencil, or a piece of chewing gum, or a bra? There's no doubt about it – McGiver was ADD.

But life is about much more than "intelligence." Recent studies show that ADDers often excel in creativity and imagination. Their mind can flit from idea to idea like a bumblebee, and search out those thoughts with the sweetest nectar. Non ADDers are more likely to spend too much time at a each flower – assessing it, seeing how it might fit their need, calculating what percent of their required daily sweetness intake it would fulfill. But in a role where creativity is king – the arts, engineering, writing, video game design, scientific research, fashion design – any job that involves developing, designing, and creating new applications, brainstorming, interactions among machine parts or people – an ADDer is more likely to be successful than someone with only intelligence to draw from. Keep this in mind when selecting a career path for yourself or your ADD child.

**Aphorisms by Dee**

_" Serendipity and Synergism – The parents of opportunity"_

Thoughts to Ponder

"Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool, he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself alone, which it behooves him to regulate well." - Blaise Pascal
Chapter 5 – Father and Son

In a conventional family from the time little boys can begin to control their behavior their goal is to please their parents, to win their parents' approval, affection, compliments and, the golden prize, their love. [This is also true of girls, but I'm going to focus on the father-son relationship and what happens to it as the boy grows up.] Of course the child doesn't know this. All he knows is that when he can overcome his willfulness to do what he wants and instead do what they want him to do, they respond with actions that make him feel good. In some cases the action is simply that they quit yelling at him – but this feels better that the usual stream of verbal abuse.

We like to believe that, once we "grow up" [whenever that is – where's the dividing line when we are officially "grown up"?] that we are in control of our lives, that we no longer need daddy's approval in our lives. For most of us this is a lie that we tell our selves. As young adults and even into middle age, we still tell our fathers about our successes and keep our failures from him, always seeking that elusive "Good job, son."

I once heard a quote attributed to Freud that focuses on this issue: "A boy doesn't truly become a man until his father dies." I think this means that as long as we're driven by the need for our father's approval we aren't completely free to think and act like a rational, mature individual. And we may not be free even after our father dies; we may turn to father figures for this approval – other men in our lives whom we look up to and try to please.

Don't get me wrong. A child's need for approval plays an important role in teaching him to overcome his willfulness and in creating a productive, goal-oriented adult. But it causes trouble when he grows up with a need to please others, a compulsion to seek the love he missed as a child with a poor imitation – approval. It pervades every aspect of their life – they're driven to please their spouse [an extremely difficult task at best], to look good to their associates and managers at work, to feel pleased with themselves whenever they get approval, and hate themselves when they fall short of the perceived expectations of others. They are controlled by this inner need to please and we hate ourselves for it. Often we try to compensate by becoming controllers. If only we can control the world around us, maybe we won't feel as powerless under the control of our craving for approval. At some point this all falls apart! We call this a mid-life crisis.

My comments here, while relevant to my life, certainly aren't applicable to every ADD boy/man. There must be boys whose fathers showed their love in many other ways so that the child didn't develop his sense of self-worth based mostly on approval. Or maybe boys who had no father in their lives never developed this need. But even then, I think, boys will attach their need for a father's approval elsewhere – a grandfather, a teacher, . . . or a gang leader.

An interesting question just occurred to me: Why isn't the need for his mother's approval the same? The craving for a father's approval is unique. Maybe it's because a good mother comes closer to showing her son unconditional love not based on approval?

What's ADD got to do with it?

When a boy has ADD, when it's difficult or impossible for him to "behave himself", he seldom gets the approval feedback he needs from his father. (I discuss this further in Chapter 10). What an ADD boy gets is mostly negative feedback, which impedes the development of a healthy sense of self worth, of loveableness. His response can go one of two ways. Either he tries harder and harder to get dad's approval and, in failing, becomes an "approval-holic" adult, wanting to please everyone, or he gives up seeking approval from anyone and grows into a . . . what? A drop-out, a social misfit, a serious underachiever, a sociopath? I went the approvalholic route, so I can't speak for those who took the other road, but I suspect many of them ended up in trouble. I've read that prison inmates and drug addicts have a larger proportion of ADD men than the general adult population.

The bigger question is whether, in knowing and understanding the unique paternal approval issues of ADD boys, we can do something useful with it. On a societal level that may be difficult, but within our own families we have the power to make some changes. So what should the father of an ADD child do? I think he should look at how he's interacting with his son and work at changing his own behavior in the relationship. Here are some thoughts about that:

  * Learn to show how much you love and value you child independent of his performance. Create situations frequently where you can practice this.

  * When the boy needs correction, keep negativity out of your response. Don't show disapproval, and especially don't shame him. I can still hear the echo of my father's words "Shame on you!" [and I still choke up when I think of it]. Correct him calmly and rationally. Maybe even take the time to dramatize how he should have acted – act like you are him in this play and demonstrate stopping and thinking before you act out his behavior and making the decision to do the right thing.

  * You must still show your approval for things he does well, but don't go overboard. Keep it as calm and rational as the correction. But always look for opportunities to say "well done, son" about both big and small accomplishments so that receiving approval is not such a drama.

This short list is just a start; my initial thoughts on ways to change your behavior to help your ADD child. You need to sit down and expand on this list, adding ideas that are specific to your son/father relationship. Write these down and put them somewhere where you can review them each morning – maybe tape the list to the mirror and read it while you're shaving. Actively practice your techniques throughout the day and, when you slip and revert to your old pattern of anger and disapproval, immediately correct your response and apologize to your son. Let him see that you too respond impulsively sometimes, but you can "catch" yourself, rewind, and redo it the right way.

One final thought that many parents of ADDers are wondering about. Do the things I've offered here also apply to a father/daughter, mother/son, or mother/daughter relationship? I think the ideas are useful in any parent/child situation, even if the child isn't ADD. In my opinion, the more we can de-couple approval from love, the better adjusted the child will be and the closer your lifelong relationship will be.

Thoughts to Ponder

"The child is the father of the man." William Wordsworth, 19th century poet. [I'm not sure what this means but it sounds really deep.]
Chapter 6 - You Know You Have ADD When . . .

**Laughing at Ourselves**

As the title implies, I'll have a look at the humorous side of ADD in this Chapter . There's an ADD Web Site [http://www.fdisk.com/cgi-bin/add/youknow.pl ] where ADDers have posted their own favorite "You know you have ADD when . . .", so I'll start with some of those I found particularly relevant to myself:  
You know you have ADD when...

\- Someone points out to you that you constantly use parentheses when writing letters, stories, emails (or just about anything).

\- You realize that not only do you interrupt other people in a conversation, but when you are talking to yourself you interrupt yourself!

\- You see some obvious connection in a huge collection of random "unrelated" facts, and state "the obvious," only to have everyone stare blankly at you wondering where that amazing insight came from.

\- The word 'seek' is worn off of your radio dial, because you change the station constantly, driving everyone else mad. Ditto for the Channel button on the TV remote.

\- You capture one of your "amazing" insights on your computer [the ones you don't forget before you write them down] and then forget you ever wrote them [or thought of them], only to have the same "new" thought emerge days or weeks later. The rewarding thing about rediscovering such insights is that you get to experience the thrill of creativity twice!

This last one is of interest because that's where much of the material for these blog Chapter s is coming from. Now that I'm retired, I have time to dig down into the "wine cellar" of my aging MS Word files and rediscover what I have written over the past several years. Upon opening them, I find that some have turned to vinegar [they're not particularly bright or unique] but others have turned into a fine vintage.

Some other "You know . . . " lines that have happened to me include:

\- You're reading and have to keep re-reading the same paragraph because your mind goes "tiptoeing through the tulips" every few seconds.

\- You're making cookies and have to start over a couple of times because you loose of how may tablespoons of sugar you have added.

\- It takes you an hour to fall asleep because your brain just won't SHUT UP!

- You are thinking of a point you want to make in a conversation but when you get a chance to say it, you have forgotten it because you're already thinking about the next couple of points you want to make.

\- You think of something you want to buy at the store but change your mind and decide you don't need it. Later, when you bring it home from your next shopping trip you ask yourself why you bought it and then remember that you had decided not to buy it.

Want to meet some other folks with ADD but don't know how to find them? [You can't go around asking people if they have ADD. Besides, many adult ADDers don't realize they have it.] Tell a good ADD joke, especially one with an oblique punch line. The people who laugh are ADD. The people who laugh after a few seconds pause are either borderline ADD or are laughing because they didn't get the joke but don't want to seem dumb. Those who don't see anything funny about it are "perfectly normal" people. Here's a good example of such a joke:

Q: How many ADD kids does it take to change a light bulb?  
A: Let's go ride bikes.

**Aphorisms by Dee**

_"A good analyst can get you any answer you want and support it with a foundation of carefully selected facts and assumptions."_

_"The human mind is incapable of unbiased objectivity"_

_"As we get older, A.D.D. becomes indistinguishable from senility."_

Chapter 7 – What If?

