ADHD and Me: Part 1, Impulsivity.

Ready, FIRE!, Aim

Hello there! Welcome to my multi-part series where I discuss living with ADHD, and how the various symptoms of ADHD affect me, and I experience them. In this series I am going to examine the various ways ADHD affects me, and also how I balance living home, work, and fun with a brain that has difficulties working within the various constraints the society expects from an adult human individual.

A quick disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I am merely a person who was born with ADHD (as well as a few other medical conditions), and I am writing about and from my own experience. In no way should this be taken as a medical diagnosis, nor should it be viewed as a typical or atypical of ADHD. It is also not a guide to managing ADHD. This series is simply how I have experienced ADHD, and how it continues to specifically affect me today.

Today in the first part of this series, I will look at impulsivity. Before we begin with my story, lets first examine what exactly “impulsivity” actually means. From Merriam-Webster:

1 : having the power of or actually driving or impelling

2 a : arising from an impulse

b : prone to act on impulse

3 : acting momentarily

In regards to ADHD, definitions 2 a, 2 b, and 3 are the most relevant. Further, the psychiatric definition as defined by The Psychiatric Times as thus:

“ a wide range of actions that are poorly conceived, prematurely expressed, unduly risky, or inappropriate to the situation and that often result in undesirable outcomes, or more simply put, a tendency to act prematurely and without foresight.”

Hopefully now you have an understanding of the concept of impulsivity. So how does that relate to living with ADHD? I’ll explain, from the beginning. And I mean really from the beginning.

When I was still a very small child, my mother began to notice that I was different from other children. I had a strong tendency to “act out”, or even do things without really any forethought or understanding of the consequences of my actions. While all young children do this to varying degrees, I displayed these traits to an exceptional degree. Most people are familiar with “The Terrible Twos”. For my mother and my father, The Terrible Twos became “The Terrible Threes” and “The Terrible Fours”. Where most children grew out of that phase, I didn’t. I would go from being quiet and calm with a toy or a book, to biting other children who didn’t do what I wanted them to do.

That last thing in particular got me thrown out of every major day-care center in the Western Detroit suburbs. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I was a bit of a hellraiser when I was 4.

Obviously this posed a problem for my parents. If they couldn’t send me off to day-care, they really couldn’t go to work. That, combined with the fact that my parents had divorced and were sharing custody of me at the time, and the fact we were a lower middle class family, meant that I was reeking havoc on their schedules and ability to provide for me. Plus school was about a year away, and it just wasn’t a good thing to have a kid running around biting other kids. So, off to the doctor’s office we went. And that is where the journey with ADHD officially began.

I fondly remember the trips to the doctor’s office. My mother less so. When I was age 5, my mother gained custody over me, and I went to live with her. We also lived with my great aunt, who assisted with helping to care for me. If my great aunt was alive today, she probably could tell you how much of a pian it was going to the doctor’s office too. I of course, don’t remember any of this. What my brain remembers is the toys I got from going. I don’t remember the times I cried because I was afraid of the needles, the tongue depressors, the stethoscopes, ect. Paradoxically, once we arrived, I wanted to touch everything, I wanted to explore all the rooms, being naturally curious. If my mother or great aunt didn’t watch me intently, I could wind up going into rooms while they were occupied with people, or playing with objects in the doctor’s office that just really shouldn’t be played with. Where most kids could be entertained with a book or a toy, I would grow tired of those things and start making my own stories. I’m touching on inattentiveness here, which I’ll cover in another post, but where this matters is that most kids were content to sit and daydream, I wanted to act on my daydreams.

The part I emphasized is very important. I just simply wasn’t understanding the consequences of my behavior. Tools and medical equipment aren’t toys, and touching them contaminates them. Entering rooms, possibly with other patients, violates their privacy. All of these are bad, and were part of the reason why I was visiting the doctor in the first place.

My issues with impulsiveness didn’t end there. Once kindergarten had started, I began to experience the social repercussions of impulsivity. I.. didn’t make many friends because I had an issue with waiting my turn. Sit me down with a book and I would devour it. Sit me down for a game or a chat, and I had to get the first and last words or turn in. I also had a lot of difficulties understanding the flow of conversation. I remember listening to adults and always wanting to get a word or two in. I also remember having difficulties with getting people’s attention. I would tap shoulders, say “Hello” until you paid attention to me, or even scream a couple times.

All of this had ramifications for me, and it didn’t help that I was very feminine boy too. Most children shied away from me, or ignored me. I mostly withdrew from social life, burying myself in books and video games. I didn’t fully learn all of the ins and outs of social cues until much later in my life.

Home life was difficult too. I would end up making messes with my toys, which would anger my mother and great aunt. Impulsivity dictated that I was in constant motion, darting from one toy to the next. I used to turn the entire house into a playscape, making it difficult for my two guardians to walk through the toyland. One time I got the idea to turn the hallway into a parade. I arranged all my toys into a single file line. I made banners out of construction paper. Toilet paper became confetti. It was a great joyful scene, filled with fun and merriment. At least until my mom got home. She wasn’t too happy.

