Albeit a highly functional one...or so I am told.
I managed to get myself through high school, undergrad and into law school. In the time spent transferring from one law school to another (don't ask) I did a business degree.
I've bought scary big ticket items, lived alone--in a foreign country no less(!), have friends, held down multiple jobs at once, bathe regularly, etc.
But I have spent my life hiding and fighting a secret--I have NOT really been there for any of it.
Somewhere along the way I perfected the art of seeming engaged when in reality I am completely zoned out and have no idea what is going on around me. I can have entire conversations without really participating in them, coming out thinking "what just happened here". I hate myself for doing it and the vast majority of the time I don't mean to but somehow I just can't help it. Conversation starts, I get distracted and tune out of what's being said and tune in to whatever else while somehow maintaining a vague level of awareness that words are still coming out of my mouth. That part is pretty scary and I quickly find myself trying to tune back in before I say something that is much too out there and off topic or just something much too "uh oh that should not be said". Unfortunately, tuning back in doesn't happen so much at will.
I cannot do anything without hours spent procrastinating first. Its so bad that I am literally at a point where I procrastinate procrastinating. Didn't think that was possible, did you?
I blurt things out without thinking and I am in constant terror of what is next going to come spilling out of my mouth. I have a running mental list of the particularly shudder worthy ones. Case in point: December 13th 2007. ugh. Much mental energy is devoted to sloooooooooowing down my speech patterns as I can speak at such lightening quick speed that I amaze even me. I often tune out of my own thought mid sentence and have to fight to reclaim it.
How I managed to get through school is mind boggling, simply because I never, EVER studied.
Every new semester I would promise myself, bribe myself, plead with myself to focus, plug in and study. Every semester I would sit down with my books, ever intent on getting through my readings and every semester I would see the first few words on the page, become so intrigued or bored by their meaning that I would once again zone out and spend hours staring off into space instead. Try as I might I was never able to reclaim my focus on the words on the page in front of me. My level of interest in a subject didn't make much difference. In fact, sometimes the more interesting something is the harder it is to me to focus on. Too stimulating, I guess?
If I spent two weeks doing nothing but dedicating myself to writing a paper then chances were I would have the page layout (title, name, date, etc) laid out within a few days and the actual content of the paper would coming tumbling out of me when I was down to the wire to get it done. It never fails to amaze me how fast I can write and with what great authority I can express 2000 words in forty five minutes when the consequences of not doing so are adequately severe.
I am more sensitive than the average kid. Slight noises or appearances cause me to leap and shriek in surprise. Quite an embarrassment really, as I am quite positive that many have wondered/thought/been certain that its all an act. It's not. Each shriek is genuine and each genuine shriek is the result of me being genuinely stunned. I cry over commercials. Laugh for hours at the silliest things that no one else comprehends. Feel overwhelming rage that encompasses me for hours over the tiniest, most ridiculous things that I struggle to let go of and contain my temper over.
I am constantly covered in mysterious bruises from walls that I have sideswiped, poles I have crashed into, random items that I have tripped over. I have had more than my fair share of injuries caused by sheer inattention. Not to mention the kitchen fires and infamous flood that I caused because I forgot what I was doing and wandered off.
Oh and the big one. Unless there are severe consequences to the contrary--I have NEVER finished ANYTHING that I have started.
I have always known that there was "something" different about me. I just thought that it was that I was special and always hoped that it would never turn into being "special".
In all honesty, a lot of the time I LOVE the way my crazy brain works. I feel so fortunate that I have this swirling tornado of brilliant ideas that dance around my brain and that when I don't like or care about what's going on around me I can wait a nano second for the next thought train to roll through and I can hop on and be whisked away with it all while maintaining my carefully practiced outer expression of careful attention.
Its wonderfully powerful to know that any given moment of any given day I am likely to be smacked hard by an idea so magical that if developed it has the potential to have a profound effect on the world. Its not so wonderful when the idea and corresponding excitement hit, and the familiar feeling of distraction take over and I know that this idea, like so, SO many others is about to be filed away into the swirling vortex of my brain to be dealt with, developed, shared later. Ha! like later ever comes!
I hate that I have no control over any of this. No matter how desperately I want to settle down and do something I can't. Case in point--I am supposed to be finishing a letter that I just cannot seem to start. I am exhausted all the time from my internal dialogue pleading with itself to get things done, stay on track and oh yeah don't fall off the curb when walking down the street. I am always wondering if so and so hates me or if its all in my head. I have no idea what is going on most of the time and I am afraid of what I am missing or loosing or not doing.
The older I have become and the more that I have taken on to in effect cope with it all has further exhausted me. I just cannot comprehend why it is that when there is something that I know how to do, have a plan for how to do and really, REALLY want to do but somehow I still cannot seem to do it.