Often, by simply choosing to believe something, you get great insights. For example, in the early 1900's, the world's greatest physicists were struggling with inconsistencies in the laws of physics. Light acted as if it were traveling through some medium that would propagate a light wave, much like water propagates water waves and air propagates sound waves. And if this were true, then the earth must be moving through this medium they called the "Ether" (or aether if you prefer Latin). If the earth was moving through it, then light should travel faster in the direction of the earth's motion. But every attempt to detect this aether and the consequent change in light speed ended in failure. Something was wrong with the fundamental scientific beliefs of the physicists, but they couldn't get beyond their conventional ideas to solve the paradox.

Then along came a lowly patent clerk (actually he was a physicist working as a patent clerk, but that's another story) with an ADD-fed imagination who asked himself the question "What if? What if the speed of light is the same no matter which direction it travels from a moving body? What if I accept this premise as true and see where it leads me?" The man was, of course, Albert Einstein, and where it lead him was to the theory of relativity; a theory that would revolutionize man's understanding of the world and cosmos around us; a theory that would lead to quantum mechanics, nuclear energy, and microelectronics, among other things. Our world today would be primitive compared to what it is now if Albert Einstein hadn't ask himself "What if?"

So it is with belief in God. Accepting that God exists, based not on evidence, but on choosing to accept the premise, opens up your mind to all that God is. You understand that God loves you even though you haven't lived up to His expectations. You see why God's plan provides for our forgiveness – both His forgiveness for the things we have done wrong and for our own forgiveness of ourselves. Like Einstein, you see how everything falls into place once you accept the foundational premise.

Another parallel exists between Einstein's acceptance of his premise and our acceptance of God: the truths are not revealed all at once. Although Einstein developed the theory of relativity in a mere two weeks after his revelation, it has taken many decades for the full ramifications to become evident. Each new application of the theory opened up the mind to another set of truths. The same is true with God's truths. It takes us years to understand the fundamental spiritual principles but, as each is assimilated, whole new areas open up for us.

A final parallel is worth pointing out. In spite of how well Einstein's premise, once accepted, brings consistency to the entire field of physics; in spite of all the recent physical evidence proving the truth of the concept; there are still well-known physicists who do not believe that the premise is true! They just cannot allow themselves to accept that one, fundamental belief. Why not? Usually because it conflicts their own personal theories and ideas of how things should be. So it is with those who refuse to accept God as truth.

Thoughts to Ponder

"I have no time for organized religion because the God they are talking about is much smaller than the one I have encountered." Albert Einstein
Chapter 8 – Where is Me??

Do I Have ADD?

ADD is often difficult to diagnose, so many people wonder if they have it. Part of the difficulty is that the answer is not yes/no or true/false. ADD is a condition of degrees, ranging from barely noticeable to unable to function without help. So how do you tell if you have ADD? For those who are now over 50 years old (and hence were in elementary school before ADD was recognized as something other than an unruly child) you can look at your old report cards. If you see lots of teacher comments about your inability to pay attention, to sit still, to keep quiet, then there's a pretty good chance that you were ADD back then. But that doesn't mean that you still are. Data show that only about 1/3 of ADD children go on to become ADD adults. Another hint that you may have ADD is how you react to stimulants like coffee. To those without ADD, stimulants generally make them more energetic and excitable - they drink their morning coffee to get "cranked up" for the day. But to many ADDers stimulants have the opposite effect. Coffee doesn't increase their brain activity (maybe because it's because their brain is already operating at 90 mph) and drinking a cup or two in the evening doesn't affect their sleep.

There are also web sites you can go to (see below). Just answer some questions (anonymously) about your behavior, and get your personal ADD score. Another approach is have your doctor prescribe a diagnostic dose of methylphenidate (trade names Ritalin, Concerta, Metadate, and Methylin). This drug is a stimulant to non-ADDers but for ADDers it will increase the ability to settle down and focus. That's how, at the age of 52, my ADD diagnosis was confirmed. After a single dose I was so focused on my writing that even my wife entering the room and calling my name went unnoticed. But the easiest way to find out is to ask a friend who has adult ADD and knows it. We can recognize the symptoms in others because we also have them.

ADD Quiz Web Sites: (Copy and paste them onto your browser search line)

http://psychcentral.com/addquiz.htm

http://www.addtypetest.com/

http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/1041.html

Where is ME? – My Thoughts

What is often called the "mid-life crisis", which can happen at any stage of a man's middle years, is not a need to recapture one's younger years by buying fast cars and having affairs with younger women. It's a crisis of SELF. It's about "When do I get to be me instead of who everyone else expects me to be?" We realize that, for our entire life, all the way back to trying to be good little boys (whatever our parents/teachers defined as "good"), we have tried to conform to what others expected of us. At some point in our lives, many men reach this realization and respond by trying to find our "inner self". But we may discover instead that there is no me - that we have no longer have a separate identity, no "self". We see ourselves as simply masks that we wear to appear to be what others expect, but underneath the masks there is nothing. We feel like we are nothing but mirrors, reflecting what others expect to see in us.

Because this discovery is so scary, we seldom understand it as clearly as it's stated above. Instead, our psyche/inner child/subconscious hides it from us and diverts us with the mistaken belief that if we go DO what we think we've missed out on, we will BE who we want to be. We feel controlled, bound up in a straightjacket by others' expectations. We feel suffocated by this feeling and are compelled to try to break free. This forces us into the behaviors that characterize the mid-life crisis – behaviors that are exactly contrary to what others expect of us [or as Frank Sinatra expressed his mid-life crisis, "I Want to be Me"]. Eventually we see that doing what we want hasn't helped that bad feeling within us and we discover with profound shock the real problem: there is no ME ! That's when depression often kicks in along with thoughts of running away from your present life [Roy Clark's song "Right or Left at Oak Street"] or suicide.

When/if we reach this point, we need professional help. If we let God into our lives, as I did, He will guide us through it and direct us to the support we need from psychologists, family, and friends. Finally, when all the smoke clears, we discover that we really have a self and that, surprisingly, that real self is pretty close to the "phony" self we thought we were before. But now we can consciously choose to meet others' expectations (or not) rather than feeling compelled to do so by your inner self. Once we reach this level of self-insight, we are equipped to decide what changes we will make in our lives; a decision based on knowledge and rational reasoning, and by asking God's guidance. But not based on trying to meet subconscious needs we don't see or understand.

Aphorisms by Dee:

"We all create our own reality, and we reshape our perceptions to match that reality."

Thoughts to Ponder

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." – Eleanor Roosevelt

Chapter 9 – The Wall

An Autobiographical Allegory

Some time ago, I came to the conclusion that it was time to turn it over to new management. I had owned the property from almost the beginning, close to 50 years now, and I just hadn't been able to do the things that I had in mind for it. It's not that I had let it run down; I made improvements almost continuously. I had a lot of help with that in the beginning, from my parents, from teachers, from my wife and children, and from the world around me. But for the last 20 years or so, I did all the work myself, or thought I did. As it turned out, someone else was helping me improve the property.

He would sneak over my wall on nights and weekends, when I was too busy to notice, and add an improvement here and there. Sometimes I noticed the change, and wondered where it came from. Most of the time, I'd tear it down and redo it the way I wanted it. I never stopped to wonder who was doing this, or why. I had no idea that He had in mind all along to make the property His some day.

Early on I had started to build a wall around my property to keep Him and others out, and that seemed to work for awhile. The wall reinforced the illusion (actually self-delusion) that I was in control of my life. But I found that I had to keep raising the wall to keep them out and protect my self. Finally it took so much energy to keep the wall intact that my strength failed me and the wall collapsed, leaving me crushed and broken in a deep depression.

He came back to help me then, in the light of day so I could see His face. He helped me clear the remains of the wall and open up the property to those around me. I knew then that He was the rightful owner, so I gave up control of the property to Him. He and I spent the next several years rebuilding the place from the ground up. In fact, we're still working on it and always will be. But now it's grander than I could ever have made it because it's built according to His plans. And His plans do not include a wall.

The ADD Wall

I wasn't unique in building a wall around myself. Many people do it. But it seems to me, based on conversations with my ADD friends, that it's more common for someone with ADD to put up a wall. Because we are unable to control our behavior as children and, as a result, are scolded and punished often, we believe that there's something wrong with us – something that makes us unlovable. We react by burying our emotions and putting up a defensive wall to keep from getting hurt. Other ADD characteristics add to our developing isolation. We can't make friends easily (except with other ADDers) because those around us can't keep up with our thinking/speaking and we feel frustrated that they can't think as fast as we do. They are annoyed by our need to talk much more than we listen. Because of our tendency to speak and act without control we have never been able to master the social skills needed to develop adult friends.

More Walls

I recently found a poem written by Delta Blue that captures my former life. I have modified a couple of lines to make it fit my situation better.

