Captain Grief: Wow look what the cat dragged in.

Kelly: Your attempt a grace baffles me.

Captain Grief: Why thanks! 

Kelly: You should get your sarcasm meter checked though. 

Captain Grief: Keep meaning to get that fixed. 

Kelly: Of course you have.

Captain Grief: I have!

Kelly: I know! 

Captain Grief: You do?

Kelly: Yes.

Captain Grief: What are you getting at?

Kelly: Would you agree we are similar in a lot of ways?

Captain Grief: I suppose?

Kelly: Emotional? Trouble with time management? Nervous energy compelling you to keep moving even if you don’t know where you are going? Issues with organization? Hard time sustaining your focus or losing yourself totally in your own world? Losing your stuff all the time? Impulse control? Impatience?

Captain Grief: But…

Kelly: Prone to Interruption? People tell you you talk too much, sudden angry outbursts you can’t explain, or have no filter, make decisions you regret?

Captain Grief: Like this conversation?

Kelly: Fuck off and go get an assessment. If I have ADHD so do you. (Captain Grief flips Kelly the bird and takes off iratically).

Kelly: So readers if this sounds like you take this short (as your attention span may be like mine) online quiz to help you decide if this is you as well. Just know you are not alone if you feel like this too… or you just want to know what it is like to be nerodivergent so you can understand it a little bit better.

When I was in grade one I don’t remember if I really understood what being diagnosed with a learning disability meant. Other than the fact that it meant I was put into a private school, other than the fact that I was told I was very bright and that I was very good at doing some things but shit at doing others. Hell, I was just a little kid so I rolled with the punches. When I was diagnosed with a chronic pain disorder at 12, I gained a much better sense of how a diagnosis could change my life.

Anyone who suddenly gets ill and doesn’t know what’s going on can relate. It was not like puberty. Not like getting a period at ten (which I did) or growing little volcanoes on my face; I was scared shitless. Suddenly something was happening to me and all I knew is that things had changed and I could no longer trust my body. After a year when a rheumatologist said “fibromyalgia” (fibro-fibrous tissue, my-muscles and algia-pain) I had no idea of the implications of an invisible disability.

 I had the same kind of reaction when I heard the word neurodivergent (neuro-neurological and divergent-different.) The opposite would be considered neurotypical or as The Cleveland Clinic defines a person whose “strengths and challenges aren’t affected by any kind of difference that changes how their brains work.” Meaning mine is and the consequence of ADHD is again the feeling that I can’t trust my body, that I can’t trust my brain. Apparently, I did have the tells for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) back in grade one. Where is the “H” you might wonder?   Well, also apparently ADHD is technically an outdated acronym for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and for me that was the difference between seen and not seen.

I was not a hyper child. I am sure I had my moments but because this more external attribute was not identified in me it meant that ADD was not addressed. Invisible again. The psychologist who identified me said that was often the case with little girls that presented with ADD. What it means however is that that I have been struggling with a very significant level of cognitive disfunction which refers to “deficits in attention, verbal and nonverbal learning, short-term and working memory, visual and auditory processing, problem solving, processing speed, and motor functioning” all my life, which is to say…

my executive functioning is fucked.

In regards to this my internal dialogue has a range. It’s usually a progression to or from sentiments like “wow that is really beautiful,” or “you look great,”  “you are spot on with that,” or “yeah, I know” to “fuck you, I’m doing it my way!” It progresses sometimes to things like “silly mistake,” “won’t do that again” to “shit, I hope no one noticed that.” It can also and often be things like “this is hard, and it won’t get easier,” or “why am I even trying.” Then it’s right down to the muck with things like “you look like something the cat dragged in,” or “you should be disgusted with yourself,” or “I know I’m not an idiot, but I feel like one,” or “I don’t think I’m an idiot” to “I’m an idiot.”

Being a writer, specifically a memoirist I have thought about writing about my new experiences and relatively new understanding of ADHD, it is naturally my first inclination. Especially since my son was diagnosed, I have had to process double time. However, it is sentiments like those last few that frankly terrify me.

When you are telling your own story there is no fourth wall. You are a one woman show sitting on a stool in the middle of a stage, under a spotlight, eyeballing the audience while they eyeball you right back. That’s what makes it real, honest, uncomfortable, gut wrenching, brutal but authentic. It’s where I must go to be seen and where I need to go in order to be brave enough not to hide.

I used writing when I had to come to terms with my body as it was, I used writing to come to terms with being an orphan at 19 when my father died and again when I had to come to terms with being a widow at 34. Shit show, right? ADHD is the mud puppy, no, the shark in the deep water watching me make mistakes and telling me “I told you so.” That shouldn’t surprise me as I did vilify fibromyalgia when it showed up. I called it a monster. I know better now.

I am swimming in the same sea and once again, though I feel with every fiber of my being that there is a shark in the water waiting to tear a chunk out of me, I know there isn’t. It’s harder and easier. Easier to say, “this sucks but it’s familiar” and “I’ve done this before, but it’s not easy” and harder to think “I’m so tired” or “I don’t know if I have the strength to do this again” to “Kelly, suck it up because you don’t have a choice.” Now however there is a newer more intense internal admonishment, that being “figure it out, your son is watching.” Shit.

It only makes this more imperative in my mind to “get this right.” So here I am doing a brain dump as my first occupational therapist calls it, about the ways I am getting it right. I need to check myself because “doing it right” is the right way of going about also telling myself “I got it wrong.” Even though I feel wrong. That feeling of “wrongness” is where the shame hides. It’s where the real sharks lay in wait and those monsters are all me.

I don’t want to let ADHD to be the monster, or skeleton in the closet or whatever horror movie analogy you could use. There are good things about my brain. My gifts with resourcefulness, creativity, self-expression, imagination, intuition and hyper-focus (the only way I am hyper-mostly) are a blessing.  Nay, that last one is my superpower! Hell, I wrote basically two books over the pandemic so I didn’t go crazy. I need to be proud of these parts of me so the parts I am not so proud of do not negate them. So here I am waving my freak flag. My queer, invisibly and differently abled, hyper focused, empathic, neurodivergent flag. I will march it down the road in front of me and see where it leads.

One more thing.

ADHD is Messy…own it!