Adult ADHD - A Rant

[EVILNess]

I have a pet peeve.

Saying you have ADHD, when you clearly don't. Laughing and using it as an excuse. Downplaying its impact on life. Whether you are a boss who doesn't understand why I have to ask you to repeat something or a hipster who thinks it's fashionable to claim to have ADHD when you really are just stupid**.

Having ADHD is hard, and most people don't understand how hard.

If any one of the people who don't actually have had to focus as hard as I do everyday just to meet the minimum expectations of society we would have been to Mars, attained world peace, and cured cancer 20 years ago.

I am not talking about being just "having an ADD moment" or being a "space cadet." It's much more than that, but that is a good place to start.

I pay attention. I pay so much attention that it physically hurts sometimes. You don't know what it is like to be looking someone dead in the eye, hearing them, absorbing it, acknowledging it, and then it trails off. You desperately want to hear the rest, but you can't grasp it. It is literally above you at that time. Your ability to concentrate on that thing is gone. Something has stolen your concentration.

You have no idea how frustrating it is for your attention to be gradually stolen by outside forces, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it except to stop the conversation, remove the outside factor, and then politely ask the person you are talking to to start completely over. You then have to handle the frustration of other people having to repeat themselves, the jeers, the being looked at like you are stupid.

And then there is the opposite. Do you know how much sleep I have lost because I couldn't shut down my brain? It's like there are three voices in my skull at any one time. One going through every insignificant detail of every movie you have seen, then comics, then your day, then your last birthday. Constantly jumping from one topic and event. The second is playing songs. Constantly. Forever. While the third is you yelling SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP to try and silence your brain. At 4 AM. Every night.

Do you know what it is like to overcome crippling indecision? For simple tasks such as playing a game? To stay on on thing long enough to see it through? To know that even if you do finish that it will linger in your mind and impede your progress on new things? Hell, to even get your thoughts together long enough to start.

While not as bad as when I was a kid, I still get hyper as well. It's like I am fine, and then I HAVE YO DO SOMETHING OH MY GOD I HAVE TO SCREAM RUN GET UP AND GO GO GO OR I AM JUST GOING TO DIE RIGHT THIS INSTANT WHY CAN'T I JUST BE DOING WHAT I WAS DOING I HAVE TO DO THIS IMPORTANT THING RIGHT NOW BUT I CAN'T BECAUSE I HAVE TO GOOOOOOO! All things considered, it's not so bad being that it's an every once in a while thing, but when I was a kid it was someone put a motor in me and I couldn't stop. The world was spinning and the only way to make it stop was to move.

Then there are the impulse control issues. You know those little thoughts you get in your head everyday, but never follow through on? I'm not talking about killing someone, more like touching things like a little kid, blurting out things, interrupting conversations, that sort of thing. I do that. All the time. I seriously can find myself at any time reaching up to touch something or someone or spouting out "Why?" when strangers are talking near me with only causally realizing it. I have to be constantly aware of where my hands are, and of what is coming out of my mouth.

The shitty thing? This is really only a fraction of what I deal with in a day as I fight with my own body and mind. However, people cope. I am damn proud I don't let any of this cripple my ability to function as a human being. I am proud that I make it look easy.

Easy enough for you to call me lazy and unfocused. Easy enough for you to skate by claiming to have the same problems I do.

So fuck you.

(**I want to say I am aware that I know I am not the only person in the world dealing with ADHD as an adult and I know that I wasn't the only one to go through it as a child. However, people with ADHD think differently than normal people, and have certain telltale mannerisms. We have to or we don't function. We have mechanisms that fill in the blanks for us or focus us, and other people who have ADHD can recognize that in others. Usually by holding a conversation with each other. A lot of "That thing" and "Those people" or "That place" in those conversations. The sad part? WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER.)