For years I built a fortress  
And on it I did depend  
To shield me from the world  
My fragile psyche to defend

Brick by brick I built it,  
Brick by brick it rose  
With every entrance barricaded  
On this path I chose

The walls were strong and high  
They met the storms but never fell  
They kept the world outside  
And kept me safe inside as well

A choice I made so long ago  
When I had lost my way  
And unaware was I the price  
That I would have to pay

But now my eyes are opened  
To face a truth I see  
This fortress was a prison  
And the prisoner was me

Simon and Garfunkel Another great example of my former self is the song "I Am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel. Before God started putting cracks in my walls, this song had no emotional meaning for me. But after my emotions started climbing up from the basement that I had banished them to as a child, I felt the meaning of the lyrics and cried every time I listened to it, which was often because the tears felt so good. I still tear up occasionally when I hear it.

A winter's day  
In a deep and dark December  
I am alone  
Gazing from my window  
To the streets below  
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow  
I am a rock  
I am an island

I've built walls  
A fortress deep and mighty  
That none may penetrate  
I have no need of friendship  
Friendship causes pain  
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain  
I am a rock  
I am an island

Don't talk of love  
Well I've heard the word before  
It's sleeping in my memory  
I won't disturb the slumber  
Of feelings that have died  
If I never loved I never would have cried  
I am a rock  
I am an island

I have my books  
And my poetry to protect me  
I am shielded in my armor  
Hiding in my room  
Safe within my womb  
I touch no one and no one touches me  
I am a rock  
I am an island  
And a rock feels no pain  
And an island never cries

How's Your Wall?

The bottom line here? If you are ADD (or not) check to see if you have built a wall. If you have, work on lowering it a little at a time. You may find you enjoy interacting with people. You need to keep the ADD behaviors in check though, particularly the tendency to talk too much and not listen. One way to be a great conversationalist is to focus on asking the other person questions about whatever they're talking about – and listen (or at least act like you're listening) to their answer. When you pick something out of their answer to ask a new question about they will think you are paying close attention and actually enjoy the conversation. [I know it's boring, but being a good listener is the price you'll have to pay to be accepted by the world. And who knows – you may even learn something.]

Aphorisms by Dee

"People don't focus on what you are saying, they focus on how what you are saying makes them feel"

Thoughts to Ponder

"Pain is the megaphone that God uses to get our attention." – C. S. Lewis
Chapter 10 - How ADD Affects Who We Are

Attention Deficit Disorder begins shaping our lives from early childhood. Because we can't keep our mind focused on "behaving", we are labeled unruly, troublemaking, undisciplined, impulsive, and even "bad" children. The adults in our lives are constantly after us to sit still, stop talking, pay attention, behave ourselves and when we can't, we are often scolded or punished. Thus begins our self-image of an unloved/unlovable, bad child.

Something else also begins at this stage - we develop feelings of guilt over our misbehavior. And this often turns us into guilt-bound adults; burdened by what psychologists call inappropriate guilt. We believe, irrationally, that everything that goes wrong around us is somehow our fault. I'm not a psychologist but I speak from experience here. With the first name of Dee, I grew up with nicknames like Dee-struction and Dee-did-it, along with constant reminders to sit still, lower my voice, and behave myself. My response was to develop an inner guilt which I wasn't able to overcome until my mid-40s when God began remodeling me.

Some of respond in a different way. They give up trying to control their behavior and come to believe that they are bad through and through. They give up trying to be good because they're so unsuccessful at it. Many ADDers who can't overcome this belief often go on to become teen troublemakers and later, adult criminals.

We're forced into the role of social outcasts starting in grade school. Other kids make fun of us because we are frequently in trouble with the teacher and, because ADD often correlates with increased intelligence (See Chapter 4), those around us may think less of themselves because of what they see in us. This sometimes leads us to become under achievers - we dumb down in an attempt to fit in.

A common response to all this is to become "loners", which makes us even more socially unacceptable. We sense that people don't like us, so we assume it's because something's wrong with us rather than the truth that we are gifted in many ways. If you fit the role of an ADD social outcast, and want to fit in better (many of us don't want that – we are happy being loners and minimizing our social contacts.) what can you do about it? Here are a few approaches that have helped me in this area:

Quit being a know it all. It makes others feel inadequate. Don't jump in with the right answer, even if someone says something that you know isn't correct. Show restraint and dumb down now and then.

Be a listener. It's hard to sound smart when you aren't talking. Let the other conversationalists do most of the talking. The Lord gave us two ears and one mouth so that we would listen twice as much as we talk.

Pay attention when others talk. Look them in the eye. Ask questions to let them know you're listening and keep them talking so you don't feel you have to.

Learn mental multitasking. If your mind wanders because listening only takes 10% of your brain and the other 90% demands activity, learn to let the 90% wander off into deep thought while you keep the 10% fully focused on your companions. This one is not easy but you can train your mind to do it. Practice watching TV and reading at the same time while keeping focused enough on each to understand them both.

When your mind wanders off during a conversation, a business meeting, or a project you're working on, yank it back to the subject at hand, just as you would yank on the leash of a dog that was headed for trouble. This was a big problem for me at work until I learned this trick. Does it always work? No, but I'm much better at focusing now than I used to be.

There's a big difference between knowing about these "tricks" and learning them. Just as with riding a bike or skiing, it takes practice. Start small – try some of these with your spouse or close friend. At first you will only be able to do them for a short time before your ADD takes over and sends your entire mind into oblivion. When you catch yourself, mentally yank your mind back into focus. If you keep at it long enough, you can reprogram your mind to stay on track more of the time.

If you are heading into dangerous waters – a social event or business meeting, for example – prepare yourself. Imagine yourself using these techniques with the people you expect to meet. As you enter the social arena, give yourself one last reminder of what your personal mission is for event – to come across as a 'normal' person.

Finally, ask for help. Pray about overcoming these social "shortcomings". Ask God to remind you when you start to lose focus and to help you find more ways to use your special gift.

Aphorisms by Dee

Don't let your past define your future.

Thoughts to Ponder

"Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool, he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself alone, which it behooves him to regulate well." - Blaise Pascal

Chapter 11 – Why do you love me?

Well, I missed Valentine's Day with this new Chapter but at least it's still Valentine's month. Although it's not specifically relevant to ADDers I've pointed out in earlier posts that people with ADD often have lovability issues because of their inability as children to be a "good" little girl or boy. But as you'll see, there are lessons for all of us in this piece. Disclaimer: I've written this piece relative to a man's point of view because, after all, I'm a man. But it applies equally well to women. So please don't send any comments about me being a sexist.

Guys, has your wife or girlfriend ever asked you "Why do you love me?" Right away the alarm bells go off in your mind – "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger." First you realize that no immediate answer comes to mind. You know you love her but you can't think of an answer to her question. Panic sets in. Maybe your first answer is "I just love you" or "I love you for who you are." These are pretty lame answers and most women won't quit with that. They'll say "Come on, tell me why you love me." You know you're stepping into a verbal minefield that could detonate her anger, but you think of her good qualities and say "I love you because you're beautiful (It had better be true or she'll know you're handing her a line.) . . . because you're kind . . . because you do things for me . . .because you turn me on ("There you go again, making it about YOU") . . .. Or maybe you step on the really big mine and say "Because you love me", which leads to a logical closed loop (I love you because you love me because I love you because . . .).

Any way you answer, you could be in for some chilly weather around the house. She's looking for reassurance that she's loveable but you're not able to provide the answer that will scratch that itch. But the problem is not in the answer, it's in the question - in the first word of the question – "Why." As soon as the question is asked you're stuck with telling her that your love is conditional. "I love you because you're a good cook" carries with it the implied condition that, if she quits cooking for you, you won't love her anymore. If you say the reason you love her is because she's so pretty, your answer tells her that if she gains weight or looses a breast to cancer you won't love her anymore.

So what's my point here? The words "love" and "because" should never be uttered in the same sentence, or even the same paragraph. The first answer above – "I just love you" - is the unconditional answer. A better version would be "I chose to love you." In Marriage Encounter, a Christian organization that teaches couples how to strengthen their marriages, the mantra is "Love is a decision, not a feeling." Love shouldn't be based on the other's behavior, but on your own choice to love the other. You decide to love someone in spite of the things they do that irritate you, frustrate you, or cause you to get angry. This, of course, is not easy because we're socialized to believe that love is a wonderful, magical feeling and, if we lose that feeling, the love is "gone" from the relationship. We also extend this reasoning to the concept that, if YOU do something to ME to ruin that feeling, it's YOUR fault that the love is gone. Once we understand that love is a decision that I choose to make, regardless of what YOU have said or done, it brings the responsibility for loving you back to me where it belongs.

A final thought: is anyone capable of loving another unconditionally? I think the answer is demonstrated in parent's love for their children. Nothing they can do or say will stop their love. We may get angry at them, be hurt by them, be taken advantage of. But through it all, we love them. That's what God's love for us is like.

"If we know God's perfect, unconditional love we are no longer driven to seek it from those around us."

Aphorisms by Dee

You can only be as happy as the one you love is.

Thoughts to Ponder

"It's not enough to love someone, it's who you are when you're with them that matters." – Anne Rice in "The Accidental Tourist"

Chapter 12 - "Help! My A.D.D Spouse is Driving Me Crazy."

