Adhd is real
A fleeting glimpse into the mind. Let me know in the comments if you feel uncomfortable.
I graduated high school. I went to college(failed out). I was a world champion musician and athlete, I was a competing boxer for eight years. I’ve run a few half marathons and a litany of 5k races. I went to college again, successfully the second time, even though I only acquired a nursing diploma. I own my own home, I have fathered two amazing children with my second wife. I wrote and self published my own book about music instruction. I’m sure there are other successes in progress.
This is a tiny snapshot of what I was able to complete while being severely mentally ill. It’s not a lot, but it’s also not nothing.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” the world likes to say. “Your not mentally ill, you only have ADHD.”
Ah, yes, the old cop-out. Gatekeeping. “It’s not that bad.” “It’s practically a superpower.” “Just exercise more.” “Find something you enjoy to focus on.”
…
About two years ago, through pressure from my beautiful wife, whom of course ended up being right, I went to a psychiatrist for the first time. I knew I was not perfect, and had entertained the notion of going before then... But I was who I was, my life had successes. I was fine, right? My failures, I had assumed were the result of the same issues most others have… I didn’t work hard enough, missed crucial timing, bad luck. My excuse for not going earlier was… ignorance was bliss, maybe? It’s odd to have arrived at a solution to a question you never knew you had. The world had told me that I was doing just peachy. I surely didn’t need drugs, especially not ones for mental wellbeing or thought process. At the time I thought, maybe I could just, you know… “talk about some stuff.” When a man realizes things don’t feel right and voices his thoughts… the world only hears his words as complaining and often replies, “Things could be worse, you’re fine.” And, he goes on…
When a man fails at something, that’s normal. We all fail at lots of things. Anything worth doing is usually worth the effort and risk of participation… and that is correct, after all. Self reliance is an important trait to develop, and for those who come of age in an environment that lacks support, one learns talking about problems or expecting help only leads to more loss. There’s no use in complaining, everyone else is too busy with their own problems to help with my emotions and poor organizational structure. Why think any different?
I went to the psychiatrist for the first time because I valued my relationship with my wife and children, having not realized I was responsible for many of my own problems. The most important thing one should remember about mental health is that it is a spectrum, a long scale. It’s not binary. There are not two columns labeled, “Sick” and “Healthy” where one column is populated by drooling, raving lunatics and the latter is only for successful business owners and movie stars. The truth is, in fact, far more confusing. The residents of those columns are spread out everywhere in varying degrees of success and failure, madness and enlightenment. One can be in both columns, and a failure and success at the same time.
“Well, your definitely showing a lot of signs of longstanding depression and anxiety.” I remember my new psychiatrist saying. “I think it’s enough that treatment with medication would be very helpful for you, probably an SSRI. How do you feel about that?”
This was what I was ready for, and I nodded on the other end of the telemedicine call. The emotional toll of forty years of life up until that point had been high. To say my relationship with my wife was extremely strained at the time would be an understatement. At the time, I could not say I was full of hope for myself.
“But I’ll tell you this, though...” She hadn’t finished yet… and the additional statement confused me. “I think you have about a hundred and one symptoms of extremely severe ADHD.”
I will probably remember that sentence for as long as I have the capacity for memory(even considering that capacity is somewhat less than average).
She continued, saying she most definitely wanted me to be treated for it but the treatment plan would rely on what’s called a neuropsychological evaluation, as she could not be sure if these problems were caused by head injuries from boxing, or if they were native. Head injuries made sense, but I remember wondering what in the fuck “native” even meant. I knew what it meant, god damn it. But, what on earth did it mean for me? I had been accused of many many things in my life, a sufferer of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder was not one of them. How the fuck did that happen?
Much time went by, a neuropsych eval is a four hour process and those who administer them can have waitlists that occupy months. At that time my father also became ill for what would turn out to be the last time, and in the process of seeing my father off and grieving quietly, I shuffled many of my personal problems aside. It took me months to finally be tested.
I should not have waited. When I finally arrived for the evaluation appointment, it was over in less that two hours. When I asked about what that meant for my diagnosis, the very nice woman administering the battery of tests could only pause and look at me warmly. I got the hint. Turns out those head injuries weren’t that bad.
Months later.
