I write, and talk, a lot about my struggles with depression, but I often refer to my mental health problemS for a reason, to whit, depression ain’t the only one.
A few years ago I asked my mother, “Which of us would they have tried to dope up for ADD, if that was a thing, when we were kids?”
“You and your (brother’s name redacted) for sure. (Other brother’s name redacted) was okay.”
A few months ago Dr. Headshrinker asked me, “Have you ever been tested for ADHD?”
I have not. When I was a kid, ADHD was known as “being a boy.” Or, perhaps, “being a bright, energetic boy who needs intellectual stimulation, not rote learning drudgery.”
More seriously, although I haven’t been tested, she and I work from the assumption that I’m ADHD, and we’ve worked together long enough for her to make the diagnosis.
Today I told her I’m writing my memoirs and she asked if I was also writing about the ADHD. I really haven’t, and I explained that it wasn’t something I was even thinking about.
So, of course, she dropped a bomb on me. It turns out that ADHD is pretty common amongst depressives. Or maybe it’s that depression is pretty common amongst the ADHD crowd.
Just what I needed, got another serious mental health problem to work on, and, even better, one that manifested earlier, i.e. by the time I was in grade one.
You know, I prefer my pairings to be a nice cup of sweetened tea and a good cigar, not clinical depression and ADHD.
Not that I’m complaining. Much. I just got a whole new world of tales to tell, and content to create.
