Book History
Living with Inattentive ADHD is my first and only book, and I am so grateful to my publisher for taking a chance on a first-time, 78-year-old author. I am thankful, too, for the many ADHD influencers who read my manuscript and provided heartfelt and meaningful praise for the book.
If you are wondering how the book came to be, Covid is the simplest explanation. Without Covid’s home isolation, I couldn't have written this book. Life usually has too many distractions for me.
But at the start of Covid isolation, I decided to give time every day, or almost every day, which is the best I could expect, to write a book about my life. I thought it would be for my three adult sons, but over time, it became a book with a broader purpose. It was fun to have something new and interesting to do, learning more and more about the skill and challenges of writing.
After I read that an author needs a more unbiased and professional opinion than I could get from family and friends, I hired a developmental editor. He read my 60,000-word manuscript and told me to delete the 20,000 words that didn't relate to my ADHD life. He then asked me several questions that drew a new 6000 words from me.
Once I believed my manuscript was finished, I spent six months emailing it to agents in the memoir, self-help genre, and publishing houses that accept submissions from authors in those same genres. When I was ready to give up and explore self-publishing, Hatherleigh Press called and expressed interest.
I signed a contract with them in November 2021, never expecting it would be 18 months before my book was published. The lengthy wait, I am told, is not unusual in today's world, as the publishing business is experiencing numerous challenges. I read that only 1-2% of books submitted to publishers get accepted, so again, I am grateful and somewhat proud that my book was chosen for publication.
Between signing the contract and approving the final draft of the book and its cover, I continued to write about inattentive ADHD. I got acquainted with social media and found my ADHD tribe, where I read posts that gave me additional ideas for content. The publisher accepted my new material.
I asked several people to read the manuscript and write blurbs (see home page). Dr. Stephen Faraone took a particular interest in improving the preciseness of how I worded a few things. He also suggested I add factual information at the end of each chapter about ADHD, which I did, mainly information to refute the many myths that abound about ADHD. I also included an Appendix with a Questionnaire that helps identify adults with possible inattentive ADHD and an article about "What Does an Adult Need to Know Before….and After a Diagnosis."
My book-length started at 60,000, shrank to 46,000, and grew back to 52,743 words by publication.
I got glowing reviews from my most sought-after clinicians—how wonderful is that? Then the publishers asked if I had anyone to write a Foreword. Darn, I thought. I already asked the best in the field to write blurbs. Then I remembered Dr. William Dodson.
How could I have forgotten him? Over the years, I have learned so much from his articles and webinars at ADDitude magazine. He agreed, and his Foreword couldn't be more meaningful to me. If only my book becomes as helpful to people's lives as he suggests it could be. Here is what he wrote:
“I have never met a person with ADHD who was not constantly bedeviled by self-doubt in many forms:
I'm not the child my parents expected or wanted. I'm the outcast in the family. I'm constantly reminded that there's something wrong with me. I'm a fraud, an imposter
I'm unreliable. I can't do anything right. I rarely start projects, let alone finish them.
I don't know how to raise my kids. I don't know how to protect them from my unreliability.
I've always been so isolated and lonely.
How could anyone survive living like this? Sadly, many people with ADHD don't and are lost to various addictions and even suicide.
No one can pull themselves out of such a pit without an excellent guide who has been there. Cynthia Hammer is an expert one with her superb memoir, Living with Inattentive ADHD. She shows you, through personal example, how to live a rich and rewarding life despite the impediments and pitfalls of ADHD. She helps you learn from her journey so you don't have to struggle alone.
Because Cynthia Hammer knows ADHD from "lived experience," she possesses an enormous amount of "street cred" in this candid, often harrowing book. She struggled with ADHD throughout her childhood, as the condition was not yet recognized. She continued to struggle as an adult and wasn't diagnosed until age 49. Until then, she had to decipher the mysteries of her life without clues or guidance.
Yet she was able to tame the self-doubt and shame that torment every person with ADHD. In 1992 she founded one of the first non-profits for adults with ADHD and is currently the director of the non-profit Inattentive ADHD Coalition (www.iadhd.org), with a mission that children and adults with inattentive ADHD are diagnosed early and correctly.
The most important lesson you will take from this book is hope. Cynthia Hammer has done much more than talk and write about life with ADHD. She has walked the walk. The success she achieved as a wife, mother, and activist shows that we, too, can make that journey. Cynthia's hard-earned "street cred" provides us with a rare gift that will help us live better lives.
I wish I had this precious resource available to my patients and me through my many years of diagnosing and treating ADHD.”
William Dodson, MD.
Board-Certified Psychiatrist
Specializing in Adults with ADHD
Denver, Colorado