Mental Health Report By The Insanely Unqualified Ashley
If you're someone who isn't well-versed in mental health (shoot, even if you are!), if I asked you what came to mind when you heard the diagnosis ADHD your answer would probably be "a kid bouncing off the walls, disrupting class, and unable to pay attention." Honestly, that was my answer until a few months ago.
My doctor prescribed me a stimulant medication that is used for ADHD, but is FDA approved for binge eating disorder. I am in intense therapy/nutrition counseling for my anxiety, depression, and eating disorder so my psychiatrist felt it was safe to give me some medicinal help as well. I had never been on a stimulant before. In fact, the one time I took Adderall in college I was up all night going through page after page of google results (that had nothing to do with the final I had taken the pill to study for). My freshman roommate and I still laugh about that night and how at around 3am I did the annoying "psssst....KATIE ARE YOU AWAKE?" whisper. We had the same 8am final the next day.
Needless to say, I was really unsure what the stimulant would do to me. We started me off on a low dose and in a month I went back to my doctor and said, "it's weird, it really chills me out and relaxes me." She looked at me a bit quizzically and upped my dose. Sure enough, I came back a month or so later talking about how great this medicine is, how my anxiety is so much more manageable with it and how I can't believe I'm actually able to truly relax. She told me that stimulants only do that to people with hyperactivity, and that we should consider testing me for ADHD in the future, but she wanted to wait a little while.
I did a lot of research on ADHD at the time and found a lot of what the articles said resonated with me. Except, I couldn't wrap my head around it because I was a pretty decent student in school. I don't find myself unable to focus. I am certainly not bouncing off the walls and I was legitimately scared of getting in trouble growing up. It didn't entirely add up. If anything, I thought maybe I was on the line and showing some signs but not really diagnosable.
Fast forward to last week, my psychiatrist had me retake the ADHD questionnaire. This time, she wanted me to answer those questions for how I feel when I don't take my stimulant. I scored high on this test and she officially diagnosed me with combined type ADHD.
Quick Lesson: There are three types of ADHD, 1. Inattentive 2. Hyperactive 3. Combination
I basically have some characteristics of the inattentive type and the hyperactive type.
Again, I was kind of bewildered by this. But, she increased my stimulant dosage and I took it and realized how much of a difference it made. I all of the sudden realized maybe life isn't this hard for everyone? Maybe my constant exhaustion and overwhelm isn't typical of a mom of a toddler (okay, it is typical- parenting is hard....but maybe my version isn't quite so typical).
After doing a lot of research (thank you for that hyper-focus, ADHD), I found that ADHD manifests itself much differently in girls/women than it does in boys/men. Young boys are usually the bouncing-off-the-walls ones, and oftentimes their symptoms lessen around puberty because of the release of testosterone. Girls, however, are much more subtle which is why it is so under-diagnosed in young girls. Girls have more of the inattention, they daydream, stare out the window, and doodle on their notes. Studies have often found that girls' symptoms worsen at puberty with the release of estrogen.
I thought back to my school days, I did fine in school - but I wasn't overly smart (and the mean voice in my head told me so). I was in the slower reading group because i'd read a page over and over and like 10 times later i'd finally retain what i was reading (red flag), I was in the average math group because I had no interest in math- it wasn't that i was unable, just uninterested (red flag), and as I grew into high school I had to start sitting in the front row to pay attention (red flag). By college, I was failing classes I wasn't interested in or that were in huge lecture halls because I couldn't be bothered to pay attention (I was getting A's in the classes I liked- keeping my average fine). I moved back home to a smaller satellite campus of my Big Ten University and thrived because my teachers knew me and helped me stay focused.
Okay, so those may not be tell-tale signs, some people just do better in smaller schools. And I'm pretty sure everyone has daydreamed their way through a college lecture (or seven). My notes were not the only ones with flowers doodled all over them by any means. See how easy it is to talk yourself out of a diagnosis?
Many women are not diagnosed until adulthood for this very reason. Maybe it's in college because all of the sudden she has to take care of herself and she don't know how. Maybe it's after getting married because she has to take care of more than just herself. Or, very commonly, it's after having a baby.
I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this...
