I have an entry from July 2003 in my private journal that is titled “ADHD” and is just one line:
Could this be what I have? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/24/2355245
I got distracted y’know and completely forgot about it until I went looking for info on how my partner got their diagnosis last year, which is what prompted me to look into whether I’ve got the same thing. Today, it was officially confirmed that I do. ADHD: combined presentation. “Combined” meaning a mix of both the “inattentive” and the “impulsive/hyperactive” presentations (types). I think of it as “just all over the place, man 🤷♂️”.
I’m relieved to have something I’ve been fairly certain about for a year acknowledged ‘officially’, and to be able to get medication that could help me function better day-to-day. I’m also annoyed that it took 20 years.
But I guess “consistently putting off getting important things done and feeling really bad about it” is ADHD? I’m just starting out on this path, so I don’t know. I do know that if I don’t post something about it today, while I’m still riding that dopamine high, that I won’t post about it for a while, cause it’s all gonna start feeling like work tomorrow. I do want to write more about how I got here, but just thinking about it is overwhelming and making me want to run away switch tabs check social media. Lemme get medicated first, ok? It’s coming, promise.
I’ll drop a few links here to articles that I read in the past year from folks who are also in the software engineering world, which I appreciated, because they either made me feel less crazy or provided concrete techniques that helped me cope, or both:
- Leigh Honeywell’s toolbox post + two levels of links therein.
- ADHD – A Lifelong Struggle was one of the links that particularly resonated. I think I have a much milder version, but so many behaviours the author was vulnerable enough to share had me nodding.
- Jamie Tanna’s post
- Glyph’s “Leave the Frog for Last”, which is not a “coming out” post, but was really helpful for me. I’ve spent a lot of my life dancing around frogs that I couldn’t bear to think about, never mind eat.
The irony of this post coming months after the last one isn’t lost on me. To be fair, I think it’s less of an ADHD thing (although it’s always a factor!), and more of just the past three months sucking, and me still not being in a place where I’m willing to share those kinds of details publicly.
In a demonstration of how I’m embracing my jumping-all-over-the-place brain, apropos nothing, here’re some pictures from a couple of bike rides around Kempenfelt Bay I took so far this spring. The last three are from today:
@dv thank you for writing and sharing!