I grew up in a small town, with a population of about 20,000 about 50 miles west of Boston. Its only claim to fame is Johnny Appleseed was born there.  Now its population is 43,000 although a local booster calls it “your average, normal town.”  I attended the local public schools and, right after high school, went to an all-woman’s college. They are an anachronism now as only 26 still exist, but in 1961 there were over 200. I majored in Economics for no particular reason and then looked for a job in Boston’s financial district after graduation. I also trained as an elementary school teacher but didn’t pursue that vocation at that time.

My first job after college was in the trust department of the State Street Bank. It was the worst job of my life, and I still regret the year I wasted there.  Because it had been hard for me to find work, I was reluctant to leave State Street Bank, even though bored to death. It was a status symbol for the male trust officers to have a female assistant.  So I was an assistant with little to do.    

My next job was at a small, residential school for emotionally disturbed blind children. In the past doctors used to give premature babies high levels of oxygen to help them breathe. However, too much oxygen caused these children to become blind. Initially, I was overwhelmed with learning the names of 30 children and an almost equal number of staff. All I saw when I looked at the children was their blindness.

But soon, they became just children to me. I worked there for two years before deciding to get my master's degree as a social worker. My goal was to help children, but I learned, only after getting my first placement, that in Boston, the psychiatrist works with the children while the social workers talk with the parents. Freudian psychology was still de rigueur, and staff members would proudly let you know they had gone through analysis. 

I still carry an emotional burden from my social work training. I remember going to a family's home to provide emotional support when one of their children had died from Sudden Infant Death, and the mother was in deep depression. This was when it was commonly believed that inappropriate parenting caused the child's death. Can you imagine? How could I possibly console that family?

After my first year of training at Boston University, – this was 1969 – I married, and Steve and I moved to Seattle, where he joined a surgical residency program at the University of Washington, and I completed my second year of social work training.

Because a scholarship was available for students training to be geriatric social workers, I made that my specialty. After graduation, I worked at a senior center as an Activity Director, a position that didn't draw on my social work background. 

I became the mother of three boys and spent many years at home raising them while volunteering in the community. When they all were in school, I started working part-time as a discharge planner in the local hospital. A few years later, I was hired part-time at the upscale continuing care retirement home in Tacoma, where we had settled. 

I enjoyed my work at the Franke Tobey Jones Home. I liked the pace of talking with older adults and helping them make appropriate decisions regarding their care and rights. 

While working there, I took an action I will always be proud of. Others looked away, but my unrecognized ADHD compelled me to step in. An exchange student attending a local community college lived with a family where the father worked as a groundskeeper at the FTJ Home. He was elderly, overweight, and unpleasant. I could not believe this young girl was choosing to spend unsupervised time with him in the boiler room. I called Child Protective Services, and within days the student was in new housing and deciding whether to press charges. 

I worked at FTJ until my diagnosis and my life went in a different direction. I founded and led the nonprofit organization ADD Resources for 15 years. For a few of those years, I also served on the board of ADDA and was the organizer of one of their annual conferences.

When I was 65 or maybe 67-- I can't remember the details-- I left ADD Resources and trained as a coach. I liked coaching and helping my pro bono clients, but the model where I need to make money is not my strong point. I never developed a successful coaching business and left the world of ADHD in 2010. Please don't quote me on the dates—irrelevant details. 

While writing Living with Inattentive ADHD, I got reacquainted with the world of ADHD. I was dismayed to realize children with the inattentive type of ADHD continued to be underdiagnosed while adults were often misdiagnosed. This spurred me to create a new nonprofit, the Inattentive ADHD Coalition, where I continue to serve as the executive director.