Living with ADHD has taken me years to uncover, and a few more to figure out

How can you tell that swimmer Michael Phelps has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Well for one thing, he’s won 23 Olympic gold medals.

Of course, it also helps that he’s one of the greatest swimmers ever born, and that he’s worked hard at it in summer Olympics between 2004 and 2016. But living with ADHD has got to have something to do with it. I can vouch for that one.

Phelps seems to be done with competing at the Olympics and probably won’t be at the 2021 summer Olympics to race for another medal. But we can count on seeing him in the media, as evidenced by the leading role he played in the 2020 documentary, The Weight of Gold.

Here are a few more examples, to better make my point. Beyond Phelps, other famous people who live with ADHD and have remarkable achievements include Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Hermione Jean Granger aka Emma Watson, music superstar Justin Timberlake, rapper and founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am, four-time Super Bowl champion quarterback turned sports commentator, Terry Bradshaw, the most decorated American gymnast ever and arguably the greatest American gymnast of all time, Simone Biles, and legendary enigmatic movie actor Johnny Depp.

Along with passion for music, movies, and the Olympics, what else do we have in common? Having ADHD means that all of us live with surges of energy that can be channeled into wonderful accomplishments — but that can also be misdirected, pushing us into a place that makes our days difficult and not what we’d hoped for.

ADDitude Magazine, which tracks ADHD, calls it “a complex brain disorder that impacts approximately 11% of children and almost 5% of adults in the U.S. ADHD is a developmental impairment of the brain’s executive functions. People with ADHD have trouble with impulse-control, focusing, and organization.”

However, I would say there are more than 16% of Americans who live with ADHD. Those figures may also assume that half the people with ADHD outgrow it. I don’t think that’s the case. I think we adapt to it, and most of us never find out; or we’re diagnosed with it and have yet to find out how much it affects our lives.

Many of us do have other symptoms and conditions we live with. These can include addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, and the autism spectrum that includes Asperger’s syndrome. I’ve been close to a few people who live with autism and a few others who live with ADHD; and one person who lives with both conditions.

Elon Musk may not have ADHD, but he’s pretty close
It was fascinating to watch Tesla CEO Elon Musk host Saturday Night Live on May 8, with a guest appearance by his mother and many references to cryptocurrency. He’d become vulnerable, sharing something about himself that most people avoid.

“I’m actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL,” he said that night. “Or, at least the first to admit it, so I won’t make a lot of eye contact with the cast tonight. But don’t worry, I’m pretty good at running human in emulation mode.”

Musk has also been driven to follow his dreams, heading electric car market leader Tesla and commercial spaceship company, SpaceX, as it heads for Mars.

As for ADHD, the Attention Deficit Disorder Association (ADDA) defines it as “a highly genetic, brain-based syndrome that has to do with the regulation of a particular set of brain functions and related behaviors. These brain operations are collectively referred to as ‘executive functioning skills’ and include important functions such as attention, concentration, memory, motivation and effort, learning from mistakes, impulsivity, hyperactivity, organization, and social skills. There are various contributing factors that play a role in these challenges including chemical and structural differences in the brain as well as genetics.”

Which symptoms do I live with that show I’m not “neurotypical?” Well, there are a few that I identify as living with ADHD…………

— Anxious about being late for an appointment but somehow ending up being barely on time or once again late. Adding one or more chores I need to do before I leave sets me up for failure, as does being unrealistic about how long something will take.
— Getting poor test scores after having done exceptionally well in the classroom.
— Going through periods of excitement and enthusiasm that can eventually slide into anxiety and depression.
— Talking for several minutes as if I were making a presentation, even after getting messages from others that I need to rein it in.
— Obsessive and compulsive practices like rewriting my daily list several times on a given day, and counting groups of objects looking for patterns — eight hanging lights, 12 windows, seven paintings on the walls, etc.
— Realizing that I write things down all the time — including my daily lists — because I’ll probably forget to go to appointments and meet other commitments. It also has something to do with yearning to bring some semblance of order to what can feel like chaos; or at least while going through a lot of stress.
— Being prone to addictive behaviors to feel better and slow down my chattering, intense mind and jittery emotional state.
— Wanting to spend 15 minutes writing, or playing a video game, or reading email, or talking on the phone — and then realizing that two hours have suddenly vanished.
— Feeling different than other people I’m near, and shutting down. Drifting away in thoughts and feelings comes next, along with the uneasiness of being around all these good people but still feeling isolated and lonely.

So what are we talking about here? While some people are concerned that there’s been too much media coverage and conversation about ADHD in recent years, my writing on the subject matter is geared toward people who have some interest in it and are open to getting one writer’s perspective on what it means. I think it means quite a lot for many of us — especially those living with it, or those having a lot of contact with people who live with it. That may include our spouses.

