Depression, meet ADHD
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Chicken and egg or conjugal bedmates?
If you’ve engaged with any of my recent content, you likely noticed that mental health and wellness has been a common thread. In spite of my insecurities of sharing my writing — let alone my experience with depression— with a wider audience, I’ve been met with nothing but support. Hell, some friends that I haven’t spoken to in years have even reached out to share stories of their own struggles.
And it’s in that spirit of openness and solidarity that I’d like to continue sharing my journey of self-discovery and healing.
Focusing is hard, okay?
For a long time, I’ve known that I had issues with attention and concentration—or lack thereof. In university, for example, I remember meeting up for coffee with friends and having difficulty staying focused on the conversation. My attention would often be pulled away by a passing car, or my mind would wander to some trivial matter, like why so many orangutans have large folds of skin on the side of their face.
As soon as I finished my coffee, I would begin tearing at the rim of my paper cup. And by the end of the conversation, the cup would be shredded into hundreds of tiny pieces. I had to give my hands something to do, or I would risk coming across as disinterested or antsy.
It wasn’t that the conversations weren’t interesting or that I didn’t want to be there. But it was only by fidgeting or giving myself something to do that I could truly feel present in the conversation.
This inability to focus manifested itself in other ways as well, some of which have only appeared over the last few years:
- Taking up new hobbies, only to lose interest in them after a few days
- Finding it difficult to retain information I read or heard—auditory information is especially difficult
- Leaving things to the last minute and using the pressure of a deadline to motivate me
- Being unable to focus on a TV show or movie without subtitles
- Interrupting other people during conversations because I know what they want to say
- Not listening to what other people are saying because I’m waiting for a…