Everything is a mess, I’m trying to clean but I can’t. I keep doing things… but the room doesn’t change. After many appointments and adjustments from my psychiatrist, had spent the last few weeks going through the cluttered mess that was our garage and basement. Suddenly the clutter an disorganization that followed me for my entire life was exceptionally visible. I reorganized, catalogued, debrided years of junk and half saved items that were most likely junk in the first place. The place looked far better. I painted walls, fixed the old “Pittsburgh shower” in the basement. The garage I turned into a nice workshop for my various hobbies, and a nice place to fix the ever breaking world of a small rural home with two little boys.
I recently rediscovered my love of woodworking and I’m trying to clean up after a small project but nothing seems to move. It’s frustrating, the frustration and disappointment in myself is making me sad… and it’s getting worse. There’s a pair of pliers on the workbench, I need to put those back in the tool cabinet farther at the other end of the basement, over by the shower and the washing machine.
I can’t seem to figure out how this space got so disorganized so quickly. All my organization is gone, the surfaces I cleared and cleaned are all cluttered again. Where did all this stuff even come from? Oh, I’m leaving my tools out again. I should get to those first. After all, the containers and tool chests are all right here. How are they full already? Where did all the space go? I go to the shower to get some dust rags, I need those.
When get back I realize I need to clear some of the clutter in order to dust. It gets dusty quickly with big dogs running in and out and sanding wood. Where am I going to put this stuff? Oh, the pliers, so easy, those go in the tool cabinet, I’ll put them back when I go get some rags. The dust is pretty thick on top of the shelves, I should use the shop-vac, but where am I going to put all this stuff? I’ll need to clear some space. Eventually, I just move some things on top of other things. I can start dusting with rags. Oh wait, there were rags underneath my workbench. I can put them all in the same pile.
Eventually I have a surface clear enough to dust, and as soon as I put the rag down and start wiping I realize too much dust is being pushed everywhere. I should start with the shop-vac. I put the rag down and pick up the vac. I start vacuuming away and I don’t get two feet before I run into a set of pliers. Fuck. I should put those back. I shut off the vac and pick up the pliers. They’re dirty, though. Before I put them back I should give them a wipe, they have oil and dust on them. Where’s the rag I was just using? I can’t find it. No problem, I have more, there’s a few in a pile on the shelf above the drill press. Wait, I almost tripped over the shop vac hose, let me just wrap that up really quick.
Alright, where was I? I needed to finish sanding those wood blocks I cut for the kids. I put them over by the sandpaper. Why are they covered in rags? Wait, did they need wiping down? Was that a reminder I set for myself? I should really try to re-organize in here, I’m running out of space already.
At some point I realize the sky is dark outside. Where did the time go? When did I start down here? Wasn’t it just four o’clock? What did I get finished? Where did I put those rags I was using? I didn’t even get to clean anything yet. I should clean before I go to bed. As I spin around looking for whatever it was that was just on my mind, my eyes land on the pliers…
F U C K
I decide to go to bed. I need to stop. It has been two days since I last had my medication. There is a delay at my pharmacy. The dots are connecting… finally. The ADHD mind has considerable trouble with that, connecting the dots, or connecting them where they shouldn’t be connected. More dots connect into an important realization; That I cannot believe what state I had been existing in, until it returns… when I’m without the proper medication.
Did you stop reading above? I toyed with the idea of condensing the above paragraphs into one giant one. Right before I published this piece, I decided it was too stressful for the average person to want to read. This is the problem with ADHD, or rather, one of the network of them. Life still goes on, but it goes on in a way that is exceptionally hard to follow. There is no beginning or end, no organization or clarity, no focus. The feeling is a lot like experiencing the world in one long, disjointed, run-on sentence. Sometimes it’s in capitalized letters, sometimes it’s punctuated poorly, if there’s any at all.
You remember but you don’t. You experience the world but only through a greasy thick glass. Time still passes, quickly when you need it, slowly when you don’t. You still exist, you still feel, you still desire clarity… so you analyze everything to the maximum degree. There’s a tiny problem around here… somewhere… but you don’t know where. Where did that item go? What did I do with it? What did that person say to me? Why did they say that? What do they really think? Did I forget? What have we experienced? What am I doing? Where am I? Did I do this already? Should I do it again? How should I feel about it? What’s that over there? I can barely think, I’m hungry. It’s not so much paranoia than it is a constant unease, an ever-present observation that something didn’t go the way it was supposed to.
Constantly.
F O R E V E R
Every time I answer one of my own ruminating questions, I just get sadder and more frustrated by the answer.
