ADHD: Meds and Regrets (but not how you think)

So here’s what’s messed up.

About 20 minutes after I took ADHD meds for the first time, I got up off my beloved couch (My Throne of ADHD Paralysis) to walk upstairs.

I think I had a plan, but I can’t remember now because all I can recall is that while walking up the stairs, I realized my brain was reaching for stress – doing what it always did – just psychically calling out to the worries or whatever – and nothing. was. there.

I couldn’t think of anything to worry about.

And so, still fully dressed from my doctor’s appointment a few hours before – wearing mascara and button-pants, I flopped down on my bed and started laughing hysterically.

Then I started sobbing.

Then I called my son.

“I didn’t know I could feel like this,” I said.

He responded: “I know.”

My Brain is Broken and So Is My Mom

For two and a half GLORIOUS days, I tried to come to terms with the fact that my brain is actually broken different, and that medicine was helping.

I had tried to talk myself out of an ADHD diagnosis once I got one because my diagnosis was a little complicated.

It turns out that I also have something called Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), and so there’s this chicken and egg thing …

I don’t want to go into that too much in this post, but it was enough to make me question if I really had ADHD at all, despite a bunch of testing, or if bad stuff had just broken my brain.*

#both!

But then a few weeks later, I was prescribed ADHD medication, and immediately I felt such relief that I knew. I knew – something …

That I had to work out something about neurodivergence … and everyone …

And then my phone rang and it was my mom’s husband saying she was on the way to the hospital in an ambulance.

Perfect Timing. Sort Of.

My mom is doing really well, but let’s just say that the whole thing was a long road, and really messy, and I guess interestingly from a timing stand-point, sort of a breaking point for my mom as far as some of our super-fun shared trauma goes.

You know how you can look back and think – OH! It all had to come undone. Things are so much better now!

But at the time, none of it felt connected or good. It felt like chaos and stomach pain. (Fun Fact: I haven’t eaten cheese since January!)

But Dr. L and the good Lord had given me ADHD meds – and so I was able to function through the whole thing in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to before – not just logistically, but with …

wait for it …

confidence?

I don’t know how to explain it.

I just know that I found myself emboldened and unafraid.

I did what John Mayer and Rob Reiner told us to do in 2007. I said what I needed to say.

But that doesn’t mean I had processed ANY of the ADHD stuff.

Processing That We all Have ADHD

In fact, I was still feeling, not surprisingly, heaping loads of guilt.

It turns out that when it clears away the smog, ADHD medicine can help you feel both so much better, and so much worse.

And so as my sister and I worked to set my mom up with resources and care, I was also seeing (thanks to 3 whole weeks of ADHD meds) that I hadn’t really processed the everyone has ADHD thing. 

So Much Transition

I’d actually been on weird auto-pilot since dropping my son off at college.

At literally the same time my daughter started bursting out like a bean sprout. She got an offer for a job interview in a McDonald’s parking lot half-way between our home and my son’s new college on the way to drop him off.

So as soon as we got home, she started working and prepping to start early college enrollment at 15.

That meant that – surprise! I was kind of done homeschooling? Sort of?

(I wasn’t, because she was 15, but there was definitely a huge shift happening.)

Plus my son had been diagnosed with ADHD in the late summer, and then my daughter got her diagnosis in the fall, and then I got mine in December.

And they were TOO BUSY to have long conversations about the whole thing just to assuage my guilt!

Can you imagine?

Regrets, I HAD a Few

And so I had sort of been simmering in a soup of feelings about my kids both having ADHD – and guilt was the broth.

I would ask myself really helpful questions like:

• How could you not have known?
• What if they could have been diagnosed sooner?
• Did NOT having a diagnosis hold them back?
• Why didn’t you know that there were meds that don’t just turn busy little boys into zombies?
• We started homeschooling because my son couldn’t sit still in pre-school – what if all of this, our life, had been a mistake? 

***

Meanwhile, my actual children were doing OK.

My son had gotten into his first choice of university, started a band, and was adjusting to college life.

My daughter had started work and college at 15, because she could.

I’m not saying that everything was perfect. But I am saying that no one was curled up in a ball in their closet like Moira.

 

Getting a Delayed ADHD Diagnosis

And so during the summer, while my son was home, every once in a while we he made coffee and I made tea, I would ask little things like if he felt like homeschooling had destroyed his whole life.

It shouldn’t be a kid’s job to make their parent feel better, so eventually, I stopped asking probing questions and watched and listened.

I saw how close my kids are, and how they would talk about ADHD, ADHD meds, and school and jobs, and support one another, and I realized that this closeness was due in part to time spent together in trees when they “should have” been doing math.

And I felt my gut relax just a little.

Then my son told me at one point that homeschooling gave him exactly what he needed. It gave him and his brain freedom and he was grateful.

And I felt my soul relax just a little.

ADHD Meds – They Aren’t What I Thought

The truth is, we’ll never know what it would have been like to all be diagnosed sooner with ADHD.

We simply can’t go back.

I will say this – about a year and a half before my son was the boy who wouldn’t sit on the line, he was the boy walking around the doctor’s office asking questions, and the doctor remarked how “ACTIVE,” he was.

He kept saying and emphasizing that word: “He’s really ACTIVE, isn’t he?”