"Help! My A.D.D. Spouse is Driving Me Crazy." If you have an A.D.D. spouse this is probably something you often cry out to God, your family, your friends, or even your psychiatrist. Being married to one of "us" will drive you to frustration, anger, resentment, and maybe divorce – if you don't learn how to deal with it properly. The characteristics common to many adults with ADD – not focusing on what others are saying, interrupting every time a new thought pops into our mind, forgetfulness, dominating conversations, being insensitive to other's feelings, getting distracted, procrastination, not listening, __________, ________ (you fill in the blanks with your own list of ways your spouse aggravates you) – constantly irritate our spouses, families, friends, and colleagues. They get to the point where they don't want to be around us.

ADD marriages are dysfunctional . . . well, pretty much all marriages are. But in ADD relationships the issues are often amplified beyond "normal." [A normal marriage? What's that? If you think yours is normal you're probably delusional.] If your spouse has ADD you probably feel ignored, unloved, unappreciated, and lonely. You're usually overloaded with household responsibilities because he/she isn't doing their share. You can't talk about it with them because they can't focus long enough to understand what you're feeling. Feelings? They're something ADDers aren't good at, and intimacy . . . that's something that's really scary to them. Why? I don't know. Maybe some psychologists think they do. But it is what it is. [Note: I address the issue of intimacy in the bedroom in my next Chapter .]

So if you're married to an ADDer, what can you do about it? Maybe you think that, if you just keep after them, they'll change. Constant reminders of their shortcomings do nothing to help them change. Spouses at the receiving end of this, whether ADD or not, call it nagging. Which reminds me of a humorous comment: Being nagged at is like being nibbled to death by a duck [another of my "Look, a chicken!" moments]. The first thing you have to know . . . and accept is:

You seldom can change other people's behavior. What you can change is how you react to it. (Quote from Pastor Chuck Swindoll)

Here are some of my thoughts that might help reduce the stress of living with an ADD spouse:

  * If they're not already taking A.D.D. medication encourage them to see a doctor about trying it. But encourage them positively rather than with "You're sickness is ruining our marriage. Get it fixed." Also, remember that most of these medications will have disagreeable side effects – loss of creativity, irritability, changes in mood, facial and muscular tics, depression, high blood pressure and heart rate – that could be unacceptable to the patient or you. If ADD meds don't work for them, don't push it. Keep reading.

  * Don't try to change them. They don't have the self-control needed to change their behavior. If you keep trying to change them rather than accepting them as they are and adjusting your response to them, it may be partly about you and your insecurities.

  * Don't take it personally. It's not about you – it's about them. It's nobody's fault – it just is. Blaming them or yourself is a sure path to a miserable relationship.

  * Don't get embarrassed when they exhibit their behaviors in public. The embarrassment is your problem. You believe people will think you're an idiot for being with him/her, but your obvious embarrassment and excuses for their actions will look even worse.

  * Do love and respect who they are. Many ADDers grow up with a poor self-image because of their inability to control their behavior (they may have buried it in their subconscious, but it's still there). [See Chapter 10 for more about this.] Negative comments and attitudes from you will tap into those feelings and they may react by feeling worse about themselves or putting up a defensive shield of anger.

  * Do look for the blessings that ADD provides. Remember that their ADD is a gift as well as a curse.

  * Read some books about A.D.D. and marriage. Here are some good ones available from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com:

Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D. by Gina Pera and Russel Barkley

The ADHD Effect on Marriage by Melissa C. Orlov

Honey are You Listening?: A.D./H.D. Disorder in Your Marriage by Jerilyn and Richard Fowler

Ask your spouse to read this book. They will learn to understand their gift and how to deal with it. Print it out so they'll be able to focus better. But DO NOT give it all to them at once – it will overwhelm them and never get done. Give them one Chapter at a time every few days.

Aphorisms by Dee

Love is a commitment to meeting the needs of another

A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.

Thoughts to Ponder

"A relationship can't mature until you love each other more than you need each other." – Charles Swindoll

Chapter 13 – I Love You . . . Look, a Chicken

Note: This Chapter discusses sexual intimacy. It may be unsuitable for readers under 18.

Years ago I remember seeing a book of cartoons by an unremembered author that featured a darkened room, the foot of a bed, and two pairs of feet – one pointing up and the other pointing down. Every page was like that, except there was a different dialog bubble over each one with some humorous comment by the man or the woman about their lovemaking. In one that fits with this Chapter the woman, whose feet were pointing upward, was saying "Henry, the ceiling needs painting."

In the first 12 Chapter s of this Blog I've discussed many behaviors and issues with adult ADDers. In the last Chapter I focused on improving the relationship in a marriage where one of the partners has ADD. This Chapter looks at one specific issue with such couples: the effects of ADD on intimacy – both sexual and non-sexual intimacy. The two are, of course, intimately related. Emotional closeness in a relationship, intimacy, usually leads us to seek the closest expression of it: lovemaking. I'll use this term here as a higher form of sex, shared by those who love each other. Without shared intimacy in other areas of the marriage, the lovemaking, if there is any, is simply sex.

My discussion here isn't necessarily based on my own life experiences, but mostly on material from a variety of respected internet sites, which I've listed below. Many of the issues hit home with me though, especially before God rebuilt my heart and mind and empowered me to gain some control over my gift.

For lots of reasons ADD adults, especially men, have a problem with closeness to anyone. [Most men seem to have this problem, but it's often worse when ADD is involved]. Kids with ADHD are often shamed for not measuring up to "normal" standards of organization, activity level, time management, and focus. The psychological damage caused by decades of harsh criticism by parents, peers, and teachers can corrode self-esteem. Adolescents with ADD can grow up feeling defective and abnormal, which leads to social anxiety and the inability to engage in dating, where we begin the lifelong process of learning how to interact with the other gender. Growing up different from those around us often turns us into "loners". Why would I want to face the uncertainty of rejection by others when I can go anywhere in my mind I want to.

That fear of rejection is magnified when it comes to asking a partner if they want to make love – even after years of marriage – and especially if the partner isn't sensitive to this fear when saying "Not tonight dear, I've got a headache." Sensitive communication, in every area, is essential to bringing an ADD spouse out of their protective armor. A better answer would be "Gee, honey, I'm really tired tonight. Can we make a date for tomorrow? I'll be more rested so we can do those special things you like." I can tell you from experience that a husband will have that thought, and image, on his mind all the next day.

Another big ADD issue is distractibility – focusing during lovemaking. The ADD mind will try it's best to go mentally "tiptoeing through the tulips" in spite of the physical and emotional sensations. I think [again, no claim to expertise here] that it's probably worse for women ADDers because reaching satisfaction usually requires more focused attention for a longer time that it does for men. But as men reach their golden years they too need more focus. [At 73 I can speak to that issue.]

With any of these issues, it isn't only the symptoms but how the partner reacts to them. For example, how the non-ADD partner reacts to the distractibility can create a negative cycle: The ADD partner doesn't pay attention to their spouse; the non-ADD partner feels ignored and responds with anger and frustration; in turn, the ADD partner responds in kind. . .

Now that you understand the problem better, what can you two do about it? The first advice is to remove any communication barriers on this subject. Let each other know that everything is open for discussion – maybe start with a weekly appointment to discuss them until you get more comfortable. Focus on your feelings – how what your partner does affects you. Put judgment, fault-finding, and blaming aside [I know it's hard not to do these things; it's human nature. But in this situation you MUST rise above them or things will get even worse.] If it helps, pick a weekly subject for both of you write about – a love letter – then exchange letters, read them, talk about them, and decide what you both can do to improve things. After that, go wherever the conversation takes you.

I'll close with some useful information about ways to keep your lovemaking and intimacy more enjoyable for your ADD partner and you. These are three lovemaking traps that most couples can fall into, but when one of you is ADD they can be particularly harmful.

[The remainder of this Chapter was adapted from an article by Dr. G. Frank Lawlis on the Psychology Today Web Site ]

Trap one: Same place, same station scheduled sex. Whenever you try to schedule lovemaking with a person with a 90 mph mind that can only focus for a short time, you both will be disappointed. Spontaneity is the lifeblood of an ADD mind. Be free to ask and respond whenever the situation arises. There is nothing worse than making love the last event of the day, after everything is done, the kids have gone to bed, the dishes are done and the Tonight Show is over. This is like trying to find an interesting television show after the power is turned off. There is just nothing there but a blank screen.

Trap two: One channel sex. As you would expect, the ADD partner thrives on imagination and creativity. Vary the time of day, the venue, the position – whatever you can think of to keep it exciting for both of you.

