8 things that have surprised me now that my ADHD is under control with drugz!
Okay, that title doesn’t accurately reflect the nuance imma bout to drop here (hopefully), but it’s my MO to write clickbait titles of questionable veracity, to the consternation of every wonderful writer I edit, every reader who writes in complaining that I’m what’s wrong with journalism (thank you!), and every troll who reminds me I’m a woman and/or not white. My clickbait titles of questionable veracity are for you! They are for the world!
Anyway, I want to drop a quick little ditty and give you an update on my attention deficit situation. I was previously concerned that medicating myself would make me less creative. And I am happy to report that I no longer need to be concerned about it. Because I know. Anecdotally, I’ve verified that I am less creative medicated. Like, that’s why I’m writing this newsletter at 7:26 p.m. at night. Enough of the Adderall is out of my system, and I can like, think like a ninja again, so I am gonna be telling y’all some stories. Probably.
Actually, this is gonna be a list because I locked myself into it with the title.
1. I still leave the doors unlocked and/or completely open overnight a lot and made my dad confront me about my lackadaisical attitude about our safety as a family — twice.
Yeah, man, medication was not a silver bullet that fundamentally changes who I am. Sure, I am showing up to places on time a lot more frequently, and I can get to work without needing to adjust the millions of pieces of what my mom thinks is trash on my desk — but I don’t think it wavers that far from my natural baseline, which has been habitual and learned for decades. I am still forgetting to do really basic stuff that makes my parents say, “This is not even hard.”
Funnily enough, I am the villain of their story. When I first moved home, they both lectured me on how to close doors — because they have a finicky bolting mechanism that’s totally busted. I was like, self-righteous. Like: “Okay, rude. I’m not an idiot. I know how doors work, people.”
Apparently that’s not true. I do not know how doors work at all.
2. Yo, my mood is generally really great on medication. The boring stories you told me over dinner was the reason why I was so enraged all these years.
I’ve been telling my friends that I am so grateful I decided to get medication at this point in life instead of when I was in my 20s. At this point in life, I have a healthier priorities, and a driving factor behind me finally getting medicated was that I was just so internally tense from holding back a mountain of really hurtful insults I wanted to hurl at people for doing stuff like recapping me episodes of “Housewives” when I repeatedly have told people I hate it when they talked to me.
In my 20s, I was much more keen to prove myself professionally, so getting medicated then would’ve been more about productivity and efficiency and becoming a robot person.
In my 30s, I sought out medication for emotional reasons, and let me tell you, my mood has been great. The medication really smooths out the friction that used to be in my mind, because I was so forcefully holding it all in together. It was like I spent years making my brain suck in its guts 24/7 — and it got all cranky from trying to be naturally an hourglass figure all the time. And now I’m like, “Here’s Spanx, brain.” And my brain is like, “OMG! Thank you! I look great!”
3. My impulse control is better, which basically means I’m not punching electronics into submission as much.
I never thought of myself as a person that has like, a serious problem with impulse control. Like, sure, I bought a house because I originally wanted a new car, but I’m not like, running out the door in a haste to get a Nazi tattoo with a dirty needle. (I tend to think everything below “Nazi tattoo” is “not that bad!” It’s a rich area to dwell and justify decisions in.)
But I’ve been noticing that my impulse control is noticeably better. I’m the kind of person that privately freaks out and starts trying to break stuff if I get righty-tighty-lefty-loosey wrong after a few attempts.
My work has been a touch more meticulous because I’m about to take time to think things through versus just cramming stuff into holes all the time. (I hear the joke there, too, guys. Too easy.) I’ve been designing more precise.
4. It’s harder to tell stories with bite and point of view. I start storytelling like a pumpkin-spiced latte bitch, and I bet it makes me so much more approachable, agh!
Off-medication, one thing that secretly drives me a little nuts is when people say obvious things. Like, “I love being warm! Blankets are amazing!”
Like, on the outside, I’ll be like, “Yeah, blankets are cool!” because I want to bond with your boring ass because I need for you to like me just in case the apocalypse befalls us soon — in that circumstance, I need your loyalty and generous thoughts of me.
But on the inside, I’m like, THE FUCK THIS IS! BLANKETS! FUCK!
Dude, on medication, these are the thoughts I have:
“Aw, that was kind of an awkward and bland thing to say. It must be because we don’t know each other well yet, and it’s hard to pick out what topic to talk about. Blanket was probably just top of mind for you.”
It is scary. And probably very healthy.
But also, it just sucks dry (I hear it, shut up) my ability to tell a really dark Stacy-story. I’m telling stories like, “And then we talked about blankets! She likes blankets. I do, too. So we have that in common.”
5. I’m attached to my obsessiveness. I miss it when I don’t have access to it. But it’s okay because I literally just have to wait it out.
Yesterday, I spent eight hours straight upgrading my computer. (I was off medication the entire time.) I skipped dinner because I was so mentally trapped in hyperfocus. I only went to sleep because I didn’t have the part I needed to finish out my computer. (It’s finished out now.)
