ADHD

 Recently, I was diagnosed with ADHD. 

That's it. That's the sentence. I was. Diagnosed. With. ADHD.

My entire identity leading up to that moment feels like a total fraud. I prided myself on being on time, excelling in school, and keeping a tidy home.

But behind all the prompt arrivals, good grades, and organized home, was an anxiety that drove me and pushed me harder and harder each day.

I had severe time anxiety. If we weren't at church 20 minutes early we might as well not go. If we weren't at Kanab 7 hours into our drive to Utah, we were behind! Must make up time! I went to my college campus two weeks before school started, and timed myself walking from class to class, just to make sure I'd have enough time. If I didn't get a good grade, I immediately felt like a failure. A b grade was b for "bad" and that was that. My sense of self would get beaten down for every point under 89%.

Let's not get into keeping a clean house. I could've easily driven away Brett and all of my kids if I had let my anxiety over cleanliness overcome me. Thankfully, I didn't. A good friend told me, "cleanliness is next to loneliness", and she wasn't wrong. The more I wanted it clean, the less my family wanted to be around me. I didn't want to be around me.

Maybe it was OCD? No...Must be depression. I didn't have the will to do much, and when I did "do", I was irritable and frustrated with myself and everyone around me. I felt terrible. I felt sad. Definitely depression.

So, for a little over a decade, I took depression medication. It helped with the irritability. It helped with moodiness. It made me tired all the time, so it was hard to care much about how clean the house was. But I still couldn't find the will to do...stuff. Adulty stuff. And my ADHD husband was zero help. We were both living behind a wall of dread.

After so many years of being tired and not finding relief, I finally went to a psychiatrist. Tenderly, carefully, with a ten-foot prod, my sweet husband recommended I ask my psychiatrist about ADHD. 

"Say what?! I don't have ADHD. YOU have ADHD."

But I went ahead and asked the doctor, and he sent me the surveys for ADHD.

I passed! Or...failed. I was diagnosed! I was shocked. But...but...I got good grades in school. I never got in trouble. I never acted out.

I was surviving on pure people-pleasing skills, high anxiety, deep, deep self-loathing, and a terrifying fear of failure.

I took my first pill. Adderall.

And suddenly...

Life was easy.

Things were easy.

Doing was easy.

I could stand in a messy room, a trashed kitchen, and feel no anxiety. No over-powering desire to clean, clean, clean. My mind had been given new brakes. 

I learned a lot about ADHD in women. It is NOT what I thought it was. I started to recognize what was going on in my mind.

The "h" in ADHD does stand for hyperactive, but for women, for me, it's a hyperactive mind. My brain is like a hamster on a wheel, running and running until the wheel unhinges from its post and rolls away in any direction. My brain would work three, four, or five steps ahead. And in doing so, I would skip steps one and two. And six. And twelve. 

Existing in mess was overwhelming because my mind was too busy processing all the THINGS. Too many THINGS. Too many MESSES. My mind would explode! Then I would explode. 

Life was untenable. 

I thought for sure I'd take Adderall and get hyper, like the meth head I was becoming. But what actually happened...The wheel went back to the post. The hamster got on the wheel and went for a leisurely jog. My mind slowed. It went step by step, instead throwing itself down a steep stairwell. It felt like my brain was working, finally, for the first time in a looooong time.

All the shame I felt wrapped up in an ADHD diagnosis was immediately overshadowed by the relief that washed over me. 

I could fix this. Easily. And with a zero copay! 

My story is just beginning. And as much as I don't dwell on the past, I do wonder what the past 30 years would've been like had I known why I was so anxious, so frustrated, and so unmotivated. It's hard not to feel a little resentment toward doctors who misdiagnosed me. They wanted to help. And in their defense, I too thought it was depression. 

I'm grateful for psychiatrists. I'm grateful for my diagnosis. I'm grateful for Adderall. I'm grateful the hamster is finally staying on the wheel.

Remember the time...