Trap three: Taking Sex for Granted. We all can remember when we were just learning about feelings for the opposite gender. Flirting behavior becomes part of that in adolescence and young adulthood. But when we settled down to the long-term commitment of marriage, we forgot that behavior because it had fulfilled its purpose. Not so fast. Bring flirting and seduction with each other back into the relationship. It can could be more fun than the act itself. Women still like to feel like a prize and be pursued as a worthy conquest. Men still like to think they can capture their treasures with clever gifts and tactics. It can be fun, especially for those who need novelty, to surprise their partners with dress-up dates and suggestive moves at the dinner table, even if both of you are too tired to turn out the light at 8:00 P.M. You will both be rewarded with closer, more intimate lovemaking when the time comes.

The important message is that the dynamics of any personality will always create challenges in marital relationships. ADD may have some unique challenges and we all stumble into at least one of them every month [and maybe several times a day on bad days], even if we have been married for 50 years. Relationships have strengths and weaknesses from both sides, but a successfully bonded couple discovers those strengths and weaknesses in each other and uses them to create a growing understanding and intimacy – in bed and out of bed.

Thoughts and ideas for this Chapter were adapted from:

http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/1893.html

http://psychcentral.com/lib/adhds-impact-on-relationships-10-tips-to-help/0008563

http://www.yourtango.com/experts/hadley-earabino/adhd-effect-married-sex

Aphorisms by Dee

_Good lovemaking begins in the kitchen, not in the bedroom._

Thoughts to Ponder

"It's not enough to love a woman; you must make her feel loved. . . . And that is an infinitely more difficult task."
Chapter 14 – Difficult Relationships

Many people we have relationships with – wives, adult children, in-laws, supervisors, co-workers – can be difficult to get along with, whether we have ADD or not. The difficulties can take many forms including (1) you having to constantly worry about what you say around them and how you say it, so you won't "set them off," and (2) them continually doing or saying things that annoy you or make you angry. Our approach to reducing these difficulties is generally to tell the other person – usually with our body language, attitude, anger or, as a last resort, direct conversation – that you don't like what they are doing/not doing and that, if they want to have a relationship with you, they need to start acting differently. We try to communicate to them that they need to change. But this approach seldom works.

Why? Because you can't change other people! At least not at the fundamental behavior level. You can, of course, get them to change superficial behaviors. If they are doing something without realizing that it bothers you, like picking their nose, they will generally respond to a simple request and quit doing it. Sometimes they may need a reminder or two but, because they want to have a good relationship with you, they will try to behave in ways that please you. However, most relationship difficulties are rooted deep in the psyches of both them and you. There is something driving them and you – feelings of being controlled, being inferior, getting too close – to behave in ways that will push their buttons – or respond with anger when they try to push your buttons. We often are not fully conscious of why we behave or respond in negative ways because the reasons are somewhere below the surface of our consciousness. We frequently "hate ourselves" afterwards for what we did or said yet, given a similar situation in the future, we will behave the same way. The key to resolving the sub-level conflicts of the psyches responsible for these relationship difficulties is not to try to change the other, but to change yourself!

You must learn to accept the other person just as they are, and learn to respond from your rational mind rather than your psyche and emotions. These words are easy to write but extremely difficult to implement. It may take you years to reach a level that will allow the relationship to rise above the subconscious level. One reason is that the psyche (or inner child, or any of the other metaphors) is highly protective of itself and will fight your attempts to wrest control from it. From my personal experience, I believe the inner child fears for its very life. This is why a common response to an attack on our psyche is passive-aggressive behavior. In true P-A behavior, the person exhibiting the behavior is not doing it consciously – otherwise it would be active-aggressive.

In such situations an inappropriately strong active response ["You S.O.B"] might reveal to you the fact that, at that moment, you are under the control of your psyche rather than your rational mind. To protect itself from discovery, the psyche provides a covert, passive-aggressive, response that helps reduce the powerful inner feelings that occur when someone "pushes your buttons." The less aware a person is that he or she can be controlled by something other than their rational mind, the more likely they will be to respond with P-A, or some other diverting behaviors, such as projecting the feeling (or blame) onto the other, or pushing a different button in the other to steer the conflict to an area less threatening. Hence a wife will often steer the conflict to a past transgression by the husband, or find a reason in his recent actions to justify her irrational feelings of anger – it's what I call "the coat hook of rationality" - a rational reason to hang her anger on when the real reason is hidden in her subconscious. .

So, to begin working on your part of the relationship difficulties, you must first recognize and accept in your rational mind that your behavior is sometimes not fully under control of your rational mind, but is being controlled by your psyche/inner child/subconscious. This can be very scary to your self – your conscious being which includes the rational mind but is much more extensive than that – and to your psyche which, up until this time, has kept itself pretty well hidden from your self. It took me several years to battle through all the defenses that my inner child (or, as it seemed to me, inner children) erected to prevent their discovery.

Making these changes in your thoughts and actions when they are driven by your own inner conflicts is extremely difficult, but not impossible. The key, I believe, is to reprogram your mind and reactions – erase the old self-defeating programming and replace it with healthy rational programming.

The approach I used for this is relatively simple to write down. It's a recipe for re-programming your mind and habits, and only requires three steps: (a) identify the behaviors you want to overcome, (b) write down situations where they crop up in your life and, (c) write down the healthy behaviors you want to replace "bad" behaviors with. Understanding this process is easy, but successfully applying it is much more difficult.

You can't change them all at once, so pick one negative response to focus on – not the most difficult thing on the list, but one that you think you can have early success with. Every day, remind yourself of the thinking or behavior you are trying to overcome. Think back on the times you responded poorly, then do some mental practice – visualization – of yourself getting through it without the undesired behavior. Rehearse the correct behavior over and over again in your mind. If you know a situation might be coming up where you "lost it" in the past, rerun the mental movie with the rational response want. Work on it until you have it well under control – not necessarily eliminated, but to the point where you seldom do it. Then move on to the next negative behavior on your list.

What do you do when the old response does slip out? Stop the behavior and correct it immediately! Apologize if you said or did something before you recaptured your control – and continue on with the modified behavior. It may take weeks or months, but eventually you should be able to control the negative behaviors.

Aphorisms by Dee

Our 'selves' are the software for the hardware of our brains.

No one can make you angry. You choose to get angry in response to something they said or did. Your rational mind can choose to not respond with anger.

Thoughts to Ponder

"Your unconscious is smarter than you, faster than you, and more powerful than you. It may even control you. You will never know all its secrets." - Cordelia Fine in her book A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives.

"The heart has its reasons that the mind knows nothing of." - Blaise Pascal
OTHER BITS OF WISDOM

On Anger

No great insight, but a conclusion based on years of observation. It doesn't only occur with women, men do it too, but not nearly as often [maybe that's because men are better at locking away their buried anger]. When women get angry at someone (husbands, children, friends) the anger is often more intense and longer lasting than the specific offense should warrant. I think this anger begins as a deep need to be angry based on some subconscious trigger. Because the anger has no rational, current focus, the woman must find something to attach it to so she can express it - a coat hook of at least semi-rationality to hang her irrational anger on.

The feeling of anger is often not rational - that is, it is not directly related to an immediate offending word or action. But irrational anger is not "acceptable", so they try to justify it by tying it to something in the here and now. But the irrationality of it shows through - either because the supposed offending act is so trivial or because the intensity of such anger far exceeds the apparent cause.

Often it is old hurts that may have happened years before (childhood, early relationships, insecurities) – in the target of her anger (e.g. her husband) she sees something, a movie or TV show, that touches on the issue, or it just comes to mind. Other times it is some relatively insignificant act by the target of her anger - an insensitive comment, failure to do something "right", damaging something the woman regards as "hers" [that's pretty much everything in the house and property!]. The woman may carry this unfocused, building anger for several days ["What's the matter, honey?" . . . "Nothing!"], but at some point she has to attach it to an "acceptable" reason for being mad at the target so she can discharge it. The goal of her psyche is often to blame the target for her anger, or to get him/her angry and express it for her so she doesn't have to accept responsibility for it (and therefore face the buried, true source of her anger). The target, usually her husband, then gets dumped on and wonders "What did I do??" He, believing that the expressed issue is the real issue, either apologizes, tries to defend himself, or gets angry back at her.

But this never works because neither he nor the woman knows what the real issue is. If he foolishly presses further, perhaps pointing out that there's no logical reason for her to be that angry, she gets even more angry because he is forcing her closer to the real issue, which she has suppressed because she is unable to deal with it. Apologizing and agreeing to do better will only work if the anger is rational - when the focus of her anger really is the issue (You didn't take the trash can out front so we missed the pickup.) If her anger is based on hidden issues, your apology cuts off the coat hook of rationality that she has hung her irrational coat of anger on and threatens her ability to discharge the anger. In this situation, she may (1) accept the apology and back off the attack (but she will still be angry, often for days), (2) increase the attack in an attempt to rebuild the coat hook, or (3) find a new coat hook to hang the anger on.

What should you do as the target of her anger?

(1) Don't let it resonate with your own anger and unresolved issues. That's part of being co-dependant and if that's happening, you need to deal with your own unresolved, hidden issues (all relationships are codependent to some degree). This can be tough because we often aren't aware when we are resonating. When someone "pushes your buttons", they are usually connecting with some of your unresolved, resonant issues.

