Adjustment Disorder
I had a conversation several months ago with my boyfriend about mental illness after a mutual friend of ours wrote a Facebook post about her struggles with depression. Neither of us had really known she struggled to the extent that she divulged there and then, though I knew from my years of friendship with her that it was certainly something she was familiar with. The conversation was mostly stopped at every turn because both of us realized we didn't know what we were talking about. We had not battled mental illness, and so had no real roads out of the conversation aside from what we'd watched our friends go through.
We've both been depressed, sure. We're creatives, writers, deep thinkers, empaths. It's more rare for someone of our dispositions not to have these kinds of issues. But I've never felt hopeless, and my boyfriend concurs that neither has he. I've never been at the end of any rope for too long. Like most people, whether they'd like to admit it or not, I've considered how I would commit suicide if I were to do it, but I've never actually, honestly considered taking my own life, not even at my lowest moment. Neither one of us knows what it is like to completely lose the light like that, but we both know it must be something awful, deep, dark, and powerful.
It was odd to me, then, in the midst of this conversation about how fortunate we are, for him to tell me that he considered me brave for getting help with my mental health. It took me a while to realize that he meant going on medication last year for Attention Deficit Disorder.
At the time, I didn't really feel like I deserved the diagnosis, though my boyfriend assured me that I do. He knew me for four years before we started dating, and he told me that he could tell a difference, a positive one, no question about it. I felt that as well, of course. After twenty-five years of living in a fog where I felt incapable of chasing my dreams and passions, where I hated myself for who I was and how unproductive and lazy I considered myself to be, where I felt nervous and let myself down on a daily basis, I was finally learning to be the person I always wanted to be.
But I never felt like someone with a diagnosis. Any diagnosis, of any kind. And I still don't. One year into ADD, and I'm only now beginning to question the advice my psychiatrist (who I saw only once) gave me—to pay attention to my feelings of depression and anxiety. Because either I was depressed and anxious because I couldn't focus and was unproductive, or I couldn't focus and was unproductive because I was depressed and/or anxious. He told me to pay close attention, but I felt so much better on Adderall, so much closer to normal, that I felt sure this had done it. That we'd hit the nail on the head.
But there were doubts, too. Almost anything you look up about ADD leads quite swiftly and exclusively to ADHD—an entirely different set of symptoms I most definitely do not have. I have plenty of friends with ADHD and they are my polar opposites—they're full of ideas, rapid fire ideas, and their productivity problems stem from constant distraction, becoming more enamored or distracted by a new idea faster than they could settle the previous one. They can be very energetic, flighty, impulsive, outgoing. I, on the other hand, have always suffered a dearth of energy. I'm one of the sleepiest people I know. When faced with multiple thoughts, I shut down and think of all of them at once. I will find myself having stared at a wall for an hour only thinking, never doing. I overthink. Constantly.
I didn't watch movies or read books or even play video games after a certain age. I never felt like I had time to do anything, but I did nothing. When asked how I spent my time, I would just answer "I don't know." I honestly don't know what I did with downtime, other than spend it with whoever I happened to be dating. Time spent alone was always time wasted. With a wealth of things I could do, I would get overwhelmed and choose to scroll through Facebook for hours instead, or watch reruns of cartoons I'd seen a million times on TV. Nothing engaging. I just couldn't choose. I felt always as though there were an anchor around my neck.
The medication truly helped me in many ways. And by proxy it eased the smaller bouts of depression I always used to find myself in; I became productive, therefore I became more fulfilled. I felt more alive. I watched movies and read books and took online coding classes and started writing poetry again. I rarely had a completely lazy, wasted day unless I chose to do something relaxing. Gone were the days of staring at a wall, sleeping in too much, or mindlessly refreshing social media pages to literally kill my time! Nine months after starting the medication, I had accomplished more than I could ever have dreamed, as far as personal goals go. I was even able to freelance write from home. At last!
With this came an interesting set of duties, though. Suddenly I realized that I had twenty-five years of catching up to do.
I started my job at the library around the same time I started the medication (I actually got the call offering me the job while I was sitting in the psychiatrist's office), and the weight of how little I have read or seen began to crush in on me. My coworkers were astounded at the pop culture knowledge I was missing. Though I've filled in some of these gaps now, I hadn't seen any Indiana Jones movies, Back to the Future movies, or Alfred Hitchcock movies. I'd never seen Alien or Predator. I still haven't seen Jaws or Citizen Kane. I haven't read a single Stephen King book in its entirety, or even Animal Farm or Catcher in the Rye or finished the Harry Potter series. The list goes on. It goes on, and on, and on.
