I’m tired – and processing that I definitely have undiagnosed ADHD

I think most people would agree that I’m usually a pretty happy person. But I’m really, really tired today. I’m tired physically, I’m exhausted emotionally, and I am done with the extreme effort it seems to take me to do the simplest of things.

I’ve had a lot on recently, and a lot to process I guess.

The last time I was -this- tired was back in November. I was constantly screwing up at work and home in every way possible and in spite of having just started seeing a private counsellor* I turned to our generation’s digital oracle (Google, obv) and threw some magic words at it: “Why can’t I do anything right?”

I was expecting the usual – I know I’ve suffered with periods of depression, particularly after big losses. I know I had anxiety. Hell, I know I get more down in winter so of course I’d feel a bit crappy in november.

What I wasn’t expecting was the first article that came up in the results at the time. The title was “Do you have undiagnosed ADHD?”

There’s a LOT more information and action between that moment and now, (most of it is a hyperactive blur) but as usual I’m approaching things from the wrong point in the story and the short version is that, just over two months later, I am absolutely convinced that yes, I do have undiagnosed ADHD, and I’ve already begun the pathway to a proper diagnosis through the NHS.

Since that first Google I’ve been learning about ADHD – and talking about it, and writing about it – pretty much constantly, and probably driving at least some of you loopy in the process. It’s partly out of fascination – suddenly, I have this perfect, ready made roadmap of how my mind works and,more importantly, how I need to change my approaches to things so that my mind CAN work.

This roadmap also comes with the possibility that I can actually fix things – you see, for every part of ADHD that’s new to me, there’s another research paper or book or person or video or twitter channel or comic strip with a whole bunch of ways to manage the problems and make the most out of the strengths that come with it.

And I’m impatient. I wan’t to fix things *now*. So, in less than three months:

• I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that my entire perception of myself and the world is highly likely to be VERY wrong, in some pretty fundamental ways.
• I had to process my emotions. I went through joy at finally understanding WHY I find some things so very hard and others not, why I struggled at particular points in my life, and how many possibilities there are again now that I know how to actually tap into my best self. I also felt rage, and sadness, at how much emotional pain I’d experienced because I’d learned that so much of me was wrong.
• I’ve had to face and finally acknowledge a long list of things that I find it difficult to do, and that I’ve been burning out trying to do those things the way people expect me to. And that SUCKS. I hate not being able to do things. If you tell me no, I’m instantly trying to figure out how to make it a yes.
• I’ve had to single-handedly start building the equivalent of a user manual for myself so that I can actually start functioning. Because once I know I can do better, I feel totally compelled to try.
• I’ve also had to accept that NHS waiting lists are long. Extremely long, and that I’m going to be on my own with this for potentially a couple of years and just have to trust myself because until I see a consultant, I won’t know for certain.
• I’ve had to learn, pretty quickly, how to control my scattered mind and impulses to demonstrate to my employer that I am, in fact, able to successfully combat this with enough sheer effort of will because the moment I started to talk about it, some people instantly wrote me off without knowing me.
• And I’ve had to acknowledge that my biggest impulses are around spending, and instant gratification – and immediately start learning to control those two in particular to even start to get a handle on the coins I was hemmoraging by the hour.

And honestly – I could be super chipper that I’m finally getting answers and finally demonstrably getting better in so many avenues of my life because I’m working so hard TO learn to do things in a way that lets me actuallly succeed in a world that isn’t designed for me.

But is IS hard work. And hard work is HARD and it is ALLOWED to make me feel crappy for a while. I don’t instantly need to find that perky little list of positives to verbally balance myself out and brandish the happy things on it like a pre-emptive apology for the shame of just not-being-very-good-at-this-whole-being-alive-gig today.

We ALL know I’m going to be fine. I know I’m going to pick myself back up and keep going. But for now, I’m just really tired. And it’s ok to acknowledge that.

Night x