Recently frustration over this paradox has brought me to my wits end and I have googled and googled "chronic procrastination" to try to figure out how to over come it and have found nothing. nada. zip. zero--that was helpful.
A few weeks ago, I was having a chat with an old friend who jokingly called me ADD.
I have heard that so many times in my life that I really did not think much of it. Its just something that people say. Like "you're crazy". It doesn't MEAN anything its just words people throw around. But for some reason, that particular time, while still on the phone, I looked up the symptoms. Holy. F. It was like reading my own biography.
I googled and googled and googled some more just because I was pretty sure that the symptoms listed on the first site had to be a mistake or a joke or something. Me? ADHD? Nah. It can't be, can it? I found an online test for ADHD and took it. If you scored 70+ it was extremely likely that you have ADHD. I scored a 114. Oh. I guess I might have it then.
That kind of spun me into a trance. How do I process this? On the one hand I was THRILLED to discover that all of this insanity, all of my secret struggling, all of my self hate for being such a self proclaimed incapable loser was a) not my fault and could be treated (yippee!!!) b) I was amazed and a little angry that I went 20 something years with NO ONE cluing into my struggles, how on earth is that possible? c) I was sad that if this really has been what has been holding me back all of my life, why did it have to take so long to clue into it? Why did I have to waste SO MANY years feeling like I am in some sort of coma, when I could have instead been treated years ago and not lost so much time and so many opportunities. How do I process this?
Its kind of amazing when so much of your identity is composed of self hate and zaniness to all of a sudden stumble on to a discovery that those qualities are just symptoms of something that is treatable. How do I process this? Head. Spinning.
Currently, I am trying to focus on the excitement of A. While chalking B up to the fact that my generation was not looked at for ADHD the way kids are today and trying to work past C by instead just being grateful that I stumbled across this miraculous answer now rather than even later in my life.
Next step was figuring out how to go about getting officially, formally diagnosed. Which, I learned, is a) not easy and b) uber expensive. After a lot more effort than I am used to putting into anything--which in and of itself suggests how much I care about resolving my crazy brain--I found a clinic that specializes in ADHD treatment and diagnosis.
After hours of interviews, tests: mainly mine but a couple my mom had to do as well, and digging out all my old report cards. Bam! Diagnosis confirmed. I am strangely proud (and entirely horrified) that I managed to score off the charts.
I am once again amazed. How on earth was this missed for so long? Every single one of my report cards says something to the effect of "Lauren is a very smart and charming student who cannot focus/does not focus/spends too much time in dreamland/cannot stop chattering/can only work under pressure/blah blah blah." Everyone (with the exception of my mother who just seems amused by all of this) that I have spoken to about this has said something along the lines of "I never would have thought of you as ADHD but now that you mention it, the signs are all there."
Once again my head is spinning. Now that diagnosis is confirmed I have to wait another nine days (!) for my next doctor's appointment to start figuring out how we are going to treat this. Torture. Somehow knowing that help is on its way is in effect causing my brain to give up. Despite the enormous struggle, after fulfilling the requisite amount of procrastination time I am usually able to eventually kick my brain into gear--at least a little. But since my diagnosis five days ago the opposite is true. All I want to do is lolly gag along. On top of that my brain is still trying to process all of this. Now on top of a) being THRILLED to discover that all of this insanity, all of my secret struggling, all of my self hate for being such a self proclaimed incapable loser is not not my fault and can now be treated (super duper yippee!!!) b) being amazed and a little angry that I went 20 something years with NO ONE cluing into my struggles and c) feeling sad that if this really has been what has been holding me back all of my life, why did it have to take so long to clue into it? I can now add to that list d) a feeling of horror at the permanency of this being my brain. This is not something that I can help nor is it something that I can change. For better or for worse this is who I am. There is officially, diagnose-ably something "wrong" with me. yuck. e)trying to work through powerful feelings of shame for all of the ways that I have learned to cope over the years. Not because I did anything wrong--to the contrary I have always been a pretty good kid, but because I am starting to realize the degree to which I have relied on coping mechanisms and how I feel like I have hidden myself from the world somehow in the process of trying to get through the world. That feels kind of dishonest. Which in turn feels kind of icky.
I keep trying to remind myself that this is a good thing. Treating my ADHD is going to enable me to better live up to my full potential. My mother loves to remind me that persons with ADHD consistently land in the top 5% of the population in terms of their level of intellect. (score! maybe I'm a smartypants afterall?) My good friends at google have linked me to countless websites that have described that many obscenely talented, brilliant, successful and empowering people have ADHD so its really only a handicap if you do not take control of it.
So what if I now officially have ADHD? I have always been ADHMe. Bring. It. On.
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