How do you react to a diagnosis of Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? I committed the schoolboy error of not researching how it was likely to feel. There is probably a book written by some academic called something like “How do you react to a diagnosis of ADHD?” But it didn’t occur to me to explore cyberspace, or even Amazon, to find out. Still, it’s here now and as with everything in life when you haven’t made plans or prepared yourself for something, it’s a bit of a mess.
After my assessment yesterday, I promptly went for a lie down, immediately fell into a deep and dreamless sleep for around two hours. I wasn’t thinking about this assessment. In truth, I was barely thinking about anything at all. Last night, more dreamless sleep followed by waking up shortly after 4.00am and drifting in and out of very light sleep until I was so tired it was time to get up.
I’ve spent hours of every day since my ADHD assessment was booked last September thinking about what might happen and how the assessment might go. Then, I’d descend into hour upon hour of frantic anxiety dreams, the effects of which would last well into the following day. But last night? Nothing. No dreams, just four hours of okay sleep followed by hours of not thinking of anything much at all.
Today, I had no physical or mental energy. I left the house once for a fun-packed trip to the optician and to the local Tesco, but that was it. My eyes were on full alert, making sure that I didn’t end up speaking to anyone. I made it as far as the driveway of our house where a local man was walking his dog and informed me that many of our neighbours were having trouble with “fucking rats (they’re fucking everywhere)”. (He can’t get through a single sentence without saying fuck, unless he is talking to a woman. There’s polite for you.) And then it was back to my man cave where I wrote loads, watched a live webcam of Cristiano Ronaldo airport in Madeira, observing the planes come and go. That was pretty well that.
I am hoping that some kind of normality will set in now it’s all over. I’ll decide, with my GP, the course of action, which is basically more drugs or not. Because I am already on industrial quantities of medication, not least for my depression, there are very limited options for me. I’m always loathe to take on more meds unless they’re life-saving and death-preventing and anyway I have the funny feeling that the stuff the private medical provider is recommending will come from them and won’t be included in my old codger free prescriptions list. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The unsurprising news is that none of the ADHD symptoms have changed nor gone away. I’m still fidgeting, making shapes with my hands and feet and constantly feeling the need to get up and walk about and I am still watching TV shows where I have absolutely no idea what’s going on and I have to ask my long-suffering partner to explain it all. We’re watching Silent Witness from the start – just the 233 episodes, then – and I could not be less confused if the characters were speaking Mandarin Chinese.
Still, at least I understood the instructions on tonight’s wine of choice, a Portuguese white, which involved putting it in the fridge before serving. That, I suggest, is real progress. It’s very difficult being me, but at least now I know why.
