So I left off talking about how medications could not heal the damage in my soul as far as rejection and fear. In the first couple years of marriage to my wife I still battled addiction. I was smoking cigarettes and getting drunk. I would get hooked on video games and I would always try to have friends over as a way to satisfy my boredom and to self medicate. My addictive behavior and my inability to function with ADHD symptoms began to really strain my marriage.
I ended up getting laid off from the wire mill in my first year of being married. I could no longer afford the pills without health insurance . I was going to church during this time and I felt like I needed to take a step of faith and get off of the medication. I can tell you that since the summer of 2009 I have not taken medication for my ADHD. Yes, I thank God for that although I’m not going to tell you I’m cured. I still have a need to get help receiving stimulation into my brain as people with ADHD struggle to maintain proper dopamine levels. So I drink coffee and I engage things that stimulate my brain such as music and reading (especially God’s Word). I really love worship music because it helps me focus and especially on the goodness of God. A good violin or cello harmony can almost move me to tears. There is a beautiful mystery that God has placed in stringed instruments. I like to think of these as healthier approaches to getting the proper stimulation that I need in my brain to help my focus.
I’m not going to share a message that leaves you thinking, “oh great, he’s gonna tell us that God miraculously healed him and we just have to hope that it happens to us or someone that we love.” No, surprisingly I am not healed of this thing. I actually have just recently discovered that even though God put a fire in me about 6 years ago when I truly put my faith in Him, He decided it would be better to not heal me of what I call “the thorn in my flesh” (ADHD). In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul tells us that God allowed for a messenger of Satan to buffet him. He prayed to God three times to remove it, but God wanted Paul to remain humble and dependent on God. For years I felt a need to tell people that I am miraculously healed of ADHD because I was told that God is the healer and that I am faithless if I choose a label over God’s healing. I felt ashamed and didn’t want to be “faithless”. But I’m going to tell you that if Christians condemn people with the “healing prosperity gospel” you are preaching heresy. In John chapter 9 the disciples asked why a certain man was blind. They even blamed it on sin. Jesus corrected them and said that it would be for the glory of God that this man was born blind. See, God chooses to allow for infirmities to exist for His glory. The legalistic side is saying that it has to always result in a 100% healing. That is wrong when John chapter 9 and 2 Corinthians 12 starting in verse 8 have to stand next to each other. Scripture preaches scripture. Rather than heal, God can allow for someone to live with a life long infirmity to preach a message of internal healing which is what He is really concerned with. God is not concerned with our physical bodies being healed just because He’s healer. Our understanding does not always line up with His. He heals to reveal to the heart who He is so that we can be reborn in the Spirit and One with Him. He heals the physical body to heal the soul, but can still heal the soul without ever needing to heal the physical body in the way we think He should. These physical bodies continue to die daily. Otherwise we would all be immortal when we became believers. We cannot manufacture faith on our own. It’s never a matter of not having enough faith. We don’t have any faith unless it is given to us by God. He distributes our faith no matter how much we think we can believe, He alone portions that out (Romans 12:3).
Now with that to the side I would like to continue my story. After a few years of being married and outta the house my cousin, Todd Carver (Pastor Todd Carver) approached me at a Father’s Day cookout at his brother Dan’s house. He told me that he was on a mission to birth Awaken church. At this point my wife and I were no longer attending church and I was spiritually depleted. It started out as playing guitar on the worship team. This continued for a time, but then one night he preached this sermon. He asked,”What is the one thing that you won’t give to God? What is it that’s holding you back that you know needs to go?” This stirred me up. I realized that I have never told God how I really feel. That night I began to pray, “God, I have no passion to live for you. I don’t really believe that you are that important to me like you should be. I cannot obey you, my thoughts and my heart are not really with you if I am to be honest. Lord, I love cigarettes and I love drinking and these things I know you hate. God, I can’t change and I know that I need to be in love with you. Father, would you please make my heart change? Will you please give me a burden to love you? Please Lord?!”
