A Beginning of Sorts

I've said yes a lot and lived many lives. This is my story.

Today I took several online ADHD tests as a lark. I scored very high for both which intellectually suprised me but intuitively didn’t. Here’s the thing, I’ve only known ADHD as it presents in my youngest sister and my stepson, which are severe in both cases. Actually, that’s not quite true. My husband was recently diagnosed and while I didn’t originally believe he had it, the diagnosis explained and unearthed so much. I’m now a believer. Anyway, this is my story and this is how it went down for me. I recently noticed that I don’t actually stop moving. It’s subtle. I might massage a finger for hours, reposition myself repeatedly in my seat, cross and uncross my legs, play with my hair, stretch. Unless you’ve been married to me and had to endure watching tv on the sofa with my endless shifting, you probably haven’t noticed. Once I stop moving, I fall asleep. I’ve missed the ending of hundreds of movies at home, in the movie theater, in the actual theater—although I’m pretty sure I managed to watch The Phatom of the Opera in its entirety when I was 24 , and I’m pretty sure it was torturous. I fall asleep reading fiction, textbooks, in class, and I start to fall asleep in long meetings when I can’t move and I’m so uncomfortable that my brain thinks that this is a great time to shut down. You have to admit it’s a bit comical. Mostly because I’m a high achiever and pretty darn productive. And yet.

I spent a good hour talking to my bestie, the internet AI, about coping strategies. Is this linked to ADHD? What about that? Ad nauseam. I discovered over 20 years ago that I needed hard exercise. I used to joke around that I was one of those high-energy dogs you had to take to the park and make them chase the ball until they were completely worn out. That’s me. If I don’t exercise, I get irritable. I’ve always known that my obsession with working out, running, and/or cycling wasn’t limited to fitness and fun, although those are definitely strong factors. What has motivated me the most has been my mental health. I’ve never understood why, it was just something I knew and did. Everyone likes it when I workout regularly. I’m so chill.

Other strategies I have are leaving things out on the kitchen island—to the dismay of my husband and my neater alter ego—because it’s the only way I’ll remember to deal with them. Out of sight, out of mind. No truer words were ever said about me. What’s that you say about a to-do list? I make them all the time. I alternate between random pieces of paper, my notebook, and my phone. They only work as long as I can remember to look at them which is essentially the problem. The big unsightly white board behind my husband’s desk works sometimes until it becomes part of the background again. The piles on the kitchen island work the best. My brain is like a fancy computer that can do really cool and smart things but is almost always full and literally has very little memory left. In, and out.

I used to think I was dumb because I couldn’t remember anything I read. If it weren’t for taking 3 different IQ tests in a row in my thirties I would probably still believe that about myself. I’ve learned to understand that my intelligence has nothing to do with my memory. Close call! When I was processing all this today on my incline power walk, because exercise, I almost got weepy for my younger bright self who thought she was dumb. And yet, I had a level of anger and arrogance—more on that later— that kept me defiant and curious. I rebelled against feeling dumb by going out there in the world and kicking ass. That’s right. I developed a thick skin, didn’t take no for an answer, and built my career from those early defiant and curious days.

I find it fascinating to continue to learn more about how my brain works. I love learning about how all brains work, but I’m really biased towards mine. I’m a proper research queen about it. I want to understand why I behave the way that I do. Sometimes that knowledge leads me to evolve, other times, there isn’t anything to be done. In 2019, I moved in with my husband and his two very young children. I started experiencing full brain breakage. Often by the end of the week, if the kids were playing loudly and I was trying to cook dinner while music was playing, it was very much like a record needle coming to a scratching halt. Actually, it was exactly like that. I’d experienced this phenomenon many times before but not in a home where there were witnesses to this event. I wouldn’t be able to finish sentences and would have to retreat until I could regain my faculties. As one might imagine, this didn’t bode well for my relationship. It looked like I was cheating and wanted to get away from the kids and my responsibilities. I did want to get away from the kids but because I was overwhelmed. It wasn’t personal. I wanted to get away from everything. I didn’t know that my brain was overstimulated and had entered fight-or-flight.

I think I asked the internet “why does my brain break when there are a lot of sounds around me?” Enter the personality trait aptly named “Highly Sensitive Person”. If you ever want to sound like a total dumbass, that’s the title. Needless to say, I just go with something along the lines of having sensory processing blah, blah, blah. It described me to a T but I could do without the lack of originality or scientific sounding title. My point is that I discovered something pretty powerful about how my brain has always worked and why I used to rely on alchohol during social functions. Also why I show up before everyone arrives so that I have time to slowly adjust to the oncoming overwhelm rather than diving right in. Showing up to a crowded event on time is my nightmare. My brain needs to prepare itself, and I like being really nice to my brain.

I’ve always loved psychology and entering an era of discovery and knowledge has become one of my happy places. So much information is available today. There are medications and strategies for whatever ails you which I think is so mindblowing. Previous generations had to endure and fake so much of their neurodivergence, dealing with the negative stigma, the breakdowns, the sheer exhaustion of having to fake it. I watched my mother struggle without understanding why. Unfortunately, we just thought of her as crazy. She was never crazy and I hope that in the last years of her life I was able to help her feel validated. It breaks my heart to know how much she suffered. I know from my own experience how much I endured to fit in. I used alcohol in social situations and sat in psychological and physical discomfort through the first part of my adult life. I can’t express how relieved I am that we have the option to own our weird now. It’s a work in progress. There’s still a lot of stigma. But today, we can find our tribes and that’s a huge step in the right direction.