This may end up being a long and convoluted post. I apologize in advance. I have a LOT to discuss here, and I’ll do my best to not be as verbose as usual, but sometimes I just can’t help it.
What is Adult Onset ADHD
Sometimes referred to as “Late Onset”, or any other title you wish to give it. It really doesn’t matter. The definition largely depends on where you do your research, and whether or not it is a real thing also depends largely on whom you ask. For example, if you do research at the Mayo Clinic website, one of the first paragraphs basically states that its undiagnosed ADHD.
We’ve already discussed what ADHD is, though. Like most mental illnesses it is a collection of symptoms, those symptoms can have different reasons for expressing. So while it is easy for a mental health professional to talk to me and say “You have ADHD”, what isn’t easy is to tell me why.
If adult onset ADHD is as the Mayo clinic says, simply undiagnosed ADHD that I’ve lived with my whole life, that opens the door to so many questions that I don’t have answers to. In addition to that, when you are in the mental health profession you understand that many symptoms of various conditions overlap, so it isn’t always a clear-cut case.
What I mean by this is, think of all of the diseases and illnesses in which a fever is a symptom. We cannot simply say “This person has a fever. They clearly have the flu.” And especially now, in the Covid Era, we can’t even say with certainty that “flu-like symptoms” are caused by someone having the flu. This type of logic also works with mental health.
A quick Google search pulls up a website that gives a whole list of disorders that have symptoms that CAN mimic ADHD, and it includes:
Asperger’s/Autism
Dyslexia
PTSD (Post-Traumatic Brain Injury)
TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury)
The list is huge. I’m talking 20+ disorders. Let’s look at the 4 I mentioned.
Asperger’s/Autism
There isn’t a clear-cut reason/cause for this. There is strong evidence to suggest it runs in families, environmental factors may play an important role in it as well. It is typically diagnosed between 5-9, which means I would have been symptomatic by that time. However, as a youth, I didn’t have any of the symptoms that overlap.
Dyslexia
This has never even crossed my mind, nor anyone else’s. Both in childhood and adulthood. Not only have I not had any of the overlapping symptoms, I’ve not had any of the “classic” symptoms, either.
PTSD
Well… Shit. Both have the following symptoms (which I express):
- Irritability. Yes, I hide it well, but I can get easily agitated. Those I trust the most see me the angriest. Kind of a shitty way to live, but that’s where I’m at.
- Impulse control difficulties. Man. If only I hadn’t struggled with alcohol, food, and other issues over the last 5-10 years. This one is real. Like I said, most decisions in my life require way more thought and effort than they should.
- Working Memory. Basically being able to process information in real-time without losing track of where we are. Guess what. That’s a fucking bingo. I can ONLY do one thing at a time. That’s it.
- Attention, Concentration, and Memory Issues. Its like I’m reading this from a script of my life. I lose everything, prior to getting medication to help I struggled with being able to do one task for more than 20 minutes.
- Forgetfulness and distractibility. Yep.
- Heightened sensitivities to sensory input. I hate people. I hate lines. I hate noise. I just want peace and quiet. I’m the quintessential grumpy old neighbor.
- Sleep irregularities. I had those, until I got them straightened out (for the most part) with medicine.
- High Rates of self-medicating. Remember what I said about alcohol?
- Executive Functioning difficulties. Generally I think I have this under control, but we are 1 for 9 so far in the checklist.
- Emotional Regulation difficulties. Well. I think we are 2 for 10 now, because I can’t regulate them just fine.
- Task Switching difficulties. Jesus. Ask my significant other how well I deal with having to change gears and do something else. Don’t get me wrong. I can. But I’m not happy. And it can derail me pretty hard.
Turns out being in Iraq for 2 years really did a number on me. and if that wasn’t enough, there is evidence that TBI can “Cause” ADHD. You know, the disorder the Mayo Clinic said was just undiagnosed from childhood.
According to an article (more than one), on Scientific Research Publishing, TBI can cause ADHD. If only I had known then when I suffered my multiple concussions while in the military. I may have documented them better. I grew up, and was serving, in an era in which TBI was considered something you could “walk off”. Just shake it off and move on. Now we are finding out that it isn’t, and my brain is just a mushy bowl of “get fucked” soup. And because I was led to believe that TBIs weren’t serious, I never sought medical attention for them. Which means the VA doesn’t have a record of them ever happening, which means when I claim them on my Disability I may as well just take a fistful of sand and pound it up my ass. If there is no medical history of it, I am more likely to grow a functioning brain from this soup in my skull than I am to get compensated for it from the VA.
Why am I bringing all of this up?
This isn’t “new”. but it isn’t something I’ve struggled with my whole life. its been a steady decline over the last 5-10 years. I don’t always mean to be the way that I am, and I’ve put a lot of systems in place to work with/around it.
Its a big part of why I struggle to finish what I’ve started. Its a big part of why I can do literally anything, but I’m not great at any of it. I WANT to write. I WANT to create stories and share my experiences with the world, but in the end the mental gymnastics required to continue doing it proves to be too overwhelming sometimes. I just want you all to understand that when I’m MIA for periods of time. Sometimes I’m working hard on something, like I have been on all of the Halo stuff. Sometimes I struggle to continue something I’ve started and can’t get myself to enjoy it, like with Outlanders. I love my outlanders stories. they are very personal, and near and dear to me. But the thought of re-reading and continuing something I’ve already started is a dauntless obstacle that I’m not always sure I can overcome.
I apologize if this is a little incoherent and “rambly”, but I needed to get it out. thank you for listening.
Chris.