Our outburst signal was born at the dinner table. Maybe my husband made light of a frustrating situation. Maybe I’d had a long day at work. Maybe the salt shaker fell over. It doesn’t matter. What matters is I pounded my fist on the table so hard, several months’ worth of crumbs ejected from the crack where the leaves join together.
A tense silence stretched between us as we both stared at that line of food bits bisecting the otherwise smooth surface.
Then we laughed.
We laughed until our sides hurt. Most importantly, we laughed until our tension and frustration were all but forgotten.
ADHD overreactions can be funny, but they can also escalate a situation from mundane to catastrophic in a split second.
In the moment, words can put an already volatile ADHD’er on the defensive — especially if you’re tempted to say exactly what you’re thinking (e.g., your spouse is acting like a toddler).
“Instead of criticism and belittlement,” suggests Gina Pera, award-winning author of Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.?, “try humor.”
If you or a family member struggle frequently with overreactions and sudden outbursts, create a sign. Make sure it’s something you both feel okay about and, ideally, will smirk at even if you’re angry.
Ever since that night at the dinner table, my husband has a signal to let me know I’m overreacting. He looks me in the eye and pointedly lowers his fist onto the palm of his other hand.
Signs help break the moment, make you laugh (or at least crack a smile), and inform you in a non-confrontational way that you’re doing it again. Signs are objective, not situation-specific, and can remind us of a funny moment — even if it’s a dark comedy.
Communication — especially reading moods and social cues — is often a major struggle for adults with ADHD. What coping strategies have you and your partner implemented? Which ones have been successful, and which have flopped? Why do you think that is?
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Gina Pera is the Secretary of CHAAD NorCal and author of the book Is It
You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has
Attention Deficit Disorder released August 31, 2008.
You may want to leave a bad review after reading this…
Gina Pera is destroying relationships with her “advice” on ADD ADHD or AD/HD, as she
has chosen to brand the condition. She is encouraging people, including
children, to regularly take prescription medications that are similar to
methamphetamines and considered the same class of drugs as cocaine and morphine.
Gina Pera is supported by pharmaceutical companies, like Eli Lilly Co., Shire and Novartic, the makers of Strattera, Vyvanse and Ritalin respectively. She is also supported by the lobby group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Gina explains how she makes her living pushing drugs on her own website , “My foray into the field of ADHD began by chance. In 1999, I picked up a library book about the brain. And what I read changed my life and my husband’s life… Suddenly I had a clue why,
as much as we loved each other, my then-fiancee and I were driving each other
nuts! Knowing that his education as a neurogenticist meant he could actually authenticate
the science behind such a ‘condition,’ … I showed the book to him. ‘Doesn’t
this sound like you as a kid?’ I asked. ‘And, well, doesn’t it sound like you now?’ He agreed. And off we went to navigate the mental healthcare maze… All we lack is more people willing to step into the 21st Century…Deciding to put to use my background as a print journalist, I became a very persevering advocate for better awareness and evidence-based treatment standards—by lecturing, writing, and leading discussion groups in
Silicon Valley and a 600-member Internet group for the partners of adults with ADHD internationally.”
Gina Pera’s husband is Yannick Pouliot. He is more of computer geek than a successful neurogenticist, so it is surprising that Gina thinks he would be able to authenticate the science behind ADHD. Yannick Pouliot is a researcher at Stanford whose research papers are funded by the powerful lobby group in Washington, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Foundation PhRMA. He promotes a presentation online titled, “Repositioning Old Drugs For New Indications Using Computational Approaches”.
Besides attempting to use her husband’s position at Stanford to support her agenda for the pharmaceutical industry, Gina Pera has attached herself to another author of ADHD books, Russel Barkley. Russel Barkley wrote the foreword to Gina Pera’s book Is It You, Me,
or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) lists Russell Barkley’s conflicts of interest outside the parameters of practice set by the AACAP: “[He] receives or has received research support, acted as a consultant and/or served on a speaker’s bureau for Eli Lilly and Company, Shire Pharmaceuticals Group plc, and McNeil Pediatrics. Dr. Barkley also has or has had books/intellectual property with Guilford Publications. He acknowledged receiving 24% of his income in 2007 as a speaker/consultant for Eli Lilly Co., Shire and Novartic, the makers of Strattera, Vyvanse and Ritalin respectively. Gina’s book was released a year later.
Gina Pera also does live events with Russel Barkley…one is coming up November 1,
2014.
