So! I have about four half-written blog posts that I never got to finishing because I'm completely unable to maintain a train of thought for any period of time, so I thought maybe I should try writing about ADHD instead!
Several months ago I wrote that my therapist suspected that I had ADHD, but eventually the results of my psychological evaluation came back and "didn't support a diagnosis of ADHD." So then I went home for the summer and started seeing a psychologist here at home, and she completely disagrees. Let me tell you why. While it may be true that every uncontrollable child with an attitude problem has been diagnosed with ADHD whether or not it's actually there, there are some people (like me) that haven't ever been diagnosed because they don't fit the stereotype. As a kid I was as far from the image of ADHD as I could get. I got magnificent grades, I was quiet, respectful, I loved learning, and I never forgot my homework. No one ever thought I could possibly have a learning problem, including me, until I was put into a higher pressure environment like college. Now it is perfectly clear that I have serious concentration issues. Even with this knowledge, however, my psych eval showed that I didn't meet the criteria for ADHD. This is because ADHD covers a wide range of problems, and a general test like the one I took wasn't specific enough to show what was really going on.
There are several types of ADHD, some of which are more widely recognized than others, but there are at least three that are widely accepted. There is the Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type that everyone notices because affected children are usually running around non-stop, talking loudly and at inappropriate times, and generally not listening to anyone. Then there is the Predominantly Inattentive Type which is much harder to spot because it often appears in low-energy children. Sufferers have a hard time staying on task because they are easily distracted and have short attention spans. They are prone to daydreaming and procrastination and tend to avoid tasks that involve even small amounts of effort. For obvious reasons, this type is often mistaken for laziness. The third type is the Combined Type, which is pretty self explanatory. General tests are often geared toward this last type, so if even if you have Inattentive Type, your lack of Hyperactive-Impulsive symptoms will lower the chances of being diagnosed. I'm pretty sure this is what happened to me.
Considering the state I'm in right now, I'm not sure how I managed to survive my whole life without realizing that I had attention problems, but I think it might be because my symptoms were being canceled out by other symptoms, namely those of OCD. Sure I daydreamed a lot, but elementary school homework doesn't exactly involve strenuous hours of concentration, plus I was compelled to make sure that every assignment was absolutely perfect. No teacher would suspect that the student with alphabetically arranged folders could have issues with organization, or that the thorough poster with perfectly straight lines could have been accomplished by a child who couldn't pay attention. So I raised no flags, other than spending too much time completing assignments, which could be attributed to being thorough instead of inattentive. High school was a bit rough, but while I didn't always feel that I was performing to my potential, I still came in ninth in my class and no one had any reason to worry about me. But then college happened (I'm pretty sure this exact line was in my last post, too).
By itself the attention problems might not have been so bad, but add it to OCD, Trichotillomania, and Depression and you've got yourself a person who cannot accomplish even the simplest task. The homework that I managed to do took far too long, and then there were the assignments that were so intimidating that every time I tried to just sit down and do them I would get anxious and start pacing or cleaning. I started losing sleep from staying up late, not because I was doing homework, but because I would get too distracted to go to bed. At my very, very worst this spring, it got so bad that I would start getting ready for bed at around 1:00am, and by the time I actually crawled under my covers, the sun would be rising. Let me just say that there are few things scarier than knowing the sun is rising and not remembering what you've been doing for the past five hours. For weeks I had nightmares about it. Every night in my dreams, regardless of when I'd actually gone to sleep, I would dream of running through the streets trying to find a bed, but I would never find one before the sun rose. Even as I'm typing this (at 1:45am) I'm starting to feel panicky. Just remembering that time makes me feel scared. I keep glancing at the window, hoping that it's just as dark as it should be. I've been home for a while, with no pressure of school work or places to go, but I haven't been to bed before 2:00am for weeks. I feel so powerless (not tonight, just in general). I feel like normal people can definitely choose to go to bed whenever they want. Don't people usually just go, "Hey, I'm tired. Time to turn in," and then just do it? When people want to go for a walk, are they able to just go outside? When they want to write a blog post, do they stare at the screen and then think better of it, or do they sit down and type? I know everyone has motivational trouble from time to time, but for two months I've been lying around thinking of all the things I want to do and doing none of them. I feel guilty about it, like I'm wasting my life, and I'm paranoid whenever I hear someone say something that might confirm my feelings of worthlessness. "How do you live with yourself when you sleep in all day? Don't you feel like you've wasted all of it?" Yes. Yes, I do. "How come you haven't cleaned your room? You said you wanted to do that weeks ago." Yes, I do want to clean my room, but I can't. I wish I could, but it hasn't really been working out. "How come you didn't do your homework? You had plenty of time." Yes, I had all the time in the world, and it slipped by me. Time wasted. I will never be able to get it back, and I don't even remember what I was doing. Probably daydreaming unimportant thoughts. Obsessive, distracted, depressed thoughts. People act like I should just be able to fix these things, like determination is the cure for all my issues. If that were true, they wouldn't be psychological illnesses, they would be weakness and laziness. Sometimes it's even hard for me to tell the difference. How can I be sure that I'm not just lazy? How can I validate doing nothing? I can't, so for me this is even harder to deal with than OCD, Trichotillomania, and Sensory Defensiveness combined. OCD makes me more organized. Trichotillomania may be embarrassing, but it doesn't make me feel useless, just a bit weird. Sensory Defensiveness is like having super powers in all of my senses, as annoying as that can be. But ADHD and Depression make you feel like it's all your fault.
For a while I thought I might try to get through this with determination and therapy, but determination is useless if you have none, and therapy can't cure you, it can only help you realize things. It helped me to realize that I need more help than what I'm getting. Medication may be that help that I need. What's the point of being really smart if you can't do anything with it? If I'm not learning, or thinking, or writing, then what am I doing? Wasting time and my own talents. I've done a couple of test runs, and the results are promising. Caffeine is a stimulant drug very similar to the ones given to people with ADHD. Unfortunately, I'm slightly allergic to caffeine and have terrible stomach cramps every time I consume anything containing it. However, every now and then I use it for emergencies, like exams. I can say for sure that it works wonders. My brain works so much faster, like the cobwebs have been cleared away. I feel smarter and happier, and I can get things done that I would never be able to do without it, even if that's just forcing myself to clean dishes or wash my clothes. Then I get sick, of course, but for that one successful day it's completely worth it. At one point last year I was prescribed Focalin, but the semester ended before I could figure out a dosage that worked. Now, finally, I have managed to get an appointment for a medication consultation with an MD next week. Just so that I had more information to tell him, I tried taking another Focalin today, at a different dosage than before. Miraculously, I answered all the emails I'd been avoiding, studied Japanese for a hour, started planning for a new hobby, cleaned up my room a little, and then actually sat down to write this blog post, which I'm still doing because I'm completely wired. Note to self: don't take meds at night next time.
Well, it felt good getting all that off my chest. I started feeling pretty hopeless in the middle there, but I think I was able to leave it on a pretty positive note. Meds = optimism. However, it is now 2:15am, and I'm terrified of the sun, so I'm going to actually try going to sleep. After I wash my face. And floss. And brush my teeth. And brush my hair. And maybe check facebook again. Oh god, I'm doomed. And I have a headache. Hope that's not a side effect....
