The Struggles (My Testimony Part 1)

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.