This is just one aspect of catching up, though. Once my boyfriend said half-jokingly, "You've really had to relearn how to be a person, haven't you?" And it's half true.
I'm not making myself out to be some kind of social nightmare or feral child. I have plenty of references and plenty of knowledge and I make my way through conversations just fine. I do feel intelligent, and that even with my degree of social awkwardness, I'm still less weird than most people I come across. But I am still absolutely haunted by the idea that I am an outlier, that at every turn I am about to stumble over something that everyone else has already figured out, that real humans never have to question. I fear being less than, less intelligent than, less graceful than, less wise than, less charismatic than. When I put these feelings and fears in words, they sound ridiculous every time. But sitting there stewing in my head, sometimes they poison every single thing I think about.
It is an odd sensation. And it's one that has begun to catch up with me. It's difficult, now, to tell whether this is just another normal human crest and valley type of thing, or if it's that as my tolerance to this drug builds old habits and feelings are coming back, or if this was never my problem at all to begin with, just a misfire. The more time passes, the more I think anxiety is my demon. I'm still not sure if attention has anything to do with that or not.
What I do know, though, is that I do not want to take Adderall the rest of my life. As much as it helps me wake up in the morning, and get through assignments both professional and personal, it scares me to think about putting even 20 milligrams of amphetamine salts into my body for the foreseeable future. So on the one hand, I don't want to be the type of person who resists getting the help they need for a mental illness. On the other hand, I don't want to be the type of person who takes medications they don't need, that will wear out their heart or keep them grinding their teeth into the night.
When I think about what my next move is, I get stuck. I could ask my GP to up my dose, finally, for the first time in over 12 months, or I could ask her to try extended release instead of short release. I could, on the other hand, ask my GP to recommend me to a therapist. I could ask said therapist to try me on anxiety medication, or I could tell her that I'm done with pills, that I want to work this out completely on my own.
I just don't know if I can.
I'm afraid to go back to how I used to be, but I can already feel it happening. Sitting on the couch all afternoon playing on my phone and watching reruns of TV shows I've already seen (again!) instead of doing anything I actually want to do, because, why? Because I'm sitting next to my boyfriend and don't want to seem anti-social, or make him think he needs to "keep it down" because I'm reading? He's already begged me not to let him set the course for how we spend our time. "You live here," he feels he has to remind me. "I feel like I'm dragging you down into my method of relaxation; tell me what you'd rather do." But I never know what that is. He thinks I'm not telling him, but truth be told I'm forgetting.
I'd like to do this. Or to read. Or to work on sanding and staining the plain wood crates I bought for us to build bookshelves with. But there are also dishes to be done and clothes to be ironed and put away, suitcases from almost a month ago to finally finish unpacking. There are assignments to write and future plans to prepare for. And I get so overwhelmed by these choices, I decide I'd rather sit next to him and shut down than choose any one productive thing; I feel I have to devote a whole day to something to do something.
Which is exactly where I was last summer when I went to a psychiatrist and "faced" my mental health issues.
Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. This, after all, is the way many such stories begin. Getting it wrong, trial and error, desperately trying to navigate the murky and convoluted waters of anxiety. About a month ago, he took my head in his hands as I cried about how overwhelmed I always felt in my life, how pathetic I felt for being sad, and told me he believed I needed help with this and that I shouldn't be ashamed, that I shouldn't feel pathetic, that I should feel empowered to go forth and that he would do whatever he could to support me in that.
It was the first time I felt like I could hear myself. In the way I was trying to deny I needed to do something about how I've struggled my whole life, I heard the words I've tried to talk others out of a million times coming out of my mouth. "I should be strong enough to fix this" "My life isn't hard, what do I have to be this bent out of shape about? I need to get over it, I'm weak to say I can't." I couldn't believe how textbook I sounded.
I'm on the upswing of that bout right now. Sort of. I feel as though I'm still shifting, ever-shifting toward something more stable. But I don't want that to mean I don't make an effort to get to the root of my anxiety instead of changing out the same bandages every time I soil them.
