Shut up, Clark

Been there, done that, made the t-shirt.

For every "negative" trait associated with ADHD, there is a corresponding trait of awesomeness to celebrate during ADHD Awareness Week.  It is often the same with my son Clark's "co-morbid" condition, Asperger's Syndrome.

His positives come to mind quickly:  he is creative, passionate, and funny.  

The negatives aren't hard to remember either.  He is unfocused,/distracted, relentless, at times insensitive, and always impulsive.

The distractability can drive us to, well, distraction.  But we laugh about it.  One time our daughters Marie, Liz, and Susanne made t-shirts for all of us to wear with Clark's picture on it, captioned with "Huh?" and "What?"  Yep, that's it, at the top of this post. Distracted.  Definitely. 

Another time as we rode the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, the Boat Captain advised us that if we saw anything out of the ordinary, we should report it to the crew.

"Should we tell them about Clark?" I teased.

"Huh?" Clark asked.

See how  the negative distraction can turn positive at times?  Go Mom, getting away with that little comment.

Clark is funny.  He is very funny...sometimes.  By the sheer number of impulsive swings he takes at the ball, he is bound to connect.  By the will of his relentless pounding, he occasionally scores a homerun.  Or not.

"What do you want to do tonight, Daniel? I want to go see Harry Potter and the Butt of the Monkeys," he announced to the thin air one day. 

This made no sense, but left his sisters laughing helplessly for days every time he repeated it.  And repeated it.  And repeated it.  But the girls repeated it too.  It's still a way to make everyone in the family laugh on cue.

More Clarkisms:

"I like cheese."  (Repeated 7,000 times a day for 3 years)

"I'm a dog."  (Repeated only 5,000 times a day for 2 years)

Often he  misses the ball by a mile, leaving us befuddled, bemused, or uncomfortable at his unfunniness.  Sometimes even wounded.  Like when he blurted out, "Why can't we talk about our summer vacation in front of Liz?" (right in front of Liz) when we had told him that she wasn't getting to go with us on vacation because she was visiting her mother.  He is sweet, he doesn't want to hurt any feelings, but he is missing the "social savvy" and empathy genes.

Take the issue of race, for instance.  Clark is very comfortable with people of all races, and he finds humor in race where other people feel awkward and uncertain.  Meanwhile, I am an employment lawyer and human resources consultant.  I live in terror of his casual comments. 

Like when he was playing Scattergories with his girlfriend and her parents and sisters.  His girlfriend is Black, or, Blasian as she describes herself on her Facebook profile – her father is African American and her mother is Filipino.  [Clark could not look more Caucasian if I painted him with Sherwin Williams "Reflective White."] As an answer to "things that are black" beginning with the letter F, Clark's answer was The Fosters.

Yes, their family name is Foster. 

Luckily, they all thought he was hilarious. 

He is missing a good set of antilock brakes on his brain and mouth.  When he gets the urge to speak, when he feels the need to indulge his own funny bone, absolutely nothing will stop him. 

Nothing.

"It doesn't get any funnier if you say it ten times, Clark," I advise him.

"Shut up, Clark," his sisters shout.

"We've dropped that subject an hour ago.  Let it go," Eric counsels him.

Clark is passionate about football.  He is obsessed with football.  Not playing football – strategizing about football and watching it.  And talking about it.  Endlessly.  This makes him a lot like many other guys, while totally different at the same time.  My husband and his oldest son Thomas have a love for football.  They both played football for years.  Yet Clark's questions about historic football minutiae and obscure facts about current practice squad pro players, posed as hypotheticals with 73 follow-up questions, floors even them.

I started this blog, though, talking about the positives.  Clark's worst ADHD/Asperger's traits are positives to him.  They transcend their "disorder" label, especially when he is regularly taking his meds, which enables him to SLOOOWWW DOOOWWWNNN and utilize some of the skills he has (sort of) learned, and even more so since he hit magical age of slightly lessened symptoms, which for him was 16. 

If you turn Clark loose on a topic in which he has an interest, then you had better stand back and hold on to your bum with both hands, because he's about to rocket launch you into lunar orbit.  Aside from football, Clark also loves public policy, he laps up computer science, he devours world history, he churns through words, he lives for games.  Don't expect him to waste his time on grammar, pre-calculus, or chemistry, but if you want to see a protostar, a dark nebula extraordinaire, shout "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere," and assign him the affirmative case.   

He will laser focus.  He will employ all of that creativity and passion as he relentlessly, and, yes, insensitively, pounds you with his arguments, sometimes forcefully pushing the first point that enters his mind rather than the best one.  His girlfriend, who also is a Cross Examination debater, adds that he will intimdate you. 

You will forget about his "disabilities."  You will marvel at his amazing "abilities."

And you will want to shout, "Shut UP, Clark," out of intimidation.

But you probably won't.

You might cheer or pump your fist, however, instead.

"Go, Clark," you might yell.

Meanwhile, I am whispering in his ear.  "Please, Clark, please my amazing boy, remember: never, ever, ever let anyone shut you up."

Until next time,

Pamela, aka Clark's Mom

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes the Clark Kent Chronicles on parenting ADHD wonder kids, thanks to the crash course given to her by her ADHD son and his ADHD father. She focuses on the post-elementary school years. Visit her blog, Road to Joy, but hang on for the ride as she screws up her kids, drives her husband insane, embarrasses herself in triathlon, and sometimes writes utter nonsense.