ADHD: The losing battle I never knew I was fighting

Prelude, my son's struggle:

My teenage son is one of the most kindhearted, genuinely good people I've ever known.
Parental bias aside, I believe that I can objectively say that he is simply a decent human being to his core. Generous, respectful, loving, and empathetic are all adjectives that encapsulate his personality. Unfortunately, so is scatterbrained and disorganized. Eight years ago, I would have added unmotivated, lazy, and immature to that list. This is just abject honesty. If I can set my parental bias aside and praise him with positive adjectives, I must be thorough with that absence of bias and recognize the less than positive ones.

Dad and Jordan 5

So, why eight years ago? Did he suddenly, at some definable point in time cease to be unmotivated, lazy and immature for his age? Well... yes. You see, these traits had become so prevalent in his young life that they were affecting him in terrible ways. Not only him, but his family and his relationships with other people including his teachers. He is intelligent but his grades did not reflect that. He seemed unable to accomplish anything that required more than a few moments of his time, with the exception of things in a very narrow field defined by a handful of interests. Those things he could focus on to the point that he became deaf and blind to the world around him. Something was wrong!

Misdiagnosis:

His doctor, almost without question doled the standard medications that they tend to put children on these days. First one, then another. I did not like the idea of putting him on medication. In fact, I was strongly opposed to it. I opposed the notion of medicating a child for what I thought were simply personality traits that were a part of "who he was".  But as they say, you have to pick the hill you die on, and this was not it. There was a problem, and we were desperate for a solution. None of the medications seemed to make any difference for any significant period of time, and part of me felt vindicated. 

Actual CARE:

Jordan 15

It wasn't until we took him to a specialist that anything made any difference. She, the psychiatrist, actually took the time to ask him deep and probing questions about his day-to-day life, about how he felt about certain things, about how what was going on in his little mind when he exhibited given behaviors.

Diagnosis and treatment:

After some time, she diagnosed him with severe ADHD and prescribed him the right medication. The effect was profound. It was like flipping a switch. He was no different. He was still the same sweet child with the same personality, only now he could remain focused on an assignment at school long enough to finish it. He could get himself dressed in time to make it to school without being late. His life was orders of magnitude better, and so were his relationships with other people. It felt like a damn miracle, not to put too fine a point on it.

Parity:

Fast forward a few years. I am no stranger to mental health issues. I've struggled with depression and anxiety most of my life. I never liked the idea of taking medications for mental health struggles, just as I didn't (initially) like the idea of my son doing so for his. Occasionally I would come clean with my doctor regarding my struggles, particularly when they became bad to the point that they affected my life in a profound way. Although, I knew the end result. He would prescribe me some SRI that would placebo me into thinking I was feeling better for a little while, only for me to realize at some point later that they weren't actually doing a damn thing except killing my sex drive and as such making my life that much worse. And I would quit taking them, dealing with the nightmares and other withdrawal symptoms involved.

Mental health struggles are isolating

That was the depression. The anxiety treatment faired a bit better. I was on Xanax for that. That medication certainly alleviated my anxiety during the period in which it was in effect. The anxiety came right back when the Xanax wore off, but it did allow me to function for a time.

A few years ago, I was asking my doctor for yet another refill of Xanax because my job was overwhelming me. I could not get accomplished the things that I needed to get accomplished, and I lived in fear that my career was hanging by a thread. He recommended that I go see a specialist, a psychiatrist. He recognized, you see, that the Xanax was treating a symptom, not a problem. I took his recommendation and booked an appointment. Historically this would have been uncharacteristic of me, but I had recently seen what a psychiatrist was able to do for my son.

Internalization:

It was during this time that I came to understand that the behaviors that I had observed in my son were the very same behaviors that had plagued me as a child. Back then our understanding of mental health issues, as a society, were much less refined than they are now. These adjectives that I had attributed to my son had been attributed to me as a child and over the years I had internalized them. I struggled because I was lazy, because I was scatterbrained, because I was unmotivated. People who I loved and respected told me I was these things and so that is what I accepted. That was what I believed.

Coping:

The struggle was real
though never apparent

Throughout adulthood, in order to be able to function in society, I developed coping mechanisms. Things that allowed a lazy, scatterbrained person like me to function to a level that would see me through service in the military. Not exemplary service, but well enough that I could serve. Coping mechanisms that would see me through higher education and allow me to develop a decent career. All of these things I could do, but ever, for-EVER a struggle that to this day I don't believe that anyone without the first-hand experience of my ailment can truly understand. In fact, if there is one thing I would want you to take away from this post, it is that if you know someone with mental health issues that manages to remain functional in society, they are doing so at the cost of a nearly insurmountable struggle that costs them dearly at an emotional and psychological level.

Realization:

This struggle that I faced on a day to day, often hour to hour and sometimes minute to minute basis took its toll, manifesting as severe depression and anxiety. This was the profound diagnosis of my psychiatrist, and just like my son, when I was prescribed the right medication, my life instantly changed. It brought me, a grown man in his 50s to literal tears to realize that my entire life I was not what I thought I was. I was not lazy or unmotivated or unintelligent or scatterbrained. I was sick.

It is sad to think what I might have achieved had I not limped by my entire life on coping mechanisms that I had to develop on my own in order to overcome a problem that I didn't realize I had. But dwelling on such things is fruitless. I can now move forward unshackled and unconstrained by what is, make no mistake dear reader, a sickness.

Wellness:

In just a few short years the many tasks that my trying career lays on me have gone from things that completely overwhelmed me to the point that I felt I was living in a perpetual state of barely controlled chaos, to things that I am able to deftly organize, compartmentalize, and manage. My performance reviews have gone from substandard to exemplary. My fear of being laid off at whatever downturn awaited the economy due to being a marginal performer has morphed into a confidence arising from bargaining power gained through the initiative to spearhead projects that are now heralded as mission critical to my company.

On the one hand, I still maintain that children in our society these days tend to be over-medicated. I believe that there is a tendency to hand out medications without taking the effort to properly diagnose. I experienced that with my son, and I experienced it with myself. But on the other hand, if you find yourself struggling in your day-to-day life in areas where other people seem to somehow almost effortlessly excel, and you can't put your finger on why that is, do not be afraid to seek help. Seek REAL help. Don't accept the snake oil that you know is not working just because that's what a doctor hands you before shuffling you out to see his next patient. Seek the help of a professional who will seek to understand your struggles and get to the real root of the problem vs giving you the equivalent of mental aspirin.

I suffered for fifty years at the hands of a stealthy nemesis and berated myself for it. I have sacrificed much for nothing. We are smarter than that now, as a society. Don't do what I did and wait until middle age when most of your career and opportunities are behind you. If you suspect you might need help, there is a good chance that you do. And it is out there. Real help really is out there. The last monumental mental effort you may ever have to make is to seek it out.

Thanks for reading.