ADHD: Four Rules To Fake It When You Forget Somebody's Name

I attended a church picnic the other day. The sun was bright, yet the weather was cool. It was a perfect day for outdoor frolicking. I wasn’t sure if I would attend at first because my girls weren’t with me. Watching other people’s families have fun isn’t high up on my things to do on a lovely Saturday afternoon, especially if they are happy li’l nuclear families, but I decided to go anyway. It was the first activity since being assigned to the new ward[1] and I wanted to meet & mingle.

Since it was a stake picnic, all the wards in our stake were in attendance, including the one I used to attend. I walked around and tried to recall names of the new ward members I had met on previous Sundays and said hello to the people I bumped into from my previous ward, but then somebody called out my name. Her hair was up and she was in large, dark sunglasses. All I could see of her face was her welcoming smile.

“Brother Cootey! It's good to see you!”“Yeah, it's good to see you, too!”

We chatted a bit about my daughter who used to be in her young women's program, then I walked away. Only at that point did I remember her name. I was so used to meeting people from my new ward that day and having those awkward “You're…um…Joel?”/“And you're…uh…Douglas?” moments, that I went back to her and said, “Hey! You're Sister Wengle!”[2] This wouldn’t have been a problem if I we hadn’t seen each other for two years, but it had only been two months.

She wasn't wearing her sunglasses then, so I could see the hurt in her eyes. Ouch. I hate letting people down. I let her know that I have ADHD and tend to forget names, and she was a good sport, but it was a splash of cold water on a warm moment. I shouldn't have let her know that I forgot her name. It violated my number two rule, but it was an impulse. Open mouth; insert foot. You know he drill.

People with ADHD tend to have issues with working memory. There is often a barrier preventing us from accessing information at the appropriate moment. The effect is the same as forgetting, but if you understand about the delay, perhaps now you'll understand why so many ADHD adults suddenly interrupt a conversation with “Oh! I forgot to get the toilet paper!”

That poor sister was surprised at how well I was at faking that I remembered her name. Yes, I’m very good at it. I decided to master this problem after noticing a friend on campus many years ago. He was a quarter of a mile away, but it was unmistakably him. I ran across the quad and called out, “Hey! …!” and then came to an awkward stop in front of him. I had gone blank. He wasn’t impressed. There’s probably a reason we aren’t friends anymore, whatever his name was.

I’ve had over twenty years of practice since then, and I don’t get myself in those situations anymore. That awkward picnic moment was an aberration for me, so I’m going over my rules to have another twenty years without incident, and now I share my rules with you.

1. SMILE– A smile will put both of you at ease. The minute they see that certain panicked look on your face, the jig is up. Keep your face calm and friendly instead.
2. DON'T ADMIT YOU FORGOT THEIR NAME– If you haven’t seen them for a while, chances are they’ve forgotten your name, too. Besides, that information is floating just out of your reach. Relax and let it drift into your orbit. After all, you know them, right? Why needlessly hurt their feelings? This doesn’t change how happy you are to see them.
3. CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY– Your word choices can expose you and lead to an embarrassing moment, so practice saying, “Hey, how are you doing?”, not “Hey, how are you doing, …?” with an awkward “Ohmigosh-I-forgot-their-name!” face. Say “How’s your husband?”, not, “How’s …(Is it Ken? Cole? Kermit‽)” Try “What’s that smart kid of yours been up to?” They’ll probably fill in his name for you.
4. DODGE & WEAVE– Conversations with old colleagues or neighbors at the DMV or supermarket are usually very brief. The moment is too fast for names to matter. You’ll probably remember when you pull out of your parking space. Until then, ask them about their work, their marriage, their kids, etc. Catching up may even jog that swiss cheese memory of yours.

The only time you should admit you can't recall their name is if they figure it out, or you plan on having an extended conversation. Then remember rule number one and mention your momentary lapse in memory. You'll have time to smooth things over. I can't say that everyone who I've been honest with has been happy about my lapse in memory, but none of those moments have ever been as bad as things were for me before I followed these rules.