Issues like these continued throughout my childhood. Adolescence was no different. Once I reached puberty, the intersection of bi-polar disorder, ADHD, and gender dysphoria all began to manifest. Where impulses involving toys and conversations dominated my childhood, now impulses involving my identity, my sexuality, and my social life all began to take their toll. Middle school was Hell, high school was worse.

Where normal teenagers have to deal with all of the pressures of puberty and becoming an adult, I dealt with all of that in a brain that just didn’t really seem to understand what was appropriate for it to be doing at any given time. I said and did things that I regret, deeply. I clung to people emotionally. I had issues regarding the boundaries with other people. It also didn’t help that I developed an obsession with video games. My grades plummeted, and I was barely able to function in school. My teachers must still be baffled by me. I tested comprehension of subjects much higher than my peers, but my grades didn’t reflect that. At that time, I was much more interested in catching all 151 Pokemon or collecting Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. I frequently got in trouble for playing with those things in class as a teenager. Or saying things I just really shouldn’t. I did end up scraping by enough that I did earn my diploma, albeit during the middle of the summer with make-up classes.

It wouldn’t be until after high school, after my first serious relationship, that I began to fully understand how ADHD and impulsivity were affecting me. My relationship with that person ended as an unmitigated disaster, and I blame myself for what happened. It was only through reflecting on that relationship did I begin to understand how my impulsivity affected my life. I understood that my temper hurt her, and the things I said and did without thinking put a massive strain on the relationship. Looking back, it’s not a surprise that it failed. So at 21, I began the process of coming to terms with impulsivity.

Yet still I didn’t learn. I thought I could manage it on my own. I figured I was the master of my own destiny, and that I could control it fully by the force of my own will. What I didn’t learn until age 28 was that, when you have a neurodevelopmental disorder, you don’t actually fully in control all of your actions. You’re aware of your problems, you try not to do them, yet you still do those things. It took losing a job I passionately cared about and a trip to the psychiatric ward of a hospital to finally seek out the help I need.

At this point in my life, I had been on ADHD medications before. We tried a few different options as a child, but they had either adverse side effects or they just didn’t work. I had been off ADHD medications for at least 10 years at this point. After an examination, my psychiatrist diagnosed me with bi-polar disorder II and combined-type ADHD. She placed me on Latuda and Strattera, medications which would have a drastic effect on my life. Suddenly the urge to do everything right now was severely reduced. I could think more clearly, and I could also begin to process and plan better. It was like two of the three giant weights I carry were lifted off of my back. I wouldn’t deal with the last weight till I was 30, and that’s a story for another post.

Things were much clearer now. I’m not sure if this is what neurotypical people experience, but it’s a hell of a lot better than before. Simply put, Straterra changed my life.

With that said, I still have issues with impulsivity sometimes. Even though I am now much more capable of focusing, it doesn’t mean that I always do it well. I’ve had a few instances where my impulsivity has gotten me in trouble. These instances are rare and isolated, but they still happen. I really feel bad about one instance. The place where I work has bags you can borrow when your inside the store. Your not supposed to carry those bags outside the store though. I had a customer challenge me on that policy once, and I grabbed the bag right out of her hands. It’s a classic case of “Ready, FIRE!, Aim” that you hear people who have ADHD or treat ADHD talk about. I thought in that exact moment that the store’s interest was best, and I acted upon that thought without really thinking about it. And it was the absolutely wrong thing to do.

Fortunately though, as I mentioned, things like that are extremely rare. I’ve developed specific coping mechanisms to make sure that I don’t rip things out of people’s hands. Shamatha, also known as mindfulness meditation, helps out a lot. I am also much more mindful of what I am doing. I regularly ask myself whether the current thing I’m doing is the right thing to do. And when faced with a stressful situation, I’ve also learned that it’s important not to over-commit to something. It’s actually possible to walk out of a bad situation if you recognize the mistake you made isn’t past the point of no return. Something which previously, I would do with regularity.

I’ve also come to learn that there are certain times where impulsivity is necessary. Where other people need to stop and think about a situation, I let myself spring into action in those situations. A good example of this is from this past Christmas season. One time I noticed that while we were very busy at work, we were running out of shopping carts. Since the task I was currently assigned to was not very important, I immediately and without hesitation started bringing in carts for the customers. Not only were the customers happy since they had carts to fill with merchandise, my managers were happy too since the customers were able to continue shopping without any disruptions. I’ve found that working in the retail industry gives me many opportunities to take advantage of my impusivity.

That is really the key I have found. I’ll close this post with that thought. The key to impulsivity is learning when to use it. That is why ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. My brain just didn’t develop the tools it needed to know when to act and when not to act until much later than most people. Knowing of course, is half the battle.