What am I worth? - Self Discovery

Caution: This blog post will contain more feelings than usual, which is really saying something.

With the support of a whole pile exceptional friends, over the last 2 years I've been travelling along the long road to discovering I'm on the spectrum. For those of you who've known me for a long time, hearing this personal discovery is so recent might've made you chuckle a little.

I've always been made very aware that I was 'different', from teachers, classmates, work colleagues and my parents. Although I could never quite put together what made me so different, I'd always try to celebrate it, laugh along with others and lean into the weird. But the more time I've spent trying to fit the square peg of my brain into the round hole of the world I inhabit, the more tired I've become.

Beginning my career working with engineers started shining a spotlight on what could possibly be 'different' about me. After my first week in an engineering office, all I could think was "Wow, their brains work just like mine". Its been incredibly freeing to be surrounded by others like me every day, to be able to let the mask go a little and use my brain as it wants to be used, instead of working around it. I'd found myself describing my spectrum as "engineer". Obviously engineer is not diagnosable, so I explored different places I could fit and I began peering at both my present and my past through the lens of ADHD.

Suddenly it all clicked, for month I was having nearly daily A-HA! moments where life experiences would finally made sense. Like how I'm so unstoppably chatty I've had work colleagues move desks away from me ¹. I started recontextualising my habits like constantly chewing on pens and keeping the items on my desk for the sole purpose of fiddling with. I could suddenly see how my wardrobe functionally means I wear about 3 different outfits and I've been (mostly) eating the same three meals for around 1.5 years. Although I already understood a lot of these behaviours to be queer, it was assigning them all to ADHD that helped solve so much all at once.

These things can be mostly described as quirks and don't significantly impact my day to day life however, the most heart breaking aspect I've been coming to terms with is my inability to focus. This affects me far deeper than the simple stereotype of staring out the window in class (although I've still done plenty of that).

Throughout school and university I could barely bring myself to progress my assignments, no matter how much people yelled at me or how critical my performance was to 'success'. This brought me so much pain and stress, deadlines piling up when I can barely sit in front of my computer. But this also extends outside of those rigid environments.

At home, I've had to learn executive function on manual mode, with tasks like eating regularly, cleaning, and admin being particularly hard. I've given a lot of my energy to finding and practicing solutions and workarounds to get my routines where they are now, and even this still needs a lot of maintenance. It has also left me far more susceptible to addiction, things like online video games, sitcoms and YouTube just to name a few. This also has required a large volume of my energy to put restrictions in place to avoid these where I can.

And now at work I can often find myself suffering to even just put my hands on the keyboard on especially bad days, staring at the clock and praying it would move faster.

I was always made to feel guilty for my inability to focus, from my very first take home assignment, my Dad berated me as I sat sobbing at the dinner table for hours, unable to complete the simple task before me. I can recalled the first summers where I was left home alone and everyday after reporting to my parents I hadn't done much they expressed their disappointment I hadn't been more industrious (I was 12 years old). All throughout my life, people told me I could do great if I just tried harder. This isn't even accounting for capitalism asking so much of all of us and directly tying our worth to our material labour output.

Although there are sporadic occasions when I can find myself ploughing through tasks as my peers do, they would never last, no matter what I tried to hold onto that momentum. I had no idea why I simply couldn't do what everyone around me could do with seeming ease.

This has always driven a need to do more, to make up for what I already had failed, where I had already wasted my life. My mind would race, trying to find a way past, through, or over these walls in my brain. I'd spiral and I'd think:

What if I'm just incurably lazy? Entitled? How can I ever be enough? I will never be enough. God, something is fundamentally wrong with me.

This has infected my making at its core, often I feel dissatisfied with both the quality and volume of my output. I find myself stuck on projects constantly², wishing I were motivated to put tools in my hands and just do the fucking work.

