ADHD for adults
“Can’t you sit still for five minutes?”
Apparently not. But at least now, years later, I have an explanation in answer to my mom’s question, if only she were alive to hear it. Turns out my excess energy is simply hyperactivity.
Perhaps I should have been tipped off by the tempo of conversations with my friend Chris (who was diagnosed with ADD as a child). Our dialogues have always been like a pool game with both of us taking shots at the same time, bouncing rapid-fire thoughts between topics without skipping a beat. One evening, Chris suggested I take an online quiz for ADHD. I assumed he was kidding. He wasn’t.
The results? I did very well. So well, in fact, that Chris declared, “Zoë, we’re going to make you president of the club.”
Along with credulity, came clarity. Maybe this was why I’d spent the last eight months spinning in a circle in the middle of the living room, unable to decide what to do first. I’d repeat this procedure in my kitchen, bedroom and office, then go back to the living room and start over. By mid-afternoon, I’d accomplished nothing. By June, I couldn’t afford to pay my rent. I was in trouble.
Here I was, a 47-year-old woman who’d authored a book, run for MPP, earned two university degrees and three college diplomas, spinning like Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. How do you solve a problem like Maria?
Adult ADHD
The morning after my revelatory online quiz results, I found myself in my GP’s office, bawling my eyes out and describing my out-of-control life. I left with a prescription for a long-acting stimulant (one of several medications prescribed for ADHD), and began my quest for the holy grail: a way to make my crazy life work.
The medication calmed the frenetic energy I’d felt around the clock my entire life. Suddenly, after taking that first pill, all the cells in my body stopped jumping on the trampoline and lay down, already. The feeling of being overwhelmed, anxious and out of control also seemed to subside. Now I could begin my long road to discovery and, hopefully, recovery.
When I told my sister Melissa about the test results and the symptoms of ADHD, her first remark was, “That explains everything.” Having grown up with me, Mel was in a position to provide insight and anecdotes from our childhood, both of which are integral to a diagnosis.
According to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), the professional reference of mental health disorders, for a diagnosis of ADHD, some symptoms must have been present before age seven. Having spent most of my public school days out in the hall for talking too much, I fit the bill. The same combination of intuition and impulsivity that earns kids a walk to the principal’s office can earn adults their walking papers from jobs, friends, family and bewildered lovers who can’t take the perpetual lateness and off-the-wall remarks any longer.
Recognizing ADHD in adults
Kenny Handelman, a child psychiatrist and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Western Ontario in London, calls ADHDers’ observational abilities a paradox. While we’re inattentive to some social cues, droning on while the listener checks her watch, muttering, “Gotta go…,” we can also use our constant scanning to gather cues that others don’t get, coming up with intuitive responses. The problem is, sometimes we can’t stop ourselves from blurting out our insights. It’s kind of like having Tourette’s syndrome, except we speak in full sentences.
When I started public school, ADHD wasn’t even a glint in a child psychiatrist’s eye. Kids like me were simply out-of-control demon spawn creating mayhem in class, community, hearth and home. After professionals began to recognize ADHD about 25 years ago, it was mostly boys who were identified.
While impulsive blurting and hyperactivity have been hallmarks of my life, women typically are not blessed with the H-for-hyperactivity part. Instead of racing around classrooms with the boys (and me), they would stare dreamily out the window. And so it continues into adulthood — with 90 per cent of women diagnosed with ADHD falling into the inattentive rather than hyperactive type of ADHD (there are several flavours of the condition, but all are clinically known as ADHD).
