I used to love the way my mind worked; the constant ideas and thoughts swirling around like a tornado, ready to burst out of my head at any time. Anytime I needed an idea, I would reach into the swirling mass and pluck one out and run with it. I needed to wait until I was really pressured in order to find what I needed, but it worked. I was writing; I was getting paid to write.
I love that I am different; I love making up stories and games for my kids on the spur of the moment. I love that my kids think I am “weird” and “silly” and that we have fun playing together, but lately, I’ve gotten tired of the whirlwind. I’ve needed more and more breaks from the chaos of my mind, the constant barrage of thoughts that I can’t control. I have lived with this tornado in my head all my life. I thought everyone’s mind was a mass of confusion and stories and pictures and ideas. I had no idea that it was possible to actually think nothing. I would ask people what they were thinking and they would say “nothing”. I didn’t understand that answer. How could you possibly have nothing in your head? I have so much in there that I have to exhaust myself in order to be able to fall asleep at night; otherwise I sit up all night with stories playing in my head, moving from one to another to another in an endless stream.
I would try all different ways to quiet my mind; I even tried to meditate, but it never worked for me. I tried all different approaches; my favorite one was: to empty your mind, picture every thought you have being put into a balloon and floating away. Yeah, my head got filled up with the most colorful balloons…thousands of them. I couldn’t help, at that point, making up a story about the sky filling with balloons and blocking out the sun- so much for quieting my mind.
When I became a mother, I couldn’t help but agonize over why the simplest tasks seemed so much more difficult for me than they were for my other mommy friends. After all, I knew women who had two or three kids and here I was with one perfect little angel and I couldn’t get dinner on the table, keep up with the laundry and get the house clean. I chalked it up to just hating the tasks and putting them off. I called it procrastination, others called it laziness. The more I looked around the world, the more I realized that I just wasn’t keeping up. When my third child came into the world, I decided to give up trying to keep up with the house and the laundry and just concentrated on keeping my kids safe, happy and fed. That worked for a while, but then when I became a single parent and went to work full time, that feeling of not being able to do what others seemed to do with ease came back. Why, why couldn’t I do what other women could do? Was there some trick that these other women knew, some secret that nobody had bothered to clue me in on? Yeah, there was.
I had heard of ADHD, who hadn’t? I had seen it first hand in some of my students, I was seeing signs of it in my daughter, but I couldn’t see it in myself. I had no idea that I was trying to swim upstream while everyone else (without ADHD) was swimming downstream. No wonder I was always fighting to keep up, I was constantly working against the current! When a friend told me she thought I had ADHD, I thought about it and the idea intrigued me. Could there actually be a reason why I was always panicking? Always falling behind? Why I did so poorly in school even though I supposedly had a decent IQ? Was I really not lazy???? The more I thought about it, the more I hoped that there really was an explanation of why I was the way I was….an explanation that didn’t start with “you” and end with “lazy”. My biggest fear was that the doctor would tell me that I didn’t have it and that I would be stuck the way I was for the rest of my life. It’s not that I enjoy taking medication, but if I could just keep up with everyone else….work all day, get a decent dinner into my kids, do the dishes…all the normal stuff that my friends were able to do without complete chaos reigning and without anyone dissolving into tears (usually me).
So off I went to the doctor. We talked for a bit about what ADHD was and how an ADHD brain functions differently than a brain without ADHD. He explained that people with ADHD have brains that are “insulated” from stimulation. That we seek input constantly because normal input doesn’t register, it doesn’t get through. It explained why I could never study when it was quiet, I needed the noise stimulation in order to focus and let the information actually reach my brain. Without a lot of stimulation, an ADHD brain doesn’t get the signals everyone else’s brain gets. We drift through life, not getting the signals we need to function like the rest of society. We seem “spacey”, “unmotivated”, “lazy”, “procrastinators”, all those lovely labels that I have heard all my life…the worst being “stupid”. It explained why I had to wait until I was in a panic to be able to write; I needed the adrenaline of the panic to stimulate my brain so that I could get my thoughts to line up in a way that made sense. It is actually a sensory processing disorder!
So the doctor prescribed Adderall for me. I have to admit, I was doubtful. I didn’t think I would see a difference, I couldn’t imagine my brain functioning in a different way. My friends would describe to me the way their brains worked, but it’s like trying to explain chocolate to an alien. If they have never seen it, smelled it, tasted it or even heard of it, there is just no way to fully explain the taste to them. So I took the pill right there in the pharmacy, expecting to experience absolutely nothing. I got in my car and started to drive home, the usual swirl of ideas, stories and thoughts in my head, spinning and swirling around in my own private tornado. By the time I got home, mind you this is just a few minutes later, I was in shock. The tornado had stopped. The ideas and thoughts and stories were all lined up in my head waiting their turn! I had never experienced anything like it. My first thought was: my mind is playing tricks on me. I want something to be different so badly that I am having a placebo effect! I went inside and started working and instead of flitting from one thing to another, never really completing a task, I was able to see exactly what I needed to do and actually complete each task. I was able to complete in 6-8 hours what I usually couldn’t complete in 24. I was able to remember what needed to be done and act on it. I’m not saying I don’t forget things anymore, I do…I’m human; but I don’t forget EVERYTHING anymore and I am able to write myself notes for when the fog rolls back in and the tornado starts swirling again, so that I can function for the rest of the day. I am able to stick with a task until it is complete and then move on to the next task. I have never, ever been able to do that…not even when I am reading a book. I start 4 or 5 books at once and am lucky if I complete one. I can sit in a quiet room and work without any external stimulation to keep me moving.
I used to hyperfocus when I had to write. I still tend to get lost in my writing, but I can stop and do something else and come back to it and pick up my train of thought now – I couldn’t do that before. I used to have to concentrate so hard on a conversation that I would watch the person’s mouth move to remind me that they were talking. It wasn’t that I was not interested in what they were saying; it was just that the tornado was trying to pull me into 10 other things at the same time. Now, when someone speaks to me, I can actually enjoy the conversation; and if I have something I want to add to the conversation, I don’t have to interrupt them and blurt it out before I lose my train of thought.
Adderall is not a miracle drug, but it definitely helps me to focus and do the everyday tasks that I need to do to function normally. I am happier now than I have ever been…my creativity is still there (yes, I was worried that I would lose my imagination) and I am able to handle my life…as much as any single mother of three who works full time can! I have patience now; I still like instant gratification, but in this day and age, who doesn’t? The difference is, I can wait when I have to and it doesn’t upset me the way it used to. My kids are happier now; Mommy has patience and is actually cooking dinner again. My son told me the other day that he likes “Medicine Mommy” much better than “silly, weird Mommy”. Out of the mouths of babes….