People like to believe that they are memorable. Don’t you? Forgetting someone's name makes them feel as if you've forgotten who they are. You & I know that name is somewhere in our noggin. We haven't forgotten that person at all, but they won't always understand. If you have a hard time remembering people’s names, follow these rules to get you through most social greetings. For some reason they’re easier to remember than those darn names.

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1. Wards are what Mormons call their congregations. Several wards make up a stake. Several stakes make up an area. As populations change, sometimes reorganizing the ward boundaries becomes necessary. In my case, my apartment complex was reassigned to a different ward. I didn't move, but where I attended church did.  ↩

2. Name changed to protect that sister's identity, and not because I forgot her name again.  ↩

Sunset Therapy

One of my favorite methods of treating Depression is to go out for a simple walk. Another is to exercise creativity in some way. When I combine the two together, it is very effective therapy indeed. I love the challenge of capturing sunsets with my iPhone and playing with filters to get the perfect effect that expresses my mood. Lately, I've been so very stressed because my car is off the road. I've sunk $1600 into it this week and it still didn't pass inspection. So frustrating.

Thankfully, Mother Nature has sent me glorious sunsets to lift my spirits.

 

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What types of activities lift your spirits and help you fight Depression? Share them with us below.

 

ADHD & Fearing Failure

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There's almost no such thing as ready. There's only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I'm about to go bungee jumping or something - I'm not. I'm not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”

~Hugh Laurie

 

That quote drifted across my Facebook stream sometime last weekend. Normally, I snort disdainfully at inspirational quotes overlaid on gauzy photos full of dappled sunlight, but this was not one of those occasions. Actors aren't normally my source for inspirational quotes. They are no different than any other person with a demanding job. They may seem more beautiful than your average person, but they aren't necessarily so in person. Many actors are convinced that their opinions on politics or global weather are the right opinions because they are famous, their peers share their opinions, and they have a microphone in their face more times than you or I, but their opinions are not necessarily more valid than your crazy uncle's or loud-mouthed neighbor's. It is a different matter when they share insight from their own experiences. Then I take notice. Hugh Laurie's commentary on waiting struck me like lightning on a clear day. Waiting has been one of the problems in my life.

Fortunately, I'm not waiting anymore. There were many times in the past where I held off doing something because I felt I wasn't ready. When you put something off long enough, we well know it can become a case of procrastination, but sometimes it can also be a case of fear.

A lifetime of ADHD failures taught me in my twenties that there was a ceiling that limited how high I could fly. Out of high school I believed that there was no ceiling, but hitting that ceiling with the velocity of rocket propelled naivety taught me pain. Instead of caution, I learned fear. Instead of learning to prepare, I learned to stop. It wasn't a conscientious decision that I made. I simply found myself sitting on the curb watching the parade of achievers march on by while I nursed a sore face. To be fair, becoming disabled at twenty-five certainly factored into my new world view, but ADHD failures are bright and colorful things, done boldly and with great fanfare for all to notice. I became ashamed and left the parade.

This certainly didn't apply to all areas of my life, but where my dreams were concerned, I practiced and waited. I was never quite ready, never quite finished. After my divorce, however, I came to a conclusion. Not only did I miss the speed of a rocket beneath my feet, but I was bored of waiting. Unfortunately, because of life's complications I have been pressing forward in hops and skips, but not with bounds that could scale tall buildings. Laurie's quote came at an opportune time for me.

Not only am I fired up to finish my book on overcoming suicide, but I see that in many ways I had begun waiting again. I had begun to believe that I wasn't quite ready, and maybe, perhaps, my voice on the subject wasn't a qualified one. This is likely because my project came to a stop when my editor took maternity leave. I had idle time to worry, but it is also true that adults with ADHD have notoriously low self-esteem.

I should have applied to my writing the lesson that I learned with my recent drawing project. In December I decided that I had waited to be ready to draw long enough. I had been sketching in fits and starts, but not with any purpose. However, there could be only so many remedial sketches I could do before I bored myself away from drawing forever. I decided to force myself to draw online—anonymously for the moment—but in public so that others could see. My first sketches were terrible things, especially in comparison to how I used to draw. Before I became disabled with a tic disorder I loved to draw daily. Then I became frustrated and afraid of that blank canvas. My ticking still interfered in small ways, but looking over the past six months of efforts surprised me. I had progressed so much. I had proven to myself that I could do it. So I made new goals for June to increase my drawing output and step up my efforts—one of which is to clear away the boxes around my art desk, dust it off, and actually use it for the first time in years.

