From bouncing off the walls to reserved and depressed: The development and faces of ADHD
TW: MH, ND, SI, ED, depression, anxiety, narcisism, abuse.
New research is showing that growing up with a narcisistic, abusive or emotionally absent parent can cause symptoms of ADHD. This counteracts the theory of ADHD being something you must be born with. But I don’t think this is incompatible with ADHD being a neurodevelopmental disorder. Kids’ brains are very plastic. Even if they are set off on a neurotypical path, they are very vulnerable to the environmental influences around them. ADHD is a disorder of low dopamine, which from a very simplified viewpoint is a “happy hormone”. If we grow up without the normal stimulation of dopamine release, is it any wonder we grow up to lack the ability to produce adequate dopamine?
I am not someone whose ADHD stems from this. My ADHD had been noticed by school teachers before I turned 4. But it is most certainly a contributary factor to the severity of my ADHD.
At the moment, my ADHD medication prescription is lost in the post. Before I started on methylphenidate, I had been on high dose anti-depressants for 3 years, and should have been on them for many more years, given the prolonged suicide attempt which was the eating disorder I developed at the age of 13… I didn’t come off the anti-depressants until I was settled on methylphenidate and knew it was doing more for my mental health than the anti-depressants ever did.
So this is my first time in 3 years without any psychoactive medication in my system. All day I’ve been one step away from a panic attack. I forgot appointments, lost objects which were in my hand, and have had what many would describe as a headache but what I know is my unmedicated brain. I can’t initiate tasks, and time has no meaning. I’ve cried for prolonged periods multiple times today. The world feels wholey overwhelming. I have expressed how little I want to be a conscious being right now. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that lifesaving medication will be here soon.
One of the best ways I’ve heard the different faces of ADHD be described is “the hyperactivity can be internalised as well as externalised”. ADHD is so much more than a naughty kid bouncing off the walls. And not everyone with ADHD does bounce off walls. The majority of AFAB people with ADHD are diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety before finding out they have ADHD. For me the depression was so bad, it presented with a serious psychomotor retardation (the slowing down of your movements) and was combined with a severe caloric deficit leaving me little energy — this is hardly compatible with bouncing off walls. But my brain was always so loud it felt like screaming in my head. Sometimes I would instinctively press my hands over my ears to block out the noise, but of course this didn’t work.
People say autistic traits are more evident when your ADHD is treated. Perhaps this inner noise is in part why — I wasn’t overwhelmed by a seemingly low amount of noise, because I could hardly hear it over the cacophany in my brain. Since being on medication I’ve been overwhelmed by noises far more often.
I’m not ashamed that medicating my brain is the only way existence can be anything better than exquisitely painful. I’m just horrified the medication that makes me happy to live is viewed so negatively by society. People think that the use of methylphenidate is “cheating”, that we’re “getting an unfair advantage”, that we “just need discipline” or we’re “making it up because you did okay in school”. I promise you, ADHD is so much more debilitating than society would have you believe. I just wish there was some way to make society see this.