The embarrassment of publicly setting aside time to labour for my passions, to write, to sew, to woodwork, just to find myself glued to the sofa while struggling to force myself to begin. Even when I do eventually manage to get myself in front of my keyboard, sewing machine, workbench, I spend a good portion of that time thinking about how I'll ever get enough done to make up for all the time I'd already wasted, how could I possibly make up for the decade of cowardice?

And once I've slogged through all that, the object is complete and in my hands. Sometimes I naïvely think:

Wowee, what a worthy object of my time, gee golly I don't know why I can't bring myself to this point more often, surely I'll just try harder next time.

Sometimes I just think to myself:

Fuck, is that it? Is that all I can create from that amount of my effort? From how hard I fought just to do my hobby? How will I ever create anything worthy? How will I ever be enough?

This continues endlessly, a cycle of banging and hammering the square peg into the round hole just to wonder why I bother at all. Luckily this tale of self reflection doesn't end on such a low note.

As part of this journey of discovery I've been on, my partner offered me her ADHD medication. It was just to "try and see how you feel", but really it was so she could prove to me what she already knew.

ADHD medication doesn't work if you don't have ADHD. Dexamphetamine actually commonly is taken as a party drug by allistic folk for how stimulating it is. Only an hour after I had taken it, I was floored by how quiet my head suddenly was, I hadn't realised it had even been that loud. I was physically still, I could focus, I could breathe, the roaring flame of my anxiety felt doused. This is a comically common way to find out you have ADHD.

First trial a success, I tried it again but this time during a work day and as expected I had one of the most productive days in the office ever. After my trials, two things quickly became clear to me:

1. I definitely have ADHD
2. I need to get medicated asap

So over the last 5 months, I began seeking a diagnosis. Its been an expectedly long winded and frustratingly expensive process. I've been lucky to find both an exceptional GP and Physiatrist, who've done their best to keep this process as short as they could, but it was hard not to become impatient as weeks and months rolled by without treatment.

Then, a bit over a month ago, my Physc diagnosed me with ADHD (and suspected autism). I cannot express to you the relief that flooded my body to have so many of my experiences validated. To receive acknowledgement that not only were barriers others couldn't see and to be given tools to overcome them. ⁴

During my first day on my freshly prescribed medication I felt a waves of relief wash over my body as my hands typed, my brain focused and my tasks at work got ticked off one by one.

ADHD medication and treatment takes some dialling, to ensure it does all the correct things while minimising side effects. At first I found I was on a little too much for me, I was jittery and had trouble relaxing. I was even once so hyper focused at work that even during my lunch break I couldn't break my fixation on a spreadsheet I was working on.

There are other important supporting ADHD management tools I'd already been building up for a while, keeping on top eating, sleep, and exercise, building up mindfulness through yoga and 'automating' tasks into habits³. But by far the largest jump I've ever experienced in my quality of life has been getting medicated.

Regardless of the minor tweaks and other tools I am working through, the difference has still been night and day. My executive functions comes so much easier, tasks are easier to begin and finish. I've never achieved more in my hobby time, with loads of burdensome little projects getting cleaned off my plate and plans for larger ones continuing nicely. The best way I can describe being medicated is now every day feels like what was previously my best day of the month.

Its been amazing to finally work at a pace I'd always wanted to but, disappointingly my newfound productivity has not suddenly cured my lack of self-worth as I'd secretly hoped. The bar I set for myself has simply shifted upward to out of my new reach, forever keeping me from contentment.

I can identify unlinking my productivity with my inherent worth as a soul on this earth will be critical to my happiness, but I also know core change will not come easily (Thanks Mum, Dad and capitalism). Its also been difficult to release the unhelpful thoughts of what I might've happened if I'd been diagnosed and medicated when I should've been⁵, but I know I need to put that behind me. I need to put it all behind me.

I'm know I'm not the only person to face this, most of my friends are on the spectrum somewhere. Its those friends that have given me the strength to advocate for myself leading a better life. To all of you, thank you.

I know there is still so far to go and self discovery will not end as long as I breathe, but I'm proud of how far I've come. I'm excited to show everyone what I can do whilst still being me.