On Having A.D.D

Friday night, I'm sitting in the back seat of my dad's Chevrolet,
and I'm happily full from all the hot buns and cookies we've just
bought at Carrefour. My mom's in the front seat talking about some
lecture she went to the other day, and I have no idea what she's
talking about but since I've been fed, I listen? or at least I pretend
to, while zoning out and thinking typical adolescent thoughts mostly
concerning MTV, eating more cookies, and having hour-long phone
calls.

A few minutes later, I tune back in, and she's still talking about this
lecture, something about ADD (Attention Deficiency Disorder) and its
symptoms.
"The lecturer was so interesting," she says, "he explained that ADD can
occur in mild cases, which is very common. Many people have it, and
they never even know it."
Uhuh, I think, wondering why she's telling me this.
"In fact," she continues brightly, "he even described the symptoms of
mild ADD. Oh, I think I still have the pamphlet with me
somewhere?"
Then she begins to count out the symptoms: messiness, inability to
focus on one thing for a long time, short-term memory problems, hate
for Physics and other sciences?

All the time I'm thinking 'Me. Me. Yep, me, and me again.'
But then I catch her giving me her famous
'My-poor-baby-look-what-I've-brought-into-the-world' look, which freaks
me out.
So I try and joke about it.

"Oh haha," I say, "that sounds a lot like me, haha."
My father stares straight ahead of him, while my mother's ears go
red.
"Er.. yes," she mutters.
"Oh haha," I repeat less convincingly, "Are you saying I have ADD,
haha?"
"Er.. yes?"
"WHAT?!"

"It's not as bad as you think-"
"I HAVE ADD?"
"But only in a mild form, it doesn't really affect you-"
"I HAVE ADD? MY MOTHER THINKS I HAVE ADD!"
"Try and calm down, it's not a disease, it's just a minor
deficiency-"
"Deficiency? Are you saying I'm nuts? MY MOTHER THINKS I'M NUTS!"
"But it's very common, so many people have had it, even Albert
Einstein-"
"So I have a common deficiency? Gee, that makes me feel so special! I'M
NUTS! OH MY GOD!"
"I told you it wasn't a good idea to tell her," my father mutters out
of the corner of his mouth, "You're going to give her a complex."
"I'm not giving her a complex. I just thought she might want to
know."
"I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!"
"Suzy, you're not crazy," my mom coos in a way that used to calm me
back when I was two, but not anymore, ha, "you just have symptoms of a
problem that is very minor and very common-"
"Oh please, don't give me that. I have ADD because I'm messy?"
"You have clothes on your floor that date back to1989."
"So? I'm into the whole retro thing. Does that make me a freak?"
"Come on, Suey, "she flutters her eyelids sweetly, "what about short
term memory? Remember how back in school you could never remember
anything you'd just learned by heart?"
"But that's pathetic."
"Yeah? Tell me what you did two days ago."
I pause. And think.
"That's not fair," I try weakly, "it's been a busy week; I can't even
remember what I did two hours ago."
My mother smiles smugly.
"See," she says.
"Oh, fuck off," I mutter, but not loud enough for my father to
hear.
"And remember how you hated physics at school? It's because it demanded
too much concentration of you-"
"Mom, that's ridiculous. Everyone hated physics at school. Name me one
normal person who likes physics."
"Your sister."
"My sister reads The Economist for pleasure, what more can I
say?"
"Having ADD isn't a bad thing at all. In fact, people with ADD are
usually very sociable, charming, creative, and outgoing."
"Oh, goody, that makes me feel so much better. Can I start a support
group?"
"But look on the bright side, you've managed to work with it over the
years, you've learned to overcome it, that's something to be proud
of!"
"So I'm cured?"
"Er.. no, actually it never goes away."
"WHAT?"
"Smooth, very smooth, Fil," my father mutters under his breath, "That
will definitely calm her down."
"I'm trying my best here, Abdalla," my mom protests under the screams
from the back seat, "I'm just trying to explain it to her."
"I'M NUTS! MY MOTHER THINKS I'M NUTS! WHYY?! Why did you have to tell
me now, after twenty years of normalcy? I can never be happy-go-lucky
Suzy again, instead I'll be That Kid With ADD! I'll never be able to
throw clothes on my floor again without wondering if I really wanted to
do that, or if it was the ADD in me! I'M NUTS!"
"Think of it as a good thing-"
"Good thing? You're saying that everything that makes me what I am is
just there because of a three-letter disease, and I'm supposed to feel
good about it?!"
"OK, now you're whining."
"Must be another ADD symptom."

My mother sighs the famous martyred-mother sigh, turns back into her
seat and shakes her head sadly.
I am a lost case, she has decided.
I sulk in the back seat, twenty years old acting like six, while
frenzied thoughts race through my head.
I have ADD?
Does that make me nuts?
I can't believe my own mother thinks I'm nuts. Where is the love, I ask
you?
What mother would do this to her own child?

Wait a minute.

I have ADD?
What does this change?
Do I have to go on medication? Will people watch me walk past, shake
their heads and go, "Poor thing, she has ADD"?
Does that make me weird?
Then again, I always have been.
But I've always thought of my quirkiness as a good thing, not as a
three-letter thing.
I have ADD?

My father breathes a sigh of relief as we turn into our road, and park
under our house.
My mom gets out of the car and starts to pull out the grocery
bags.
"Suzy, would you like to help me with the bags?" she asks
sweetly.
"Hmm? Oh sorry, wasn't focusing. Must be the ADD working up
again."
"Oh, come on!" she groans.
"Trust me, you ain't never seen nothing yet." I grin at her evilly and
vow to make her pay for it.
Slowly.

But I help her with the bags as we climb the stairs to our place, and
all I can think is, if everything I am and everything I've ever
accomplished is because of this deficiency, then what am I?
What part of me is me and not the disease?
I have ADD?