If I should die . . .

For The Second Time Around

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
Reflections post in the Whimsy Series

Found HERE

Six years ago now, I reblogged my own humorous article from a posting on the personal blog I maintained on a now defunct ADD site.  Here ’tis again, this time in it’s entirety, with just a few edits.

I hope it gives new readers a giggle as you get an up-close-and-personal look into the quirky way the ADD mind tends to work.

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You know the prayer:

Found HERE

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Even I know the prayer, though I was not raised in a particularly religious household as I remember – which is always an iffy thing since I am the poster girl for a-historic.

I’m famous for the comment, “I didn’t see that movie,” to the very people who are in the position to say, “Yes you did. We saw it together!”

Now, wouldn’t you think they’d ALSO give me a clue about the occasion, their presence or the plot? But then again, why ruin a funny story?

But back to the prayer. Were you aware that most little kids are terrified by that prayer?

“But I don’t want to ask God to die!”
is a response many remember having, chins quivering.

ADD kids aren’t the ones with that response, however.

What terrifies ADDers . . .

This scares ADDers

The truly terrifying part of that particular prayer is that part at the end — the part when we are expected to recite, for God and whomever it is smiling benignly from the bedside (with visions of some adorable-child-at-prayer-we-know-we-will-never-be dancing in their heads) a list of everyone-in-our-lives-deserving-of-blessing!

God Bless Mommy and Daddy, God Bless Junior, and Spot, and Natalie-next-door . . .

Never mind the fact that we don’t WANT God to bless Natalie-next-door, since she was such a pill about the unfortunate beheading of her second favorite doll.

Found on Pinterest

We wish Natalie the exact opposite of such blessings – and wish that God would take HER soul so that we could get on with our really nifty French Revolution game with the rest of her dolls.

Never mind the fact that we can’t reconcile the competing injunctive that lying is a sin, never to be done by good little girls, under pain of yet another round of, “I’m so disappointed in you.”

We know that if we don’t God bless Natalie-next-door we are in for another boring discussion of Natalie’s virtues, after which we will be forced to say God bless Natalie-next-door anyway.

The REALLY Scary Thing

That part is relatively simple compared to the rest: REMEMBERING the list of everybody in our lives!

No ADD kid can function under that kind of pressure.

It’s not that we can’t recall the cast of characters. It’s those NAMES that are so darn pesky.

Come on, we know the names of our relatives and friends and teachers and pets and so on!

It’s just that, for some reason, coming up with them nightly is a unique kind of penance reserved for bad little girls who appear to torture dolls.

Found HERE

Cortexes, Cars and Courtesies

We know now that, under performance pressure, an ADDer’s pre-frontal cortex shuts down temporarily, like an old car with a ten second lag between flooring the accelerator and any car movement what-so-ever.

But that knowledge wouldn’t have helped much with the expectation that our minds would be able to produce, on demand, the monikers of anyone who has ever been so stupid as to entrust us with that information.

Hi, his name is . . .

Introductions are an especially devilish demonstration, fraught with the peril of the look of pain and embarrassment when we, yet again, start brightly with, “I’d like you to meet my husband, …” and can’t for the life of us remember what comes next.

And believe me, my ex made that mean something!

My favorite work-around is something like, “You are two of my favorite people and I just know that you are going to be great friends since you both so enjoy [fill in the name of any activity you can remember each of them ever commenting upon with favor].

I need to run to the necessary, so please introduce yourselves!”
(It was definitely an ADDer who came up with that particular handle for “bathroom,”
as well as terms like, “see a man about a dog,” etc.)

But what comes next is even worse

Given the difficulty we have with remembering names, the next expectation is beyond reason!

After failing the try-to-remember-to-God-bless-everyone-in-your-life torture test, and the attendant discussion where we have do everything in our power to look like we are paying attention and, frankly Scarlet, give a damn, we are expected to be able to drift peacefully off to sleep!

Reporting difficulties with the particular transition following the “now I lay me” ritual,
we are enjoined to count sheep.

Are you kidding me?!

The non-ADD brain must be very different from mine indeed if that works for them as a sleep aid. Reciting a list of every number from one to eight-trillion-and-two has never done anything for me at all but bore me silly and lead me to wonder, yet again, what was wrong with me.

