I spent the first 55 years of my life being told I was lazy. I was told so often I came to believe it.

My teachers, friends, and various other people in my life said it and other things. The word cloud hung about me like a hair shirt.

Lazy. Unmotivated. Fidgets. Won’t sit still. Never shuts up. Bored. Strange. Unfocused. Forgetful.

Like the moons around Jupiter these words maintained a steady orbit constantly reminding me that I was not like the people around me. I needed to learn to be like the people around me because the me I was turning out to be was not good enough, not normal enough.

I learned the art of mimicry. I watched the successful, appreciated, well-liked people and began to copy their behavior. I copied they way they walked, the cadence and tone of their voice, how they dressed, and how they laughed.

I learned that I could get things done if it was an emergency and so I started creating emergencies to get things done. I called myself an agent of chaos and crisis. I was great in an emergency. I remember being stopped at a stop light in front of an apartment building when all of a sudden a human body plummeted to the ground in front of me across the street.

Instantly I parked and was out of the car and at the body. I ordered people to call 911. I told another to run and get a blanket to cover the person. I checked his pulse to be sure but there was no doubt, his eyes had already misted over…he was dead. And me – I was as calm as a stone.

Nothing like this had ever happened to me before but there I was calmly and clearly acting to control the situation.

Still in other areas of my life nothing worked. I remember writing four essays in one night at university from beginning to end, research and all. It took me 10 hours. It was brutal and I performed poorly (but at least I got them done).

I had known about these deadlines for months and had done nothing to begin them. Sometimes I would attempt a beginning and simply find myself staring at a blank page for hours nearly catatonic before giving up. I didn’t know how to begin a thing. They were just various trains in the distance on various tracks that all converging in a head on collision at my location. I could only sit paralyzed while they came closer and closer and my anxiety skyrocketed in response.

At 55 the longest job I have ever worked at is five years. Two of my kids have been at jobs longer. It’s not that I wasn’t good at my jobs…it’s just that the jobs became routine. I worked the chaos out of them and began to get bored and unmotivated still not sure how to work in a long-term, regular and strategic way. I would move on slowly developing skills at going into chaotic environments and bringing order and stability. This became my area of management expertise.

Relationships were also dysfunctional. I either over-shared (maybe like this) every last detail of my life with people I barely knew or maintained an unusual, uncaring, robotic distance from people.

Finally, a few years ago, I decided I needed to see a therapist to discuss and possibly deal with significant childhood traumas. I had come to believe much of what I had been working hard at masking or repairing had its source in these things.

Over time the therapist said something to me that caught me off guard.

“Perhaps you should consider getting a referral to a psychiatrist to discuss the possibility that you have ADHD?”

ADHD?!? This is a thing that children deal with, not adults. Not me. Nevertheless I did my research and asked my doctor for a referral. Who knows? It can’t hurt I suppose.

I grew up being told that everybody had problems and you just sucked it up and survived. Deal with it. You’re no different than anyone else. You have both your arms and legs. There’s nothing “physically” wrong with you. Stop being LAZY and just do it.

To even entertain the possibility of mental illness made me uneasy, as if I were cheating. There were people out there with “real” disabilities. Real obstacles to their lives. I had it good. It was selfish of me to pursue this – everybody knew what was wrong with me – I was just lazy.

I went to a psychiatrist.

It wasn’t long before he looked at me and said – “you have adult combined ADHD.”

What? Really? How? Why?

There are a number of potential factors. He believed it had never been diagnosed when I was a child because I never had a teacher or authority figure in my life long enough to notice anything beyond being lazy and inattentive. After all between kindergarten and high school graduation I averaged about two schools a year.

What now?

The psychiatrist spent a great deal of time talking about the nature of ADHD and treatments. While there are various non-drug treatments the research has shown that by far the most significantly effective approach was medication.

I told him I wanted to pursue the most effective treatment and now I am taking a drug called Vyvanse. An amphetamine. In the average brain amphetamines amp a person up. In the ADHD brain they lead to greater focus. No one fully understands why.

I can attest to the fact that my productivity has already started increasing exponentially. Focus and an ability to deal with deadlines better has reduced my anxiety. I am better able to actually start things without waiting for emergency and chaos. My executive functions are actually functioning.

Still there are times when I feel like I am cheating. Like the only thing wrong with me was laziness. The voices of my past remain strong in my head. People have come a long way but adults being diagnosed with ADHD are still looked at askance like it is simply fashionable and you never really had a problem…not a real problem.

But I can say that having carried the weight of this for 55 years has been hard. The effort to fit in with “normal” people has been enormous and ever-present. The reality that there is something broken in my brain that has led to all of this has been both frightening and freeing.

Frightening because no amount of personal effort can fully overcome this kind of brokenness and you are left with a sense that you are never really in control. Freeing because knowing about a thing gives you the handles to grab onto and, with expert advice, do something about it.

The journey ahead is still a long one fraught with stigma and stereotypes but the journey so far has been one of enormous hardship and turmoil…at least now the road ahead is bathed in light instead of hidden in darkness.