You don’t have to live life with your check-engine light on | Articles

What’s the longest amount of time you’ve driven around with the check-engine light glowing? A few days? Maybe a month or two? How about for over 20 years?

Exactly 30 years before this past Friday, this very associate editor entered the world–around 9 p.m., I’ve been told.

So yay, happy birthday to me.

I can only speak for myself, but I’m pretty happy to be leaving my 20s behind, mainly because there’s way too much societal pressure when it comes to all the things you have to do when you’re in your 20s.

That doesn’t mean I’m not thankful for my 20s, as it was during that time in my life I got married, had a kid, and even bought a house (well below market value, mind you, as we bought the house off my wife’s father.)

But in between those high points, there were many, many low points. Not “ending it all” low, but more like “I’m having a hard time getting myself through life” low.

I don’t recall the exact moment, but I finally decided that enough was enough. I was tired of feeling like I was surviving instead of thriving like so many other people around me seemed to be.

More specifically, I couldn’t understand why I kept having such a hard time managing emotions, or why, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stay focused at work for extended periods of time.

I finally sought out therapy to help me understand what was wrong with my brain. Before long–like, pretty much after a single session as my symptoms painted an obvious picture–my diagnosis was the “inattentive” flavor of ADHD (the other two being “hyperactive-impulsive” and “combined”) with a slight potential that I’m on the autism spectrum.

Although getting an ADHD or an autism diagnosis can be distressing, it wasn’t for me.

For the first time in my life, I had some sort of clarity as to what was going on inside my head: No, I wasn’t broken. I just got a wonky wiring job from the factory.

While I can’t just go and get my body a new ECU and a wiring harness (not that I’d want to, anyway), there is medicine that helps.

Like the diagnosis, those first doses of Adderall made me feel like a fully functioning person. I could get more work done in much less time, it became far easier to jump between multiple tasks and, an effect I wasn’t aware could happen, my emotions were much easier to control.

I’m thankful that I’m no longer struggling, and I’m also glad that I can leave my undiagnosed…