Comment by nucleardog
4 months ago
> I took that backpack off and how I can run the same race as everyone else. And you know what? When you've been practicing your whole life with an extra weight on your back, and you take it off, sometimes it's surprising how fast you can go.
The way I've always described this to people is that before, in order to get started on anything I first had to bang my way head first through a solid brick wall. It was painful and unpleasant and an absolutely absurd amount of effort. It didn't matter if the thing I was trying to do was "a load of laundry" or "build a shed"... same brick wall. That's pretty crippling in day-to-day life.
And then once I get through it I wasn't in the clear. The first interruption, the first unexpected thing that came up... was another brick wall I had to bash my head through.
The medication doesn't take away the walls, but what it has done is turn them all into drywall. I still have to bang my head through a lot of walls, but after decades of going head first through brick walls everything just seems _comically easy_.
I really wish someone had identified this sooner so I could have gotten treatment earlier. I'm grateful my life has gone as well as it has. I don't have nearly as many things to look back on with regret as other people that were diagnosed late in life. It does suck to realize that everything really didn't need to be so difficult. And some habits and coping mechanisms that allowed me to function aren't exactly healthy for me or those around me, and those are hard to unlearn.
Wait... Do I have ADD? I've never thought so, because I have three close friends who do (diagnosed and medicated), and they've never described it like this. And, like, they're always starting things they don't finish. I have massive trouble starting things, just like you describe, and have built (effective, I'll point out) systems like sibling commenters describe. This whole thread has bent my brain a bit.
I found out I had ADHD because I was catching up with a friend who had been diagnosed since I last saw them. They'd been seeing a psychologist, taking medication, and generally addressing it. They were describing their experiences, strategies they had developed prior and now recognized, and others they were working on with the psychologist for addressing challenges, etc.
I spent the entire conversation essentially going "Wait, what?! That's not normal?" and "Wait, what?! That's a coping strategy, not what everyone has to do to get through their life?".
Called my GP, told them my concern, they referred me to a psychiatrist. Psychiatrist asked me a bunch of questions and was like "Yep, you have ADHD. You have, naturally for someone your age, developed a lot of coping strategies, but those are also consistent with ADHD." and sent me back to the GP to start medication.
So, do you have ADHD? I don't know!
I'd suggest doing some reading about ADHD symptoms, about other people's experiences, and if a lot of it feels really relatable... maybe talk to a medical professional about it. If you do have it, even if you're coping successfully, there's no reason life needs to be as hard as it is.
I had that kind of a revelation right before I started the ball rolling. My kid has ADHD, and I didn’t “get” it for a while. When they described things like you mention, I assumed that was the way it was for everyone. I was completely shocked to find that no, it’s not, or at least not to that degree.
Well, huh.
(Similar story with asthma. I was training for a marathon relay. My doc asked how that was going, and I said it was fine, except you know how after a mile or so, you get cotton mouth and tunnel vision? No. No, they did not know. And that’s how I ended up with a pre-run inhaler, and immediately shaved a minute off my mile pace. Holy crap. Not everyone feels like they’re dying mid-run? Why did no one tell me?)