 For two years before the pandemic began, I served in a Relief Society presidency with three of the most amazing women I know. Part of our calling took us to visit with new friends who moved into the neighborhood and/or ward. On one of these visits, I met K (for her privacy, I'll just use the letter K.)

I adored her immediately. While visiting, her husband walked in. It was as if the room grew darker. The spirit of discernment warned me that this was maybe not a good person. I don't often get those feelings, but it was strong then.

Over the next few months, I came to understand more about the Spirits prompting. Eventually, K had to leave, and it was an immediate situation. I called Brett and said, "K is moving in with us. She's bringing the kids." His response was one I'll never forget. "This is the Lords house. Of course she can move in."

A very special woman and her son came and helped me clean out K's room in our house (a small den downstairs). We moved our three boys into one room, and our two girls into another, and put her three kids in the third room. 

We were a full house, but a full house of love. Over the next 9 or so months, we watched as blessings rained down on K. Her trials had not been removed (the Lord frowns upon murder, but I sure wished a lightning bolt would've taken out the ex). In fact, her life seemed to spiral ever downward. But her faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and her love of her Savior was inspiring. She needed $5,000 for a lawyer. She got the exact amount from some fraud perpetrated by her ex, and the company was buying her silence (basically). This is just one example.

She needed a job. She prayed, went to the temple, and when we got out, she knew exactly what she was to do. She got a phone call 20 minutes after we left the temple, with a job offer. 

She needed a place to live, and she found one, where she was surrounded by a group of people who offered her support and friendship.

In our own lives, we found peace in a hectic life. We learned to love children who weren't ours biologically. We got to give service, and we received so much in return. Our home was filled with peace (not the quiet kind, remember, 8 kids and 3 adults!) We were so blessed! I miss those days.

Sometimes those feelings of "this is right where we should be" are hard to express. I want to remember dinner time when our dining table was at its max, and there was yelling and talking and laughing.

I want to remember family prayers. Doing yoga with little kids. Swimming in the pool with everyone. All the imaginative games Chloe and K's daughter would create. Bath time and combing out little 3-year-old curls. Being called Aunt Kelly. Crying and holding K and feeling the love of the Savior surround us. 

Remember, Remember

 The last five years of my life feel like a garbled blur of pain, confusion, lost time, and opportunities. I found a journal (that I ended up replacing) and the last time I had written in it was 2018. I decided to start using this journal again, and as I sat down to catch up on the last several years, I realized my life has changed in ways I couldn't imagine.

I began writing about all of the world events that have taken place. The past two years have been a whirlwind of change, uncertainty, fear, confusion, and anger for most of the people in my life, and most of the world. We have had a pandemic. A quarantine. Homeschool. A fight for teachers. A fight for vaccines. 

We've had a sitting President attempt an insurrection. Our White House was attacked. Our children talk about politics and understand more than elementary school children should have to understand.

Personally, I had fallen deep into a depression due to chronic pain caused by my sciatic nerve being impinged by my piriformis muscle. "If you can't make your own serotonin, store-bought is ok!" So I went with Effexor. The pain stayed, but the depression left. 

As a family, we welcomed another family into our home to live with us. We experienced blessings and miracles. Brett was laid off in November before the pandemic hit.  The pandemic brought with it greater amounts of unemployment benefits. His unemployment was almost equal to the amount we had lost from his layoff. We also received food benefits that have lasted through this year. All of this helped support our family and a second family living with us. Plus, Brett was home to help when I couldn't. Having him home and available was perhaps the greatest blessing.

This is the most succinct way I could summarize the last few years. It lacks all the nuances and blessings and miracles that happened. And those are the things I want to remember. The rest is for the history books. But for my posterity, I hope to give more light to Lord's hand in our lives through my next few posts. 

One of my favorite Book of Mormon prophets, Alma, said, "then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember His merciful arm which He extended towards me."

I want to remember, and I want my children to remember, that even though these have been the hardest years of our lives (so far), they have also been the most blessed years as well.