Tell Me Who I am: On Diagnosis and ADD

Fresh out of graduate school and full of the determination and the power of adulthood that only being in your 30's offers, I took my first job at a well regarded university as a counselor. I didn't suffer the imposter syndrome many in my cohort did. My father is also a therapist and therapy speak was my first language. I was full of ideas and passionate about helping people. I was acknowledged early on to be both a strong fledgling provider and a trouble maker. The kind that in some kind of visceral and impossible to override way can't do things they don't agree with. The kind that makes waves and encourages others to do the same. I didn't last more than a few years there before venturing into private practice. It was scary. I was the single mom of a young child trying to support us both in and my student loan repayments couldn't be deferred forever. Thankfully it didn't take long for me to have a full practice and to limp my way through my financial responsibilities.

Looking back now at those early years I understand how little I knew. Research says that the most important piece of therapy is the relationship but to actually be good at your job it takes more than that. I didn't want to be simply a supportive and kind ear. I wanted to help people change. Insight fuels action and I was entranced by how increased awareness discovered in a safe environment could result in powerful shifts in people. I still am. And I firmly believe that the work of one person has ripple effects that reach many. I guess you could say I hoped I could help change the world for the better. I guess you could also say that I still do.

In the start, I had mixed but mostly negative feelings about diagnosing people. Boy has that changed. What I came to learn over years in practice was that a diagnosis the vast majority of the time was illuminating, validating, and unlocked self compassion and forgiveness. Sometimes there is resistance and sometimes grief but I have rarely seen someone not benefit from having a name for some of the things they experience. It is all of their identity? Of course not. Does it help them move from a place from feeling like an outsider in the world to a person less alone in their challenges? Yes. As humans we are drawn to order. We like to understand things and doing so gives us a sense that we can master them. As much as we resist labels, myself included, we need them to clear up a little space in our already cluttered minds. The key though to a helpful diagnosis is that we use it to help and not to minimize or justify. That is the hard part.

I got my ADD diagnosis at 46. I read somewhere that if woman don't get diagnosed with ADD as a child the next most likely time they will is if they have children and the next is at perimenopause. Kids make everything infinitely more complicated and coping skills that may have gotten us by previously start to fail. And perimenopause exacerbates brain fog and forgetfulness, moodiness, sleeplessness, basically everything that someone already experiences on the daily. So there I was at 46; relieved and ready to learn everything I could about my fresh new diagnosis. I dug into "A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD" by Frank and Solden, which I highly recommend, and began the work of breaking down my entire understanding of self. I would not call that fun but it was enormously helpful in a very gasps of surprise and tears of sadness and bursts of laughter kind of way. Once I was able to release some of the shame and shock and the disorientation of trying to figure out what was me and what was ADD, I began to build myself back up with a new understanding and a lot more patience. Mostly.

Unfortunately for me medication wasn't an option. I tried them all and had seen how helpful they could be for others. I wanted something that could make it all a little easier. I was overwhelmed and drowning. Despite knowing there was a reason I was struggling I still felt like a constant failure and disappointment. But after months of trail and error after error I took a genetic test that confirmed what I already knew in practice; that stimulants were not a good option for me and that my body couldn't metabolize them in the way they had proven to be effective for others. Frustrated and disheartened I resumed my efforts to improve my quality of life by going to therapy, reading more, making lists, and trying a multitude of recommended tools and tricks that seemed to work for my fellow neurologically different folks.

5 years later that is still where I am at. It didn't take me long to figure out that developing strategies that actually work for you is a deeply personal and individual process. If it doesn't make sense to you, it doesn't matter how many other people it does make sense to because it's not going to stick. I suspect the may the most important lesson of all that I have figured out is that I need to work with myself rather than against her. If left to my own devices without outside input I do okay. The way I do things and the timing in which I do them make not be the most effective or obvious but it works for me. It may cause me a bit of distress sometimes like when I put off doing something that it now has become a more complicated problem but I understand that that jolt of emotion is what raises a task up to the part of my brain that can attend to it. It may not be the ideal way to live, especially when those around you are impacted, but I've made it this far without too many catastrophes. And it helps to have a husband that is far more organized on I. I like to think we balance each other out. I am the creative, spontaneous, think outside the box, try lots of new things (and usually abandon them) and challenge the system person! How fun is that! And he, well, he is everything else.

I'll write more about ADD later because, surprising no one, I have a lot to say about it. Particularly want to talk about masking; how it has served us and why it hurts us and what happens when you try to unmask. I'll also share more about the diagnoses of some of my family members and the different ways we have all approached life. But in the meantime I'll say this. Normalcy is a myth. And it is definitely not the goal. As much as I get impatient with myself, which I suspect I would do even without ADD, I am very grateful for who I am. And for who my fellow neurospicy friends and family are. The world may not be made for us and because of that life can be harder but it sure is lucky to have us.