That night I felt in my Spirit that I needed to read the Bible from front to back. Jesus says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, which by the way I was not aware of at this point in my life that that was even scriptural. I needed my tired brain and my exhausted emotions to find rest. From that day on I would fall in love with Jesus one page at a time. I became flooded with gratitude and awe as the pages jumped out at me. I began to hear the Holy Spirit say: “I remember that time that you invited half of your school to your birthday party and nobody came…….but I was there. That day when you were driving home from college and you had a cigarette in your mouth and that David Crowder song came on and you began to think about my love, that was my love being sung over you. That’s why you wept so hard that you had to pull your truck over. Every time kids picked on you, I was there. When you felt rejected, I was there. When your friend’s punched you in the head after pretending to be your friend earlier that day…. I was there. I remember when Judas betrayed me with a kiss. All of that dark stuff that you thought a girl could carry that you can’t carry that keeps you awake at night that leaves you feeling ashamed of and depressed over, I took it all to the cross and died for you so that you can have peace. All of that stuff I blotted out when I took it to the cross. I rose again so that the old you can die and the new you can live in Me. When you were lying in the road that day and you gave up, I sent them women to pick you up because that is not the plan that I had for your life. I wrote the pages of your life before you were ever born. Son, I want to give you life more abundantly. And from this time on I never smoked another cigarette, I never got drunk and I changed my vocabulary immediately. I was what felt like to be a new man. Yes, even with my broken focusing abilities and memory issues. Yes, even when I feel afraid and overwhelmed I know I serve a God who rescued me and He’s with me always. I owe Him all that I am.
Those of us with ADHD can appear to have difficulty, but I have learned that God can use it to His advantage. Studies have even proven that whatever a person with ADHD is passionate about, it really captivates their focus. And I do believe that because Jesus has captured my heart that He has changed my prayer life for the better. He rules my mind. He has become my passion. Though I still struggle with other aspects God has brought others into my life that share the same type of battle and we pursue Jesus together through it. I am hoping for more of those opportunities. I want others with ADHD and anxiety disorders to know that there is hope and healing in Christ. I know that obedience and discipline are still necessary for me to go through. For God knows my frame and gives me the strength to do what He has called me to. I hope that this testimony helps those of you that know of this battle. I pray that you find Jesus through it.

So like I was saying before this is the part where I’ve seen people show a lot of curiosity. I would like to start by saying that I do not share this with the goal to side with being pro medication or anti medication. I believe that that is a decision that must be made between an individual and God for themselves. It would be legalistic and arrogant for me to tell you that it is a black or white issue. All I can do is share my personal experience and hope that others are helped in the same way that I was.
In my 2nd grade year when I was about 8 years old or so, I was at my worst with ADHD symptoms. I was battling just to get through school every day. After much concern and exhaustion my mother took me to a doctor. To make a long story short, after multiple consultations and testing I was in fact diagnosed with ADHD. The first medication that I took was Ritalin. I will try not to be biased with my story as I know there is a strong tension between those who are for pills and those who are against it.
Over the summer before my 3rd grade year I believe is when I started taking Ritalin multiple times a day. I can tell you that it did wonders for my focus. The stimulation from these meds helped my brain to focus like I never could before. I began to ace all of my classes. My social life with other kids improved. My teacher even made a personal phone call to my parents to commend my role model behavior in school. She said that I was excelling in all of the material and that I was a wonderful example to the other kids. I’m not trying to boast by any means, but for the first time in my life I felt like I could really do well like I had wanted to all along. I was able to focus enough to use the creative and artistic talents that God had given me. Things seemed to be great. Then I remember being moved to adderall because it was tiresome having to take pills three times a day. The adderall was supposed to be a one time a day thing. There was then another pill that I tried because adderall didn’t give me the same stimulation that the Ritalin did. It was kind of annoying having to go to the nurse’s office so frequently for meds. But after a while that became the norm for me. So I was put on another medication that I can’t remember the name of. This was delayed release and again was supposed to just be a once a day pill. I was soaring through school until 6th and 7th grade.
With a combination of other things that were going on in my life, a great struggle and dark time came over me that would then last until I was almost 25 years old.
