Undisciplined, Traumatized, Or Mentally Ill? I Couldn't Decide

It was a sunny October afternoon, a month into my senior year of high school.

That’s usually when kids are thinking about hopes, dreams—maybe even a rough plan for what comes next.

I couldn't think about any of that.

There was no point.

I just needed to make it out of my parents’ house alive.

After that, maybe I could figure something out.

I had an afterschool job at a fast food place on the edge of our neighborhood, and I was hustling home from school to change into my uniform. Walking across our driveway I noticed a couple of cardboard boxes had been added to the junk on the porch.

My family's house was that house in the neighborhood. Random things on the porch, or in the yard. Peeling paint. Broken garage door. You get the picture. As I walked up to the front door, I glanced at the boxes and froze. Inside were all of my personal belongings.

"What a coincidence, dad," I thought. "I've had enough of you, too."

As you might guess, a long, painful backstory preceded my banishment. I might tell that story one day (when we're both up for the 80,000 words it'd likely take). Right now it would only get in the way. So if you'll just keep in mind my inauspicious launch into adulthood, and trust that the backstory is full of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), you'll have the background you need.

No Map, No Compass

It was 1980 when I walked away from my dad's house for good. If there were resources that might've helped my situation, they were nowhere in sight. I accepted a few offers of assistance from friends or acquaintances. In the end that help created setbacks and long-term problems. Mostly I did whatever I had to do to make it from one day to the next. It would be a while before I could do more than dream about longer term goals.

I struggled well into my 30s, economically, emotionally and socially. Eventually, I earned a degree, landed a well-paying job and worked my way into the middle class in most respects.

I’d done all the things successful adults are supposed to do—and built, on my own, a life my parents were never equipped to lead me toward. Still, no matter what I did to be the same as everyone else, I felt different from most other people. I had set my sights on and attained a succession of goals that each made me a part of something. Instead, I felt apart.

Maybe I hadn't overcome all those ACEs.

I wasn't depressed or anxious. If anyone had forced me to describe my thoughts or problems then, I might've said something about feeling uncomfortable or annoyed over things no one else complained about. I felt guilty about spending too much of the day off track vs on task. I constantly overworked to make up for lost or wasted time, and to meet someone else's idea of a realistic deadline.

But, my work earned accolades and decent bonuses. I treated the rest as a "me" problem that no one else needed to know about.

I didn't see how therapy would help with my work problems, but maybe I had baggage. Perhaps going to therapy could make me feel more connected to others? This internal debate was cut short when the Great Recession killed my job, my annoying workplace, and my ability to pay for therapy.

For the next 15-ish years, I bumped along as best I could. I guess I had my struggles and quirks, but I designed a day-to-day that worked well enough most days. I was grossly underearning, though.

Breaking Point

About four years ago, everything changed at once—mostly not in a good way.

I moved to a new town where I knew no one, disconnecting from the friend group I'd built over the preceding years. My lifestyle changed. I struggled economically and with work. My partner carried the financial load, and was angry all the time. Often with me, because my business was underearning and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Other times I was an undeserving but convenient target.

In a new town, where I knew no one, my partner's anger and criticism was my only emotional input. I internalized it all, feeling darker and more hopeless than I had in decades. Although I hated where we were living, I struggled to string together the steps necessary to go somewhere else for an afternoon. I wasn't earning enough that I had many options, but it really didn't matter what was or wasn't available. Sinking further and further inside myself was all I felt like doing.

What I did recognize was that, as powerless as I felt, I was the only one likely to try to change the situation. I wasn't sure about the source of my "paralysis." While my partner's actions provoked great emotional distress, I knew in my gut that something deeper was going on. I needed to do whatever I could to feel better, even if it wouldn't permanently fix the entire situation, and even if meant getting on head meds or talking to a therapist.

For both our sakes, I need to skip over a bunch of details so we can get to those that are important to this post. Here’s what I think is important for you to take away from my experience with therapy and diagnosis:

• Only after life became very dark did I prioritize therapy, despite my financial situation. I spent thousands before discovering that mental health wasn't at the heart of my struggles.
• Neither I nor the psychiatrist I saw were educated or unbiased enough to realize that I was a neurodivergent thinker with ADHD. Not an anxiety disorder. As a result, I was improperly medicated.
• I was overwhelmed with anxiety as I tried, as a neurodivergent person, to navigate life in a completely new environment with a fearful, angry, and hypercritical partner. We were both frustrated by my inability to behave as a neurotypical person might.
• The therapist I saw suggested I likely had ADHD only after a year of weekly sessions. She herself had ADHD, and had children with ADHD.
• The education and experience required as a therapist in my opinion biases a person toward psychotherapy as the solution for emotional distress.
• The day-to-day reality for a person with ADHD—especially a woman—looks nothing like what most people know about ADHD, including (and especially) therapists or psychiatrists.
• The older a person is—whether mental health professional, neurotypical or neurodivergent—the more likely it is that they suffer from bias or lack of understanding around ADHD.

Not Hyper? Not ADHD. Right?

My oldest son grew up in the 90s. Unlike when I was in school, we knew ADHD existed. But beyond that all I knew was the stereotype: the hyperactive 7-year-old boy that annoys the teacher and disrupts the entire class.

Although my son had begun to quietly disrupt class, he wasn't hyperactive at all. When ADHD was suggested, I protested the same way every ill-informed adult does. He can pay attention when he wants to, I said. He'll play video games for hours, for example. When people say these things it's because they don't understand how an ADHD brain works, or what its typical coping mechanisms and struggles look like.

Even those of us alive in the 90s, when awareness of ADHD began growing exponentially, likely have a surface-level understanding. If you grew up before that, you, your family, teachers, and employers might've simply decided you were a loser. Or, one of the other pejoratives my post title suggested.

If you were self-confident and very lucky, you might've embraced your ADHD quirks without ever knowing their source. But that was not the reality for most of us. We have lost years. Decades, even.

If only we had known sooner we could have started doing things then that worked with our neurodivergent brains. Instead of taking the wrong medications. Or sitting through session after session with a therapist and never getting to the heart of the matter. One 80+ year old woman shared that she had been confined to a psychiatric hospital. She was never mentally ill—it was ADHD all along.

This post is aimed at spreading awareness. I want us all to understand what it is and what it isn't. I want you to be able to advocate for yourself or someone you love, if you encounter a mental health professional or anyone else with a bias or a lack of information around ADHD.

No, it probably won't hurt to go to therapy IF you have a good therapist and the money to pay for it. But if you have ADHD and don't know it, and you think childhood trauma or mental illness are behind your thoughts and behavior, therapy alone isn't likely to help.

Here are some common experiences that people often attribute solely to mental health issues—but which can also be signs of ADHD:

• Chronic anxiety
• Mood swings
• Racing thoughts
• Social withdrawal
• Procrastination and avoidance
• Low self-esteem or constant self-blame
• Impulsivity
• Perfectionism
• Sleep problems
• Emotional overreaction to small setbacks

If This Sounds Familiar

If you’ve blamed yourself for not being more focused, more “normal” or living up to your potential—I get it.

If your efforts to fix things have fallen short and made you feel more broken, I’ve been there.

And if you're wondering whether there’s more to your story than a label or diagnosis you've been carrying—I'm sure there is.

It might not be what you think.

But I promise you, it’s worth finding out.

You're not alone, and you're not broken.