Brain Dump

Hi there! Wow, it’s been, what, two weeks since I last blogged? Feels like a lifetime. I don’t usually leave it that long, and now I remember why – I think my fingers have seized up from lack of feverish typing.

Life continues to be grand here in my neck of the woods. I mean, nothing has changed (to the outside world at least) but my mood is good. Not too good, mind you. Everything feels new.

So anyway… that thing I was researching? Adult ADHD. I can’t believe I never properly realised it before, but since my mood swings have disappeared, I have noticed over and over again just how spacey I am. How much I daydream, how much I forget, lose track of, forget, trip over, forget, etc. I have thought about this before, I have even mentioned it to the psychiatrist, but her response was always something along the lines of, “Well, hopefully your concentration will improve soon”. Hopefully. That’s reassuring. The idea, I think, was that the poor concentration and appalling memory were a result of my moods swinging about all over the place. Apparently not.

So I did a bit of research. I had another appointment with the psychiatrist last week, and this time I was determined to go in prepared (which, incidentally, was a waste of time as my appointment was cancelled – again - I have another appointment tomorrow). It turns out I meet almost every single symptom of ADHD. And I have done for my entire life. I was a spacey little girl waaaaaay before the Cyclothymia took effect. I even had my own special table in primary school, with a special teacher to click her fingers and wave frantically in my face, to bring me back into the classroom every time I drifted off into a dreamworld. That was her full-time job – to stop me daydreaming.

I wonder if I would be diagnosed with ADHD if I was in primary school now? Probably not. People seem to think that only hyperactive, badly-behaved teenage boys have ADHD. And the ignorance doesn’t end there. In fact, I found out during my research, that up until a year ago this country didn’t believe that Adult ADHD existed. If you were diagnosed as a kid your meds would be taken from you at 18 and you would be left to fend for yourself, as ADHD simply disappears when you hit 18. For crying out loud.

There are guidelines now, but not many psychiatrists are trained to notice Adult ADHD, and it can take a long time to be referred to a specialist. Yay! But I’m determined to do this. I have been told all my life that I need to work harder, concentrate better, that I’m not living up to my potential, that I have no common sense… the list goes on and on. I just thought I was lazy, and spent far too much energy beating myself up for not doing better. I am about to start an MA and there is no way, now that I know about this, that I am going to fail to live up to my potential again. Going through the struggle with Cyclothymia has made me realise just how much drive and ambition I have. I am going to do well, and if help is available to me then I will do everything in my power to make sure I get it.