ADD and Me

I should be somewhere else doing something else but I’m afraid that if I don’t write this down right now, I’ll forget. Again.

I see a neuropsychiatrist for migraine management. This particular practice deals primarily in head trauma and ADD/ADHD, but they’ll work with migraineurs as well and I happened to know a number of the folks there, including one of the doctors, through proximity in my former office complex, so they see me.

Dr. G. develops his own testing models and then rigorously tests them for veracity by having his staff and some-well known patients take those tests. Since they know me in a casual social context as well as knowing me as a patient, I got to take lots of tests. I hated them, but I was willing to help out.

A little less than a year ago, I finally asked for official testing and diagnosis for ADD. I suspect they’d been waiting for me to ask for some time. I took the test and I did quite well, but I was an anxious wreck for the rest of the day. A few days later, I took the drug and took the test again and the difference in the results was amazing. So was the lack of anxiety about it.

I asked about whether the difference was simply that I’d become familar with the test. They reminded me that I’d taken variations on that test many times before and was already familiar with it. They also pointed out the difference not only in the scores but in my response.

I tried the first drug. It had side effects which were not good. I tried the second drug. It was worse. I decided it wasn’t really that bad and I could keep on coping as I’d done all those years.

Since sometime in 2003, I’d been riding the drama-llama rollercoaster, with events over which I had no control (other folks’ disease and death–stuff of that nature) and that, combined with age, left me with insufficient strength to keep doing what I’d been doing. I tried another drug. Focalin, in case you’re curious.

That’s when life began to open up. I’m still working on finding motivation without panic to drive me, but I’m getting there. It’s also okay now for me to learn about my interaction with the world, so I’ve been reading sporadically about ADD.

One of the criteria for adult diagnosis is that the ADD should have manifested in childhood. I was a little concerned that maybe the diagnosis wasn’t quite right because nobody in the practice had explored that part of my history extensively. That might mean that I didn’t have “true” ADD and my use of Focalin was “cheating.” Hey, that’s how I learned to think. However, I’ve kept with the drug because these folks, in addition to their testing, have had plenty of time to observe me in both clinical and non-clinical settings.

I decided to contemplate my own youth and see what was there. “Does not pay attention is class.” “Is not working up to potential.” “Quit jiggling–you know it annoys your father.” “Don’t be so damned impetuous all the time,” my father’s favorite.

The more of these I recall, the more comfortable I am with my diagnosis and treatment. I’m not bad. I’m not a slacker. In fact, given what I was working with, I did one hell of a job of working up to my potential. It’s going to be okay. Of course, I still write run-on sentences.