Gina Pera is also the lead moderator for an online Yahoo Group for ADHD. Gina Pera is the Secretary of CHADD NorCal chapter. The organization, Children and Adults with
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), has been severely criticized
by both the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and the
United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for its financial ties to the manufacturers of ADHD drugs.
Simply, CHAAD promotes stimulant medications manufactured by its corporate donors. CHADD is the largest ADHD patient advocacy group in America and it receives almost 26% of its funding from drug-companies through direct donations, advertising and donations.
Starting in 1988, more than $1 million has poured into the organization from the maker of Ritalin (then Ciba-Geigy, now Novartis); In 1992, CHADD received $50,000 from pharmaceutical interests. By 1994, this had reached $400,000 and by 2001, $700,000. CHADD received $748,000 for Ciba/Novartis just in the years 1991-1994. Pharmaceutical
companies – including Novartis and McNeil – donated a total of $674,000 in fiscal year 2002-2003, making up 17 percent of the group’s budget, according to CHADD financial documents posted on its website.
In 2009, the total pharmaceutical donation support of CHADD was 26.6% CHADD appears to be a neutral patient-centric organization offering information, support groups, classes for
parents, conferences, even a free “CHADD discount prescription card,” but in part also functions as a conduit of information between the drug-companies and the public, going so far as to produce with Ciba-Geigy money a public service announcement advocating the Ciba-Geigy product Ritalin.
Ritalin and Concerta and several other ADHD drugs are Schedule II drugs in the same category as cocaine and morphine. As a Schedule II drug, Ritalin is considered a potentially addictive drug, with restrictions placed on its annual production quota and
with certain states monitoring who and how much the drug is prescribed. Gina
Pera thinks this is ok to use as long as it is “properly prescribed” by a doctor, even though the long term effects on the developing brain and on mental health disorders in later life of chronic use of methylphenidate is unknown. The majority of studies assessing methylphenidate abuse potential scores have determined that it has an abuse potential similar to that of cocaine and d-amphetamine.
The U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration released a report on Methylphenidate (Ritalin) where they explained how “Most of the ADHD literature prepared for public consumption and available to parents does not address the abuse liability or actual abuse of methylphenidate [Ritalin]. Instead, methylphenidate is routinely portrayed
as a benign, mild stimulant that is not associated with abuse or serious effects. In reality, however, there is an abundance of scientific literature which indicates that methylphenidate shares the same abuse potential as other Schedule II stimulants. One of the big differences in what Ciba-Geigy is doing, say, compared to a drug company who might give money for a diabetes drug to the AMA, is that Ritalin is a Schedule II–a highly addictive drug. And there are special controls put upon it by the US government. CHADD, in fact, has lobbied the US government to try to get Ritalin taken out of Schedule II. They couldn’t
do anything more valuable for the drug company, and more dangerous to the public, than that. Fortunately, they failed, and they failed in part because of our disclosures . . . about CHADD having so much money from the drug companies.”
We have a sizable number of pediatricians and psychiatrists paid to receive pharmaceutical company talking points. And due to the work of CHADD and other seemingly neutral groups, we have a population of parents and teachers open to interpreting impulsive behavior and distraction as symptoms of a brain disease when most of these problems can be helped by simply exercising more and changing your diet.
Gina Pera is one of the most vocal and she is responsible for many of the adults and children who are addicted to stimulant drugs in the world, thereby ruining their relationships with their partners, their children, their parents, and just about anyone else
in their lives.
Now…are you going to sit idle and let it happen to someone you love? Let her know how you feel about her practice of pushing drugs and let the world know to avoid her “advice” at all costs.
Hi Jessica,
One of my goals for this blog is to create a space for positive, helpful, on-topic discussions about adult ADHD as it pertains to home and family life. As such, I’m going to have to remove your comment from this post.
While you’ve obviously spent some considerable time compiling and writing it, it’s unclear to me how it relates to the topic at hand, which is developing nonverbal communication techniques to let your partner know when they are exhibiting a behavior you’ve both agreed is problematic. The fact that I used a quote from Is It You, Me, or Adult ADD is incidental to the post topic.
More to the point, though, this reads as a personal attack, which I will not permit on my site. Nor will I allow anyone to use this space as a soapbox for their own extremist viewpoint. Please keep this in mind if you decide to post comments in the future.
Thank you,
Jaclyn Paul
How did I not comment on this before?
I love that! Pure poetry:
“What matters is I pounded my fist on the table so hard, several months’ worth of crumbs ejected from the crack where the leaves join together.
“A tense silence stretched between us as we both stared at that line of food bits bisecting the otherwise smooth surface.
“Then we laughed.”