The Middle 35. ADHD and Me
Julien Baker and the wiring of this brain
If I could do what I want
I would become an electrician
I'd climb inside my ears
And I would rearrange the wires in my brain
A different me would be inhabiting this body
I'd have two cars, a garage, a job
And I would go to church on SundayA diagram of faulty circuitry
Explains how I was made
And now the engineer is listening
As I voice all my complaints
From an orchestra of shaking metal keeping me awake
I was just wondering if there's any way that You made a mistake1
I remember driving my old boat of a Honda Civic (it came pre-dented, which meant I could back into a pole in a parking lot guilt free) when I first heard Julien Baker sing these words. I was still in the throes of what had been a rough handful of years navigating life with chronic mental health struggles. For whatever reason, I could not get it together.
Therapy? Check.
SSRIs? Check.
Reciting scripture every day? Check.
Practicing forgiveness? Checkity-check.
Surrendering it all to God? Check, check, check, and check once more in case I somehow left part of it in my hands, because damn this pain is not going away.
I did it all, and yet each day was filled with a pain I could not describe and no positive coping skill could offset.
As Julien’s voice danced through my vehicle, I felt a grounding drop in my stomach. This wasn’t a bad drop, one of the ones filled with fear or sadness. It was a good weightiness, where the tension knitting my ribs together opened up, rearranged itself in my core, and I felt more here. Her words were familiar to me, almost as if I had written them personally. I imagined myself in a utility suit, climbing through my ears to do some electrical work while echoes of my questioning prayers reverberated around me.
Not too long later, I shared about my experience with someone who explained trauma to me. I felt a similar relief in my soul, a grounding moment where, suddenly, I made sense. The triggers, the flashbacks, the emotional ups and downs, and the inconsistent self-concept now fit into a box.
Maybe something wasn’t wrong with me. Maybe, instead, some wrong things happened to me and my brain wired itself accordingly.
I sought specific trauma therapy, and changed, healed, and grew in many ways. I stopped having panic attacks. I started to like myself more. I became more confident. I had more hope for my future. I started feeling my feelings! What a joy (when it’s joy), what a bummer (when it’s a bummer).
Even with these changes, a label (CPTSD), and ongoing therapeutic work, I still struggled to get through many days. As the roots of trauma began to be reprocessed, something else became apparent.
It wasn’t (isn’t) only CPTSD.
It’s ADHD, too.
I received an ADHD (inattentive type, which I imagine is glaringly obvious as I am the furthest thing from hyperactive) diagnosis about one year ago. Begrudgingly, I’ll admit. I did not want to be another late diagnosed adult who learned they had ADHD because of the proliferation of neurodiverse content on my TikTok algorithm. I did not want to hear people dismissively say “oh, everyone has ADHD these days” and feel ashamed for being one of those people. I fought the idea that I could have ADHD vehemently.
“ADHD and CPTSD have overlapping symptoms.” I’d quip, and that was that.
And yet, there isn’t a coping tool in sight that can help me unload the dishwasher. This 2-minute activity would eradicate my lifelong problem with dishes on the counter, but I can’t seem to do it despite looking at the blinking red light indicating the cycle is done and thinking “I will be glad if I do it, it doesn’t take that long, just unload it.”
Similarly, there is no system in existence that will help me transfer my laundry from the washer to the dryer, without having to wash it twice because it has been sitting for too long. But, at the very least, the versatile dryer becomes a dresser once the last load goes in. Those clothes don’t get folded, they get put away (worn on my body) as needed (and then put on the floor).
I first sought my doctor for excessive fatigue as a teenager, and numerous times throughout my twenties. All of my bloodwork showed iron so good we may as well turn me into steel and build a bridge. And yet, there I was, Iron Girl Extraordinaire. Napping. Wherever I could. Before dance class as a teenager. In my friend’s campus apartment between university classes. On my office couch, in between clients. Heck, even my social plans were scheduled around taking a dang nap. Could we hang out at 10AM or 4PM instead? 1PM is prime nap time.
That niggling sense of something being wrong with me hung in the background. I hated myself for how lazy I was, how unable I seemed to be.
And then I learned I am not unable… but disabled2.
My brain isn’t wrong, it’s wired differently. The dishwasher issue? Probably ongoing, because the dopamine required for sufficient motivation in this brain is… unmotivated (see Volkow et al., 20113). The fatigue? Better, because apparently an amphetamine on the side of my 3 daily coffees means a daily nap is no longer needed (but still very much enjoyed). The version of myself I keep waiting for, the one who manages everything well? She probably won’t show up.
And there’s a grief in that. It is a loss to realize you may never be the person you thought you should be. But there is also freedom in letting those socially constructed norms and ideals fly into the sky, and planting your feet into the earthy soil of who you are. I probably won’t be showing you my cluttered kitchen anytime soon. And I sure as heck still feel more shame than self-compassion about it.
But I’m going to stick my feet into God’s green earth and try for compassion with the wiring of this brain, anyway.
PS. ADHD and CPTSD are nuanced. There is much more I would like to say about them, and the way they present in my life and others, and about the social disability model, and about the DSM-5, but doing so would disrupt the flow of this piece. This essay only lightly brushes on my personal experience as it continues to unfold.
Hey, you. Yeah, you. Thank you for reading this. I don’t know where you are right now. Maybe you’re in a grocery store line-up, maybe you’re on the couch. Maybe you’re feeling a bit bummed out about your brain. But wherever you are, I’m sending a bit of love to you. You’re breathing, and you’re alive. That’s all you gotta do today.
Lyrics from Happy to Be Here by Julien Baker
ADHD is a disability. While we’re at it, so is CPTSD. Still, I struggle to apply this word to myself because I know I don’t appear disabled to others. Most of the symptoms associated with ADHD (struggles with cleanliness, time, organization, etc.) are seen as personal failings in our culture, and there’s a pervasive sense of “if you wanted to, you would”. It’s shaming ableism at it’s finest, and it is pretty darn internalized in most of the people with ADHD I know.
Volkow, N.D., Wang, G.J., Newcorn, J.H., Kollins, S.H., Wigal, T.L., Telang, F., Fowler, J. S., Goldstein, R.Z., Klein, N., Logan, J., Wong, C., & Swanson, J.M. (2011). Motivation deficit in ADHD is associated with dysfunction of the dopamine reward pathway. Molecular Psychology, 16, 1147-1154. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2010.97