In April, I left my former life as a Big Law (firm) lawyer for the wonderful life of an in-house (governmental) counsel. In addition to the usual perk of schedule stability that comes with in-house counsel life, my new gig also comes with a perk often unheard of for attorneys, in-house or otherwise—every other Friday off. This magnificent perk is part of an Employee Travel Reduction ("ETR") work plan. The General Counsel of my company did warn me before I started that there's a remote possibility that I would have to work on an ETR day or two a couple of times a year [in his position, he has to work quite a few; but that's rare for the other attorneys], but at least when that rare occurrence happens, I would have the luxury of being able to work from home, in my pajamas, rather than trekking out to the office. In the four months I've been here, I've only had to work one ETR day. Ironically, it was my second week of work (my first ETR day). The Monday after, it was clear how rare working on one's ETR day must be, as I had several visits from internal higher-ups (including our Executive Director—the equivalent of a CEO in the private sector) thanking me, commending me, and apologizing to me for working on my day off... even though it was only a few hours out of my day.

Every ETR day, I have huge plans for my day off. The Pop Culture Girls are still at school on those days, and Pop Culture Dad is at work, so it seems like with nearly 10 hours to myself, I should get a ton of things done, right? Wrong.

I understand that part of my problem is my ADD. I have a number of home projects in the works, and there's no possible way I could finish them all with one day to myself—or even 10 days! Somehow, though, every other Friday, I assume that all of these time-consuming tasks can be completed in a couple of hours. To give you an idea of how far my delusion goes, here's a list of the projects I've been working on over various ETR days:

finish bricking, painting, and organizing the playroom [complete]

finish painting and redecorating the ocean-themed bathroom and install new double towel bar in the Pop Culture Girls' bathroom [approximately half complete; it would help if Pop Culture Dad could remember where he hid the battery to the drills]

Sorry, dear Nemo, someday your friends (and dad) will come...

garden [was complete, then it was a bust, and now I just don't even want to think about it. This "gardening" task, however, took three full ETR days of its own]

fully organize the shelves in my newly expanded pantry (twice its original size) [50% completion; and I've given up]

various sewing projects that have rotated throughout the weeks: Dora PJs for the girls [complete; but it took so long that by the time I completed the tops, we can't find the pants]; convert the sucky Gerber training pants into thick and waterproof training pants for Super Girl [20 trainers COMPLETE]; a purple top for myself for going out [complete]; a fully lined dress for work [25% completion]; a puffy skirt Little Diva requested [10% complete, if cutting a two-piece pattern and buying material constitutes any level of competition]; a full suit out of the lovely material my BFF bought me for my birthday [the pattern isn't even cut]; a pencil bag Little Diva requested to match the purse I made in sewing class [80% complete... before my cleaning company threw away the last pattern piece and attached fabric. Abandon project?]; make additional pajama tops for Super Girl and her ever-expanding torso [I got as far as buying fabric... which I then used for the trainers, since I didn't even know where I was going to go with these pajama tops].

Has anyone seen these pants?

reorganize the house and wash, fold, hang, and put away 100% of the laundry, including properly separating those items that need to go to Goodwill from those that need to go to consignment (separated by season for the consignment items) from those that need repair [ha! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Do I even need to tell you the status of this one?]

a whole host of other things that escape my memory now, but which occur to me every Thursday and make my "Mommy-Do List" for the next day

As you can tell, "overly ambitious" is probably an understatement for what I have going on here—especially since every week I seem to be under the impression that more than one of these things needs to be on my list to complete in the 10 hours I get to myself that day. Also, with this day off (and me not having yet accrued any vacation time—not that I'll really have any extra time once my vacation accrues), I have to throw in doctors' and dentist appointments for the kids [I have yet to take myself to the doctor, even though I'm probably in desperate need for a visit to the chiropractor if nothing else], hair appointments, and the occasional extremely long lunch with my mother. I also generally don't take my ADD medication on my day off [why "waste" it on chores??], so you can imagine how many times I find my motivation waning the second I sit down for a breather.

I know "day to myself" is a fantasy for most moms, whether they work outside the home, work at home, or stay at home with kids. The frustration of getting things done with little people [or big significant others] underfoot is a common problem of all women. I wonder, though, how realistic our fantasy of "All The Things I Could Get Done Alone" is in 10 hours. I mean, 10 hours certainly sounds like a lot. At work in 10 hours, I could have (and have had) three meetings and drafted a contract. However, with 10 hours at home, I'm lucky if I've gotten through three baskets of laundry. Is my ADD truly compounding my problem [not the project-starting issue; that, I clearly know is a problem], or is it that moms are so used to having to be able to do anything and everything to keep the family running that we don't even realize how few hours there practically are in the day?

How about the rest of you: What is your fantasy of what would want to do with the day to yourself, and what do you think you think you would actually do?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So the other night I was watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey [goodness, is there a time when these chicks don’t inspire me to want to write something?], and Caroline was having a heart-to-heart with her son, who is coping with ADD. Albie is telling his mom how bad his law school grades are and how the school will not make any allowances for his learning disability. The administrators actually told him to consider a new career path, because if he is coping with ADD, he had no business being a lawyer. As a lawyer who is coping with ADD, this struck a nerve with me.