It took eight hours because it was a hellacious series of doing-shit-breaking-shit-doing-shit-breaking-shit. I was repetitively problem-solving — and I was really into it! I could recognize it for what it was, and I was like, “Oh, man! This is the shit! This is amazing! Look at my unhealthy fixation on this right now! Isn’t it great!”
I think because I’ve been one way for the majority of my life, I’ve become very fond of it and feels very idiosyncratically me. It feels comparatively duller and less exciting when I’m medicated and am good at duty-fulfilling. Like: do this, do that, do the stuff you’re supposed to do.
There’s just no drama or life or gravitas in that, you know?
As an aside, my mom works nights and came home at 11 to find me ass-deep in a mess of metal pieces, screws, cardboard, paper, just a bunch of chaotic shit. I couldn’t break out of the focus to like, engage with her. And I was thinking it must’ve been very familiar to her — like, she must remember this about me from childhood.
BUT! When I was getting evaluated by my doctor for this to get treated, my mom filled out a questionnaire about me and was basically like, “Her focus is totally normal!” (My parents were uncomfortable with me getting medicated, mostly because they don’t really get what it is and probably worry I’m going to gaslight myself into thinking I’m CRAZ-AY and then act all CRAZ-AY. I get it. More education is needed to de-stigmatize.)
6. Internal calmness is nice and stuff — great overall on the day-to-day — but it’s also creepily complacent.
I get mad way less on medication, because I don’t have that snap judgement mechanism that launches me into FUCK THAT GUY! WILL GET JUSTICE! mode.
Everyone’s ADHD is different, but I think mine is very oriented around the concept of fairness. So the snap judgement in my head is often, “THAT’S NOT FAIR. YOU’RE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE. BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BE AN ASSHOLE. I WILL FIGHT YOU ON THIS.” My tolerance for conflict and fight is pretty high because of my attention issue, I think, and I don’t think we talk about this in like, a positive light enough.
Because what I’ve noticed while I’ve been on medication is that I don’t leap to those accusatory thoughts. I’m like, “Oh, he probably didn’t mean it. He is probably having a bad day.” You know, those excuse-making thoughts that people use for not behaving in a way that is more justice- and equity-centered.
I think my ADHD self just gives zero-er shits about people’s intentions — it’s just a wild animal that reacts based on action and the perception of actions.
And sometimes, it’s like — dude, we should be behaving like this more. Like, we should be taking people more at their acts rather than their words. Because words are EMPTY A LOT OF THE TIME.
7. It’s harder to go off on weird thought-tangents on medication. Medication makes me think more directly and linearly.
When I was a kid in school, the teacher would always insult one of my favorite things in the world: TV. She would be like, “Try not to watch too much TV. You’re brain turns off when it watches TV, and you need to exercise your brain.”
And everyone in class seemed to be going like, “U RITE. U RITE, Mrs. Needham.”
And I was an insecure, anxious kid. So I was like, “This is probably right because she said so, and I don’t challenge authority!”
But in the back of my mind, I was like — I really didn’t think my brain turned off when I watch TV. I think my brain actually lights up?
Like, I have so many thoughts while I’m watching TV after work. It’s my favorite way to unwind. I have my TV, my phone, I’m avidly Googling as I watch TV, then I’m avidly thinking. Then I go on Reddit to get a pulse of what society things about using Kleenex for toilet paper, and then I learn a lot about marsupials and develop a hot take on freeze-dried cheese, enough that six months later when someone brings it up in casual conversation and disparages it, I feel personally affronted and I’m like, “Fuck, Connie. She doesn’t know shit about cheese!” And then I start revenge-writing something about how women who are closed minded eaters, which makes them racist. And then I design a randomly good-looking logo iteration the next day in two seconds — and am like, okay, wow, that came out of nowhere. Yay!
On medication, it is like, “Blue plus yellow makes green. Okay, we’re settled on that. Onto the next item on the agenda.”
Like, the medication is incredible for managing focus. But I think it also quiets some of the magic that feeds creativity.
8. My chances of dying in a freak auto-accident of my own making has reduced down probably 50 percent.
It is really hard for me not to touch my phone when I’m driving. Like, it’s legit hard, and I’m shamed about it a lot by well-meaning friends and the police officers who pull me over. I don’t like getting shamed because it’s like, no, assholes, I don’t actually want to be a terrible person that doesn’t give a shit about other people’s lives. Thanks for reminding me about the consequences of this thing that is so fucking easy for you to do and not at all easy for me to do. WHY DON’T YOU TRY DRAWING A PORTRAIT OF MY FACE, THEN! SINCE WE’RE JUST SWITCHING SHIT THAT WE’RE EACH GOOD AT!
But on medication, it is way easy for me not to touch my phone as I’m driving. I’m like, holy shit. This is what my self-righteous friends experience when they drive their asses down the freeway. They just stare at the road ahead and don’t feel the crushing despair of hopelessness inside. Wild.
So there! I hope you are happy, jerks! Sometimes I take medication on weekends even though I don’t even need to manage my focus on weekends. I do it for the driving thing. Fuck you all. I care about people’s lives.