It’s Tuesday and I’m early to the arena for my team’s eSports tournament game. Tomorrow is a co-worker’s birthday, and we’re leaving the office for lunch before a coach’s meeting, eSports practice, and then, ukulele lessons at the local writer’s center. My homework is mostly finished as I’m in my home stretch of my second bachelor’s degree, I sit down to goof off on the internet for a few minutes before the game starts and realize I have forgotten something.
I have my initial interview for my Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) test on Thursday.
Not doing this again
Literally the only thing keeping me from stressing out over this upcoming test is the fact that I stressed myself out over the last psychological exam I was supposed to have, and the doctor declined to test me as I was, in his words, a “sophisticated” patient. I’m still trying to parse exactly what that means.
While it would seem like my busy schedule and ability to earn 100s in my classes are a sign there’s nothing wrong with me, I find myself wondering if the fact I somehow get myself to the finish line is confusing people over the fact that the journey is so hellacious that thoughts of self-harm and suicide are commonplace in my head. Sometimes I wonder the same.
I thought about it when a previous doctor dismissed my concerns about being unable to sit and read a book as nothing to be worried about. After all, I was an English major for my first bachelor’s. What English major couldn’t read?
This English major can’t read
I downloaded a book about introducing strange cats to resident cats because I’m taking my parents’ cat in at the end of the week. I stare at the neglected Kindle app on my phone and quietly wondered what happened.
I used to be a voracious reader. I used to read so much I would get in trouble in grade school for not paying attention in class. Now, I’m lucky if I get a whole paragraph in before my eyes slip from the words and my mind wanders.
Suddenly, I remember something I need to do, and I know myself well enough to know that if I leave this thought for a second I will abandon it. I stop reading and get up to fix whatever it was and once my concentration is broken, there’s no mending it. The last time I consistently read for pleasure was 2008.
Trapped inside my own brain is something I’m used to
Some days it feels like I might jump out of my own skin. My mind goes a mile a minute, unfettered by what I can only assume normal people have in their brains to prevent this. I can’t read, I can’t think, and my brain has to keep talking, so it throws nonsense at me as if that’s good enough.
“Oh, so you’re finally getting that treated?”
No one was surprised when I told them I was being tested for ADHD. A friend reminds me that when we were dating, he asked me if I had it. I dismissed his inquiry, of course, because I was manic and felt more sane than anyone else in the world.
Everyone’s journey is different, and so is everyone’s outcome. My ability to make it look like I have everything together is hardly worthy of accolades because everything is not together. As I stand, facing a fourth diagnosis of mental illness, all I can do is nothing.
There is nothing that will prepare me for the interview or the test or the ultimate diagnosis. It ultimately doesn’t matter. Diagnosis is the first step towards treatment and just because no one with a PhD has told me I have a mental illness doesn’t change the fact that I have it.
In the immortal words of Daria’s Jane Lane, “Chin up, nose up, let’s go.”
All photos: @la_nostalgia_
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