A mental health journey

"You either have one of the worst cases of ADHD I've seen in an adult, or type 1 Bi-polar disorder"

I remember the words so clearly, and looking at my psychiatrist who was staring at me flatly, studying me equally for a reaction.

"What.. what does that mean?" I asked.

"Well, you came here because you believe it's ADHD, so we're going to operate under that assumption. However, given your history, we can't put you on the usual medications as they're stimulants - and, if you're wrong about this and it is bipolar - you would end up Manic, which would do more harm than good." Kate is a lovely psychiatrist. She lets me do my own research and suggest my own treatments, then tells me why my own assumptions are wrong before letting me know how she wants to proceed.

My mental health journey started by accident, and is still going to this day. 3 years and counting, and much more than the one straightforward diagnosis I was hoping for on that first appointment.

I had known I was depressed and anxious for a very long time. Since I was a teenager I'd had issues with substance abuse and self-harm, and had struggled with the symptoms of PTSD. Unfortunately, these symptoms flew under the radar, mostly due to me hiding the issues as best as I could. I was barely 20 when I first attempted suicide, and then again a few years later. Neither attempt was even noticed by the people around me - no hospital visit or intervention. Certainly no care plan or any sort of resolution to the state I was in.

By the time I was 23, I was waiting to die. I had given up on self-harm, I had given up on ever getting better. I simply sat in a perpetual state of grey working my 9-5 job, and waited. I'd tried a few medications to manage the depression, but none of them had any result. I started to think that I wasn't actually medically depressed, that it wasn't just an imbalance in my brain - that I was the cause of my own depression. I would come home to a filthy room in a run-down share house, settle into sheets that hadn't been washed in months with whatever junk food I could afford, and watch TV as that was all I had capacity to do. My life was a day-to-day struggle to not end my own life.

One of my biggest symptoms of depression/anxiety was - and still is to an extent - Insomnia. I used to handle this with over-the-counter codeine, to make sure that I slept properly. In February of 2018, Australia restricted codeine to prescription-only, and I lost one of my only coping mechanisms. In a panic I broke down to my housemate and best friend, in tears because I hadn't slept more than a few hours for days, and subsequently the depression and anxiety getting unmanageable. Nick suffered from acute anxiety disorder, and understood how much it was affecting me. Ever the problem solver, he shrugged and offered me the single bit of advice that would change my life.

"You could ask the doctor for a script for the antidepressant I'm on? If nothing else, you'll sleep through the night, it knocks me out in like 20 minutes."

So, armed with the name of the medication, I went to see my doctor, who had been trying for a while to coax me to see a psychiatrist. At that time, I had no money, and so little motivation that I'd take the forms home were lost in the mess of my room and never followed up on. Given this new med wasn't a controlled substance (he knew about my substance issues) he agreed to give it a shot, if no other reason than at least I'd sleep. It cost me all of $8.

Dear reader, I cannot describe the sensation waking up on the 3rd day after taking that medication. I've always had a knack with words, I could paint you a picture in lyrics, and wax poetic about the shades of sadness I lived in. No words in the world can describe seeing colour for the first time. No words can describe hearing your mother's voice. You've all seen the YouTube videos, the looks on the faces of those who finally are able to see or hear for the first time. It was the mixture of awe, and for me the horror of 'waking up' to the state I was living in.

With the depression and anxiety effectively removed, I was a firestorm. I moved through my life and fixed everything that did not suit, everything I had let fall to the wayside in my struggle to stay alive. I deep-cleaned my depression-filth room, I culled the things I had collected as hoarding was one of my comforts. I cracked down on my eating habits and started going to the gym.

However, a firestorm isn't a pleasant thing. While welcome when a backburn is needed, an uncontrolled wildfire can and will affect everyone around it. I uprooted my household, convincing 3 other people to move to the other side of the city. I moved jobs and burnt bridges, and even Nick - my best friend and confidant, the ever-practical person who set me to this path - was in the firing line. I became almost a bully, snapping at people when they 'fell behind' my expectations of them. I bought a car because I was sick of my old one breaking down, and didn't sell my old one - simply gave it away for scrap. I would show up at people's houses and go on impulse drives for hours. My hair was never the same colour for more than a month.

It was during this period of uncontrolled wildfire I got pulled aside by my then-colleague and now one of my best friends. To abbreviate a rather long conversation, she was sick of my shit. She had seen me pace around the office instead of work, she was sick of me telling the same stories on repeat, and most importantly she was sick of how my impatience and high expectations were being projected onto the people I worked with. Having been diagnosed herself a few years prior, I got told flatly I had ADHD and to get it resolved before it became an issue in a professional sense.

It took a few months, honestly. I went to see my doctor who was impressed with my improved mood, but agreed I'd swung too far the other way. The first time he gave me the forms, I lost them and then forgot I had to do it. The second time, the doctor refused to let me leave his office until the receptionist faxed them to the Psychiatrist, so they would then call me for an appointment.

And that's how, a few months after, I found myself being walked into the sitting room and perching myself across from Kate. We didn't even make it from the waiting room to her office on that first appointment before she asked "Do you have ADHD?". We spent a lot of time that session talking about my history, and I walked out feeling for the first time like I had a plan.

However, my success was very short lived. The abrupt and brutal shift in my personality had been too much for my long-term partner, who walked out the same day I finally got medicated. I don't blame him, honestly. It was a rough few weeks, both adjusting to the new medication and adjusting to life without someone who had been a staple of my life for so long.

Much like the anti-depressant, the blindfold was lifted. For the first time in my entire life, my mind was quiet. There was no longer electricity in my veins pushing me to be doing something at all times. I could sit down and read a book for the first time in years - and I devoured books in those few months. Books, games, TV shows - all things I couldn't do, as my hyperactivity prevented me from sitting down for more than a few moments. I had patience for my friends, and genuine calm that had eluded me for so long.

I mourned, after my diagnosis. A lot of my depression and anxiety was caused specifically by my ADHD. I had lost jobs over it, I struggled academically and personally. I had always felt like there was something fundamentally wrong with me, that I was lazy and worthless because I wasn't able to do simple things. Then the depression sank in and my functionality failed more, this just reinforced that I was lazy. I mourned the years I could have known that I wasn't broken, that I just needed the right care. I mourned the places I could have gone had it not interrupted my education so much. It was not a pleasant awakening at all.

It's been 2 years since being medicated for the ADHD. My dosage has been upped from 15mg to 100mg - and my antianxiety has been upped as well.

And for the first time in my entire life, I and blissfully happy. Last year - before the impact crater that is COVID - I managed to marry my best friend, and supreme master of 'putting up with my shit' - Nick. We waited out COVID in our own apartment, my new job comfortably providing a nice little one-bedroom flat for us. I talk to Kate every few months, and we're slowly starting to untangle the contributing factors in my life to end up where I was. Nick and I are getting a greyhound soon.

I had a lot of reasons for writing this, but if there is one takeaway from the entire story? It's that management is worth it. It's gonna take a long time, and you're gonna be on meds that don't help, or a doctor that doesn't suit you. It's going to be uncomfortable, talking about things you have spent a long time hiding. You're going to lose people in your life while you work through things, and you're going to feel worse for a while. It's not an easy path.

I cannot tell you what colour looks like. I cannot describe the sound you can't yet hear. But I can tell you that it is all worth it, and to keep going. One day, you'll be so far from where you started you won't recognise the place you once called home. Keep going. You can make it. If I can make it from where I was, anyone can.