But I digress.

What’s Going On?

In a flash of insight that comes sometimes in that transition between waking and sleeping (that has more in common with the latter than the former for this ADD brain), I think I figured out the reason why ADDers seldom report terror at the “If I should die” part.

ADDers live in an eternal NOW.
“If I should die” is an alien concept.

We do a quick body check. Not dead now. Not sick. Not symptomatic. And our brains skip merrily on to whatever thought is provided by the next distraction in our environment, inner or outer: coffee spills, dust bunnies, or the doll we really wanted to send to the gallows instead of that stupid now-headless Barbie that Natalie is so upset about.

When the world at large brings up the possibility of dying tomorrow we embrace it eagerly.  YES!

If I die tomorrow what difference will it make if the bed is made or the bills are paid? Don’t I deserve a little fun before I go? Whose life is it anyway?

It would be extremely useful to operate with the knowledge that LIVING tomorrow is also an option, one much more likely to show up in our reality.

Get Ready for Reason

Found HERE

Many of the made-in-the-moment decisions that trip us up might be made another way entirely if we were encouraged to focus on the next day or week or month that always arrives — despite the fact that we drive to work breakfasting on Cheetos purchased from the junk machine waiting to pay for that oh-so-essential substance initiating our quick stop at the gas station that starts practically every journey

I mean, we can’t drive very far on the gas purchased with the dollar-seventy-two we scrounged from the change on the floor of our cars or the bottom of our purses yesterday, necessitated by the fact that we can’t ever seem to remember to go to the bank or to put the credit cards hiding in some other purse into the purse we are currently carrying in our valiant effort to dress for success that, for some bizarre reason, centers on coordinated shoe, bag and outfit colors.

Is that an ADD sentence, or what?!

We eat the Cheetos and lick the orange stain from the steering wheel, at the same time dialing our offices to bemoan the terrible traffic we are not stuck in that is the reason we’ll be late for work, while applying make-up as we speed down the interstate to reduce our journey by as many minutes as we overslept.

We do it all despite repeated warnings of the dire consequences
of not paying attention when we are driving.

Clearly, the possibility of death holds no terror for us
as surely as the possibility of life tomorrow has no reality today.

Found HERE

If we could remember that LIVING a while is a definite possibility when we purchase one tampon from the machine in the ladies room, or one roll of toilet paper from the Quick Stop (because we have run out of the paper towels we have been using since we seem to be constitutionally unable to remember to pick up more bathroom tissue), it might occur to us that the jumbo pack could possibly save us time and money in the long run.

And we might even think of purchasing a jumbo pack of paper towels while we’re at it, since the probability of our living long enough to need them when we run out of this batch of TP would have been reinforced — if only we’d had a nightly ritual that reminded us about that LIVING for a while part.

Or Maybe Not

On second thought, maybe an ADD version of the prayer would be a better solution. I have one I’d like to suggest.

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should live another year
I pray the Lord to please be here

To help me follow through with . . .

paying my bills . . . changing my sheets . . . paying my taxes . . . painting the rest of the room I started the day after I moved here . . . remembering the name or location of the paint store so I can buy another can of the same color since the one I have would surely be unusable even if I could find it . . .

Now there’s a listing that would be useful!
Much better for us than the God blesses.

Not only would it be something we could produce easily, our efforts would actually be met with approval for remembering anything-what-so-ever on the inordinately long list of uncompleted tasks.

Never mind that it could only be the proverbial tip of that particular iceberg —
it would be much better for us than counting sheep!

I know I would certainly drift off easily somewhere near the beginning of that particular naming, especially since God was going to be taking care of reminding me to do it all.

I wonder if any research has been done on the long term effects
of sleeping on your knees at the side of the bed?

Found HERE

By the way, if you’re looking for an ADD Coach who really gets it, after reading this story you surely know I do.  Believe it or not, I have a raft of techniques and work-arounds that really help.  Get in touch if you’d like some.  Help, I mean.

© 2011, 2017, all rights reserved

© The article above is may NOT be reproduced in any form.
It is slated for inclusion in my upcoming collections of shorts,
Turkey Broth for the ADD Spirit.
(reblogs always okay, and much appreciated)

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