My psychiatrist yelled at me

Okay, okay. She didn’t yell.

She admonished.

It was a gentle nudge, a plea to try something different, something scary. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We haven’t been properly introduced.

Hi

I’m Tamra. I’m a mom. I have three boys, none of it which are hitting double digits just yet. I’m a freelance writer/editor and work under a pseudonym, have for years.

In July 2018, I was diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and anxiety. I wrote about it here on Medium in March 2019 because it was hard for me to ask for help, and I thought maybe by sharing my experience, I could help someone. The time frame is important because here it is, early 2020, and I’m just beginning to find footing.

What help looks like

In 2018, I was drowning in ADHD-caused depression and anxiety. The worst part was I had no idea.

I knew something was off. I suspected the day-to-day shouldn’t continuously feel like running uphill on ice without shoes, but everyone else seemed to handle it fine.

Why did I suck at life in general? As it turned out, I didn’t. I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t even lazy or stupid, and I sincerely thought I was.

I had ADHD. I was 33-years-old, a mother of three, attempting to run a home and build a business, and I was doing it all with NONE of the right tools. I had never been diagnosed. I was convinced life would never get better. I mean, why would it? It had been a downward spiral for as long as I could remember but wasn’t that normal, and I didn’t handle it as well as others? Turns out, no.

For me, help looked like visiting my doctor and being honest. It included trying medications, some of which didn’t work well at all and scared me. It became referrals to a psychiatrist and a therapist. Help looked like finding people I could trust that could help me with the right tools; people that helped me fill my toolbox.

It took time, more time than I thought it would; 2018 to present. That brings me back to my psychiatrist.

Reshaping my outlook

I use two medications. One is a daily antidepressant. It helps a lot with “the blues” and stabilizing mood.

The other is an ADHD-specific medication prescribed “as needed.” That last part was tricky for me, and I didn’t even know it.

My psychiatrist pointed out that I hadn’t refilled the ADHD-specific prescription since August of last year. She asked if I’d used it all. I said no, I still had about 12 pills in the bottle at home. She paused a moment and said, “Out of 30?” I nodded in confirmation.

“Why are you taking it so little?” she asked. “Does it help?”

I smiled, thinking about the difference when I do use it.

“Oh my gosh, yes,” I said. “Everything gets easier, and the day-to-day becomes much more manageable. I can focus on one task and prioritize and organize without tripping over myself mentally. It feels like it’s a precious resource. I don’t want to waste it, so I only use it when I really, really struggle.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I took “as needed” to an extreme without realizing it. A frank discussion about perception, outlook, and how untreated ADHD or improperly treated ADHD can contribute to depression followed. By the time I left the office, I realized my outlook needed an adjustment.

I can’t explain why, but when it comes to prescriptions, I always operate under the assumption that less is better, which isn’t wrong. But when I deprive myself of something that positively changes my quality of life, less is not always better.

Is medication the only viable treatment for ADHD and co-occurring depression and anxiety? No.

But I know how it feels to get a diagnosis, start to get help, see improvement, and then lose it because of costs. It hurts more and on a deeper level than going through life, thinking you’re just an incapable idiot. I remember wishing I’d never found out what was “wrong” with me because to lose help over lack of money… it felt so, so wrong. You might be able to relate.

The ADHD juggle

As I left my appointment and contemplated the conversation, it occurred to me that ADHDers face a unique struggle. We are always trying to juggle the hundreds of things in our brains, and we drop some of those things. Actually, we drop a lot of them. We get down on ourselves because other people don’t seem to have the same struggle and can juggle like pros almost all the time while we’re dropping things every few minutes and teeter-tottering to stay upright.

Can we get that one thing that dropped with our foot while still juggling the rest? We try, and when we drop all the things, we don’t see the dozens upon dozens of things that hit the floor or how amazing it was that we were juggling that much for as long as we did; we just see failure.

It’s also easy to see “as needed” as meaning after the things have dropped, which is counterproductive when you think about it.

So, I’m giving myself permission to use the tools I have before I drop the things. And that is really hard to do, but I think it’s an important step.