ADHD, depression, and anxiety: A coming out story

For a long time since being diagnosed with depression and anxiety a few years ago (as part of a deluxe package deal with ADHD Inattentive Type), I had made sure to keep all of the above under my hat when engaging in any sort of public communication, or whenever I was in any workplace conversation.

Especially in this day and age, when people are expected to scrub their social media profiles of anything indicating a life outside the cubicle— which is to say any hint of a pulse — there can be a tendency for people with any of the above conditions to keep their mouths shut. Stigma is real, and I have discovered firsthand how quickly and thoroughly it can make a person self-censor. This was reinforced shortly after my ADHD diagnosis — which came before I discovered depression and anxiety riding comorbid shotgun —when I consulted with someone who counsels people who are similarly attention-challenged, and asked her how someone with that condition should go about keeping their employer in the loop. “You don’t,” she answered, quickly and unequivocally. (Instead, she recommended requesting reasonable accommodations that would not necessarily tip off the employer, such as asking to have one’s desk moved to a quieter area.)

Further complicating matters is the fact that a lot of people either misunderstand these conditions, or simply doubt the validity of them altogether, as if they believe that people who have ADHD, depression or anxiety must be trying to “medicalize” their shortcomings.

But even though I now primarily work and create from home, I had been resisting “going public” with my conditions for fear of being pigeon-holed by them. I simply had no desire to suddenly become “That ADHD Guy”, or “That Depression Guy”. Even now, as I am writing this piece, I still feel that same fear, and do not wish to use my conditions as an all-consuming “shtick”. After all, while I had unknowingly lived most of my life in the imprint of (and had been repeatedly robbed blind by) what had been these undiagnosed conditions until my mid-40s, they are nevertheless not the sum total of who I am as a person. While I’m starting to appreciate the ways in which these conditions have affected my life (and believe me, the list gets longer the more I think about it), ultimately, I am who I am despite these conditions.

So why write about them?

Because I’m exhausted at the prospect of continuing to keep certain realities about myself hermetically sealed in a box and hidden away, as if they were something to be ashamed of. I no longer have the spiritual energy to pretend for the world that there’s nothing wrong with me when I momentarily go alpha wave during a conversation, and either start drawing a blank while trying to put a simple sentence together, or have to ask the person to repeat themselves all over again. Or when I have those days where it is a monumental struggle to focus on even the simplest of tasks. Or when I feel the weight of life closing in on me, and can only respond by shutting down for hours at a time. Or when I turn out the lights and find myself suddenly gripped with a terrifying and inexplicable sense of despair, and can only respond by gritting my teeth and balling my fists until it passes. (Luckily, it usually lasts only a few minutes, like a weather system that simply needs to pass through.)

I don’t choose to live this way — it’s simply the hand I’ve been dealt, and I’m working with my doctor and my therapist towards finding a better way to live, be it through effective medical treatment for the above, or strategies in the meantime for working with or around my conditions. No less important is the moral and emotional support of my family, friends, and spiritual community — without them, this plane would never leave the runway.

And so while my conditions indeed aren’t the sum total of who I am, they nonetheless pervade and impact my life on a daily basis in ways I can’t ignore, and sometimes in ways that cause other people to scratch their heads, or draw uninformed and unkind conclusions about me.

Because of that, I am writing this not because I want your sympathy, but because I really need to give you my honesty, both for my own sake, and for the sake of those who are so pressured by the very idea of stigma that they feel the need to lead a stifling sort of double life that keeps them from expressing the full reality of who they are, or even keeps them from seeking diagnosis and treatment altogether.

And finally, for those who would hold the specter of stigma over me, I am writing this especially for you, because I’m no longer giving you my fear.