ADHD does help us make some glorious mistakes. However, if I had stopped cooking years ago because I repeatedly forgot about pans on the burner and let them melt into slag, I wouldn't be feeding my children wonderful meals today. In the same way, if I don't publish this book of mine, I'll never grow and develop as a writer. It's time to put my work forward and stop waiting.

 

ADHD: Looking Back & Laughing

I'm a very lucky individual. I just wish that all of that luck was good. There always seems to be a balance. For every contest I win, there is the EPA letter declaring that I will be fined by the barrel for industrial toxic waste dumping.[1] When I first started this blog in 2005, I used bad luck as one of my topics of choice. You can read a classic entry here. In the end, however, I decided that writing about bad luck was at cross purposes with my efforts to think positively. So bad luck was dropped.
That doesn't mean that my luck magically transformed into a rainfall of positive li'l Nestles Treasures from Heaven.[2] Recently, I have been having trouble buying a working stylus. My chronic motor tic disorder robbed me of my drawing skill years ago. I walked away from the art desk and all my dreams as an illustrator. Since my divorce, I have been dabbling in art again and recently wanted to step up my efforts. I chose to do it digitally since erasing mistakes was as easy as a tap, and I knew I'd be making a lot of mistakes. I began with fiftythree's app Paper and their nifty doodad, Pencil. It promised to provide the closest drawing experience that matched my old style: A pencil tip, an eraser, and the ability to easily smudge the pencil lines with your finger for gradation. By pairing the Pencil with the iPad, Paper knows which end you are pressing against the glass. If you press without the Pencil, it interprets that pressure as a smudge stroke. Genius!
Unfortunately, my first Pencil was defective. It erased just fine, but the drawing side would only smudge. So I returned it for a replacement. Then the replacement arrived and the drawing tip worked like a charm! Too bad the eraser side didn't. It wouldn't pair correctly and only made smudging strokes like the defective Pencil before it. You could erase something by smudging it into oblivion, but for $60 I expected better. Today I received a return label to send it back for another exchange. Here's hoping the third time's the charm.
Years back this would have sent me over the edge in rage. How dare they single me out with shoddy equipment, blah blah blah… I was tightly wound. Now I just laugh. This completely reminds me of that time I tried to rent “The Ladykillers” from Blockbusters DVD mailing service. It took me four times to get one that wasn't cracked. And only that one movie ever gave me trouble. So bizarre. That was a turning point for me. Before then I would have ranted, written angry letters, demanded to talk to supervisors, etc. Instead, I laughed and blogged about it. I was almost disappointed when the fourth copy arrived undamaged. I'm sharing all of this with you because we truly can train ourselves to manage ADHD anger and low tolerance for frustration. I just hadn't realized how successful I had been with my own efforts until this Pencil fiasco. Sometimes the luck we get is just dumb, and the things that go wrong are nobody's fault. The folks at fiftythree have been wonderful to work with. I'm sure I'll get a working unit one day. Could I ask for more? Well, a working Pencil on the first try, I suppose, but that paper airplane is out the window.
In the meantime I have found a solution: I shall draw with a real pencil on real paper. Voilà! No Bluetooth pairing problems! It's almost like I'm a genius or something.
I am glad that I began this journey to master myself and learn to write about these problems in entertaining ways. I can't say this is the most entertaining article I've written, but as I warm up my mind for the revisions on my overcoming suicide book, I'm glad I took time to share this. Too often ADHD tips here are about the fiascos of my life. At least this one time I wanted to write about a success.

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1. That was a fun day. I was in my early twenties and called the EPA in a panic. It turns out some company with a name similar to my business name had been naughty, but the EPA didn't know which company so they sent out a blanket batch of threats to all businesses that had a similar name. Gotta love government efficiency.  ↩
2. How I miss those devilishly delightful chocolate treats.  ↩