ADHD and the myth of brokenness
How our cracks make room for beauty and abundance
When I was young, we always felt most like a family at the shore.
That’s what we call the beach on the Jersey coastline (I’m sure you all remember the TV show that bore the name), the place where growing up I spent hot, sandy summers with my mom, dad, two older sisters, and our extended family on both sides. My grandmother would always remind us that the only shells worth plucking from the sand were the “perfect ones” - no cracks or chips! We carried home memories along with soiled beach toys and “perfect” porcelain shells as souvenirs of our family’s love. Our whole family.
………………………………..
I’ve always winced at the phrase “broken home”, but after my parents separated when I was nine and divorced by the time I was twelve, it really felt like our family had been torn apart. Broken.
Around that time, the parts of me that were sensitive and high maintenance became more pronounced. The parts of me that I struggled to make fit the expectations of those around me swelled to the point of bursting and popping, scattering their debris far and wide.
As a child with undiagnosed ADHD, I held a deep sense of grief, not only from the pain of losing the wholeness of my nuclear family, but from years of feeling misunderstood as naughty, difficult, and lazy.
Essentially, I felt broken.
I carried that brokenness with me for many years. Decades. Never really knowing the source of it or how I might ever mend it in me.
A coworker recently shared with me a fable that has welded a permanent place on my heart and helped me see my brokenness in new light.
It’s a story from ancient Chinese folklore, though I found similar versions from India and other cultures, about a water carrier and two pots that hang on a long stick across her neck.
One pot is perfect and always delivers a full load of water, while the other has cracks and only delivers half. The perfect pot is proud of its accomplishments, but the cracked pot feels ashamed and inadequate. After two years of this, the cracked pot apologizes to the water carrier for always failing to bring home a full pot. The water carrier then points out the flowers that only grew on the cracked pot's side of the path. She had planted seeds along its side, and its cracks had allowed the flowers to bloom.
Its brokenness had made it possible for a special kind of beauty to grow in the world.
It’s been nearly two years since the ADHD diagnosis that completely changed my life, my relationships, and my ability to view everything with a softer, more gray-accepting lens. I’m a version of me much more willing to see the beauty in the brokenness… both within me and around me. And I share my story in hopes that I can use my cracks, holes, and imperfections for some good…to sow a garden on my path.
I’m driving home now after a week-long vacation that included time with my mom (and her side of the family), my dad, and my sisters like the old days along with all their spouses, my beloved baby brother (he’s 21) from my dad’s second marriage, and all our incredibly beautiful and interesting kids. A colorful mosaic of humans collected over years of breaking apart and coming back together again.
It was a week of having meals and telling stories. Of laying together in the sun, rolling around in the heat of the sand, and diving into crashing waves. Playing board games until the early hours of the morning. Laughing until tears spurted from our eyes. Our daughters painted watercolor masterpieces on fragments of once-perfect shells. We were at the shore, and we were still a family. A still-whole family.
Our brokenness somehow led to abundance. Much less a scattering of pieces and more a breaking of bread. A way to share our love with more people.
As I sit between my kids on our drive home, my body a pillar for their shore-weary heads to lean against as they float in and out of dreams, I’m reminded of the beauty of the brokenness I thought would never be mended. I’m grateful for all that’s led me to where I am today. There’s nothing broken here at all.
Brokenness…well, I’m certain such a thing does not exist.