(Excerpts from "The Ads book – Attention deficit syndrome. New concentration aids for Zappelphilippe and Dreamers "and from" ads. The adult book ", Oberstebrink Verlag 2005)
Jule - ADS without hyperactivity
Jule (
10 years old) is sitting in the garden, deep in thought. The last few days have once again not been good days.
Tuesday morning had started all too early. With thoughts of the local history paper, she had woken up at 5 a.m. and felt really miserable. Although she had practiced diligently, she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to write down the rivers, cities and mountains that would be asked. This had happened to her before. During the class work she had simply had a "board before the head". Only afterwards everything had come back to her. That's why such things had to happen to her again and again! What the others said to her was probably unfortunately true: she was just stupid. With shaky fingers she had taken the local history book again, but she just wasn't really on the ball. Other thoughts kept creeping in that had nothing to do with rivers and cities.
Then, when she didn't want to eat at breakfast but her mother insisted, she had completely freaked out. She had yelled at her mother and swept her plate off the table. That had been her favorite plate, and in all her misery she threw things at her mother's head that brought tears to her eyes. Upon this she had rushed out of the house and once again forgotten her gym bag.
So when her mother came to school at the first big break, brought her gym bag, and was kind to her too, she had felt terribly mean and miserable for the rest of the day. Her mother had only meant well by her after all - and she had been really nasty to her. She had been really ashamed of herself and had tried to please her mother. But once again her mother had not been really pleased with her, because she wanted to know what had been asked in the local history paper. But she couldn't remember anything, and her mother had only shaken her head in despair.
The next morning she had fallen asleep again after her mother had woken her up. Of course, there was already trouble again because of that, and her sister had gloated behind her hand. Then she had to walk to school alone once again. Her classmate had made it unmistakably clear that they wanted nothing to do with a dawdling, lame Jule. Sadly and with a pressure in her stomach that came more and more often now, she trotted along behind the others....
"Today the others will not laugh at me again. I'll watch like a lynx and not let my mind wander again. I don't want anyone to tell me to sleep, Jule sleep, Jule is a sheep." But she again failed to keep her thoughts together until the end of school. The last lesson, in mathematics, was about quantities like "more" or "less". At the word "more" she thought of the last holiday. She saw herself slowly strolling along the "sea" in dissatisfaction, she could literally smell the salty, fresh scent of the sea breeze. She felt more pleasant that morning, more happy than she had in a long time. But this wonderful feeling was all too short-lived. Her teacher abruptly snapped her out of her reverie. Everyone else was laughing at her again, because she didn't know what to reckon...(Ch 2, pp. 26-28)
Max - ADS with hyperactivity
Max ( 8 years old) lies in bed with a growling stomach and thinks about the last days. Every day there had been trouble. Oh, how he was tired of being in trouble all the time. Every day anew he had resolved to do everything right. But he didn't seem to succeed.
The week had already started with him not getting out of bed on Monday morning. His mother had had to call him many times. When he finally got up and wanted to go to the bathroom, he discovered the wheel of the little tractor he had been looking for all the time on the floor of his room. Immediately he had rummaged for the tractor and mounted the wheel again. Just as he was about to test whether the tractor drove again, his mother came into the room with a raging snort and accused him of playing instead of getting dressed. But he had only repaired the tractor.
In the bathroom he washed himself then shoo, shoo. Nevertheless, he was much too late for breakfast. Because he was not on time, his brother had already started eating. Of all things, the sausage he had wanted to eat, his brother had already eaten. That was just like him: he used every opportunity to annoy him. Full of rage he had thrown the butter at his brother when he wanted to make himself another sandwich. In the process, his sleeve had grazed the butter and he had had to go upstairs to change. He had grabbed a sweater, pulled it on, grabbed his satchel and run out of the house. He had yelled at his mother inside him, "oh no, that sweater with those pants! And then inside out! You look impossible!" All this crap had been his brother's fault. "How did that idiot get to eat his sausage anyway?" That had really pissed him off. A thunderstorm seemed to be raging in his whole body.
And when at the bus the stupid Karl and still more stupid Dominic shouted again and again: "he's got his sweater on backwards, he's too stupid to get dressed" and they didn't stop, even though he had already threatened to beat them three times, he went after them....
There was trouble at school every day. His teacher constantly admonished him: "Max, be careful! How many times do I have to tell you: Don't tip your chair! You are not to call into the class! You are not to report first and wait until it's your turn, like the others!
This constant nagging is horrible. The only exception among the teachers so far had been his art teacher, but he could no longer rely on her, because in art class on Wednesday he had forgotten his drawing pad. He couldn't present his drawing of the castle. His teacher really started: "I have always trusted you. But to lie to me and make me believe that you really drew the castle! I won't believe you anymore...
No one wanted to believe him, no one seemed to like him. Yet he had really spent the whole afternoon drawing the castle. And it had actually turned out well for once....(Ch 2, p. 23-25)
ADS comes of age
Katrin, 43 y. old
8:30 h
"I want to clean the bathroom and the first thing I do is check the mirror. I see that a shelf above the washing machine is totally dusty. I let the mirror be a mirror and go to the shelf first. I notice that I haven't taken yesterday's washing out of the machine yet. It's all crumpled up. So I do it all over again."
9:00 h
"The phone is ringing. My boss is on the line. I have Mr. M's contract stored somewhere in the computer where no one can find it. But it should be printed out now, because Mr. M. wants to sign the contract now. The boss is furious. That's why I have to hurry to the office. So I get in the car and go to my boss (2Km). Computer on. Search for document. When was that again? Where did I save it? Finally found it, printout. Off to the car and home."
10:00 h
"the laundry is a solid lump for the second time. No matter. Now it will be hung up, even if it takes three times as long to iron the next day. Now back to the bathroom. Wait, on the way to the bathroom my eyes fall on the note board. It's full of notes that say "important, don't forget!" Today is the last day to return books to the library. So I quickly put everything together again. Unfortunately, though, I'm missing the list of books I've borrowed." And that's exactly how the rest of the day goes....