I was still suffering with my focus. The pills I would soon learn were not a cure all. They could not fix me 100%. If I could put it this way I was like a race car with 4 flat tires. The Ritalin could give me 3 great tires, but that one I was missing still seemed to mess with me. With all of the rejection that I had faced early on, I formed a defense mechanism where I would pick on other kids, especially the popular kids, before they could pick on me first. I felt a compassion for the kids who smelled funny and who were slow because I figured they hurt like I did. I would cling to them. In the mix between picking on the popular kids and clinging to the outcast kids, the harassment and rejection only intensified. At one point when kids would bully me and punch me in the face, other kids would ask me “why don’t you fight back?” And I did not know how to tell them that I could not hit them back because I did not want them to feel how I was feeling through what they were doing to me. Looking back now, I realized that that was the compassion of Christ being revealed to me. To this day I am super careful with my words. Even when someone digs at me one of my core values is that I will never allow someone to feel the rejection that I felt in my life. I don’t care what you say to me, nobody deserves to feel that hell. I am trying to learn though how to walk in wisdom and still have a backbone.
I will say that all along I was brought up in church and believe I was saved. I had a fear of God. But I never thought I experienced Him. I only learned head knowledge of God, but was unsure of the heart knowledge of God. But at church too, I had family and church members telling me that pills were the devil and that they “believed in me”. I appreciate them “believing in me”, but I don’t think they realized that that caused me to feel like I had to live up to an expectation that I could not physically attain. This only added to my shame and sense of rejection.
So I would become deeply rooted in addictive behavior and would do almost anything to get stimulated and accepted. I used to sit in my bedroom secretly fantasizing about shooting myself in the head. I was afraid it would hurt but it felt so good to think about if anyone would come to my funeral. It was like if I could fantasize about what people would say about me then it could help me gain the self esteem that I was so desperate for. I got to a point where I didn’t care if I hurt others. I learned that if I couldn’t physically take down a bigger kid with my strength then I would beat his soul with my words. This was a destructive behavior that really became imbedded in me. I was even moved out of my mom’s house to live with my dad because at this point she had taken all that she could handle. And with what I was hoping would be a fresh start began to again become all too familiar.
During this time I was going to multiple counselors between my two parents different homes. I was being diagnosed with different disorders and medications. One thing led to another and due to a separate set of circumstances I ended up living with mom again. One thing that I told myself over and over again was if I could fall in love with a girl who could love me and accept me then I would be happy. I also carried a lot of guilt and shame for bad things I did. So I figured that if a girl could love me and accept all of my garbage, then I could be free. If a girl could love me in my brokenness then I would be happy. But every time I dated a girl they could smell my baggage from a mile away. They would flee and I could never figure out why. Then there was a girl named Kelley.
It’s funny because I was in 10th grade art class and I was goofing off with a buddy. The teacher got upset and moved me next to this very attractive girl named Kelley. Kelley and I talked a few times and when she started to come to my youth group we really hit things off. We decided to “go steady” or whatever you want to call it. I really liked Kelley. I was so infatuated with her that out of my need for love and acceptance I was telling her that I loved her in the first two weeks of dating. I did this a lot with girls and I think that’s why they got so spooked. But this girl stuck it out and basically told me, “shut up. You don’t love me yet.” I fell even more in love with her because of how honest and blunt she was. But eventually my addictive and impulsive behavior kept getting me into trouble and put a strain on getting to hangout with Kelley. Her and I would have phone conversations for hours and I would begin to pour out the deep, shameful things I had done in my life. I believed that if she could accept it that I would be free from the prison cell in my head. I would end up making a phone call to her one day that ended up almost taking my life.
We were arguing because I had gotten into trouble with my mom and when Kelley heard me tell her that we couldn’t hang out again for some time I still remember her words, “David I don’t think I can do this anymore.” And suddenly I remember dropping the phone. It felt as if someone had ripped my soul out of my body. Flooded with every emotion you can imagine I began running down the road. The way I felt inside can only be explained like when the sun is shining but then thick clouds come in and take the sunshine away. Everything in me became dark and dull. I started screaming. I remember saying in my head that nobody will ever accept me. The one person who was going to save me just gave up on me. This dose of rejection surely was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had snapped and was ready to die. I laid down collapsed and exhausted in the middle of the road. I was on a blind hill and I knew if someone came along at 55mph they had no time to stop. I did not care because the pain would finally stop. Day and night for years the chains were heavy and I was tired. Then these two women stopped and picked me up out of the road and took me home. That day I decided to admit myself with parental permission to a juvenile home where I could be diagnosed and treated.