At any rate, this is my adjustment disorder: one year into the pursuit of outside help, I'm not sure if I know any better how to solve my problems, but I at least know I'm closer to figuring that out. I know more about myself, pattern demonstrations. And I have work to do if I'm to have the life I truly want, to be the woman, the partner, the writer, the human I know that I can be.
Part of that, sometimes, is having the strength to admit that you're feeling weak.
We've both been depressed, sure. We're creatives, writers, deep thinkers, empaths. It's more rare for someone of our dispositions not to have these kinds of issues. But I've never felt hopeless, and my boyfriend concurs that neither has he. I've never been at the end of any rope for too long. Like most people, whether they'd like to admit it or not, I've considered how I would commit suicide if I were to do it, but I've never actually, honestly considered taking my own life, not even at my lowest moment. Neither one of us knows what it is like to completely lose the light like that, but we both know it must be something awful, deep, dark, and powerful.
It was odd to me, then, in the midst of this conversation about how fortunate we are, for him to tell me that he considered me brave for getting help with my mental health. It took me a while to realize that he meant going on medication last year for Attention Deficit Disorder.
At the time, I didn't really feel like I deserved the diagnosis, though my boyfriend assured me that I do. He knew me for four years before we started dating, and he told me that he could tell a difference, a positive one, no question about it. I felt that as well, of course. After twenty-five years of living in a fog where I felt incapable of chasing my dreams and passions, where I hated myself for who I was and how unproductive and lazy I considered myself to be, where I felt nervous and let myself down on a daily basis, I was finally learning to be the person I always wanted to be.
But I never felt like someone with a diagnosis. Any diagnosis, of any kind. And I still don't. One year into ADD, and I'm only now beginning to question the advice my psychiatrist (who I saw only once) gave me—to pay attention to my feelings of depression and anxiety. Because either I was depressed and anxious because I couldn't focus and was unproductive, or I couldn't focus and was unproductive because I was depressed and/or anxious. He told me to pay close attention, but I felt so much better on Adderall, so much closer to normal, that I felt sure this had done it. That we'd hit the nail on the head.
But there were doubts, too. Almost anything you look up about ADD leads quite swiftly and exclusively to ADHD—an entirely different set of symptoms I most definitely do not have. I have plenty of friends with ADHD and they are my polar opposites—they're full of ideas, rapid fire ideas, and their productivity problems stem from constant distraction, becoming more enamored or distracted by a new idea faster than they could settle the previous one. They can be very energetic, flighty, impulsive, outgoing. I, on the other hand, have always suffered a dearth of energy. I'm one of the sleepiest people I know. When faced with multiple thoughts, I shut down and think of all of them at once. I will find myself having stared at a wall for an hour only thinking, never doing. I overthink. Constantly.
I didn't watch movies or read books or even play video games after a certain age. I never felt like I had time to do anything, but I did nothing. When asked how I spent my time, I would just answer "I don't know." I honestly don't know what I did with downtime, other than spend it with whoever I happened to be dating. Time spent alone was always time wasted. With a wealth of things I could do, I would get overwhelmed and choose to scroll through Facebook for hours instead, or watch reruns of cartoons I'd seen a million times on TV. Nothing engaging. I just couldn't choose. I felt always as though there were an anchor around my neck.
The medication truly helped me in many ways. And by proxy it eased the smaller bouts of depression I always used to find myself in; I became productive, therefore I became more fulfilled. I felt more alive. I watched movies and read books and took online coding classes and started writing poetry again. I rarely had a completely lazy, wasted day unless I chose to do something relaxing. Gone were the days of staring at a wall, sleeping in too much, or mindlessly refreshing social media pages to literally kill my time! Nine months after starting the medication, I had accomplished more than I could ever have dreamed, as far as personal goals go. I was even able to freelance write from home. At last!
With this came an interesting set of duties, though. Suddenly I realized that I had twenty-five years of catching up to do.
I started my job at the library around the same time I started the medication (I actually got the call offering me the job while I was sitting in the psychiatrist's office), and the weight of how little I have read or seen began to crush in on me. My coworkers were astounded at the pop culture knowledge I was missing. Though I've filled in some of these gaps now, I hadn't seen any Indiana Jones movies, Back to the Future movies, or Alfred Hitchcock movies. I'd never seen Alien or Predator. I still haven't seen Jaws or Citizen Kane. I haven't read a single Stephen King book in its entirety, or even Animal Farm or Catcher in the Rye or finished the Harry Potter series. The list goes on. It goes on, and on, and on.