What do we have in common?
There are certainly a few challenges to live with. I attend a men’s ADHD support group regularly. It turns out that many of us have changed jobs quite a few times. We can excel in the workplace too, but it does take a while to work out the barriers we have to cross in meeting our employers’ social rules of order. We must learn how to adapt to our environment, and tap into our own resources.

Some of our co-workers might find it strange that we take on activities that seem dull to them. As a writer and editor, I’ve always loved putting together newsletters, reports, email messages, and more. I might dive into it for an hour or more, while those around me don’t want to do it at all.

They might find it strange that I’m so passionate and engaged with doing what seems boring and irritating to many of them — such as writing or putting together a presentation.

I was recently cut from the training program for public service dispatchers at a Sheriff’s department in California — seven months into it. I wasn’t hitting the marks on written tests, taking calls the way I’m supposed to, and not always getting to my shift early enough to be ready to roll at the beginning of the hour. So I was let go, which of course, was sad and humbling.

Living with ADHD has been part of the problem for me in retaining all that information and always reacting in a calm and centered way; but it’s certainly not been easy for any of the other people who’ve been in my training academy class. We were encouraged to be honest about it, and our instructors were very good about telling us their own stories and how they got through tough times.

I was encouraged to go to human resources and ask for accommodations to improve my work performance while living with ADHD. I did have a meeting with managers and HR staff to go over it. We did make some changes to the learning process, but there was still a wide gap for me in learning and retaining all that information while dealing with a lot of stress and, occasionally, turbulence. You can hear some really awful things happening in people’s lives when taking a 911 call.

I had a real stunning reminder of what can get in my way for learning and retention about two years ago. I did poorly on a statewide exam for a job I was trying hard to get as a public safety dispatcher. I had taken the class and did very well on assignments and exams, but something about the state exam threw me into a spin. I got lost in thoughts and worries and could see that my test results were going to be poor.

It feels something like drifting away in water from the dock I’m trying to reach. I can see it. I want to hurl rope over a mooring, but it’s too late and I’m drifting away.

How come I flopped while taking the LSAT exam?
The same thing happened to me years ago when I was in college, taking the LSAT exam to get into law school. I took a study class and bought a workbook to prep for the exam. I got a 66% on the exam, which cut me off from most all the law schools I wanted to get into — even though I had a 3.5 GPA.

One of my friends told me he got a 99% on the same LSAT that I took — and he didn’t take a class or study for it. He understood how the test was put together, and how the questions might be structured. He tried explaining it to me but I don’t think I could hear it. I couldn’t remember what he told me. I think I was still in shock that he could figure it out so easily and I was so stuck.

That’s an easy one to fall into when you live with ADHD: putting yourself down as not being enough.

The men who attend the ADHD support group I go to — and it can be anywhere from about 35 up to 60 of us — do have a few things in common. Many of us are engineers, or have management jobs with a lot of technical know how, and a few of us do creative work such as writing, music, teaching, visual arts, and graphic design.

We talk about our diagnoses, typical patterns, and if we’ve been prescribed medications. I’ve taken Adderall, which I was prescribed to take by a psychiatrist along with Wellbutrin. Lately, I’ve just been taking Vyvanse, which helps a lot in feeling calm, centered, and focused.

Those of us living with ADHD also have our share of challenges being close to others. That might come across typically as stories about conflicts and misunderstandings with our spouses. Sometimes it’s hard to explain what we’re going through inside.

We all do agree that it can be overwhelming to really see clearly and live with effectively. But living with ADHD is still pretty new to our world, and we have a lot to learn.

That also seems to be the case with attention deficit disorder (ADD), the autism spectrum, and living with bi-polar disorder. It’s going to take a few decades for us to get all this sorted out; but we are off to a strong start.

Getting support from other people living with ADHD has been a huge gain. Besides my men’s support group, I have sessions occasionally with my ADHD coach; and I have a family member and a good friend who live with it. Reading about it, and listening to podcast interviews on living with ADHD, have also helped me quite a lot.

Talking about it with friends and family wasn’t easy at first, but it’s been really good to reach out and be honest. They are there for me.

I was 55 years old when I was diagnosed with ADHD, but it didn’t become important to me until I was 57. I was engulfed with it for a while, until I pretty much burned out on it. Then it came back again, and I had to find a more consistent and balanced way to pursue my learning and growth with the demands of my daily life. That seems to be a big part of living with ADHD; it’s certainly that way for me.

But you can never be too old to take it on.

“It’s never too late to learn how to thrive with ADHD,” according to the subject line in an email sent out recently to ADDA members.

I would agree.

Jon LeSage is a Southern California-based freelance writer.