What I Leave Out When I Tell You I Have ADHD
I cried with relief the first time I took Adderall. Then I had my first crash.
I’m going to be late to work this morning because I cannot find my nude lipstick and absolutely must obtain another one before the day begins. The urgency of the need supersedes consequence and logic: Stopping at Walgreens to pick up makeup may make me late, but not doing so will certainly throw my day into chaos. I will be distracted and irritable; I won’t be able to pay attention to my patients.
Like the missing lipstick, any impulse left hanging has the potential to disrupt my brain’s ability to engage in the social world around me. Failure to negotiate my impulses has given me great empathy for class clowns everywhere: kids who cannot stop themselves from gluing their fingers together or aiming paper airplanes over their teacher’s head. Even the boys who bullied me about my red hair or blew spitballs into it receive pardon — I’m 33 now, but I’m not sure I could talk myself out of shooting spitballs if my brain became infatuated with the idea.
I was not diagnosed until adulthood, as is the case for many women with ADHD. Our childhood presentation tends to be milder (aka less annoying) than it is in boys. Our learning problems are either overlooked or categorized as something else.
