Imagine you’re sitting in a movie cinema. The curtain raises up, and the show begins. The cinema is full. The screen lights up, and the movie starts to roll. But for some reason, you can’t quite figure out what is going on. You recognise the shapes and sounds, and you can kind of follow the general plot, but the details seem muddled, blurry and confusing. To make matters worse, the people seated all around you are enjoying the show. They’re laughing at the funny bits, and they’re ooh-ing and ah-ing at all the right times. You feel confused and distracted, but you don’t want to disturb the rest of the audience, so you do your best to follow along.
I could draw this analogy out into a small novel, but I won’t. I might instead get to the point, and then maybe come back to it later. Two and a half weeks ago I was diagnosed (by a highly qualified Psychiatrist and expert in the field) as having ADHD. This came about in a weird and funny way, which is very much a pattern in my life. You see, I drive a truck for a living. I’m reasonably intelligent, and I’ve achieved very highly in a few areas from time to time. So people who know me are sometimes surprised that I do, and enjoy doing, a relatively menial and repetitive job. More on this later.
One of the benefits of my particular job is that I’m afforded hours and hours of alone time in my truck, which I use to enjoy listening to music, audiobooks, and, my favorite, podcasts. So a few weeks ago, I was listening to one such podcast, The Monday Morning Podcast, hosted by the legendary comedian, Bill Burr. Now Bill’s wife has been at him for his lack of focus and concentration for quite some time. And on this particular show she got him to almost sit still and pay attention long enough to take an online screening test to see if he might have ADD/ADHD. As you can probably imagine, the exchange was hilarious, and as I laughed along, I answered each question for myself. About halfway through, I stopped laughing.
My answers were so far to one side of the scale that I pulled over to the side of the road, got my phone out, and immediately took the entire test myself. The test gave a score from 1 to 100, with anything under 30 being considered on the ADD/ADHD spectrum.
I scored 3.
I went home that afternoon, saw my GP, and organised to see a specialist up in Melbourne. Just a couple of weeks later I found myself sitting in his waiting room, fidgeting and shifting in my chair, and worrying about what was coming next. He called me in and we sat down to talk. He asked about my childhood, my school life, my employment history, my relationships, my hobbies, my habits and my feelings and expectations of myself. He got me to take a couple of tests and fill in a quiz. I told him everything. I had done this before with other doctors, psychologists and counselors, but this time I felt a weird desperation. So for once, I held nothing back.
After nearly an hour and a half, he casually leaned back in his chair and said, “Billy, you have what we call Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Some cases are harder than others to diagnose, but you tick all the boxes. You are a text-book case.” He went on to explain that people like me, who, as children, aren’t disruptive, tend to go undiagnosed.
We seem to survive, learning coping mechanisms that allow us to skate by, unnoticed. We succeed at very high levels, but only briefly, before the wheels come off, or we self destruct, one way or another. We move from job to job, house to house, hobby to hobby, relationship to relationship, often burning bridges along the way with people who genuinely like us, but who are bemused by our inability to show up when needed. We frequently end up self-medicating with alcohol and drugs. As he spoke, I felt worse and worse. He was describing the “me” that I had worked my entire life to hide from the rest of the world. Each time I was forced to lower my expectations or standards, I had a quick and smooth explanation that would placate the people around me who wondered why I wasn’t doing better. But the jig was up. This guy had me nailed.
Then came the bad, but actually good, news. He explained that there was no cure. But that This “condition” was easily and very successfully treated with a simple and very safe medication. Now, I have been prescribed all manner of anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic etc. etc. medications, and none of these have had any immediate or long term result for me. So of course I was worried. The doctor explained that, although there was a certain stigma attached to taking stimulant medication, that these were considerably safer and side-effect free than almost all other prescription medications. He told me how these drugs act differently on the ADHD brain, and that the unique response to these drugs was so definitive, that it was almost diagnostic in itself.
And so I started a three week trial on my new daily dose of Dexamphetamine. The results were astounding, and immediate. The knot I’d had in my stomach, but without knowing it, was suddenly gone. I was calm, relaxed and focused. It was like the volume on the world had been turned down, someone had jiggled the antennae, and the reception was suddenly clear! To go back to my analogy at the beginning of this article, it was like someone had walked over and put my 3D glasses on. For the first time ever, I was following along with the movie.
I certainly felt different, but the reaction of my wife was the most enlightening. She said that I was almost immediately a different person. She said I was more affectionate, helpful, and clearer in my thoughts and actions. She got teary when I asked her on day two or three if she had noticed any changes.
One downside to this treatment is that there is no residual effect to the medication. So on a daily basis, as the dose wears off, I get a glimpse back to how I am, untreated. I feel like I’m in a room full of TV’s that are, one by one, coming on at full volume. I become edgy, agitated, distracted, and scattered. My patience wears thin, My tolerance disappears, conversation becomes an effort, and socialising becomes almost painful. Over the years, I used alcohol to deal with this time of day. Now, it has become more bearable, because I know what is going on.
I know that tomorrow, I will be ok.
