Chicken or egg?

So, we know ADHD is genetic, right?

At least, I think we do. After reading Gabor Mate's seminal work Scattered Minds, I'm not entirely sure what the cause is. But regardless, the widely agreed view - with a few notable exceptions - is that ADHD is with you from birth. 

When I went for diagnosis last year, one of the key pieces of evidence they requested was the view of someone who'd known me since I was a child. I refused. I wasn't ready to tell my parents at that stage, and my sister was battling breast cancer, so had more important things to worry about. And there just wasn't anyone else. 

So, I told the assessor myself. About the blurting things out in class, rarely ever finishing any pieces of work, about the emotional dysregulation, about every school report that said I should grow a thicker skin. About the stealing from my father, from family friends, the shoplifting. About the copious and compulsive lying. About the time I flushed my mother's engagement ring down the toilet. And the resultant isolation I experienced as punishments and the impact they had on me. And the resultant shame and exhaustion with life that led me to try and cut my wrists by the time I was eight years old (they'll be a post on this at some point, inevitably).

What I've been considering of late is whether ADHD has fucked my life up (well, my mental health) or whether it just magnifies what's there already. Why do I need to know the answer to that? Is it to feel less fundamentally broken? Perhaps I want ADHD to be my punching bag, my blame totem. And is that weakness...or strength? Is this what coming to terms with it looks like?

Did I get fucked up because ADHD means I'm not very good at dealing with life? Or did ADHD set me up for failure from the beginning?

Answers on a postcard.




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