When I first had Eva my doctor diagnosed me with postpartum anxiety first (fairly quickly after having her) because I could not sit still. I remember it vividly. It wasnt until Eva was about 3 months that the postpartum depression set in (after I had gone back to work). I was bored out of my mind at home with an infant- uninterested. I was unable to sit down because there was so much to do- hyperactivity. I was falling into a pit of depression because there was no time to care for myself because I was so busy taking care of a baby, cleaning, doing laundry, doing dishes, trying to be a good wife, trying to survive work, and living every day in a fog of exhaustion and overwhelm.
Yep that is pretty normal for a new mom.
However, want to know something interesting about anxiety and depression? They can be a result of ADHD being out of control rather than a chemical imbalance. I wasn't diagnosed with depression or anxiety until I graduated college and moved to NC and was taking care of myself. Red Flag.
Looking back, my anxiety has always been less of a constant fear (don't get me wrong, I do have the worry aspect) but more a constant feeling of never resting somehow. My mind is always going. My foot is always bouncing. I've described my anxiety to spencer as feeling like "frayed wires are coming out of my fingertips." Turns out that is hyperactivity, not anxiety. Which is why after a super stressful stretch (such as the last 4 months in the Ziegler house) I have a very hard time coming down from it all.
So why am I posting this super personal (probably too-long) blog post about all of this? Because the media will lead you to believe that ADHD is over-diagnosed, when it's really under-diagnosed. ADHD is a spectrum much like Autism. Just like there are some severely autistic kids there are some people with severe ADHD (ie: the kid bouncing off the walls); and just like there are some high functioning autistic people, there are high functioning ADHA people as well. More and more medicine is being prescribed because the medical industry is learning more about it every day. Women aged 25-35 are being diagnosed at an alarming rate because they are finding while we have had it our whole lives (you don't grow out of it, and you don't just develop it- you are born with it) it isn't until everything comes crashing down around us that we realize it. Sometimes it's when we are 6, sometimes when we go to school, or sometimes it's when you're 31 showing three very distinct side effects of it (depression, anxiety, eating disorder) and you stumble upon it while treating symptoms instead of the problem.
Ladies, keep an eye on yourself and don't be afraid to talk to your doctor or do some research yourself. I'm by no means an expert but it's making a lot of sense with how I feel.
Parents, keep an eye on your little girls, dreamers make for really sweet girls but make sure there aren't bigger problems too (and remember it is genetic).
Cheers to another step closer to being the happy "normal" person I am working so hard to be!
My doctor prescribed me a stimulant medication that is used for ADHD, but is FDA approved for binge eating disorder. I am in intense therapy/nutrition counseling for my anxiety, depression, and eating disorder so my psychiatrist felt it was safe to give me some medicinal help as well. I had never been on a stimulant before. In fact, the one time I took Adderall in college I was up all night going through page after page of google results (that had nothing to do with the final I had taken the pill to study for). My freshman roommate and I still laugh about that night and how at around 3am I did the annoying "psssst....KATIE ARE YOU AWAKE?" whisper. We had the same 8am final the next day.
Needless to say, I was really unsure what the stimulant would do to me. We started me off on a low dose and in a month I went back to my doctor and said, "it's weird, it really chills me out and relaxes me." She looked at me a bit quizzically and upped my dose. Sure enough, I came back a month or so later talking about how great this medicine is, how my anxiety is so much more manageable with it and how I can't believe I'm actually able to truly relax. She told me that stimulants only do that to people with hyperactivity, and that we should consider testing me for ADHD in the future, but she wanted to wait a little while.
I did a lot of research on ADHD at the time and found a lot of what the articles said resonated with me. Except, I couldn't wrap my head around it because I was a pretty decent student in school. I don't find myself unable to focus. I am certainly not bouncing off the walls and I was legitimately scared of getting in trouble growing up. It didn't entirely add up. If anything, I thought maybe I was on the line and showing some signs but not really diagnosable.
Fast forward to last week, my psychiatrist had me retake the ADHD questionnaire. This time, she wanted me to answer those questions for how I feel when I don't take my stimulant. I scored high on this test and she officially diagnosed me with combined type ADHD.
Quick Lesson: There are three types of ADHD, 1. Inattentive 2. Hyperactive 3. Combination
I basically have some characteristics of the inattentive type and the hyperactive type.
