Tuning out the static: it took 40 years before I found out that I have ADHD
In retrospect, the signs were there all along. Difficulty concentrating, especially on things that didn’t interest me. Awful short-term memory. A complete inability to keep track of time. Lack of emotional self-control. And so on.
Nevertheless, it took 40 years before someone realised that I might have ADHD. That person was my psychologist, who I started seeing after a particularly rough patch in life involving a relationship breakup, the loss of both parents, and losing the job that had kept me in New York for most of the 2010s. Back in Australia, with a lack of both direction and motivation, I found that it was harder than ever to concentrate – less than ideal for a writer who’s found himself newly marooned in the self-directed world of freelancing.
When my psychologist first suggested that I might have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, I laughed the idea off, pointing out that the “H” part of ADHD was most definitely not me. I’ve never been anything resembling hyperactive – indeed, the depression that has plagued me for all of my adult life has ensured that just being active is an achievement most days, let alone hyper-active.
But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if she might be right. Subtract the hyperactivity bit, and the rest of the symptoms fit like a glove. Hadn’t I always had trouble getting started on things? Hadn’t I always had even more trouble finishing things, once the initial “I have an idea!!” rush wore off? Hadn’t I always been hopelessly disorganised, acted without thought of consequences, and had a hard time waiting in queues? Hadn’t I been constantly bewildered for years by my ability to hyperfocus on some things but not focus at all on others? And, come to think of it, hadn’t I driven my parents insane with my constant fidgeting and talking as a kid, until I learned to control the behaviour myself because I was terrified of my father shouting at me yet again?
My psychologist gave me a questionnaire to fill out. A score of four or higher indicated that “the patient has symptoms highly consistent with ADHD and more investigation is warranted”. I scored 16. A couple of weeks later, I was sitting with a psychiatrist, who interviewed me for an hour and then told me that she wanted to put me on Vyvanse immediately. And a couple of months after that meeting – once a bunch of red tape regarding the prescription of amphetamines had been negotiated – I was picking up a bottle of little pink-and-blue capsules from the pharmacist. I swallowed the first one, then sat and waited for something to happen.
Nothing happened.
Well, nothing noticeable. After half an hour, I decided that the whole thing was a big old fizzer, I didn’t have ADHD, and I wasn’t even going to get a day of speed-drive house-cleaning done. Bummer. But as the hours ticked by, I came to the slow realisation that … I could concentrate!
The best metaphor I can think of to describe the effect is that it’s like when someone tunes a radio that’s been a couple of kHZ off where it should be – not enough so that you actually notice consciously, or realise that the low-level static has been annoying you, but when the tuning is fixed, all of a sudden there’s a feeling of relief. It was like that, but inside my head. The static that had been there all my life – it was gone. And the feeling of relief was incredible.
In the months that have followed, I’ve found that Vyvanse is by no means a panacea. It also doesn’t solve things on its own – it’s part of a treatment regime that also includes talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). And there are still days when, treatment or no treatment, the static never quite goes away, and I can’t for the life of me focus on anything. There are also days when the depression that is so often co-morbid with ADHD takes hold, and makes the idea of just getting out of bed seem like an insurmountable challenge. And there are the days when – in a sort of hilarious ADHD catch-22 – I just forget to take the Vyvanse.
Speaking of catch-22s: for reasons best known to the federal government, Vyvanse is only covered under the PBS for people diagnosed as children. It’s a relatively new drug, so there’s no generic version available, and it’s expensive as hell. This puts me – and, no doubt, many others – in the invidious position of having to decide between paying for a drug that allows me to work, earn money and pay taxes, or not pay for the drug and remain in a mental state where I can barely concentrate on my shopping list.
Still, it’s worth it, because when the Vyvanse does work, and all my other mental stars align – those rare A+ days that come once every couple of weeks, when words flow out of me on to the page, uninhibited by distraction or depression or whatever else my brain throws at me, the days when I tick things off my to-do list with glee – give me a sense of possibility. They remind me that maybe one day I won’t have to use a program with the amusingly Orwellian name “Freedom” to block my wifi connection, and close every other window on my computer, and run white noise through my headphones, and lock the door to keep the cats out, all just to be able to concentrate on whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing.
And they also shed light on some of the more pernicious aspects of ADHD. It’s tempting, I think, when you’re given a diagnosis of something as far-reaching as ADHD, to start blaming everything in your life on its effects. But even with that caveat, it’s hard not to think about how this condition has shaped my life, and done so in ways that I had no idea were happening at the time. I think about how former housemates used to call me selfish for forgetting to wash the dishes for the umpteenth time, or how friends and partners could never understand how lost in my own little world I was. I think of all the times I castigated myself for being “lazy” for constantly leaving things until the last minute, or “stupid” for missing deadlines.
In one way, I feel lucky: for whatever reason, I’ve been able to overcome most of the handicaps that ADHD has placed on me, to succeed despite it, to carve out a career, to appear “normal”. For 40 years, I’ve been able to pretend that I was fine all along, to talk my way out of missed deadlines and forgotten appointments, to scribble multiple “DO NOT FORGET YOUR KEYS” notes on every door between my apartment and the street.
But at the same time, I also feel sad that I was able to disguise or fight through my symptoms for decades, because it meant that it’s taken this long to get treatment. It’s hard not to wonder how things like jobs, relationships, friendships, etc might have turned out differently had I been medicated all along. On those A+ days, I wonder if this is what life is like for neurotypical people all the time, and how lovely it must be to feel like you’re not constantly at war with your own brain. I hope that in time, I’ll also feel like that every day. For now, I’m grateful just to be able to tune out the static.
• Tom Hawking is a freelance writer based in Melbourne
In one way, I feel lucky: for whatever reason, I’ve been able to overcome most of the handicaps that ADHD has placed on me