Medication isn’t a magic wand.
This has been a biggie, I am 4 years down the road now and I know that I couldn’t manage without medication (the disaster days when I’ve forgotten to take it tell me this!) but it really isn’t a magic wand. I think on a good day it brings me up to a neurotypical’s baseline but that’s about it! I still have all the traits that frustrate me about ADHD but really they are less rather than gone! I still get stuck in executive function paralysis, overeat to get carbs and sugar dopamine hits, can’t habit form, suffer from a bit of anxiety, get very emotionally dysregulated sometimes, it’s just a lot less than before.
Hormones are the worst!
I didn’t notice them as much when I lived with severe anxiety as a standard but now that’s so much less, I can really see how much they affect me. I had a hysterectomy at 30 but still have my ovaries so I can’t track my periods but I can definitely track my phases just from my moods! I had no idea the links between ADHD and PMDD (think PMT’s bigger, sadder, angrier cousin!) and feel like more people should be made aware of it. Now I’m not so low generally, I can really track the cliff drop into despair, landing right before my period would have been. It’s honestly like the entire world’s sadness has channeled directly into my soul but luckily because I now understand it, I can reassure myself that it’s just a couple of days and then I’ll feel ok again. I also think that anyone with female hormones who is going through titration (the process of getting you on the correct medication and dose) should be monitored for longer as hormones can really impair the effectiveness of medication!
Understanding the whys doesn’t make it easier.
I know that it’s great to have the validation of knowing why things are the way they are, and it really helped me for a long time. I was kinder to myself, I cut myself more slack, it helped my self esteem a lot. But now, after 4 years it’s just become a bit frustrating. I know why I do, (or don’t do!) things, but that isn’t always much comfort when I’m not doing them if you see what I mean. I can’t always ‘hack’ my adhd into overriding the negatives and that makes me feel frustrated and sad. I know why I get so overwhelmed but it still sucks to be in that state. (See image below, sometimes all you can do is take to your bed with the biggest, fluffiest blanket!)
The cross overs between ADHD and Autism are huge
There is about a 70% cross over in traits between ADHD and Autism and these are also common presentations of other conditions that look similar to both so it can make it hard to figure out what particular blend of neurodivergent you are. Does it actually matter? I guess not but when you’re trying to work out whether something is just a built in part of you or something you can heal, it can be very hard to differentiate what is what. When anxiety, depression, OCD, trauma and a whole host of physical issues are common co-morbitities with anxiety, how on earth do you know when to stop with the healing?
People don’t know as much about neurodivergence as you’d think
‘Everyone’s a bit ADHD’. There was a point where it felt like everyone was talking about ADHD, it was on every social media channel, it felt like awareness was really being raised. And there were a lot of the (frustrating!) comments about everyone relating to the traits, but actually, people’s awareness is nowhere near what it should be. There is still the narrative that it’s bouncy, hyper, loses everything, oh look squirrel. And don’t get me wrong, it absolutely can be. But it is so much more. And it is a debilitating condition for a lot of people. Even diagnosed and medicated. If you manage to get that far! With NHS waiting lists as long as 7 years for adult assessment and the majority of GPs refusing to take on shared care for private diagnosis, there are an awful lot of people unsuppported and really struggling out there.
I realise that this sounds like a very negative post but I think people think that a diagnosis and medication make it all go away and someone who is medicated for their ADHD should be able to function and override any ADHD traits easily and that just isn’t the case. And those of us with ADHD don’t need another stick to beat ourselves with, so knowing that it’s still tough for others even with all the right things in place can be reassuring.
This post was written for ADHD awareness month, if you would like to learn more, you can read my other posts, signs of ADHD in girls and women, the very painful rejection sensitive dysphoria, there’s my personal diagnosis story as a 37 year old adult, a look at adhd and binge eating and a post detailing how to talk to your GP if you resonate with any of this.
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