Morning coffee with a little blue and white pill…

I start my day every day with a little blue and white pill; its noble goal is to calm, connect and regulate the pathways in my brain. It’s a chemical that I use to produce some semblance of a blueprint to guide my thoughts.

It is very common for ADHD in women to go undiagnosed. I had created structure and coping mechanisms that allowed me to function, even if that level of function was riddled with fractures. As long as I can remember, I have suffered from perfection paralysis and thrived in executing tasks at the last minute after a great deal of procrastination. Once I had my tiny human, the rickety frame on which I had balanced my life skills started to fall apart.

Little by little, or rather very quickly, depending on who you ask, it became evident that I was no longer coping. I couldn’t remember to eat. Wet laundry would sit in the washing machine for days (ew…). I would forget to feed the dogs or pack diapers for an outing. While having a baby is a massive change for anyone, it turned out that having a baby for me meant that my brain no longer had the same crutch of regularity. This new variable, this new adorable unpredictable variable, meant my brain needed to function independently. Something it wasn’t capable of doing.

I was suffering from scattered thoughts and beginning to attribute these minor mishaps as reflections of who I was. Each misstep, every reminder received, each forgotten pacifier, and every missed appointment chipped away at my identity and self-worth. I was becoming a shell of myself.

But for me, it was a specific news event that triggered me to seek help.

A family of 4 had a regular routine. Mom would take the preschooler in the morning and drop him off at school. Dad would take the baby and drop them off at daycare. And each parent would then go to work.

Due to some scheduling conflicts, on this particular morning, Dad asked Mom if she could also drop off the baby.

They went about their morning routine, and then when Mom went to leave work, she came to her horrific realization that she never dropped off her baby at daycare. She had forgotten.

Her baby didn't survive.

I have generalized the story because I don't want to call attention to this specific family. It's not the intention of my post. But if you search the internet, this isn't as uncommon as you would hope it would be.

This tragedy in another family's life prompted me to seek help. Not because I couldn't imagine ever being that negligent. On the contrary, it struck me that I could envision doing exactly that. It didn't seem unimaginable that I would drive to work in a state of auto-pilot and forget that I had my son in the backseat.

Fortunately, most of my immediate family is diagnosed with ADHD, so it wasn’t unfamiliar territory for me. My time spent in the mental space of being a failure was relatively short-lived. Not non-existent, but not insurmountable. This is not a luxury that all women experience. Many women go undiagnosed for many years, and women, especially mothers, attribute a great deal of their personal value to having their "shit together."

After a few appointments and sorting out the correct dose, it turns out you don’t need a map to think. The tiny blue and white pill did not provide me with a blueprint to rebuild the framework I had before. It didn't construct a set of lists or a colour-coded calendar. It created a new reality where my thoughts progress and conclude. Where one thought can persist at a time and get the total value of my intellect and attention without another idea screaming in the background

-- Where the sound of static is no longer emitting a mental echo.

This isn't to say medication is the right choice for everyone, but that there isn't anything wrong if it is the right choice for you. I don't take my ADHD medication to power through a history paper, although I have been known to do so in the past. I take it for the clarity that most people may not realize isn't automatically afforded to everyone.

So, I start my day with a little blue and white pill because I live with ADHD.

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