ADHD: Waiting for answers

The interim days…

One week since I finally found the courage to call in sick, phone my GP and ask for the help I have known that I needed for months. Months of exhaustion, insomnia, intrusive thoughts. Of seeing what needed to be fixed but feeling terrified of going deep enough to fix it, in case I could no longer function in my day to day whilst doing so. Well it turns out I was right. I haven't even begun the real work and already the cracks are running deeper than I had realised.

Sleep has departed along with my appetite, taking with them the energy to do any of the things that would normally improve my mood. I want to go to the gym, but my body is so weary that the stairs feel like a challenge, getting dressed feels like a challenge, but it's one I have to win to take the kids to school. They could of course take themselves to school like they would on work days, or their Dad could take them but I need this reason to get up and dressed otherwise I would stay in bed desperately trying ,and mostly failing to grab back the hours lost in the night, becoming increasingly frustrated with my inability to either sleep or achieve anything 'of value'.

I knew things would get harder before they got easier. I have a psychological assessment booked for Friday which will hopefully provide me with answers as to why it feels like I am playing life on the hardest difficulty level, despite being unfamiliar with the rules of play. When I booked the assessment I was sent a mammoth form that I put off completing, partly because I know that it would dredge up uncomfortable memories about the origins of all of my negative self beliefs.

There was also a form to be completed by someone who had known me since childhood, ideally a parent. Alas I have but one of those accessible and she was not keen to play ball. I didn't expect anything different in honesty; nobody wants to think that their (even adult)  child has been struggling without their notice. I think another reason for her reluctance to let go of her assertation that 'there's nothing wrong with you, that's just what you're like' is that a number of the symptoms I described to her of being concern, are things she has also struggled with, but 'you just have to get on with it don't you?! There doesn't have to be a name or a diagnosis for everything'!

Luckily my sister was more open minded and actually responded with 'ahhhh, yes, you probably do don't you!' when I told her of my suspected neurodiversity. The ADHD diagnosis is often mislabelled or co-morbid with autistic spectrum disorder which she has been investigating about herself so she had a little insight as to the manifestations. We have both also experienced the other common comorbidities of anxiety and depression.

So, she filled in my childhood collateral form as best she could, because it's actually pretty hard to remember your behaviour before high school, let alone that of your older sister! Most of the questions I had to answer for myself in that period were based on judgements that I had heard time and time again; internalising them to become the personal narrative that I've worked so hard on rewriting in recent years.

'Oh Emma, you're so lackadaisical… Oh Emma, you're very bright but you have no common sense…Oh Emma, you're so forgetful; always loosing things; so clumsy; never think things through! Emma why is your work so sloppy? You just need to pay more attention, concentrate more, FOCUS!’

So yes, I put off completing the form, because I was supposed to be persuing joy, and dredging up hurtful memories didn't seem to fit that bill… although I knew it could only be put off for so long. So I took 5 days of resting as much as I could amongst the minutiae of motherhood; school runs, packed lunches, food shops and dinners that nobody wants to eat. Having long phone chats with understanding friends, lunch in the sunshine, a frank discussion about the upcoming assessment and the need to 'fucking get on with your forms' (from someone who knows only too well how long I would put it off given the chance and how life changing the diagnosis could be), dinner with my BFF from childhood before she spectacularly ran her first marathon in little over 4 hours!

And then Monday. The deadline I had set myself. Because however much they 'must be used to people filling the forms in at the last minute!' I didn't want anything to jeopardise my chances of an accurate diagnosis (especially when the assessment had cost me the price of a new lens) and a chance to make life easier. It took me over 2 hours to fill out the form. By the end I had passed through so many emotions and spent so much time in a regressive childlike state of petulance, that I was exhausted and needed a nap…which anyone who knows me will not be surprised by!

But lo…no sleep for me at naptime, very little that night, and the next and the next. Despite doubling the dosage of Nytol each night I still woke in the night with panic rising in me like a tide. Even once the breathing exercises had done their job of slowing my heartrate, the adrenaline was still coursing through my body, keeping sleep at bay and thus depleting me of the energy I would need to follow my GPs advice to ‘do the things that bring you joy.’

Continued…