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.
