An ode to my abnormal brain
My mom recently showed me videos of when I was a kid, probably younger than five or six. I was a happy kid, because I didn’t have a care in the world. Seeing how I behaved in those videos, I was astonished no one pointed out that, hey, those are some classic signs of ADHD. Why is she just rolling on the floor of some random building? Stop touching everything. Why won’t you go to sleep already? What do you mean you want to play? You’ve been playing all day! You’re not tired? I’ve never seen you stay still.
As I got older, these behaviors went away and were replaced by daydreams, distractions, and dissatisfactions.
I jumped from book to book, hobbies to hobbies. School got less interesting, because I couldn’t care less about the derivative of infinity, or whatever. No one thought I had a problem, because I always did well in school, and my grades would reflect that. What they didn’t know was that behind the scenes, I’d never pay attention to a single lecture. I’d be on my laptop, gushing over my most recent fictional crush and memorizing the succession lines in the War of the Roses. By the following week, I had already moved on to whatever my new obsession was at the time.
Everyday, I’d go home and learn all the class materials by myself, on my own time, because I couldn’t focus during class itself. From 8 AM in the morning to 3 PM in the afternoon, my brain was total fluff. To escape the crushing disappointment of my parents, teachers, and peers, I forced myself to succeed in school, quietly, and it took me twice as long as it should’ve, because gosh darn it, it’s this stupid brain.
What the garfunkel is an ADHD?
We know very little about the human brain. We can perform the most complex cardiac surgery, yet we don’t fully understand how our mind works. It’s no surprise that we don’t have the best understanding of this elusive condition.
People with ADHD have brains that work differently than other people’s. It’s something to do with dopamine, and we don’t get enough of it. We can’t stay on a task for too long, because we get bored, because our mind won’t focus on something that isn’t remotely interesting to us at the moment. Our brain refuses to reward ourselves for doing something tedious but beneficial in the long run. Our brain is constantly understimulated that it seeks stimulation elsewhere.
We’re always chasing the next dopamine rush so that we can feel satisfied. We jump from interest to interest, constantly distracted by novel things and experiences. We can’t exactly put a finger on it, but it always feels like something is missing. We need more, always more.
We have preconfigured notions of what someone with ADHD looks like, but not everyone with ADHD act, feel, or think the same. It’s the same underlying condition, but it can manifest in different ways. You can have a hyperactive kid running around in circles or a dissatisfied white-collar worker who can’t muster the energy to work another day at the same old boring job. Hence, Attention-Deficit (and) Hyperactive Disorder. Two sides of the same coin, or a mix of both.
Holy shit, am I one of the Lost Boys?
In high school, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. It was junior year, and we were all getting bombarded with the expectation of getting into college, and a good one at that. People with ADHD are often misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety. A lot of people with ADHD have depression and anxiety because of their ADHD, but if you treat the symptoms and not the source, they will never truly go away. My depression went away pretty quickly, but my anxiety never left.
I never entertained the idea that I could possibly have ADHD until I came across an online article. It was one of those silly articles with a title along the lines of “you experience these if you have ADHD,” or something like that. I clicked on it, because why not?
Holy Forking Shit. I related to every single thing on that list, but that didn’t mean anything right? It was just a random article, nothing serious. I brushed it off as a meaningless internet gimmick, but in the back of my mind, there was this nagging that maybe it was onto something. So, of course, I went down a rabbit hole.
Holy Forking Shit again. All the videos, articles, and posts about adults and women with ADHD — I could relate to 99% of them. I scoured more credible websites, and my curiosities slowly grew into suspicions. I started to believe I might actually have this ADHD thing.
I finally went to a doctor earlier this year. I was in a really rough time in my life. Nothing was going right. Everything was a mess. I felt horrible, so I was desperate for an answer. I’d always felt that there was something wrong with me, but I just didn’t know for sure what it was.
Learning that I have ADHD changed everything. There was finally an explanation! I would scour countless Reddit threads, reading other peoples’ experiences eerily describing my own. It was mind-boggling, and something finally clicked. It was as if this weight had finally been lifted off my shoulders. There was an explanation for why I am the way I am, and why I do the things I do. I am not just an emotional wreck or an undisciplined person. I don’t have a faulty brain that just won’t do the things that I want it to do. This thing has a name, loads of people have it, it’s a reason as to why I am who I am. It’s cathartic. It’s crazy. I’m not crazy!
Instead of crying myself to sleep every night wondering what was wrong with me, I laid in bed crying of relief because I finally found the source of all my problems — or most of them. I could forgive myself for all the things that I’d done and all the blame that I had put on myself for not being good enough, for being a burden, for being a mess. Yes, it’s me, but it’s not me.
