12/01/2021
Medication is different for everyone, this has been my experience so far on week 2.
Normally I’m walking around with 10 TV screens in my head, trying to watch them all at once. I didn’t know this until I started medication. They are multiple internal monologues, competing, running alongside each other and cutting each other off, occasionally silenced by a loud burst of whatever song is stuck in my head that day. The voices are all my tasks for the day and my fears of forgetting them or dropping a ball by not managing time in the most efficient way. They’re also my tasks for the week, future possibilities, and past events.
10-20 minutes into taking my pills (Concerta) the voices are gone. I had no idea how many I was carrying, and I had no idea how much stress they were causing me. I felt an anxiety that I didn’t even know I had, just gone.
I also felt like I’d had a lobotomy; my head was so quiet it was unnerving. I thought all the stuff I was carrying around was necessary to get me through the day, and now it’s gone. Not just the voices but the obsessive (now I see) coping mechanisms I’d built around them; how not to make mistakes when I’m reading or writing an email, or how not to be late. Making few mistakes has become a part of my identity. and I had worked so hard at it, had to work hard at it. And now I was going to make spelling errors like everyone else. Now I might be late.
My head felt vacant. But what had really happened is that everything I’d been carrying around had been put into boxes I could access at will. I was no longer watching 10 TVs, I have just one now, and a remote.
This remote is the key thing I’ve been lacking. Now I can work at any time at the drop of a hat. Now I can make a decision quickly without the other voices casting doubt, giving other options, and causing paralysis. Now, time itself has slowed to a manageable pace. I’m not getting nasty surprises when I look back at the clock; instead of skipping unpredictably from 15.05 to 15.45, it’s 15.15 just as I’d expected it to be.
Because of this, I can keep working at 15.05 because I’m not on edge that I have to start getting ready to collect my daughter from nursery at 17.30. I don’t feel time’s going to slip away from me. I don’t feel the incessant panic while I try to push through and keep working, setting timer after timer. Now I can stop for a minute and talk to my partner without the anxiety that I’m wasting time. I can make lunch and enjoy it.
I’m able to paint now at almost any time I choose because I can switch my channel to painting mode. When I take a little break I can get back on task quickly, and I’m saving so much time without my obsessive behaviour for re-checking emails and social media text before I send them. I don’t require a stimulating soundtrack or podcast in order to sit and paint, and struggle hard when I can’t find one. My hand is steadier, and it goes where I want it to go, it’s less impulsive.
This medication isn’t freely available on the NHS. Neither is an adult ADHD diagnosis. I’m now quite scared about the possibility of not being able to stay on medication.
Side note on earworms: I talked to my partner about this and I had no idea my earworm experience wasn’t normal. He said it’s like a background track that plays when you’re not thinking about much else. My pills hadn’t kicked in yet this morning and while I was thinking about writing this blog post my thoughts were cut off by the loudest rendition of a verse from Five Little Monkeys, the Mother Goose Club rendition. You basically have to wait for it to finish before your other thoughts can start again.
Thaïs Lenkiewicz 