(2) Don't get defensive or counter-attack. It will only fuel her anger.

(3) Do one of the following:

a) Apologize, but only if you have indeed said or done something that she perceives as a true affront. Sometimes the woman will have to take some every-day occurrence and place an interpretation on it that will justify her anger ("You're doing that on purpose just to make me mad!"). Apologize only once and don't react when she doesn't accept it.

b) If you are accused of doing something you haven't, tell her simply (without anger) that you didn't do it, or didn't do it on purpose to hurt her. Don't explain why you couldn't have done it, or why it isn't logical; and don't tell her she's wrong. Just state (in terms that are not emotionally loaded) that you didn't do it or that it is not true. She's trying to project the anger she can't deal with onto you; don't reflect it back onto her, simply refuse to accept it.

(4) Do let her discharge her anger. Don't leave or ignore her, let her continue to be angry at you as long as she needs to. Sometimes this can take days, but a good discharge will usually shorten the time to recovery.

(5) Do remain calm and loving (that's a tough one). Accept the fact that she needs to be angry right then and that there's nothing you can do or say to change that. Don't take it personally - you're simply the target of opportunity.

These five actions are easy to understand but extremely difficult to implement. It will probably take years for you to get good at all of them, and even then the old patterns will creep back in. That's because they 're human nature and we must continually struggle to gain control of them. Prayer helps a lot, especially if you suspect an attack is coming. Even during the attack, silent "one-liner" prayers -- for strength to not resonate, for control over your own anger, for the right words to say, and for a loving heart -- are amazingly effective.

Thoughts to Ponder

"Don't React to conflict – Reflect and Respond." - Charles Swindoll

"Conflict is inevitable. Your response is a choice." Charles Stanley
Notes On Love

Many of us believe, down deep inside, that we are not worthy of being loved (probably from childhood), that we are too "bad", that we don't deserve to be loved. This belief will keep us from allowing others to love us. When they do things to show their love, we will believe that they are doing it for some non-loving reason – to manipulate us, to get something for themselves, to control us.

How do we get over this? We have to understand, in our minds and our hearts, that we are correct in our thinking – we are not worthy of being loved; we are indeed "bad". But that doesn't mean that we can't allow ourselves to be loved. Love is like God's grace – we don't deserve it but it is a free gift from God. Once we understand that, we can accept His grace and have a close relationship with Him. God doesn't love us because we deserve to be loved; he loves us because it is His nature to love us; unconditionally. And we must work on our inner selves to learn to accept love from others in the same way. Not because we deserve it, but because they offer it as a gift.

Once we know, for certain, in our hearts, that God truly loves us, unconditionally, we are released from seeking perfect love from those around us. It becomes much easier to accept the imperfect way our spouses, parents, and children love us. And as we understand more and more how God loves us and forgives us, it becomes increasingly easier to love the others in our lives not only for who they are, but in spite of who they are. If both parties in a love relationship can reach this level of truly knowing God's love for them (and I suspect that it rarely happens, except perhaps later in life), then all the neediness and the anger at each other for not "loving me enough" falls away and the love reaches an entirely new plane.

As they teach in Marriage Encounter and elsewhere, Love is a Decision, not a feeling. Love should not be based on the other's behavior, but on your own loving choice to love the other. You Decide to Love someone in spite of the things they do that irritate you or frustrate you or cause you to get angry. This, of course, is not easy because we are socialized to believe that Love is a wonderful, magical feeling and, if we lose that feeling, the love is "gone" from the relationship. We also extend this reasoning to the concept that, if YOU do something to ME to ruin that feeling, it's YOUR fault that the love is gone. Once we understand that love is a decision that I choose to make, regardless of what YOU have done, it brings the focus back on myself -- if I choose not to love you, it's my error, not yours.

I believe the same should be true for Trust. Trust shouldn't be something that, based on some past transgression, is gone forever. The truth is that our expectations of those we are close to will never be met because people are incapable of meeting all expectations – that's why we are all sinners, because we can't meet God's expectations for us. Yet, when a spouse or friend falls short of my expectations, I might say "I trusted you and you let me down. I can never trust you again!" And sure enough, everything they do now becomes suspect in my mind. It never occurs to me that perhaps my expectations were too high or were based on my own need to have some degree of control over the other.

Well, just like love, trust is a decision, a choice. I choose to trust another because I love them and I know they are not perfect; I know there are times when they will lie to me; I know there are times that they will talk about me to their friends; I know there may be times when temptation overcomes them. Just like with love, making loss of trust YOUR fault simply gives me a reason to feel self-righteous and give me some power over you in the relationship. On the other hand, if I take the responsibility by choosing to trust you in everything in spite of your "track record", YOU will very likely try harder to live up to that trust. Why would I choose to do this? Because I love you.

One caution. Trusting someone who is abusing you, or stealing from you, or otherwise harming you is not included in this concept. You must be distrustful in such a relationship for self-protection; in fact you shouldn't even have a relationship with such a person.

## On Trust Between Men and Women

There are only two males that women can, or should, fully trust – God the Father and Jesus. All the rest of us males are human and cannot live up to women's expectations with respect to trustworthiness. This is because we men, like women, have inner fears and feelings that influence what we think, say, and do. They also control how we interpret what's going on around us and lead us to believe certain things are true, when indeed they are not. However, this should not be an excuse for lying and deceit; we should all strive to be as trustworthy and honest as humanly possible. But it does mean that complete honesty and truthfulness – by men or women – cannot ever be achieved.

This brings to mind another thought: Men can deal with the reality of deceit better than women because we don't expect complete honesty from anyone – our friends, those we work for and with, or our wives and family. We accept this reality and factor it into our daily interactions with others.

And that also might mean that we men are more likely to accept another reality, whenever in life we discover it: that we all lie to ourselves. Women, it seems to me, are much more likely to believe themselves to be honest with others and with themselves.

The discovery that we deceive ourselves (often our greatest deceits) is a major turning point in our lives. Once we accept that reality, we can learn to critically question what we think, say, and do; especially in areas that are closest to our inner fears and feelings. In fact, we can use our tendency towards deceit in certain areas as a compass to direct our self-discovery in that direction; to the things that we need to deal with.

Thoughts to Ponder

"People will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

"We see the world not as it is, but as we are."
A Boy And His Red Fire Truck

A Word Picture About Forgiveness

One Christmas, when he was five or six years old – it was so long ago that he couldn't remember for sure – a boy got just what he wanted for Christmas; a toy fire truck. It was a beauty; almost a foot long and painted bright red with silvery ladders along each side. The boy loved that truck. He played with it every day. It pleased the boy's mother, who loved him very much, to see the joy her son got from the gift she had picked out for him.

One of the many things the boy's mother was teaching him was to put his toys away whenever he was finished playing with them. But, like most five (or was it six) year olds, the boy had difficulty remembering to do the things his mother expected of him. He would get immersed in playing with the toys and then, when another activity popped up in his mind or his mother called him for supper, his attention would jump to the new thing and forget that he was supposed to put the toys away first.

One night, after everyone had gone to bed, the mother woke up with an upset stomach and went downstairs to get a glass of milk. As she left the bottom step, expecting to find the floor under her foot, she found something else – something that rolled out from under her and sent her crashing to the floor. She felt a piercing pain in her ankle and cried out in agony as she lay writhing on the floor. Her husband, with the boy right behind, came running down the stairs and turned on the lights. There, beside his wife, was the bright red fire truck. The mother looked at the truck, then at the boy, and lost control of her anger. She yelled at the boy "I've told you a hundred times to put your toys away! Now look what you've done to me! Go to your room and don't come out for a week!" The boy looked his red fire truck, then at his mother, and with tears in his eyes and shame in his heart, ran upstairs to his room.

Of course the mother didn't make him stay in his room for a week – though the boy lay awake long into the night thinking how terrible it would be to not leave his room for a whole week. Would she bring him food? Would she let him out to go to the bathroom? And what about his toys. Would she take his red fire truck away? But, although she was still angry with him, she came to his room the next morning, sat down on his bed, and told him that he could come out, but to try harder to remember to do the things she asked of him. Everything seemed O.K. after that.

A curious thing happened, however. From then on, whenever the boy and his mother were together and she saw something red, she would get angry! She'd snap at him or withdraw from him, focusing on whatever he seemed to be doing at the time or had done recently that might merit her anger. As with all boys, there was always something for her anger to attach itself to. Most of the time, the boy was never sure what he had done, but knew that, if she was angry, it must be his fault. This puzzled the boy greatly for, most of the time, they had a close relationship but for some unexplained, apparently random reason, she would get angry with him.

This situation continued throughout the boy's childhood, teen-aged years, and on into adulthood. It defined their relationship for the rest of their lives – even though he wanted to he could not get really close to his mother because, whenever there was something red nearby, she would get angry. It was especially bad when the boy and his family visited for Christmas. Not only were there red decorations everywhere – the stockings over the fireplace, the tree ornaments and, of course, the bright red lights – but, buried deep in the psyche of both the boy and his mother, was the memory of a Christmas long ago when the boy left his red fire truck at the foot of the stairs and caused his mother so much pain and anger. If only she had forgiven him the next morning...