There are a lot of people out there who assume that Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (commonly known as ADD and ADHD, though often grouped under the acronym of one or the other) are completely made up diseases, the title of which is given to kids who have too much sugar in their diet or don’t get enough sleep. While I will concede that in some cases, ADD and ADHD are over-diagnosed, the fact is that there are also many people who go undiagnosed who should be. Although scientists aren’t entirely aware what causes it, there are many studies showing that the disease is hereditary. So parents with ADD may find themselves dealing with ADD in their children.

As someone who is coping with ADD (and, incidentally, is the child of two parents with ADD), I can say beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the disease is real. And it can be debilitating throughout your life – even as an adult. I was fortunate enough to be a smart child with coping mechanisms, so that my ADD didn’t affect me too greatly. I say this, not with conceit, but as an actual fact. The first doctor who diagnosed me thought when I came into his office that I was just fishing for medication or something, because on paper, I don’t sound like someone suffering from a learning disability. I graduated at the top of my class in high school, graduated summa cum laude from a good college in only three years, and had gone to an Ivy League law school. However, once the psychologist did my ADD/ADHD test and started delving into my history, he was surprised that no one diagnosed me when I was in elementary school.

You see, I always read at least four or five grade levels ahead of my grade, but had NO reading comprehension. I couldn’t pay attention to simple tasks – even books I enjoyed (or at least would have enjoyed if I had fully read them) – and I would hyperfocus on the most stupid, low-priority tasks. Through most of my life, I had been internally coping with ADD, which is why my marks were good enough (before law school, anyway) that I flew under the radar. However, once I started interning at law firms and having to account for what I did with every minute of my entire day, that’s when it became apparent that I had focus issues.

I spent most of my life dealing with ADD, but not knowing that’s what was going on. I never knew why I couldn’t focus on the assigned reading in classes or why it was impossible for me to stay on task. The only times I could stay on task, I would get so involved with what I was doing, that the rest of the world would disappear.

I had these odd ways of dealing with ADD, without even knowing I was coping with ADD. For example, in high school, I just couldn’t pay attention to biology class. So one day, I took the text book home, and started outlining the chapters. Keep in mind, this was pre-computer-in-every-home, so there I was on my bedroom floor with a typewriter, outlining a semester’s worth of biology. For hours and hours, I typed outlines until my mother finally made me go to bed. And the next night, and the night after that, I did the same thing. Eventually, I’d outlined the whole book. We didn’t even cover the whole book in class – probably not even half. But this was my internal way of dealing with ADD (without even knowing I was suffering from the disease). While typing that outline, I managed to memorize the book. The class I never paid attention in became one of my best classes. This happened a lot. I volleyed between hyperfocus and complete lack of focus as a way of dealing with ADD. It got me through college no problem.

However, law school wasn’t the same. Reading comprehension is actually a pretty important skill for a lawyer and for law school. That’s why the LSAT tests it. Unfortunately for me, I missed about 50% of the reading comprehension questions on the LSAT [which, incidentally, tends to be the section 95% of people excel]. This, of course, has a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t – couldn’t – read the four passages. As the clock ticked away, I ended up guessing. Fortunately, that year, three of the four sections were logic games and reasoning. Most people are horrible at these sections. Not me. I missed one question on the three sections combined – and I knew that one answer; I had just accidentally bubbled the wrong thing. The combination was good enough for me to score overall in the highest in the country, and basically (combined with my college GPA and extra curriculars) assured me I could go to pretty much any school I desired.

Once in law school, my internal ways of dealing with ADD did not work the same. Memorizing doesn’t really help you in law school. By then, I had a friend with ADD, and she recognized the symptoms in me. By our last year, she encouraged me to see a counselor. That counselor encouraged me to see a psychologist. And it was there that I was tested, diagnosed, and the world began to make sense.

Turns out, while dealing with ADD, I was doing a lot of things I didn’t even notice. For one, I misspelled a lot of words, because my mind would think that I had already written letters I hadn’t. I also missed a lot of words in sentences. This explained to me how I could compare notes with my peers after tests, have put all the same answers they did, but get lower grades in the class. In law school, half the battle is how you say things. Although I fancy myself a good writer, misspellings and partial sentences, are contrary to that skill. So while, proofread-me is a good writer, ADD-brained me is not. After I began taking medication, I started to catch these errors. Phew!

Work is 1000 times better now that I’m on medication. I am much better at staying on task or stopping myself from hyperfocusing on trivial tasks. I’ve talked to my superiors about the types of projects that work better with my disability and I’ve spoken with firm management about the type of assistants I need – yes, everyone needs a good secretary, but when you are dealing with ADD, you need someone who is good at scheduling and keeping things organized.

I won’t say that the medication and the disability concessions have made my work life perfect, but they have certainly helped. I’m never going to be a super-star biller, unless I want to live at the office [since, even with medication, it takes me more time to stay on task than it does “normal” people], but I do a darn good job.

The fact that there are law school administrators out there who would tell someone that you cannot be an attorney with a learning disability like ADD angers me. Yes, you can be an attorney with ADD… just like you can be a blind attorney… or an attorney in a wheelchair… or an attorney with dyslexia…. It’s insane that people working in a field which has made so many strides in getting access to people with disabilities would then turn a blind eye to the needs of those with a disability. Yes, you probably can’t be an attorney if you don’t know how to deal with ADHD/ADD or don’t get treatment for ADD/ADHD, but don’t tell me, or the thousands others who do it every day, that we can’t be an attorney at all.