ADHD

After sharing with the psychiatric nurse practitioner what brought me to this appointment and answering a series of questions, it seemed pretty obvious to her that my brain functions a bit differently from others and that I exhibit a number of ADHD symptoms. I have learned several new terms and phrases in the last few months such as neurotypical and neurodivergent. I’d never heard those words before. I guess, I’ve been living under a rock for a while now. And I’ve learned many other terms too such as time blindness. Oof, that’s a tough one. It’s one that makes me think so badly about and talk so negatively to myself. But seriously. There are actual names and phrases and definitions for the challenges I’ve had in life! Fucking awesome. 

Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. I thought this phenomenon only occurred in our youth. I thought that it primarily manifested in boys. I thought that by the time one reaches adulthood it’s no longer a thing. Apparently I was wrong. I’ve said in the past that I don’t want to pathologize myself or others. I’ve felt in the past that it doesn’t matter who we are per se and how we got to be who we are but rather what we choose to do going forward.

However, it sure is hella helpful to be able to name our experiences and understand our past to the extent that we may better understand ourselves. The more we know what drives and fuels us and what makes us feel defeated, the more we can learn how to work WITH ourselves and not AGAINST ourselves. To realize that indeed we are all different and there are often multiple paths to get to the same destination. The fact that we can learn how to rewrite our paths to our future literally in our brains is one example of how it can help to know who we are or at least how we behave.

I won’t say how this idea that I might have this disorder came about or rather who brought it up to me except to say that it’s someone very close to me who knows me extremely well. I would share stories of recent goings on in my life and this person would chuckle. I’m over here like why are you laughing at me for forgetting to bring something to work yet again as I share that literally, it’s always a mystery not IF I’ll forget something but WHAT it will be today. This person is like “yo, classic ADHD”. It became a running joke with many a story I would share. Sigh. I said, “Fine. I’ll read it” referring to a book this person recommended called Your Brain’s Not Broken - Strategies for Navigating your Emotions and Life with ADHD.

After I read it, I asked my mom if she would read it too. I asked her if the characteristics described by the author resonated with her at all because I found almost everything being described resonating with me. She said, “no, and it got repetitive so I skipped to the chapters that talked about strategies to help with managing life”. I was quite literally dumbfounded.

Previously, when asked about certain behaviors, I would say, “everyone does this. Everyone experiences these things. We just need to get systems in place to support us such as getting a good planner and writing everything down.” If any of you know anything about me and planners, you may also know that I have a planner graveyard. A location in my home where all the planners that I thought would finally be the thing to fix my life went used for a few weeks to a few months before getting tossed to the side in yet another pile I don’t know what to do with. I also have many a blank bullet journal in preparation for a lot more planning.

(Side note: My digital planner has actually lasted since August 2022, which is super encouraging! I think it’s because I can move things around and erase and redo it as much as I want. This helps make it easier to move to do lists forward more easily and keep my frustrations with other schedule changes at bay. I struggle with messy crossed out stuff in planners and small spaces to write and then just give up on them after a while. Also, there’s the matter of making sure it’s always with me. Digital planners eliminate these problems!!)

Some activities that fall into this category of behaviors that I thought applied to everyone include but are not limited to the following:

• Being paralyzed to do a basic activity of adult life like updating a drivers license address (I still haven’t done this almost 2 years after moving.)
• Leaving your house keys in outside front door key lock or even in your car. (That last one is especially not fun.)
• Forgetting to move wet laundry to the dryer multiple times necessitating multiple rewashes. Then leaving them in the dryer until the next load needs to be moved. Then leaving them in the hamper until time to retrieve clean clothes from it to wear.
• Struggling with procrastinating starting an assignment such as writing a paper and ending up in a state of paralysis for lengthy periods of time prior to a period of extreme hyper focus lasting 12+ straight hours with limited breaks to eat or go to the bathroom
• Forgetting important appointments
• Being chronically late to everything even enjoyable events such as massages or parties
• Missing a bill because it got lost in one of my many piles to be dealt with later. (Later means never really. Let’s be honest.)
• Overdrafting your account because your autopay hit and you forgot to move money into that account. (Thank god for savings account overdraft protection.)

I also learned the term rejection sensitivity dysphoria. I thought I was just a sensitive person, but RSD involves more than just being sensitive. According to the website www.additudemag.com, a site dedicated to educating people about ADHD, RSD is “extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short—failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations.” Oh this one is a doozy too. 

There are several neuropsychiatric disorders that can include RSD and ADHD is one of them. If you are interested, you can read more about it here. https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/ This article alone describes a lot about who I am and how I function. It says that adults with ADHD often manage their RSD by becoming people pleasers or they stop trying and hide away from potential RSD igniting situations or both.

What it doesn’t include in here is how I, Rebecca, am learning to manage this. If I can get past the negative feelings or at least the initial stages, I can make a conscious choice to face these emotions and fears head on and put them out there in the world for others to see and read about. I mentally fight against the potential embarrassment and judgment in order to share with others what it’s like. I do this because I refuse to stay hidden away curled up in my little ball of shame like I have in the past.

I KNOW I’m not the only one that experiences these feelings. I know this because I DO share. And the more I share, the more people open back up to me. That said, literally everyone I know that has opened up to me has done so privately (with one exception being one particularly “open book” horse friend of mine). They don’t want their business out there in the world for all to see and to be scrutinized by others. They don’t want their kryptonite to find its way into the hands of others to be used against them. I know I run the risk of this happening to me. Once I put something out there on the internet, it is forever available to anyone who wants to use it to harm me.