Wrestlin' Alligators

A Tale of Addiction and Redemption

(A talk given to a Celebrate Recovery group)

I'd like to talk about alligator wrestling. It'll take me awhile to get to the alligator part, but stick with me. A long time ago, or maybe not so long ago, you were walking along the road of life with lots of troubles heavy on your shoulders. Of course that was true for most of us, but maybe yours were a little heavier or little more painful. So as you were trudging along that road maybe you saw another road branching off to the right. And maybe it had a street sign that said "Road to Happiness" – or maybe there was no street sign. Maybe it was just a friend who said "come with me." Anyway, since you weren't sure where your life road was heading, you decided to take this new path to see where it would lead.

As you moved along the new road you saw some trees – sort of like fruit trees – with a variety of magical fruits hanging from their branches. These low-hanging fruits had several different colors and forms, and they looked like they'd be good to eat. So you tried one and immediately felt your burden lift a little. That felt good. It didn't lift all the weight, but you sure felt a lot better - good enough to sleep for awhile. When you woke up in the morning and prepared to set off further down the road you felt the full weight of your troubles had once again settled on your shoulders. So you helped yourself to another fruit for breakfast and again felt your burden lifting.

Since you planned to travel quite far that day, you ate a second fruit and found that it lightened your load until you could hardly feel it. So you went on down this exciting new road. But by early afternoon the burden suddenly came crashing down on you again. You wished that you'd brought some of the fruit from the first tree, but up ahead was another tree with its own kind of fruit that looked bigger and juicier than what you had this morning. So you ran ahead and gobbled down two of them. After a short while you felt your burden – and your black mood - soar off your shoulders. It's been a long time since you felt this good - or maybe this was the first time in your life you ever felt really good.

This felt so great that you decided to put down your bedroll and stay for a few days so you could keep this good feeling all the time. But you found that every few hours, the bottom dropped out of that great feeling. And along with the return of your troubles came a gnawing hunger for more of the fruit. You scrambled up the tree and found a couple more of the fruits and ate them both. Ahhh – there came that great feeling again. But by the time you woke up the next morning you were miserable – the hunger for the fruit was unbearable. But when you looked up, there was no more fruit on the tree!

Desperately you started running down the road looking for another tree with more – and maybe longer lasting – fruit. As you ran you felt a terrible craving taking over your body that was much worse than your original burden of troubles. Finally you came to another tree, but it had only a few fruits. So you ate what was there, felt your load get lighter, and ran on and on looking for the next tree, until your craving made it impossible to go any further. You thought "If I can just get past this craving and get back on my feet, I think I could make it back to that last tree, then the one before that, and so on. Maybe more fruit has ripened and I can slowly work my way back to the main street of my old life."

But as you look around, you realize that the road has narrowed to an invisible trail and you are truly lost in a deep, dark woods – lets call it the woods of despair. Between the bouts of pain and your craving you crawl forward towards . . . towards . . . towards what?

By now you've probably seen this as a thinly veiled allegory about a trip, maybe your trip, down the road to addiction – to being controlled by something - alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling, your emotions, depression, or an unhealthy relationship. And somewhere, as you crawled along that final path, you might have discovered Someone who wanted to help you leave this road. Someone who had the power to strengthen you against your need for more fruit, if only you would accept Him – Him with a capital "H" – and believe that, if you ask His forgiveness for all the shameful things you did in your past – things that made you hate yourself – you could have a new life. Most of you are here because you've been introduced to Christ and finally know in your heart that, with His help, you can escape the prison of your addiction.

Let me jump back to the allegory and wrestling alligators. As you crawl through the forest of despair, it turns into a swamp. Then you reach the bank of a river. You – maybe we'll call you Pilgrim - can see across to the other side of the river where there's a beautiful place with all your friends and family waiting for you – or maybe just some new friends. Whoever they are, you realize that these are people who really love you and care about you! Behind the people there's a big billboard with a picture of a 25-foot alligator that says, "Pilgrim, if you can swim over here, you can have a new life! But to get across the river, you'll have to wrestle the alligator and win." You think "There's no way I can beat that alligator. I need someone really strong and powerful to help me."

Well, that's where some of you are tonight. You've found your way to that river – but you still have to wrestle your alligator – let's name the alligator 'Withdrawal' . . . or maybe 'Staying Clean.' . . or maybe 'Facing Your Inner Fears' – to get that great reward that's in sight. If you'll ask Christ and trust Him - trust Him so much that you'll give up your own self-will, Christ will help you across the river. But here's the bad news. He won't wrestle the alligator for you. He'll provide you with strength and hope and faith, but you have to wrestle and defeat your own alligator.

But when you do get to the other side of that river you'll be a new creation – a new self no longer burdened by who you used to be. Oh, every now and then you may feel that alligator nipping at your heels, but you know with certainty that you can fight it off again and again – because Christ is in you.

Here's another way to look at it. It's hard to give up your addictions and your dependency on something to help you get through the day, to lift those terrible feelings, to steal control of your life from you. But here's the good news: You don't have to get over your addiction – you just have to transform it to another addiction – an addiction to God and Christ! If you will let yourself get addicted to them, crave a good dose of their word every day, talk to them in prayer, become fully dependent on them, and give control of your life to them, you'll find the peace and the strength to get through every day no matter how bad things look.

Here, at Celebrate Recovery, you're learning that, with God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit's strength, you can break free and stay free. But it requires your full belief and trust if you want it to happen. And that may be a problem with some of you. You know about God and Christ, but you just can't bring yourself to believe that Christ has such power, or that God would bother to help someone who's done the terrible things you have. You may believe in your mind that Christ died on the cross for your sins, but you struggle with believing He rose from the dead as a demonstration that you can have a new life also.

That's what those of you who have been down that road and crossed that river are doing here tonight. They have been exactly where you may be tonight – full of doubt and despair. But they come here as living proof of the truth of God's word – to give you encouragement and confidence to believe and give God control of your life. Those who have already wrestled their alligators and won will tell you how great it is to be recreated by God, and to love God so much that you turn your life over to Him every morning in prayer. There's no better feeling in the universe!
My Journey **: A Spiritual Autobiography**

I was born an atheist. As a baby, my brain's only function was to get organized and keep my bodily systems alive and growing. Before long, my brain got those systems working more or less on their own and began the lifelong process of creating a mind. By the time I was two years old, my mind was able to form simple thoughts and respond to the world around me.

At the age of five, my parents began my religious education by dropping my older sister and me off at Sunday school. I must have been introduced to God and Jesus then, but I don't remember it. We sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" every day at kindergarten while we marched upstairs for snack time, but I didn't know what it meant other than we were about to get orange juice and crackers. I was still an atheist, not by choice, but simply because I didn't know about God and Christ.

When I was six, I finally became a believer. In Sunday school we heard bible stories about God and Jesus and I knew for certain that God was, and that Jesus loves the little children. I didn't understand about Jesus being God's son, or the meaning of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, but my simple mind had absolute faith that God watched over us from heaven and that, when any person or pet died, they went to heaven to be with God. My faith in Santa and the Easter Bunny was also rock solid.

But then my mind began developing enough reasoning to separate real things from imaginary things. First the easter bunny, then santa claus were revealed as frauds, and my parents as liars. But my reasoning mind didn't quit there. It continued on to question other things for which I had never seen any evidence – among them god, jesus and their miracles. At that point, I became an agnostic; my mind had learned to doubt.

As the ability of my mind to reason grew stronger, I saw with perfect logic that the Bible was just a collection of ancient legends written by ordinary men over thousands of years. God couldn't have been talking to all of them - he never talked to me or anyone else I knew. And there were so many other stories and legends that men had created and believed in - tales of ghosts, trolls, witches, magicians, vampires, and evil ones who ate little children. I could easily see that the Bible belonged up on the shelf right beside the Brothers Grimm.

To gather strength for my growing agnosticism (I hadn't even heard that word yet, but I fit the definition perfectly: One who, based on what he or she knows, is unable to affirm or deny the existence of God), I turned to those around me. I asked the smartest man I knew, my father, who he believed Jesus was. He replied that Jesus was a great philosopher and religious leader, but he didn't believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Then I turned to my older sister. Since she was studying Bible history at her boarding school, she must know about these things. She thought that, like the Egyptian, Greek and Roman gods, God with a capital G was something early men made up to help them deal with their fears of a world they couldn't understand or control. After that, I went back to being an atheist for awhile.

