Lo and behold, it would seem that I have ADHD.
That would explain a lifetime of dysfunction (me just thinking I operated differently) that I've experienced only occasionally and, likely, unnoticed by anybody else. Why seemingly unnoticed by anybody else and not a problem?
- I think I developed enough tricks, over the years, to minimize dysfunction.
- Many things were serendipitously structured in a way that accommodated me.
- I had enough time to recover between "dysfunction events."
- Side note: Anxiety just begets more dysfunction! So minimized anxiety over dysfunction was immensely helpful.
More importantly, an ADHD diagnosis explains the overwhelming amount of dysfunction I have experienced at work for the last three years (and obvious to anybody because of my exhibited anxiety.) Nobody is to blame. Without a diagnosis, how could anybody at work realize how the following would impact me so negatively:
- Disallowing/rejecting my dysfunction-minimizing tricks
- Increasing amount of communications, meetings, and direction
- Criticizing the amount of detail provided by me, and required by me, in many of my communications
- Involving me in meetings/communications with more than one person and/or more than one topic
- Communicating with me verbally instead of in written form
My neuropsychology assessment had a few bits that explain some of the negative effects of work-related changes these last three years:
- CJ's "neurocognitive profile" included strong evidence of visual-spatial organization perceptual difficulties (over-focusing on the details at the expense of the “whole”)
- Individuals with ADHD strongly benefit from compensatory strategies such as using task lists, developing routines, and consistently organizing materials at home and in the workplace to help with organizational working memory difficulties.
- When attending to complex types of information (eg. trying to follow long conversations, complex schematic schemes,) it is the individual details which pop out first to CJ after which he then will apply his own structure in order to organize that information. However, the structure that makes sense to him is quite likely to be very different than what most individuals will use to “see the big picture.”
I'm a happy camper because we now have something with which we can figure out some decent accommodations at work.
Work aside ...
Does my ADHD diagnosis explain my intertwingulitis? Or, does my intertwingulitis explain my ADHD diagnosis? "Six of one, half a dozen of the other?"
Here's some of what I do think. An ADHD diagnosis seemingly explains dysfunction events and:
- How I see everything as intertwingled
- Why I really enjoy piecing together a picture of (or otherwise organizing/structuring) complex information
- Why I don't understand big picture without the component parts/details of that big picture
- Why I am always "processing" any external/internal stimuli, because any stimulus generate thoughts about all sorts of intertwined/intermingled/interconnected component parts/details
- Why I love wikis (particularly TiddlyWiki) and transclusion to organize/structure always deeply intertwingled information
Cheers, best regards, and stay safe and healthy!
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