All About Being

I’m a guy who was diagnosed as "hyperactive" when I was two years old. At that time (late 60’s) I don’t know if the term ADHD existed but I never heard it.  After all of the brain scans and endless tests they started me on more than 2x the adult dosage of atarax, which is technically an anti-histamine, but was used as a tranquilizer in my case. I was still a wild-man, constantly in trouble, and constantly annoying my teachers and classmates. You could sum up my report cards thought elementary and middle school as: Mostly A’s with the teacher’s comment "very bright but needs to learn to stay in his seat!"

I took the atarax for about 14 years I think. I later learned that it’s recommended that you not take it for more than six months. Thanks doc! In my early teens I stopped taking it for some reason. I vaguely recall not wanting to feel "drugged" anymore but I’m not sure if that was it.

The next 25 years I somehow forgot about the hyperactivity of my youth. I’d heard the term "ADD" but it never dawned on me that it might be what they used to call hyperactivity. I struggled through life, starting things and not finishing them, traveling a lot, being very depressed, taking drugs and drinking way too much. In hindsight, it was classic ADD symptoms but I didn’t know it at the time. Really the only thing that kept me going was playing music. I became a fairly successful musician–recording CDs, radio airplay, touring, etc. If it weren’t for that giving me a direction I don’t know what would have happened to me.

Throughout that time I knew that something wasn’t right. I was always tired, bored, never satisfied, and very depressed. The depression just wouldn’t go away. I went to numerous doctors over the years. They tested for thyroid, blood sugar, testosterone, adrenal exhaustion, lyme disease, heavy-metal toxicity, parasites, and on and on. I tried all kinds of therapies both standard and alternative but nothing really helped. I eventually just resigned myself that I would always feel like crap and that’s the way it was.

In the summer of 2006 my business was falling apart. (not music, but a "real" business.) I found myself totally confused all the time. I’d just sit and stare at my computer for hours. I knew what I needed to do, but somehow I just couldn’t figure out how to start, or organize what I was trying to do. Eventually I would just sit on the couch for hours in a kind of stupor. The ADD symptoms made the depression much worse and I’m sure vice versa too. I was becoming a basket case. And since this was my own business if I don’t do things it doesn’t get done which means zero income. That  compounds everything else.

By chance someone mentioned to me in an off hand way: "For instance, I have ADD and I know that no matter how much I might want to do the detail oriented things that it’s not going to happen so I hired an assistant to do those things for me." That hit me like a bolt of lightning! "I have ADD!"

That realization almost made me break down in tears. At that moment so many of my life struggles had become clear. I wondered why the dozens of doctors hadn’t caught that before. I though of how much of my life I’d wasted, of how much better my life could have been.

I started reading and reading and reading. I polished off a half-dozen ADD books in a week. It was so good to know what was going on. It was really a great feeling knowing that other people felt the same things that I did. I eventually found out about the organization Children and Adults with ADD (CHADD) and went to a meeting. It was life-changing! Hearing all of those people talk about the same problems that I had just made me feel that it would be OK. Not that I had all the answers, but that at least there was hope.

Even though I was an "anti-medication" type of person I eventually decided to see a psychiatrist. I found a really good one luckily, because more doctors in general and even psychiatrist don’t know squat about ADD. I still wasn’t sure about taking meds for the ADD but one of the CHADD coordinators put it to me this way: "If your eyes can’t focus are you going to get glasses? Then what’s the difference? If your brain can’t focus then you just need something to help it focus. You could have the old attitude like ‘this is the way god made me so this is the way I’ll stay’ but you wouldn’t do that for any other part of your life would you? If you had heart or kidney issues you’d do what you could to fix it right? You should look at your brain the same way!"

That made sense to me and eventually I started on stimulant medication. Within 30 minutes of taking the med I felt like I light switch had been thrown. I could get up and work and get things done. It was an amazing transformation that totally changed my life.

Now as it turns out I volunteer at my local CHADD group. The monthly meeting are one of the high points of my life now. It’s so good to talk to other ADDers about our issues, to share solutions, and to just know other people who are "weird" like me. As I’m there talking to people I can see the lights going off in their heads. I can see the transformation. It is a really, really good feeling to know that you’re helping people to change and improve their life. It really makes me feel good.

But now that I’m "in the know" a little bit it saddens me to know how little people with ADD know about the situation. How much misinformation and stereotypes there are out there. How much people DON’T know about treatment, exercise, nutrition, etc. Not that I’m a total expert but I do know and have learned some things about ADD. So with this blog I plan on sharing some things that I’ve learned and also just talk about the day-to-day struggles of living with ADD and depression, and some anxiety and OCD type things, with apparently a little Tourette’s Syndrome thrown in for good measure.

I hope that in some small way I’ll be able to help someone, or save them from the struggles I’ve had to go through.