By now I was in my early teens and my mind had developed a hunger for knowledge that I satisfied by reading about everything. I read novels, magazines, science books, encyclopedias, and some of my father's philosophy books. In this mix, I came across several things that caused me to doubt my disbelief in God. Maybe God was a cosmic consciousness, a master switchboard that connected all human minds together. That would explain things like mental telepathy. And later I thought that maybe God was within each of us - the embodiment of the goodness of mankind. At this point, I began attending Sunday school on my own in a conservative Christian church. I was also was full of the idealism, skepticism, and judgementalism that bursts forth at that age. I listened to the Sunday school lessons and church sermons, but saw in the leaders of the congregation those rumored to be dishonest or who cheated on their wives, all the while feeding their egos with their importance in the church. This was my first encounter with hypocrisy and it angered me enough that I quit going to church. I didn't realize that I was confusing the behavior of the imperfect people in the church with an idealized vision of what Godly people should be like.

But there was a ray of hope. I had begun praying to God nightly, even though I wasn't sure what, or if, he was. I asked him to help me be a better person, to keep me from doing things that I knew were wrong, to help me control my growing anger. I kept this up for some time, but it wasn't working. I couldn't overcome the lying, disobedience, anger and other behaviors that made me dislike myself and disappoint my parents.

At the age of 18, I finally gave up on God. I didn't go back to atheism though. I made the conscious decision to be an agnostic until I had time to reason it all out. I noticed that older people seemed to be more religious than younger ones and concluded that, as people aged, there must be some mechanism that makes them more willing to believe in God. (I didn't realize it at the time, but the "mechanism" is called LIFE). I would be content to remain an agnostic until I was older.

But things kept happening that seemed to have God's hand in them. As I matured into my early twenties, I occasionally reflected on things I did as a teenager that should have been disastrous. I was a bright, adventurous kid who was always doing dangerous things, like making a flame thrower out of a hair spray can and a match, or building Molotov cocktail gasoline bombs and pipe bombs. When the U.S. space program started, I made my own rocket fuel and tried to launch a few rockets, but they all failed. Looking back on these and dozens of other reckless things I did, it seemed to me that someone up there must have been watching over me. All this youthful experimentation turned out to be beneficial, though. I went on to become a research scientist, first for a 20-year Air Force career, and later for several aerospace companies.

More evidence of God's hand kept appearing in my life. When I was in my late twenties, my wife and I had a son who almost died in the few weeks after his birth from an undiagnosed liver problem. The problem apparently cleared up and my son grew into a normal, healthy child. When he was six years old, a routine blood test showed that some of his liver readings were a little high, but the pediatrician didn't think it was anything to worry about. I called my father, who was a surgeon at a university hospital, and asked him about what we should do. He referred us to a gastroenterologist who said that we should bring him to the university as soon as possible for a liver biopsy. The biopsy revealed that my son had a rare condition called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency that could eventually destroy his liver and his lungs unless we took steps to protect him from liver stress and air pollution. This wasn't just a simple medical case correctly diagnosed by a competent doctor. Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency only strikes 1 in 10,000 Americans, and the gastroenterologist, who just happened to be a friend of my father's was one of very few specialists in the country at that time who could recognize the liver abnormality associated with it and diagnose it. To me, the probability of all these things falling into place without some help from God seemed unacceptably low.

These things weren't enough for me to give up my agnostic position entirely, but it made me think a lot about how to reconcile my doubts about God and the Bible with his apparent intervention in my life. I had become a searching agnostic – looking for evidence that would allow me to believe in God.

Then an opportunity came up that I hoped might help me resolve this struggle. I was asked to join a team of U. S. scientists visiting Turin, Italy to perform tests on a church relic called the Shroud of Turin, traditionally viewed as the burial cloth of Christ. When I joined the project I thought the Shroud might provide the evidence I was looking for. I expected, or even hoped, that when I first saw the Shroud, I would feel something – an aura of the presence of God maybe. But I felt nothing, and was disappointed that I hadn't. After several months of research on the Shroud, I was still an agnostic. I had seen, touched, and studied what might be the only physical evidence for Christ's existence, and I still couldn't believe in God. The problem was, that as a scientist, I was looking for the only kind of evidence I thought I could trust – scientific evidence.

I've since found out that belief in God doesn't come from science or the intellect – it comes from the heart, from an inner spiritual core in each of us, a part of me that I refused to acknowledge until, in my mid-forties, a personal crisis forced me to turn to God. I went through a dozen years of deep, suicidal depression. For the first couple of years, I responded in a typical man's way - by telling no one and trying to fix it myself. But as the depression got worse, I was in constant emotional pain. I frequently thought about killing myself to end the unbearable pain. I finally reached a point when the pain was too great; when I realized that I couldn't handle it on my own. I had to turn to God for help even though I was doubtful that he existed. So I asked him to help me deal with this, to show me what I needed to do to get better. I was still in the grip of the delusion that I would play the major role, with just a little help from God.

Fortunately, God wasn't put off by this. Apparently it's a common problem on the journey to fully trusting him. He led me first to a Christian friend who had been through a similar depression. His help led me to seek psychological counseling and enroll in a five-year men's bible study program, where God's hand became even more obvious.

Up to that point, I had refused to take anti-depressants. I still believed that, with God's help, I could fight back the depression with the strength of my own will. One night the bible study speaker, who was a pharmacist, was covering Chapter 20 of II Kings, where Hezekiah was healed by placing a fig poultice on his infection. At that point the speaker stopped, looked out at the audience of 200+ men, and said "Notice that God used medicines of the day to heal the king. Some of you men out there need to be taking medication for blood pressure, cholesterol, or other problems. Go see your doctor. Let God work through him." That hit me like an arrow straight from God. I called my doctor the next day and started on Prozac.

Even with antidepressants, it took God several years to get me over the depression and bring me close to him. It's been a long uphill road, with my inner self and scientific mind fighting God and me at every turn. But every time I got stuck, He would lead me to a Christian radio program, a friend, or a pastor who would address the very issue that was troubling me at the time who provided just what I needed to overcome the latest roadblock my intellect had put up.

One of the most powerful things I heard on the radio was that each of us is born with a God-shaped hole within us. Most of us spend our lives trying to fill it with something else – work, hobbies, sports, human relationships, power, money, alcohol, drugs – but no matter how many things we try to fill it with, we still have a sense of emptiness, of something missing in our soul. Only God can fill that hole.. When I heard this I was finally able to start letting God all the way in.

But something still stood in the way of full belief – my scientist's mind. The rational part of my mind reasoned that a 6-day creation was impossible, that evolution made lots of sense, and a 6,000 year old earth was totally out of sync with geological data. I couldn't accept the inconsistencies between my logical mind and my spiritual leanings. The solution came to me while driving to work one morning. I was praying for God to help me break through this barrier and it came to me: I had to split my mind into two parts - the rational scientific mind and the spiritual mind – and no longer require that the two be fully consistent. After that, my faith grew quickly.

As I cautiously gave God control of my life, a little at a time, he opened up my mind to his grand plan for us: He sent Jesus to teach us, convict us of our sins (sin = not living up to God's expectations for us), enlist disciples to spread the Gospel (the Good News) around the world and into the future, and then give His life as a substitute sacrifice for all our sins - past, present, and future – to be forgiven.

Now that I have given God complete control over my life, I have an inner peace that I didn't imagine was possible. God is part of my life every day and I always turn to him for help and guidance. My intellect still intrudes on my spiritual beliefs, especially when I try to comprehend how the Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit who lives in within me can be one and the same; a single God. But when my intellect intrudes, I tell myself to let it go for now. The way I see it, when I get to heaven, God will explain it all and there will be no inconsistencies.

I no longer see God as a cosmic consciousness – I see him as the Creator of the cosmos. I found that, if we give him the opportunity by accepting His plan for us, He will:

  * Free us from our past,

  * Protect us from the negative influences of the world around us,

  * Show us the paths that He would have us follow, and

  * Create daily opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.

I've given up searching for God in scientific and historical facts - God wants us to accept him on faith, which, by definition, is believing when no proof exists to support that belief. Or, as Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century philosopher and theologian put it, "faith cannot be based on reason else it would not be faith."

About the Author

J. D. German, known to his family and friends as Dee, retired from a 40-year career as a scientist to a lake home in southwestern Georgia. He was a classic agnostic scientist for most of his career until a personal crisis brought him to God and Christ. He now attends Lake Seminole Baptist Church in Donalsonville, GA, where he teaches Sunday School and a men's discipleship class.

In 1978 Mr. German joined a team of thirty scientists from major U.S. research laboratories that went to Turin, Italy to investigate an ancient relic known as The Shroud of Turin. This cloth, bearing the image of a man who was crucified, is believed by some to be the cloth used by Joseph of Arimathea to wrap Christ's body after the crucifixion. The team performed a wide range of tests, measurements, and imaging designed to better understand the relic and what caused the image.

After he retired Dee created an informal presentation titled "Science and the Shroud of Turin" which he has given dozens of times in several states. The talk focuses on the scientific work and its conclusions rather than theological issues. His presentation ends with a powerful testimony of how his work on the Shroud, and later life events, brought him from intellectual agnosticism to a full relationship with God and Christ.

Dee is available to give this talk to churches, groups, and schools anywhere. The talk is free except for traveling expenses. If you or your pastor is interested in such a talk, please send me an email at the above address requesting more information.