This is just one aspect of catching up, though. Once my boyfriend said half-jokingly, "You've really had to relearn how to be a person, haven't you?" And it's half true.
I'm not making myself out to be some kind of social nightmare or feral child. I have plenty of references and plenty of knowledge and I make my way through conversations just fine. I do feel intelligent, and that even with my degree of social awkwardness, I'm still less weird than most people I come across. But I am still absolutely haunted by the idea that I am an outlier, that at every turn I am about to stumble over something that everyone else has already figured out, that real humans never have to question. I fear being less than, less intelligent than, less graceful than, less wise than, less charismatic than. When I put these feelings and fears in words, they sound ridiculous every time. But sitting there stewing in my head, sometimes they poison every single thing I think about.
It is an odd sensation. And it's one that has begun to catch up with me. It's difficult, now, to tell whether this is just another normal human crest and valley type of thing, or if it's that as my tolerance to this drug builds old habits and feelings are coming back, or if this was never my problem at all to begin with, just a misfire. The more time passes, the more I think anxiety is my demon. I'm still not sure if attention has anything to do with that or not.
What I do know, though, is that I do not want to take Adderall the rest of my life. As much as it helps me wake up in the morning, and get through assignments both professional and personal, it scares me to think about putting even 20 milligrams of amphetamine salts into my body for the foreseeable future. So on the one hand, I don't want to be the type of person who resists getting the help they need for a mental illness. On the other hand, I don't want to be the type of person who takes medications they don't need, that will wear out their heart or keep them grinding their teeth into the night.
When I think about what my next move is, I get stuck. I could ask my GP to up my dose, finally, for the first time in over 12 months, or I could ask her to try extended release instead of short release. I could, on the other hand, ask my GP to recommend me to a therapist. I could ask said therapist to try me on anxiety medication, or I could tell her that I'm done with pills, that I want to work this out completely on my own.
I just don't know if I can.
I'm afraid to go back to how I used to be, but I can already feel it happening. Sitting on the couch all afternoon playing on my phone and watching reruns of TV shows I've already seen (again!) instead of doing anything I actually want to do, because, why? Because I'm sitting next to my boyfriend and don't want to seem anti-social, or make him think he needs to "keep it down" because I'm reading? He's already begged me not to let him set the course for how we spend our time. "You live here," he feels he has to remind me. "I feel like I'm dragging you down into my method of relaxation; tell me what you'd rather do." But I never know what that is. He thinks I'm not telling him, but truth be told I'm forgetting.
I'd like to do this. Or to read. Or to work on sanding and staining the plain wood crates I bought for us to build bookshelves with. But there are also dishes to be done and clothes to be ironed and put away, suitcases from almost a month ago to finally finish unpacking. There are assignments to write and future plans to prepare for. And I get so overwhelmed by these choices, I decide I'd rather sit next to him and shut down than choose any one productive thing; I feel I have to devote a whole day to something to do something.
Which is exactly where I was last summer when I went to a psychiatrist and "faced" my mental health issues.
Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. This, after all, is the way many such stories begin. Getting it wrong, trial and error, desperately trying to navigate the murky and convoluted waters of anxiety. About a month ago, he took my head in his hands as I cried about how overwhelmed I always felt in my life, how pathetic I felt for being sad, and told me he believed I needed help with this and that I shouldn't be ashamed, that I shouldn't feel pathetic, that I should feel empowered to go forth and that he would do whatever he could to support me in that.
It was the first time I felt like I could hear myself. In the way I was trying to deny I needed to do something about how I've struggled my whole life, I heard the words I've tried to talk others out of a million times coming out of my mouth. "I should be strong enough to fix this" "My life isn't hard, what do I have to be this bent out of shape about? I need to get over it, I'm weak to say I can't." I couldn't believe how textbook I sounded.
I'm on the upswing of that bout right now. Sort of. I feel as though I'm still shifting, ever-shifting toward something more stable. But I don't want that to mean I don't make an effort to get to the root of my anxiety instead of changing out the same bandages every time I soil them.
At any rate, this is my adjustment disorder: one year into the pursuit of outside help, I'm not sure if I know any better how to solve my problems, but I at least know I'm closer to figuring that out. I know more about myself, pattern demonstrations. And I have work to do if I'm to have the life I truly want, to be the woman, the partner, the writer, the human I know that I can be.
Part of that, sometimes, is having the strength to admit that you're feeling weak.
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