How I made ADHD my strength, and why it matters for you. #2

Meandering my way through the crowd, desperate to span the dancefloor to the relative safety of the armchair, I was stopped suddenly in my tracks by a strangely familiar face. It took a moment for me to regain my composure, just long enough to flashback to my second last year of high school.

It was a sweltering day in late summer, the bus was packed to the limit and the students were either rowdy, restless, cranky or in my case, suffering from ADHD. It had been a long uncomfortable drive and I was all claustrophobic and edgy standing back there in the isle toward the back. I desperately needed to break free of this sweat box and get some fresh air.

“Nobody is leaving this bus until everyone is quiet so that we can all leave in as orderly manner!” Mrs Smith bellowed at the top of her lungs in an attempt to subdue the mounting crescendo of our discomfort.

“F#*KING FAT SL#T!”

The silence that followed immediately after was something you would expect in the tomb of a Pharaoh. Only to be broken by a shuffling as all eyes instantly zeroed in on me. It was like I had farted loudly during a minute’s silence or something. My only defence, to look at the next person and hope for the best.

Back to the club, head spinning, running out of time and here she is in all of her post middle age glory, eyes fixed on mine, only releasing them long enough to briefly glance my lips and back to my eyes again. The smile on her face said it all.

This couldn’t possibly be happening.

The years between ages 18-23 are a blur to me. I don’t have a real distinct series of memories chained together in any orderly fashion. When the external world becomes too much to bear the weight of, people often retreat to an internal one. These were my dark years, suffering from anxiety and depression was just the icing on the cake of a lifetime of poor confidence and fatigue. I didn’t know what was wrong with me and I didn’t know what I wanted in life or how to even get started.

The night of my 25th birthday was my last total bender. I knew that I had to take the first step forward in my life and quitting hard drugs had to be the first decision. The second was to see a doctor. Not long after this I was talking to woman who recommended I go see an educational therapist who specialises in ADHD.

Since then I have never looked back. If I were able to sit on a park bench somewhere and have a long talk with my younger self I would probably say something along these lines.

• You don’t have to know exactly what you want to do to get out of the rut you have found yourself in. Just take a step and keep looking, then take the next and then the next.

• To the best of your ability, don’t get too lost in the past, reflect on life but don’t lose yourself to it. Move on.

• As best as is possible, let go of things about yourself that you cannot change, or better yet, re-frame it. I am the most forgetful person I know, I always have been and my only way to not dwell on it is to laugh about it. It frustrates the hell out of me, but I laugh at it.

• I felt for a long time that I had “missed out” on many of my years and that I needed to catch up. I now have a drive to reach financial freedom that has been in the forefront of my mind, unabated for years. People slowdown in life, they become consumers, make mistakes financially or get divorced, lazy etc. It’s only ever as late a time to start or start again as you choose it to be.

If you enjoy my ADHD blog, let me know and I will keep on keeping it up. Otherwise I will quickly get bored and distracted and move on to something different.

Cheers and thanks for reading.