“ADHD Skeletons in the Closet”
What`s life with adult ADHD like? Well for starters, my mind is like a 250-pound woman who is sluggish and needs to shed the weight.
The apartment is suspended in the air on the 16th floor of one of the ritziest zip codes in Gotham. The one bedroom feels like a palace compared to the trailer park in the ‘hood, spacious, with a grand view of expensive high rises. The doormen know my name and ask me if I need any help with the groceries. I shake my head “no” and wonder why they ask. What do they want from me? It is a sublet and temporary, and I fear that I will be spoiled. How does a cat go from Sheeba cat food to the generic dried sort? I don’t know.
The Sensitive Guy and I spent the entire weekend together, and he observes that I am different and says it in sort of a complimentary way. He says I am funny and I make him laugh. The things that come out of my mouth–the impulsivity that is a trademark of ADHD–make him smile and I feel, for the first time, appreciated. He is referring to my thoughts and vocabulary, which run freely like wild mustangs. Within the words and thoughts there is always a spark of color. He says that I am a natural writer, talented, gifted, and that I am creative, something that he isn’t. I wonder if it is possible that I’ve hit the love jackpot, but it seems too good to be true.
I hid the last few Adderall pills in the drawer when he arrived, and made sure that the books and magazines related to ADHD were tucked away in the closet.
The sensitive guy is a machine when it comes to rattling off numbers and dates and factoids, and I am completely lost. I hide my boredom and the seeming inability to listen. He is well read and turns to books as solace or escape, and in the meantime I struggle to read a passage in an article and understand the meaning. I do feel slow at times, as if my mind is like a 250-pound woman who is sluggish and needs to shed the weight.
The Sensitive Guy and I did very little this weekend, and time seemed to have retreated into the sidelines. We basically nestled in the penthouse, holed in and glued to the couch. We did not leave to eat and noshed on snacks. I’ve noticed that he seems to lose track of time, and that he’s noted several times that he feels like he’s always in a rush. Could it be that he suffers the same fate as me? The truth is that I am scared shitless about someone seeing through the shield. What if they see my warts, and realize that I am really a disorganized person who is half genius and half mess?
The friend tells me that I should continue to see where things go with the suitor. There is no commitment with the Sensitive Guy, and in many ways I find myself unconsciously pushing him away because I feel I’m not worth it, I’m not good enough–that at the end of the day, no one would want a woman whose thoughts and interests drift, and who carries around a lot of piles.