This life we live through ADHD is an un-ending spiral through fractal thought. You don’t know where you are, there’s no telling how may levels deep you’ve travelled into the tesseract. With no point of reference, I and those like me have no idea how bad it is, how much this has affected our lives, or how to change it. We know something’s not right, just slightly out of kilter, but we can’t figure it out, so we mask it. That becomes most of our lives, masking the real thoughts, feelings and behaviors with things we’ve already overly analyzed as “normal.” Those, in turn… aren’t even close to normal, but it’s our best guess.
Unfortunately, my pharmacy is slow with controlled substances. That’s the reason for the delay. Yes, most ADHD meds are stimulant based, controlled substances. They frequently run out, leaving one to return to the sea of confusion. It’s hard to tell when and if I’ve returned there… And, to be honest, it’s hard to tell when I leave. When I started on the drugs, I didn’t really feel anything change. I had heard all the stories about doing Adderall and staying up all night for a project, cleaning your entire house, accidently filing your mail alphabetically, whatever.
None of that happened. I took the pills and one day, I just looked around and decided it was messy and I should clean it up… and then I did. Then we made dinner and went to bed.
No one can tell you what’s wrong… but they feel it. I couldn’t see it. I would hear things like; “Your in your own head a lot.” “Man, sometimes you fly off the handle.” “Why are you so fixated on this?” “I worry about you, what’s going on in that head of yours?” “Are you thinking about something?”
Any number of strange observations from those close enough to comment. Being close enough to comment is a rarity in itself, apparently. I’m weird, or was, maybe I still am, amn’t? But it wasn’t in a fun, creative, instagram-ey “let’s explore and enjoy our weirdness kind of way.” There’s more of a uncanny valley feel to it. The masking causes it. We’re hidden inside. I’m in here… just hidden by so many protective measures, confounding masking behaviors, and personality left turns that I appear as someone wholly different. It’s not on purpose, and it makes us appear as weirdo loaners usually. The real thoughts? The real person? Usually totally fine… as banal and average as anyone else. Big whoop, no secret twist ending. But we can’t tell… like, at-fucking-all… no point of reference, remember? The insanity is self propagating.
Now, months in, I can look forward, actually forward. ADHD forward is not really forward, it’s more like a jagged line of if/then statements. We can’t predict or plan for anything with certainty because the constant re-evaluations warp the future into obscurity. Anything is possible in our minds. We can’t move forward and we can’t enjoy the present either. That’s how we get locked onto the couch in a messy house full of half thought ideas and life refuse.
Now, after some care, I can see the world, and perhaps even myself in it, still uncomfortable, but more honestly. I can see where I went wrong by ignoring all these red flags. Turns out you can’t identify red flags when your mind says EVERYTHING deserves a red flag. I can see how my behavior was ignored and catalogued as just a little different. I see how someone can look at me and say, “You’ll be fine.” “Maybe this is just how certain people are.” “It’s practically a superpower.”
None of those things are true. This sucks. Please remember that.
The superpower aspect is straight out of a horror novel. Now that I’m aware of myself, I find that I’m naturally scanning everything. Everything is in focus all the time, I feel like a machine walking around with some sort of visual heads up display. It took months of the drugs to realize I was even doing it, and then, more importantly, to be able to let it go. Yes, I see and feel everything, but that’s the problem. I see and feel everything. Mark my words, I still have ADHD, medications aren’t a cure. Instead, it’s almost like they offer a way for me to “catch up” with the breakneck speed and unfiltered nature in which I experience the world. Meds only offer management. Without them, the world is too much, no amount of mental bandwidth is enough to collate, categorize and react to it all. Remember that next time you make fun of your friend for worrying that they have enough Vyvanse. The anxiety of being lost in overburden is almost as paralyzing as the condition itself.
Seeing friends and participating in relationships is the strangest. Every time I catch up with someone I have to wonder who in the hell I was the last time we spoke, if it was before. I want to tell them all about it, perhaps seek some validation, but nobody is asking for that, they just want to hang out, be cool. It’s an odd thing to be able to do that and not spend eons in the tesseract dissecting every aspect of the interaction. I can do that now, be cool, live in the moment. It will take time to fully get there. I spent forty years being clueless, I wouldn’t be surprised if figuring it out takes another forty.
Maybe that’s why I decided to write this. A little bit of good info out there never hurt, and perhaps the processing is therapeutic. Whereas previously, the processing was the problem. I’m not a mental health professional, but go see a fucking psychiatrist. Just because you think your fine doesn’t remove you from the mental health spectrum, we’re all on it somewhere.