My journey to an ADHD diagnosis later in life…to be continued of course!

“You are so sensitive, don’t you know it’s a joke?” “Why are you so sensitive?” “You are too sensitive…too quiet…” “Laura is such a quiet, polite young lady.” “She is a good student, conscientious, but too quiet.” As a child I was reserved, a serious student who constantly had her head in a book. I would escape for hours at a time into my stories, stories about horses, and ballerinas, mysteries by Nancy Drew and poetry by Shel Silverstein. My library card was my most prized possession and our local librarian held a wealth of information for my inquisitive mind; she was always there to show me the new book in the series I was currently reading. My mom always tells anyone she can that she potty trained me by giving me a stack of books and closing the door. I was a highly focused child and I would find a new topic and run with it. I read books that were well beyond grade level, and one time, drew the concern of my reading teacher in 7th grade for reading North and South during a historical fiction phase. 

I began collecting: books, marbles, horse figurines, mobiles, stuffed animals, Matchbox cars, perfume bottles…I was connected to animals, craved quiet, would always try to make others happy including my teachers who I adored. I wanted to become a teacher, a veterinarian, a genie like in my favorite shows. My interests were varied; my imagination was vivid, I would escape from the overwhelming world through focusing on a new idea, project or game. I was “good” at many activities and subjects in school, but did not have a clear direction or inclination to any one avocation. Each new interest would bring a sense of interior calm, moments of escape from a world that was too loud and stimulating. This escape came with a cost as I grew into adolescence and discovered new ways to feel human and safe: boys and booze. 

“Each one of us has our own story to tell – what will yours be?” My story is not about the boys or booze today; they were merely symptoms of another stilted journey. I struggled with anxiety, low self esteem, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and spent moments masking all of those feelings, turning inward to soothe. I used food and collecting, drugs and promiscuity, working and running,  to remove myself from my own narrative, my own deeply flawed view of my Self. I thought there was something seriously wrong with my psyche as I rarely felt comfortable in my own body, I grasped onto society’s expectations of what a woman should be and I attempted to force my own version into its misshapen ideal. Each angry word from a stranger, each negative outcome from the outside world, each time someone told me: to smile, to be less sensitive, to lose weight, to gain weight, to mind my own business, to serve, to change; I would drink in the feeling of inadequacy and disappointment. And I would stuff it down, way down.

My inability to understand my own strengths led to a life of struggling in low paying jobs. The exhaustion from working in service industry jobs was not merely from the physical labor, but the mental energy it took to pretend to be a particular polite persona, while lapping up the consistent negativity and superciliousness of customers. I went for bloodwork and therapy, participated in twelve step work and began to run obsessively. I continued to be disorganized, lonely in a crowd, and overwhelmed with fear and anxiety, although sobriety brought some semblance of peace and connection, I was still “off.” 

My ADHD diagnosis came later in life, at 51. It would have never occurred to me, as I believed the neurodevelopmental disorder occurred in boys who could not sit still. I could sit still for hours. I love sitting still. I loved being by myself in quiet rooms with only books for company. It was my brain that was in constant motion, a swirling dervish dancing its way into a variety of competing tasks and engaging in direction changes and task interruption. (Insert one hour Instagram rabbit hole here). After learning that ADHD ran in my family I began to do some research which inevitably shifted my social media algorithm. I stumbled onto the work of Alex Partridge, the quick videos he made for Instagram (“How to tell a woman with ADHD in 25 seconds”) and his podcast, ADHD Chatter. I saw myself in those videos, the issues I had been struggling with all of my life, the silent, hidden version of myself clearly normalized and on display. This story will continue…or maybe it won’t. What is my story? Is it the search for the right psychiatrist who will believe that I know myself and prescribe that medicine that will open my eyes to a crystal clear world, a focused world? Is it the grief that will arise from imagining what could have been? Is it the new found connection I will have with others with neurodivergence? For now I leave you with the poem I wrote using a list of random words, part of the “Poem of the Day” Project I began in late September this year. Because I have now lost interest in this topic for today. I am not sure what the poem is actually about, but it came out of my exploration of my neurodivergent brain!

Beyond the bane of magical places,
where each image is blurred - the 
tangible existence evokes wonder and curiosity.

I am craving curiosity in a world
with existing doors 
(which world exists beyond the magic of the forest floor?)

The tangible conundrum - 
that place just beyond my wonder.
That place that exists just for my own curiosity
 - beyond the blur.