Diagnosed with adult ADHD, Jess Basson relates her personal thoughts and feelings.
If you look up the definition of “undiagnosed adult ADHD”, you won’t find any scientific information. You’ll just see a photo of me.
Before being officially diagnosed with adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, I didn’t have an explanation for why I was the mom who dropped her kids off at school the day before the new term started. Twice.
I couldn’t explain why I was the woman who is on her third wedding ring. To be clear, I had the same husband – but was on my third wedding ring. I won’t go into details except to say that one involved getting the dog X-rayed, digging through poop for two weeks, and getting one of those metal detector guys to walk through the garden.
I didn’t know why I was like this, so I just made up the reasons. My forgetfulness, my scatter-brained diary, my inability to know where my sunglasses, keys and cellphone were at any given moment were annoying. Annoying but accumulating into labels that started to encircle me more fixedly. I lived inside these repetitive dynamics every day, unable to escape the frustrations they brought me, no matter how hard I tried.
My most insidious symptoms of undiagnosed ADHD – the ones most people never saw – were my shame, my sensitivity, and my wounded self-esteem. These beliefs that I was hazy, lazy and crazy had been galvanised over the years and started to close in on me from above, like bars. Not being able to explain my emotional intensity and anger was eroding my relationships. The niggling feeling that I was always failing made me defensive and over-sensitive. The cruel, berating self-talk that no one except me heard was getting louder and louder, as the lack of explanation for my inefficiency left me with no other conclusions.
In the absence of truth, we inevitably believe lies. Lies are what lock us into the cages we feel trapped in. My cage had me believing I was a small person with a small life. On a good day, I could explain all of this with the resignation that I’m just not a high-capacity person. At worst, the absence of an explanation made me feel irreparable. Without language for the problem, there is no hope for a solution.
But then, I found the real cause of my symptoms. It was not a character defect. It was a neurological disorder. Suddenly, a key was dropped into that cage.
Reflecting on my journey with ADHD, I have come to believe this:
Name your cage.
Find your freedom.
Maybe you feel like you’ve lost yourself somewhere to lies. Perhaps you don’t know what your next step is.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
You were made to be soaring, flourishing and free.
So reach out, ask for help and walk out that door.
FOR MORE INFO:
You can buy Jess’ book, Empty Cages – Keys To Finding Freedom, at www.jessbasson.com