I just smiled because yes – he was active.

But I also knew what the doctor was getting at. Was he – you know – “hyperactive?”

Was he presenting with classic little boy ADHD symptoms? The kind we were all familiar with back when George W. Bush was president?

And if so, what were our options? ADHD Meds?

I assumed Ritalin.

Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

And I was scared.

I was scared that he would be prescribed meds at age 3 just so he could “behave,” in pre-school.

I was afraid of him “being labelled.”

I was worried that ADHD medication wouldn’t help him thrive in a classroom – that instead, it would just keep him still.

I assumed medication would make him less him instead of more him.

‘Good Job, Mom’

And then my daughter …

Well, she was active too.

I remember taking her to that same doctor, concerned about her bruised shins. I worried about low iron or something.

“No,” the doctor said. “When I see this, I think ‘active kid.'”

Relief washed over me.

“Do you like to ride your bike and play outside?” he asked, and she said yes.

She brought up tap dancing in the driveway and taking our pet chickens for rides down the slide.**

He smiled and nodded.

“Good work, Mom,” he said.

(And that right there, helps illustrate why females with ADHD often go undiagnosed for 15/45 years.)

So Now What?

So now – just now – finally NOW, I am beginning the process of really thinking about ADHD and what that means, both as a neurodivergent person myself, and as the parent of two kids with ADHD.

And I wonder if you are reading this, looking for some idea of what to do if you suspect you or your kids have ADHD.

So I guess this is what I’ll say about that:

1. ADHD is a mess.

I mean honestly.

They’re figuring things out, but they (the medical world, I guess?) is still all confused, and most people don’t even know what to look for.

2. We’re Still Operating Like It’s Desert Storm

In fact our whole society is still mainly looking at the little boys who can’t hold still.

I let myself be mad about this at one point.

But as I keep learning more about ADHD, I 100 percent forgive the people who missed my ADHD and my daughters’ ADHD.

Now I need to work on forgiving myself.

3. It’s OK, Mama Bear

So if you think you have ADHD, or one or more of your kids does (there is a strong genetic link) – don’t be mad at yourself for trying to protect your kid from anything negative associated with it.

Again, I am trying to say this to myself.

No one wants their kid “labelled,” but I think we all want them properly diagnosed if they have ADHD.

Part of my goal with this series is to share information as I learn about it, because there is so much I wish I had known decades ago.

4. The Diagnosis Process Is Hard

So maybe you’ve been thinking about trying to get a diagnosis, but you’re running into roadblocks and beating yourself up about that.

Stahp. (As my friend Vanessa would say.)

We’re dealing with a super fun time when we are becoming more aware of ADHD and what is actually looks like and there are whole TikTok accounts devoted to it, and everyone and their mother is getting diagnosed, but that doesn’t mean any of the process is easy.

I heard from someone in the UK that you can be on a waiting list for YEARS just to get a diagnosis.

5. ADHD Meds. Ugh.

But here’s something great! Even if you get diagnosed by a professional, and that professional gives you a prescription for ADHD meds, it’s a total crapshoot whether Walgreens has any!

 

{Thank you, Nandor, for bringing some levity.}

Because I don’t want to be a total bummer, but this is a big problem.

ADHD can feel like trying to see and catch vapor, and then take that vapor somewhere for testing, but testing is either $32 million or unavailable until 2088, and if you are lucky enough to get diagnosed, vampires drank all the Adderall out of club kids.

This isn’t the real reason for a current Adderall shortage. Some people think it is – that people are abusing it – but I think it’s more that we’re all becoming aware of how ADHD actually presents, and finally getting properly diagnosed (if we’re really lucky), and so supply just hasn’t caught up with demand.

And So … Dear You,

Let’s take a deep breath.

Let’s just realize that right now, things are probably OK-ish for you and/or your kids.

If they truly are not, reach out for immediate help. Please.

(Because as I discussed here – ADHD, anxiety and depression are linked.)

Processing ADHD the Best We Can

Currently, I am definitely still processing all of this.

More posts are coming in this ADHD series.

But I’m pretty sure about one thing. As much as I love time travel as a genre, actual time travel hasn’t become reality yet, so we need to do the best we can, wherever we are in this process, to look ahead.

It’s like that song 100 Tampons, which I will let this NPR article sum up:

“Ahead of her 1983 space flight, NASA suggested sending astronaut Sally Ride with 100 tampons for the week-long trip. (That’s too many.)”

The point here is that (see #1) AHDH is kind of a mess. But smart people are working on it all the time.

It’s a little like those glass cubes people put in bathrooms instead of windows.

You can kind of see what’s going on, but you’re definitely not getting the whole picture, but at least some light is getting in.

I wish it was easier.

I’m sending a hug.

Back soon. 🩵

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ADHD SERIES

Post 1: So … We All Have ADHD

Post 2: ADHD: There’s Just One Kind Now, But Not Really (The Long and Confusing History of What We Call ADHD)

Post 3: Hey Laaaaady! ADHD in Girls and Women and Why You Don’t Just Suck at Life

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*I’m not trying to be vague for any reason other than that some things aren’t mine to talk about and some things are just too hard to talk about and I’m waiting for a book deal.

**How could I ever doubt that we were natural homeschoolers?

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Photo by Christina Victoria Craft on Unsplash