What would you want in a book about being a Catholic with ADHD?

[ARH521]

What would you want in a book about being a Catholic with ADHD?

I am hoping to make it something for people with ADHD and for people who don’t have ADHD.

Thoughts?

 

[Cloisters]

Your soul prays even while the mind tries to take off on a tangent.

A look to Heaven is prayer.

Prayer is conversation with Him Whom we know loves us.

The Prayer of Simple Regard – you look at Him (in the tabernacle); He looks at you.

Pray with your emotions.

Daily thoughts/reflections are usually better than trying to keep up with a whole passel of prayers.

St. Thorlak of Iceland and St. Gilbert of Sempringham apparently were learning disabled.

There are other saints who suffered from ADHD.

 

[Gertabelle]

What would you want in a book about being a Catholic with ADHD?

I am hoping to make it something for people with ADHD and for people who don’t have ADHD.

Thoughts?

Decades ago, a young woman shared a story with me from her childhood. When she was in school, there were occasionally days when she would come home and just have to tell her mom everything that was on her mind.

Her mom would be making dinner for their large family. So the youngster would pick up a stool, sit down next to her mom, and just start chattering away. Her mom would listen and laugh and comment – but mostly it was just the little girl prattling on.

When her mom moved from cleaning and cutting things at the sink over to the stove, the child would pick up her stool and move next to her mom, only pausing her stories to take a breath.

I loved that story, because it reminds me of my brain as I try to pray. I follow Our Lord around the mysteries of the rosary (or stations of the cross, or the Psalms, or whatever I’m praying) – and my brain is just chattering away.

Perhaps it’s not ideal, but I have no doubt that Our Lord is just as content and loving in hearing my chit-chat as a mother cooking dinner is hearing the love in her daughter’s stories.

 

[Casilda]

What would you want in a book about being a Catholic with ADHD?

I am hoping to make it something for people with ADHD and for people who don’t have ADHD.

Thoughts?

Definitely several chapters on how clergy can better interact with them or having a better system in place to help those souls marginalized and left without any spiritual guidance who wander aimlessly or overtaken by denominations offering them hope. I found a parish with a special needs ministry AND a caretakers group, great model for the whole church.

 

[CRM_Brother]

While I only have ADD and thankfully do not have hyperactive aspect to the disorder, I can say from experience that there should definitely be a section about acceptance of your own disorder and how it effects your prayer life. For the longest time, I thought my wandering thoughts during prayers and Mass was something horrible. I thought I was disrespecting God every time I realized my thoughts had wandered. Eventually I accepted the effect the disorder has on my prayer life and realized that the wandering thoughts were actually a gift from our Lord to deeper conversion. I learned to forgive myself for something I had no control over. The wandering thoughts only became sinful if I willingly dwelt upon them. When I react positively to those wandering thoughts, that is, turning my gaze willfully back to Our Lord, it is a special opportunity for grace granted to those afflicted with the disorder. It would be important in a book about being Catholic and ADHD to make it clear that every illness which Our Lord allows to persist in this fallen world opens to us unique avenues for grace to illumine our lives, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

God Bless,
Br. Ben