But, you see, when I keep this stuff balled up inside of me, I harm myself so much more than you, my reader, or anyone else can harm me. I put my metaphorical armor on against my own self attacks best by being bold and daring. I heal myself by standing up and fighting for the support that I need and on behalf of my friends and family members who are fearful of doing the same. I heal myself by sharing what I learn along this journey of life in order to communicate to others that while not everyone is the same, each of us has our own challenges. And now I’m choosing to heal myself by sharing things that have kept me in a cycle of shame and wanting to hide away from the world. 

This metaphorical armor is actually a stripping down of myself for all to see. And by fighting my urge to hide, it actually makes me free…

ADHD comes with many amazing talents and gifts as well. Though I’m talking about some of the challenges here today, I’m fully aware of the gifts that it also brings. My impulsivity led to me switching my career entirely while having two young children at home and going back to school to get an advanced degree. My ability to hyper focus when I want to allowed me to relearn all the basic sciences from my classes 10 years earlier in a matter of months to prepare for and then ace the pharmacy school

entrance exam (PCAT). These gifts along with tactics to make my life easier with my newfound vantage point will be a huge focus of mine going forward. 

I went through periods of skepticism about all of this, then minimization, then denial, then lots of observation, then a realization that ya maybe this is the ticket to a bit of what makes me tick, then anger and annoyance, then sadness and questioning of lost opportunities and missteps and misunderstandings in my previous marriage and with other close relationships had I understood sooner, then acceptance and hope that this awareness of myself will help me more than any book on habits and behaviors ever has before. 

My biggest hope in all of this is by having words to describe some of my characteristics, ways of thinking, and my behaviors I will be able to search out tools to help me with these behaviors. And that these tools will then help me with communicating and improving my relationships with my current husband, my children, my family, my friends, and my coworkers. I have already begun to work on this aspect and my life and my relationships are already so much better for it!!

Here is what I wrote in my notes last week to prepare for my appointment…

I’ve been trying to figure myself out my whole life. Why do I always have a “floordrobe” and a messy and disorganized home even though I want desperately to have a clean home and find peace in a clean environment? Why am I chronically late even to enjoyable appointments like massages? Why am I so unorganized compared to my sister? Why am I so passionate and have such highs and lows? My sister has same many times that she envies my highs but is grateful she never has my lows. The excitement and exuberance I felt for a full two months after running my first half marathon for example is something she has never experienced with all of her life’s accomplishments.

I know I’m not bipolar. Bipolar traits don’t fit me. My highs are not extreme enough to be considered manic and I don’t exhibit manic related behaviors. I also don’t have severe depression lasting for months at a time. But I get incredibly passionate about things and go from zero to 60 in two seconds flat with just about every new passion whether it’s training for a marathon, learning to ride a horse, studying to get into pharmacy school, bodybuilding and more. I deep dive head first into any new shiny object of my passionate affection. And I share anything and everything about said object with everyone around me like it’s the next best thing since sliced bread and how on earth did I not know about it before?!

I’ve had depressive thoughts many times in the past. Only got close to plan development once during my divorce. Otherwise it’s just: why am I like this? Why can’t I do better? How can I be so successful and be so stupid at the same time? Why are we here? What’s it all for? And I go through periods of life feeling like I have no meaning. No purpose. Subscribing to an existential nihilistic point of view rather than my much preferred and more optimistic stoicism and Buddhism philosophical views. Admittedly, seeing a lot of death and suffering at work can make this harder at times. But this isn’t always the initiator of these feelings.

So what is it? Is it ODD and I just a rebel? Good lord. No. I’m incredibly concerned with how others view me and want to be loved. Though I admire those that are able to actually believe the saying “what others think of me is none of my business”. Is it depression? Sometimes yes but never long enough to be considered major or even moderate depression (except perhaps during my divorce). Mild depression? Yes. But it’s usually short lived and I’m able to quickly find a new shiny object in life to focus on and then I’m all in. But inevitably I find that I’m “too much” for people. I overwhelm them with my enthusiasm. And then I have self loathing and want to crawl back into a hole. I thought many times about trying antidepressants but I don’t want to squash the essence of who I am - my personality. And I do not want the potential side effects that come with them or the possibility of side effects coming off of them. I was willing to try Wellbutrin for a little while though years ago. It helped a little. But not enough to be worth remembering to take it daily.

I thought maybe my struggles were from my concussion except these qualities existed before that. I thought maybe the cause was secondary traumatic stress or my shift work and lack of sleep. But these qualities predated my job in the ED and there are many times that I know I’m not severely impacted by trauma. I’ve taken STS tests and the results are minor most of the time (3 drownings in one week on top of traumas and new cancer diagnoses may be the exception). 

I’ve read books on sleep, got checked out for sleep apnea, bought a fit bit. I compared my sleep to my sister’s sleep and mine is actually quite comparable or better (if you base off score and not hours). I was prescribed several sleep medications before ultimately deciding not to take any medications for sleep: these include hydroxyzine, trazodone and ambien. The first two made my memory and focus worse. The second I was hesitant to even try when it was first suggested. I finally agreed to give it a go and got it filled but then never took it and finally threw them out. Too scared of potential side effects and how much it might affect my memory. 

I thought it might be alcohol but many of my traits and behaviors still occur during the times when I’ve been alcohol free. Alcohol makes these focus and memory related behaviors worse though so I hardly drink now.

Sometimes I feel very fractured. I can be a bit impulsive and get super excited in the moment. I then want to share my exuberance with anyone and everyone. This next best thing will then become my hyper focus. Only to dive deep enough to then find out I don’t want to do it or it interferes with my schedule or is too much work or whatever and then it’s on to the next thing.

Friends and family tell me it’s because I have too much going on. And I need to have rest days. And I need to say no to big commitments. The thing is that whenever there is ANY time in my schedule, I instantly fill it. I WILL FILL IT.