It’s me, hi! I’m the problem.
Okay, so it’s like being in a constant battle with your own brain. You tell it to go left, it goes right. You tell it to stop, it keeps going. It’s like your brain has a mind of its own. It’s your own brain for God’s sakes — why can’t you control it? Of course you feel guilty and stupid for not being able to control how you think, feel, and act. You have to explain to people that you’re not making excuses, but this is how the world is for you.
Some people won’t understand that for every blame they put on you, you put 10 times more blame on yourself. You say that it is my fault. I know it is my fault, and I blame myself more than anyone. As much as you hate me, I promise you, I hate myself 10 times more.
You desperately want to be in control, but the more you want to be in control, the less you are. There will always be people who won’t understand or believe you, but it’s true, it’s real, and as long as you understand that it’s not your fault for being who you are, life will get easier.
It’s easy to single out someone with ADHD in a friend group. They’re often deemed as the “dramatic one.” Things always seem to happen to them, or they get themselves in situations that normal people usually don’t find themselves in. They are often known as the accident-prone ones or the drama queens. They tend to be in the center of things, and it’s not because they want to. They desperately want to be normal and fit in. They can be quick to anger or become easily displeased. They can get upset by the most seemingly normal things, and they’re fully aware that they can be a bit much to handle. It’s not like they expect others to cater to them. It’s that they can’t fully be in control of their emotions. When they come, they come in waves. Tsunami waves.
Everything to an ADHD brain is dramatic, which is probably why they can often be known as drama queens. Everything is a big deal to them. If life is a pendulum, people with neurotypical brains experience everything in the middle, occasionally swinging more or less to either side. But to someone with ADHD, things swing in the extremes, and only in the extremes. You either feel like you’re the best or the worst person in the world. You’re either elated or downright depressed. You either love or hate yourself. You’re hyper-productive or barely functioning. Crying or laughing. Hyperfocused or distracted. Care too much or care too little.
It’s not that people with ADHD think the world revolves around them, or that everything is about them. If things always seem to happen to you for no apparent reason, it’s hard not to wonder if it’s you that’s the problem. Maybe it is me. Am I being too sensitive? Am I taking too much space? Is everyone on a secret mission out to get me? Hello dear brain, why won’t you listen?!
We are often met with misunderstandings. Things just always go wrong, and it seems that we are always the ones at fault and making mistakes. To all the people we’ve hurt and disappointed, we want to tell them: “Hey, I know the problem is me. I’m trying.”
ADHD is not an excuse, but it is an explanation. It is the first step to forgiving yourself. It is a step to working towards a better version of yourself, one that is more honest, more carefree, and more happy.
You write normal? Fuck being normal.
I think what people with ADHD want more than anything is to be their true selves, but we’ve learned since we were young that society doesn’t always respond kindly to us being ourselves. We’re not like other people. We blurt out random things for no reason, and we can talk too much about things we’re passionate about. We’re not ignoring you, we’re just distracted. Yes, I’m angry, but not at you. It seems like our personality can be polar opposites at times. How can we be both loud and quiet, confident and insecure, smart and dumb, distant and loving, all at the same time?
Trust me, we don’t understand it either. Sometimes, we wonder who we genuinely are. We weren’t brought up to be authentic, because we went against the norm in a society that hates abnormality. We cope by masking our symptoms, overcompensating for our failures, dulling our senses through self-medication, and drowning ourselves in self-loathing because maybe if we hate it enough, it’ll go away.
Have we truly lost ourselves in the process? And as adults, we’re grasping at straws trying to find that person again. We pray that it hasn’t all gone down the drain. We see just enough of our old selves to keep hope that, hey, these are the only realest parts of ourselves, and we should cherish them.
I think deep down we want to be the kids that we once were, and we feel the happiest when we can be that person again, either in the right environment or with the right people. If you love someone with ADHD, they will love you back 10 times more. When people with ADHD are content, not stressed or weighed down by the realities of life, they can be the best people, the best friends, the best partners. The most creative person, the most interesting, the most caring. They want to be all of that at all times, but they don’t always have a choice.
Shut up, and surrender.
I won’t tell my brain to shut up. It won’t. I’m tired of the constant battle to get it to do what I want it to do. It’s fine. It’s doing its best. Just how we should love our bodies, we should probably love our brains too. We won’t love our brains all the time. Sometimes, we berate it for being stupid, forgetful, irrational. Other times, we love it for protecting us, making us happy, and giving us purpose. Most of the time, it’s a mix of mild annoyance and a little amusement for its desperate attempts to keep things interesting at all times.
I won’t say I love you, brain. But you will always be here for me. You will always be here when I need you. I’ll try to remember that and be kind to you. You are doing your best. We all are.
