At the ripe age of 32, I was diagnosed with ADHD.
Prior to the diagnosis, here is how I would judge my character:
- I can’t complete anything.
- I can’t maintain friendships – people forget me, and I forget others.
- I’m overwhelmed with ideas, without the ability to enact any of them.
- My mind doesn’t work right.
- I cannot experience joy or satisfaction like others do.
- I feel alone, whilst being surrounded by love.
- Everything I’ve done in the past fills me with shame.
- I’m lazy
- I don’t have the ability to pursue my hobbies or interests
- I’m constantly on the verge of burnout.
As you can see, I was unnecessarily harsh.
My diagnosis was symbolic as it recontextualised everything I’d ever been through in the past, and reclassified my behaviour from ‘Broken’ to ‘Symptom’. When the psychiatrist confirmed I have ADHD, an enormous weight was lifted from my shoulders.
What is ADHD?
Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder is one of the worst named conditions in the world. We do not have a deficit of attention, we have a deficit of attention regulation, which means in-practice that we have an overabundance of attention, but without the ability direct that attention to the right places. For that matter, we’re not all hyperactive either, many ADHD sufferers are hyperactive internally, but not externally.
Sometimes it’s classified as a dopamine regulation disorder, which fundamentally alters the reward centres of our brains. It’s also classified as a developmental disorder. It features such incredible symptoms as rejection sensitivity dysphoria (aka the ‘I do everything wrong’ symptom), executive dysfunction (aka ‘I actually can’t do anything’ symptom), short-term memory deficiency (aka, the ‘why did I come into this room’ symptom), time blindness (aka ‘the journey across the country will only take five minutes’ symptom), and emotional disregulation (aka ‘the short fuse to anger or despair’ symptom) – to name but a few. Alone, none of these symptoms are terribly problematic, but combined, they are a recipe for disaster.
Typical Adult ADHD Experience
Imagine you’re getting ready for work – you will struggle to rise from bed, you’ll forget to brush your teeth, you’ll miss the train, and you’ll think that it’ll only be a five minute walk to get there on foot, so you’ll miss most of your work day, and you’ll spend the entire walk making yourself feel utterly useless for not being able to do basic things like get out of bed in the morning. When you eventually arrive, your boss will tell you he’s disappointed, you’ll internalise it. However, when your work is on the screen in front of you, an impossible ‘force’ will stop you from starting it, you cannot seem to make yourself comfortable in this £1000+ Herman Miller ergonomic chair… plus, you’re about to rip Harold’s head off because he’s chewing too loud.
Again, as a one-off, this isn’t so bad, everyone has an ‘off day’, but by the third repeat day, you’ll develop a reputation for being unreliable, unhinged, and impossible to work with. Your boss will try to help – “just get out of bed a bit earlier.” Not helpful. Regardless of the time I wake, I cannot get out of bed until the stars align and grant me an unholy strength to push through the ‘barrier’ keeping me from action.
What I described above, is the ‘typical’ adult ADHD experience. Many sufferers however cannot work at all, especially if some of these symptoms are more extreme. For me, I feel I managed to blag it through work enough to understand how everyone operates, and act accordingly. But that constant effort I was placing to do simple things like ‘work’ or ‘get out of bed’, drained me, and I found myself dropping my hobbies, sending me into a depression. How can I possibly follow my dreams if I can’t even do the basics?
How to Follow Your Dreams
When I was first diagnosed, I experienced grief.
I lamented the opportunities I missed, the friendships I fucked up, and all the hobbies I abandoned. It took me weeks to get myself out of my ‘slump’ and longer still to accept my lot. But for me, acceptance is key. You need to find a way to accept your mind for what it is, and how it works. We have such beautiful and unique minds, but just because we don’t always feel in control of them, doesn’t mean they’re any less beautiful.
One of the main things I did was keep my dreams out and on show. For example, my bass guitar is hanging on my wall behind me, plugged into the amplifier, which is plugged into the wall. One switch is all it’ll take for me to start playing. I migrated from Scrivener (for writing), to Novlr, a cloud based equivalent. Of course, I lose features, since Scrivener is so dense, but I can now write wherever I am – I can write whilst waiting for a doctor’s appointment, I can write whilst on the toilet, I don’t need space and place to be perfect, I can just write whenever, wherever, like Shakira.
Accept that you’ll drop them. That’s why you’re keeping them out and visible, to allow yourself to freely drop them and pick them back up whenever the urge takes you. Your mind operates on novelty, and sometimes the novelty of a long-running hobby dissipates. You’ll be back though, eventually… provided you don’t lock them away.
You need to learn to eliminate the feelings of shame around dropping hobbies, though I accept that this one is particularly tough. Sometimes we get so attached to the idea of completing something that the prospect of putting it away before it’s done, upsets us.
It’s possible
With all that in mind, I was able to complete my first novel, The Great Leap. I dropped it multiple times, reworked it over and over, but keeping my head above the shame and disappointment, I eventually made my way towards completion. In the time it took me to write it, Brandon Sanderson wrote 18 novels and innumerable shorter works and graphic novels. But I still did it, I still got there.
It’s possible.
Your dreams are possible even if you have ADHD, even if you don’t fully believe them. You just need to accept yourself for who you are.
ADHD Acceptance
Acceptance becomes such an incredible tool to combat ADHD. It’ll allow you the freedom to operate flexibly within your mind’s own chaotic parameters, allow you to not build shame when something goes your way, and allow you to build your confidence.
Your mind isn’t broken, it just works a little differently. If you picked up a book expecting it was Lord of the Rings, but when you started reading it, it was instead War and Peace, you’d be confused, annoyed, perhaps disappointed… but if you got a few pages in, and ‘accepted’ that you were reading an incredibly important literary masterpiece, you’ll be able to get through it and take a lot from it, even though it wasn’t what you originally expected. Similarly, if you’re expecting a neurotypical brain, then you’ll always be disappointed with what you can do, but if you accept your neurodivergence for what it is, you’ll realise that you can do a hell of a lot with your beautiful mind.
Addendum
At the beginning of writing this article, my wife handed me the post, addressed to me. It was a reschedule of my psychiatric appointment: fine, no problem, I thought, I’ll just update my calendar. I’ve switched tabs to my calendar no less than eight times by the end of the article, and each time I’d gotten distracted, or something else had cropped up. I’ve still not done it… do you know how maddening that is? Such a simple thing, updating a calendar, but I feel like I’m going insane, just update it! I’m about to do it now, before I hit publish…. right now.
I saw that it was a good friend of mine’s birthday when looking at the week of my psychiatry appointment, so I dropped him a message to ask if he’s planning anything… then came back to the article… you guessed it, without updating the appointment. Why am I doing this? Fuck knows, but I hate it with all my heart.
I’ve done it.
Thank fuck for that.
Now, I’ve just got to turn up on time.