Lowell Kivley is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in the State of Illinois with more than 35 years practice under my belt. I adapted to life with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and keep myself productively busy by doing many different things for short periods of time and amassing multitudes of experiences and proficiencies.
As a child in school, teachers frequently asked, “Who’s humming? Stop that humming!” as I stared out the classroom window seemingly transported through the glass into a far more exciting world outdoors. Fortunately, I was smart enough to do exceptionally well even though I was, at best, a part-time student in a full-time classroom. Recess, lunch, and self-directed study times were my favorite activities as a younger child that were eventually replaced by after-school activities of football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, tennis, springboard diving, water polo, airgun shooting, motorcycle mechanics, electronics experimentation, and anything else that could keep me moving. Add in church choir, school band, marching band, stage band, school choir, swing choir, madrigals, school plays, and musicals, I think teachers were shocked to see me in the top 10 of my high school class of slightly over 500 students.
My formal work life began when I was 10 years old and all the newspaper routes were reserved for those who were at least 12. Unable to deliver for the Chicago Tribune or the Sun-Times, I started ordering Grit newspapers from the classifieds of Popular Science and rode my bicycle around several neighborhoods to develop my own business where no boss could tell me I was too young to work. I later took a paper route with the Chicago Tribune that turned into a delivery route to stores and paperboys when I got my driving license at 16. All my sports teams and school activities provided plenty of opportunities to sell cookies, candies, candles, snack trays, cheeses, and who knows what else. I didn’t always sell the most, but frequently my count would triple or quadruple whoever was in second place.
After graduating from high school, I applied to and attended Wheaton College, majoring in Christian Education and Biblical Studies. Rejecting my high school STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) class background, I leaned toward connecting with individuals rather than working with things. Summers working for an engineering company kept pulling me back to the sciences and having a heavy equipment contractor tell me he would make a Superintendent of me (I was only 19 and already working as a Resident Inspector) finally forced a revolt that pushed me into ministry.
Working in my first full-time ministry was quite a challenge. I did not know that the Senior Pastor who originally wanted me so badly would tire of trying to “convert” me so quickly (I doggedly held to inerrancy of Scripture). Meanwhile, I married my college sweetheart and we had our first child 11 months later. Then I experienced first hand how being responsible for a wife and child could magnify my job insecurity issues far more than I believed possible. Having others depend on me was far more frightening and I feared the pressure to compromise my standards while learning to diplomatically state my disagreements (some would still argue with me about whether or not I can be diplomatic). The senior pastor stayed on for 2 more years and I stayed for 3 before moving to a new position in a college town about 7 miles away. There, I completed a Master’s program in Community Counseling and then moved into a PhD program at the University of Illinois. In both Charleston and Champaign, I learned that graduate assistantships in the Reference Library, Student Health Clinic, and LAS General Academic Advising payed my tuition, books, and living expenses so that I could leave eight years of graduate school without accumulating more than $10,000 in student loans.
Add in a year-long internship at the North Chicago Veterans Affairs Medical Center (including a 6 week counselor enrichment program with Focus on the Family under the supervision of James Dobson, PhD), an 18 month stint as a Study Psychologist overseeing local implementation of a nationally funded (NIH) study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, an adjunct professorship at Wheaton College teaching upper level abnormal psychology, and a mental health managerial position with SwedishAmerican hospital from Rockford, IL, I was ready for private practice and spent the next 10 years serving my local community and surrounding churches. Meanwhile, my wife began a network marketing business in nutritional health that allowed me to reduce my clinical hours and join her in a business that eventually replaced my need for an income from my practice and allowed me to greatly reduce my hours. Since then, I helped one son to develop Trinity Academy of Gymnastics, LLC, another son to develop “A Better Shot”, LLC (I am an Illinois State Police Certified Concealed Carry Instructor), and now I also manage Commercial Real Estate and Residential Real Estate for my wife. My ADHD, once considered a curse, is now absolutely essential to my every day existence.