Untangling Mental Health, Part 2: Attention Deficit Disorder

Part 2 of a series of blogs breaking down my mental health issues. 
Click here for Part 1: Depression and Anxiety.

Attention Deficit Disorder is something I've known I had since my teens at least, but I wasn't officially diagnosed until last year when I started therapy. Until then, I'd been in denial about just how much it impacted my life.

 Poor attention span is what we think of with ADD, but it's a lot more than simple inability to focus. (I can focus sometimes... It's involuntary, but I can get wholly absorbed in some things to the point that I don't register what else is going on around me.)

• Difficulties focusing make me slower at a given  task than most people.
• The effort of focusing is tiring, which means my productive periods are short.
• Distractions mean that I leave a lot of things half-done and forget to go back to them—an inability to keep the house tidy is a sign you might have ADD.

Then there are the short-term memory issues. Again, I have a fantastic memory in many ways, but with day to day activities, it's as if my brain sometimes stops filing things away.

• I regularly lose things that I had had in my hand just moments before. (I'm pretty intense about having specific places for things and building up a habit for leaving them there.)
• I'll walk into a room or open a cupboard and be unable to remember why. Sometimes, my brain sort of hangs up at that point, and I'm just standing for minutes at a time, trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. Those are the times it’s not just frustrating, it’s scary.

Solution 1: Mitigate the Aggravating Factors

There are ways to live a more ADD friendly lifestyle… But they’re very much of the easier said than done variety.

• Get enough sleep: I have always had sleep issues and being tired doesn’t help my focus. Power naps resolve the midday drowsiness, but stress triggers the insomnia. The cats also disrupt my sleep overnight, but I do go through phases where I sleep well. Those are awesome.
• Fresh air and exercise: Natural light is always good for your brain function, and thankfully we do get a lot of light in the living room and kitchen. Actually getting outside is even better. It's a ten-minute walk to the kids' school, and we do that every morning and afternoon, even in the rain. Thank god they haven't protested, because it's probably doing a lot to keep me sane.
• Remove extra distractions: I like having company, but if somebody is doing something else, I struggle to stay productive. It doesn't matter if they're not engaging me, and it doesn't matter if I'm not interested in what they're doing... my brain is staying aware of them. Managing things so the children can help rather than hinder me is a parenting skill I'm trying hard to acquire.
• Keep things uncluttered: it's both a lot easier to see what's out of place and it's easier on the over-stimulated mind. This was a big part of why August was so horrific… boxes everywhere and I didn’t know where to put or find anything. I did eventually clear all the boxes, but I still have children, so clutter is a rollercoaster-style issue.
• (I know tidy kids exist. I don't have tidy children because they don't have a tidy mother because she has ADD.)

Solution 2: treatment / medication
After getting diagnosed, I tried a couple of different medications before settling on a low dose of Adderall. It's not a miracle cure (there isn't one), but it made a world of difference to my productivity. It also largely solved my sleep issues—insomnia at night and intense drowsiness in the middle of the day—I'm not sure if they're a result of ADD or if the stimulant properties of Adderall effectively regulated my sleep pattern.
 
Problem 1: Adderall is illegal in the UK. (Bringing in a few months' supply for personal use isn't a problem, but a doctor can't prescribe it.) So I'll have to find a different medication which will require a period of trial and error. I have yet to start that because of...

Problem 2: My diagnosis in the US isn't recognised here. In the States, I could be diagnosed via a self-assessment form, but that wouldn't be acceptable in the UK. I need to be referred to a psychiatrist. I tried to start this process in June, but I never heard back about the referral. I've since changed GPs, and I have another appt next week to again ask for a referral.

These sorts of administrative setbacks put the onus on us patients to self-advocate and keep pushing for diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, mental health issues tend to make us bad at that. I'm ADD, so I'm getting distracted by the sea of other things I have to do with The Move. Depression / anxiety issues make me fear that the doctors don't believe me, that they're judging me, so I dread having to explain myself and put off making that call, making that appointment....

Oh, look, we've reached procrastination....

I'll talk about that tomorrow.