Amazingly, Kelley decided not to give up on me. When I came back home I distanced myself from her because I was afraid she would eventually give up on me. During this time I was diagnosed with bipolar. From the time I was in 2nd grade until 11th grade when this nervous breakdown happened I had been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiance Disorder, ADHD, Bipolar and generalized anxiety disorder. I had been on Ritalin, adderall, another one I can’t remember, depakote, Xanax and a couple others. I couldn’t sleep at night. I was afraid all of the time. Eventually Kelley and I got married and even in our first few years of marriage I was on heavy medication. They were anti psychotic drugs. My eyes were half closed all of the time. I had no emotions. As a matter of fact when I was in that group home, another kid punched me in the face and I wasn’t even mad. I actually didn’t even care. I just walked away and sat down. Throughout the next couple of years I would experience different problems in my nervous system and permanent damage in my body due to the side effects of some of the medications that I recently received a lawsuit settlement for. Still struggling to find acceptance and a solution to my mental health something had to change. I eventually would realize that pills can not heal rejection, fear and a longing for acceptance. I also needed a way to help my brain focus without the havoc of medication that I endured.
And in saying this, I believe this is a good place to stop for now. In the next blog I will share how Jesus came on the stage and forever changed my life.

So I’ve decided to share my personal testimony about my life with ADD. There are different points that I want to hit so each blog I write will be on a different point. Today I am writing on my negative experiences with ADD and the emotional trauma that it has caused. The next blog I would like to share my experiences with medications and the events leading up to and after when I dabbled with suicide. Then I would like to share how and what happened once Jesus came into the picture in the blog after that. If you have any questions as we go along please feel free to contact me with questions and I would love to answer. I want to see as many people helped and healed in Christ as possible.
“Dave, stop talking and watch the ball!” “Graham, stop picking the flowers and get your head in the game!” Perhaps one of the memories that would really sting were the words of my 7th grade modified basketball coach. I still remember that night when I lost focus with my eyes stared at the wall as I was thinking of things not even remotely related to our basketball practice. In frustration as the coach was trying to teach us he hurled the basketball at me. At the last second I caught the ball and his words were, “I swear to God, Graham, the next time you aren’t paying attention to this practice I’ll bust your friggin’ nose with that basketball!” I suffered severely in my middle school years. The kids on my football and basketball team (both with the same coach) would target me. I was the reason we lost. I was the one that looked like a “fag” with my hair cut. I was the main character in our coach’s jokes. He actually cracked an explicitly sexual joke on the bus ride home after a game one night and said that I was the nasty character with the punch line. I would often times bury myself in my music on my CD player to escape. Yet my team mates would yank my headphones off and punch me in the head. They’d slap me in the face and call me names I didn’t realize existed but cut me open like a filet knife. By the way I will mention that these stories I share were always in between trying different medications and methods of dealing with my array of mental disorders that doctors summed up as ADHD (which I still believe was the ring leader of them all), Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Bipolar and General Anxiety disorder. All which I had been put on multiple medications. Enough of that for now because I will touch on that in the next blog.
Things changed a little in high school because kids tend to view you a lot different when your a foot taller than them and you don’t mind resorting to violence. At least that was my mentality up until 10th grade until I met my wife that year. That’s for later though.
I had already earned a bad rap from my early childhood into my teenage years. No matter what I did I could not pay attention for very long to what I was doing. If it was an activity or a class or you name it, if it’s not where the action was at then I mentally checked out. It was as and still is to this day as automatic as sneezing or breathing, but with age and learning to cope with it I have a better understanding of what’s important and what needs my attention. My childhood years were awful in the area of social interaction. Although I must say that there were other contributing factors with circumstances in my life that led to my path of anger and hardship. I’ll refrain from sharing for the sake of staying on point. I will try to keep this as one complete story which is a huge accomplishment in itself. Those of us with ADD tend to always start things with great zeal only to get distracted and forget to ever come back to them again.
