ADD

ADHD is kind of the mental disorder that nobody takes seriously. This is due to a combination of its overdiagnosis and its public image as something funny or something to laugh at--you know, the kid who yells shiny whenever something with the slightest twinkle goes past, or yells "squirrel" whenever a squirrel goes by. Kids with ADHD, especially ADHD-PH ("predominantly hyperactive"), are seen as the kids who will never just sit down and behave.

The unfortunate thing is that ADHD is not a laughing matter. I have an extreme form of ADHD-PI ("predominantly inattentive;" often called "ADD") known as Sluggish Cognitive Tempo ("SCT"), and there isn't a single day that goes by that I wish I didn't have it. ADD isn't an inability to focus on the teacher--it's an inability to focus on ANYTHING unless it interests you. Time, love, academics, friendships, everything goes down the drain unless it particularly stimulates your brain (this is due to the biologically broken brain that people with ADD have: a brain that is constantly understimulated and that constantly seeks out stimulation). If there isn't anything that catches your interest, you zone out. You fall asleep. Your brain looks for some way--any way--to find stimulation, even if the only way to do so is to dream.

What this all amounts to is a constant state of aloofness, an inability to pay attention to people as they talk to your face, a constant distance from reality that nothing, not even medication, can save you from. Your only choice is to go unmedicated and live in your disorderly tower in the sky for the rest of your life, or to take medication and experience the complete opposite: an inability to shift your focus, a completely different sort of aloofness that's better but nowhere near as ideal as a normal brain is. And your actions every day are completely regulated by your medication; once you run out, it is almost impossible to be productive, not because you don't want to be productive but because when you try, BOOM, you're either zoning out or falling asleep from lethargy.

It's a curse. I hate it. Sometimes, time seems to go so fast as I zone out that I will lose entire days while I'm off my medication. My life will fly past me, and there's nothing I can do to slow it down to normal pace. It's terrifying, really, that I'll have to spend my entire life like this. And it makes me really mad sometimes when people don't take ADHD seriously, because it is as just as much of a handicap as a broken arm, and nobody laughs when you break an arm. My brain is broken, and I'm not laughing.

Sometimes I look back and am shocked to find that all of my darkest music, darkest stories, and darkest art are inspired by my ADD. This picture is meant to reflect how life seems to zoom past me as I am trapped with my sluggish brain, locked to my own cognitive tempo, cursed to be aloof forever. This picture is what I visualize whenever I think of my disorder. I've wanted to make it for many years. It's not very good, nor very artful, but it is very meaningful to me.

Not everybody with ADHD experiences what I experience--again, I have an extreme form called SCT. You can read more about SCT here; it's actually rather interesting, though that might just be because I have it: [link]

Still getting back into the swing of things artwise. Sorry for the big description.


Dreyfus Vandolin III (c) Me