– by Frank South
How I came to write the book, A Chicken in the Wind and How He Grew – Stories from an ADHD Dad, an eight year accident.
I didn’t mean to do it, not even sure I wanted to. It was more of an accidental collision of an ADHD brain and a string of family crises.
It all started a decade ago when, after years of therapy, I wrote and performed a two hour one-man show about my ADHD, hypomania, alcoholism, etc., and the threat it posed to my marriage, parenting, career or, I don’t know, even living a single day as a functioning human being.
At the end of rehearsals I was convinced that this was the end of it. I would never write about ADHD or my messed up self or the damage I’d left in my wake ever again.
But then …
I had been doing research during this process, reading books and digging through websites like ADDitude magazine. And ADDitude was looking to try out a couple of new bloggers. I thought I could at least send in a couple of posts, just to get my name into the community, and maybe get some publicity for the show.
I wasn’t expecting much, because mine looked more like little stories, not posts like I had been reading with solid information and advice.
Just stories
And they were just little stories. But ADDitude published them, and I kept writing through the next eight years as our family went through upheavals I couldn’t have imagined.
I wrote about it all, as it happened, because I had to. I had to keep learning how to fly through my mental tornado or I couldn’t be of any use to my wife, my two ADHD kids or anyone I loved, and then everything I cared about could be blown away.
Learning curve
With every story I was able to find out more about my ADHD self and how I helped or hindered the people in my family and in the whirling world around us – how I saw them, or they me, how a flash of insight could spawn empathy and how rushed misperception could destroy trust.
I discovered I needed to write completely honestly – emotionally naked – in order to understand my life and the lives of others the best I could.
Out of the storm of the moment I could organize an event, see my part of it, how it fit or didn’t with other events and what I could learn from it. And maybe I could do something to help.
… and then …
Last year I turned around when there was a minute to breathe and realized that writing the stories in the moment one after another charted a longer story of growth and the realization of the simple power of love and acceptance.
So the little stories became a big book, by accident.
A big book called, “A Chicken in the Wind and How He Grew.”
 Frank South is an off-Broadway playwright, longtime television writer and producer, and now primarily writes about life as an ADHD adult. His stories and articles are published in ADDitude magazine, ADDitudemag.com and other magazines and websites. He’s been featured in programs about Adult ADHD on Second Opinion for PBS and Rock Center for NBC News. |