Kids did not necessarily want to be friends with the kid who was always getting into trouble with the teacher. All of the way through second grade my life was hell. I couldn’t pay attention in school or at home. I had a lot of internal anger that came from the frustration and pain of not being able to do and be what was required of me. Parent teacher conferences were miserable. I would say they equated to getting a root canal done because I knew there wasn’t much good to be shared. There was a change from 2nd to 3rd grade and that does have to do with medication, but again that’s for later. Kids would walk over to me and punch me in the face because I would be obnoxiously loud. There was always so much noise going on inside of my head even when we were in a dead silent library class. Even to this day I experience these feelings from time to time. I have a hard time going into busy stores because when there’s a lot going on I can become overloaded by the stimuli and it makes me anxious. (Please note that this series of blogs has an amazing conclusion so please don’t pity me. I have found freedom through it all, but I will save the best for last). Even in writing this blog I have to stop and re read where I’m going over the last few sentences because I bunny trailed a little when I put that sentence into parentheses and I forgot where I was going. This happens quite regularly. Oh yes, back to the loud outbursts… I often times can become so over excited that it results in a surge of high energy and excitement. It was worse as a child because I didn’t understand it. Other kids didn’t like another kid who didn’t know when to quit laughing at the joke that was told 20 minutes ago. They didn’t like when I was louder than necessary either. Even the small jokes got too big of a laugh from me. Everything was funny to me or I was always trying to be the one working up an energy for excitement where it wasn’t needed or necessary and even when it was unnecessary. I can tell you that from my personal experience my ADD had in the past made me very vulnerable to addiction. From everything like pornography to alcohol and even video games. I would and still at times crave a desire for stimulation, but the problem is that those with ADD don’t know how much is enough. I would often times burn myself out into exhaustion. I have had to start making to do lists to keep with me because when someone tells me something it does not always make it into the “this is important” part of my brain. I’ve actually dealt with it so much that I can sense a red flag when I know that I’m going to be vulnerable to lose my focus or forget something so I have to write it down.
Now here’s the funny part that I had always found hard to explain. Those of us with ADD/ADHD can go into a hyper focus. We can become so fixated and so focused on one thing that we can tune everything else out. This is especially true when it is something that keeps our interest. I could not pay attention in math to save my life, yet I could sit in my room with a guitar for anywheres from 12-14 hours on a Saturday playing the same melodic riff over and over and over and over again. Many times when I have conversation with my wife she has to be the only one thing I’m focused on or I will not remember our conversation. Especially if something else I like is in the background like a football game. My brain thinks I can do both, but when she gently hints around what we discussed fully expecting me to know what she’s talking about and I have that deer in the headlights look, it never goes well. I also do not multi task well. I tend to accomplish things in a “wing it” fashion. If I know that I need to clean my messy garage and I try to figure it out as I go, I will start out by being filled with anxiety because I can’t figure out where to start. My indecision cripples me and I will go do something different because it’s less frustrating than trying to figure out where to start on my garage. Or if I do start cleaning it I will happen to glance at my car and see a speck of bird poop on it and I say “hey I need to clean that I’ll just come back to the garage.” Then on my journey to find wipes to clean the bird’s mess I notice Burger King wrappers inside the car. So I will start cleaning the inside of the car only to get very frustrated when I cannot remember the initial reason for going inside the car (wipes to clean bird poo). And then to try to remember that I was cleaning the garage, you can forget it. By this time the 2 hour window I had to clean my garage is now gone because of a distraction and I’m going to be late to church.
One last thing that I struggle with even to today is when I experience emotional outbursts because I get jarred out of a hyper focus moment or anxious from a transition in emotions. Let’s just say that I am super focused on a song I am writing and am just out in La La land and my son screams. I feel this jar as I am spooked out of my trance of concentration and I become flooded with anger and frustration. Through age and the power of the fruits of the Holy Spirit I have dramatically made leaps and bounds in getting better in this area. Also I have personally experienced God doing incredible things through that “hyper focus” trance in my prayer times with Him. One thing is for sure, I am by no means perfect but I believe we serve the One who is.
I hate to stop in such a random spot but I need to wrap this up for today as I have today off and need to get some other things done. But in the next blog I will share my experiences with meds and experiences that happened up until Jesus came into my life. Again if you have questions or comments or you want to know more please ask or share. I would love to respond and give any help that I can.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton