Originally written 13 September 2021, 11.40pm.
I was fully prepared for an autism diagnosis. I was not prepared, however, for ADHD.
This has rocked my world -- it explains SO MUCH. I’ve been reading through the NaNoWriMo Adult ADHD thread all day (13 September) and literally crying because all of it is me. Time blindness/underestimating how much time things will take, inability to switch tasks, hyperfocus, inability to focus on anything boring (including sleeping, which is why I will 100% stay up till 4am if no-one actively stops me), inability to just sit still, constantly being busy, brain constantly going a million miles an hour (turns out this is why my brain always feels like it's being eaten by acid), self-teaching myself everything under the sun, millions of brilliant and unfinished creative projects in my wake, constantly interrupting people, executive dysfunction…
I’ve been a dancer for 22 years, I routinely overloaded myself in college and mostly managed to get almost every assignment done hours before it was due (a famous example is when I wrote four papers and two final exams in 36 hours), all while still dancing 12-20 hours a week and keeping up a theatre career on the side (I’m also usually in three shows concurrently, and the only reason I still get away with this is because I’m always on top of things – if I miss a rehearsal for another rehearsal for a different show, I study my butt off and show up next rehearsal looking like I didn’t miss a thing). Twice I wrote two 50k novels in a month for NaNoWriMo because doing only one was too easy and I had enough plot ideas to sustain it. My mother was CONSTANTLY on my case for forgetting my chores and knew that if I was reading or engrossed in a project that nothing short of an atomic bomb under my seat could get my attention (and even then, it would take me a minute to realise where I was and that something was happening). I once choreographed an entire 4.5-minute dance piece for seventeen dancers start-to-finish in one single eight-hour sitting (during which I did not eat, drink, or go to the bathroom), and also recently finished a far less complicated five-minute dance for four people that took me seven years. There’s really no in between. I notoriously learn entire dance pieces three days before I perform them and then perform them better than everyone else in the piece (none of my teachers have ever known what to do with me).
I would never have known I had ADHD until the pandemic took all of my coping mechanisms away – theatre and dance had been giving me enough controlled chaos to keep me sane, and then when it was all taken away, my symptoms (both ADHD and autism) finally presented, big-time. At first I thought it was just depression, brought on by the stress of the pandemic and my first real romantic relationship/marriage, but luckily I follow a few autistic performers on Instagram who regularly post autism/ADHD memes, and I began to see myself in a few too many of these posts. I took my autism suspicions to my therapist, who told me how to go about getting assessed. The process happened very quickly, and it was at my autism assessment that I was screened for and diagnosed with ADHD.
I am not medicated yet, pending a more detailed autism assessment, and also because they want to put me on Wellbutrin and I've shied away because I am TERRIFIED of Wellbutrin. I have not met a single person who has had a positive experience with Wellbutrin. Everyone I know who has been on it has had severe side effects that were ten times worse than the issue that they were trying to treat. Plus, it only comes in pill form, and I can't swallow pills (thanks, autism-related/hereditary texture issues).
As difficult as life is with ADHD, I'm glad to have a diagnosis. Not only does it explain things that I honestly thought meant I was just a no-good failure and a waste of skin/God's punching bag, it also saved our marriage. My husband was constantly on my case for forgetting to do things and he would get extremely frustrated and accuse me of doing it on purpose and I would get angry because I was angry at myself for forgetting (again) and angry at him for not believing me whenever I tried to explain that I didn’t mean to forget things (that's literally what 'forgetting' means...?). Since my diagnosis, we went from screaming matches every other day to I think maybe one or two in the past month. It’s helped me understand myself and make a conscious effort to be more attentive to the things I forget that annoy him the most and it’s helped him understand me and be more patient with me.
There is still a lot to learn and a very, very long way to go. I've borrowed some books from the library to try to understand myself and how to function as an adult human in a world that I never did feel I belonged in. It's a lot to catch up on, and right now I'm feeling rather overwhelmed by it all... but I'll keep trying.
Stay tuned...
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