Saturday I was in Birmingham all day for a softball tournament. We played our first game around 1:00 and then had a break until 5:00 (or so we thought, the team we were suppose to play had to forfeit so our break was actually until 8:00) so, those of us who decided to stay at the park, sat together under a shade tree for a while. After a while one of my teammates, I'll call her Becky for the purposes of this post, decided she wanted to take a nap and asked me if I would "have her back," meaning, would I look out for her in case a foul ball came over the fence towards her. Now, obviously I'm not going to just sit there and let my teammate get hit, but I also know that I get distracted very easily and might not even know a ball was headed towards her/us in time to help her. So, instead of saying, "Yea, I got you," I said, "Assuming I see the ball coming, yea." In my mind I was trying to let her know that my intentions were good to keep her from getting hit but I might not be able to pay close enough attention to guarantee I could keep her from getting hit. Hind-site being 20/20, I probably should have just said "Yea, I got you," but, I didn't.
Obviously, my answer did not convey the message I was trying to get across because Becky took it as me saying I wouldn't watch out for her. When I get uncomfortable or frustrated I usually try to crack a joke in order to ease the situation. Of course, I stayed true to form, and joked that, "You don't ask the ADD kid to be your lookout." Boy did that spark and interesting conversation.
The details of the conversation aren't necessarily important but it should suffice to say, all I could think was, "Wow, this is exactly why I started my blog." I understand that many people don't educate themselves on topics until that have some reason to do so. Whether it be out of sheer curiosity or necessity. But, I that being said, I was very surprised at how little these women knew about AD/HD. The looks on their faces made it seem like I had mentioned some condition they'd never even heard of. I mean, these were educated women I was talking with. I was absolutely floored. I tried to explain a few things but I could tell, at least at that moment, they had already made up their minds on what they thought so I just dropped it. But, a little later on another teammate, we'll call her Suzy, climbed up the tree we were sitting under because she was bored. I joked with her that maybe she had ADD and her response was, "I told you black people don't have ADD." Now, I realize Suzy was joking around (kinda) but it got me to thinking. Are there any disparities in the number of people from the different races that have AD/HD? What are the statistics? So, that is where I'm coming from with my idea for this post.
As I suspected, I couldn't find any research that showed that African Americans were any less likely to have ADD. What I did find though, was several articles that suggested that many African Americans are under informed about ADD and therefore less likely to seek treatment. I read several articles that touched on the same idea but there was one that really caught my interest. It was about an African-American lady who was diagnosed with ADD at the age of 53. The article tells her struggles to accept her diagnosis and how much good her diagnosis and treatment did in her life. She now works to help spread knowledge about ADD in the African American community. If you would like to read her inspiring story you can find it here. http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/1020.html
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