Again, I was kind of bewildered by this. But, she increased my stimulant dosage and I took it and realized how much of a difference it made. I all of the sudden realized maybe life isn't this hard for everyone? Maybe my constant exhaustion and overwhelm isn't typical of a mom of a toddler (okay, it is typical- parenting is hard....but maybe my version isn't quite so typical).
After doing a lot of research (thank you for that hyper-focus, ADHD), I found that ADHD manifests itself much differently in girls/women than it does in boys/men. Young boys are usually the bouncing-off-the-walls ones, and oftentimes their symptoms lessen around puberty because of the release of testosterone. Girls, however, are much more subtle which is why it is so under-diagnosed in young girls. Girls have more of the inattention, they daydream, stare out the window, and doodle on their notes. Studies have often found that girls' symptoms worsen at puberty with the release of estrogen.
I thought back to my school days, I did fine in school - but I wasn't overly smart (and the mean voice in my head told me so). I was in the slower reading group because i'd read a page over and over and like 10 times later i'd finally retain what i was reading (red flag), I was in the average math group because I had no interest in math- it wasn't that i was unable, just uninterested (red flag), and as I grew into high school I had to start sitting in the front row to pay attention (red flag). By college, I was failing classes I wasn't interested in or that were in huge lecture halls because I couldn't be bothered to pay attention (I was getting A's in the classes I liked- keeping my average fine). I moved back home to a smaller satellite campus of my Big Ten University and thrived because my teachers knew me and helped me stay focused.
Okay, so those may not be tell-tale signs, some people just do better in smaller schools. And I'm pretty sure everyone has daydreamed their way through a college lecture (or seven). My notes were not the only ones with flowers doodled all over them by any means. See how easy it is to talk yourself out of a diagnosis?
Many women are not diagnosed until adulthood for this very reason. Maybe it's in college because all of the sudden she has to take care of herself and she don't know how. Maybe it's after getting married because she has to take care of more than just herself. Or, very commonly, it's after having a baby.
I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this...
When I first had Eva my doctor diagnosed me with postpartum anxiety first (fairly quickly after having her) because I could not sit still. I remember it vividly. It wasnt until Eva was about 3 months that the postpartum depression set in (after I had gone back to work). I was bored out of my mind at home with an infant- uninterested. I was unable to sit down because there was so much to do- hyperactivity. I was falling into a pit of depression because there was no time to care for myself because I was so busy taking care of a baby, cleaning, doing laundry, doing dishes, trying to be a good wife, trying to survive work, and living every day in a fog of exhaustion and overwhelm.
Yep that is pretty normal for a new mom.
However, want to know something interesting about anxiety and depression? They can be a result of ADHD being out of control rather than a chemical imbalance. I wasn't diagnosed with depression or anxiety until I graduated college and moved to NC and was taking care of myself. Red Flag.
Looking back, my anxiety has always been less of a constant fear (don't get me wrong, I do have the worry aspect) but more a constant feeling of never resting somehow. My mind is always going. My foot is always bouncing. I've described my anxiety to spencer as feeling like "frayed wires are coming out of my fingertips." Turns out that is hyperactivity, not anxiety. Which is why after a super stressful stretch (such as the last 4 months in the Ziegler house) I have a very hard time coming down from it all.
So why am I posting this super personal (probably too-long) blog post about all of this? Because the media will lead you to believe that ADHD is over-diagnosed, when it's really under-diagnosed. ADHD is a spectrum much like Autism. Just like there are some severely autistic kids there are some people with severe ADHD (ie: the kid bouncing off the walls); and just like there are some high functioning autistic people, there are high functioning ADHA people as well. More and more medicine is being prescribed because the medical industry is learning more about it every day. Women aged 25-35 are being diagnosed at an alarming rate because they are finding while we have had it our whole lives (you don't grow out of it, and you don't just develop it- you are born with it) it isn't until everything comes crashing down around us that we realize it. Sometimes it's when we are 6, sometimes when we go to school, or sometimes it's when you're 31 showing three very distinct side effects of it (depression, anxiety, eating disorder) and you stumble upon it while treating symptoms instead of the problem.
Ladies, keep an eye on yourself and don't be afraid to talk to your doctor or do some research yourself. I'm by no means an expert but it's making a lot of sense with how I feel.
Parents, keep an eye on your little girls, dreamers make for really sweet girls but make sure there aren't bigger problems too (and remember it is genetic).
Cheers to another step closer to being the happy "normal" person I am working so hard to be!
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