NEURODIVERSITY ORIGIN STORY: PART 2
Welcome to part two of my neurodiversity origin story! In this post, I delve into my early years at university and the difficulties I faced living away from home. Again, please know that I am by no means a neurodiversity expert and that these are my experiences and not medical advice of any kind.
Moving from a hobby farm to the largest city in Manitoba at the age of 19 was a bit of an adjustment. People with ADHD often have highly sensitive dispositions and by that, I mean we are acutely aware of change. Tiny fluctuations in clothing fabric, diet, or pain are broadcast at full volume to our brains. We are also overtly aware of subtle shifts in mood, energy and emotion, both our own and those of others. So to say that I was overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of urban living is an understatement. My saving grace was that I lived in a campus residence filled with people from all over the world who were in much the same boat as I was. The catch was that everyone coped with being away from home in a similar way—by having a drink.
I grew up with alcoholism in my family and, as I mentioned in part one of my neurodiversity origin story, large gatherings and parties weren’t my scene in high school. Once I moved into residence, however, drinking became more commonplace. I still didn’t party to excess, but as I began to consume alcohol more frequently, I noticed that when I drank, my impulse control simply didn’t exist. At almost 20 years old, I was obviously familiar with the effects of alcohol, but this was something entirely different. After a couple of drinks, my executive functioning would fail and my self-regulation shut down. Turns out that when you mix the inhibition lowering effects of alcohol with the lack of self-control that comes from untreated ADHD, you end up making bad decisions. As a result, my relationships suffered, and I all but quit drinking for almost a decade.
While my impulsivity was much more prevalent when I drank, it was also becoming exceedingly difficult to control while sober. I burnt through my student loans, spending money on tattoos, a PlayStation and comic books, and I went through jobs almost as quickly. During my time in Winnipeg, I worked at Rogers Video, Spencer Gifts, EB Games, McNally Robinson, a Lays Chips warehouse, Evans Plumbing and Heating, The University of Winnipeg Bookstore (more than once), and two museums (more on that later) with bouts of unemployment in between. If my employer was shady, disrespectful or cruel, I quit. If the schedule was unreasonable, or I wasn’t allowed time off to go home and see family, I quit. If working conditions were even remotely unethical, I quit. That’s not to say that I didn’t want to work, but rather that I spoke up about everything. My brain just didn’t have the filter that should have stopped me from calling out my employers, and my hyper-sensitive mind wouldn’t allow me to quietly endure uncomfortable situations to earn a paycheque.
The academic side of my life wasn’t going well either. I was in the education program at the University of Winnipeg to become an early years teacher and the unscheduled style of university courses was at once thrilling and completely overwhelming. In elective classes that I enjoyed, I was excelling, but in mandatory classes where my interest wasn’t as strong, I was struggling spectacularly.
One of the other great challenges of university life was mastering the shifting schedule. As with many people who have ADHD, rumination and excess energy make falling asleep a challenge. As the semesters flew by, and my class times changed, I found it more and more difficult to maintain a balanced sleep cycle. The lack of routine from one semester to the next left me both exhausted and emotionally dysregulated. Things got so out of hand that I was walking out on exams, failing to meet course requirements, and dropping classes almost as quickly as I could register for them. Overall, my academic career was a mess, my relationship was struggling, and I couldn’t hold onto a job. And yet, I was still having the time of my life.
As an emotionally intuitive man with an outgoing personality and a natural curiosity, my social life was booming. For the first time, I felt like I could be myself and connect with people on a meaningful level. I became friends with everyone I could—colleagues, classmates, university employees, even my professors. My love for learning blossomed, and I talked at length with complete strangers about anything and everything. Between classes, I would walk various circuits around campus, checking in on friends and acquaintances rather than studying or working on assignments. It was glorious! Until it wasn’t.
My entire friend group was made up of women; I was in the early years education stream after all, and while I owe everything to the amazing women in my life, I recognize now that my impulsivity made it extremely challenging to be my friend. Despite the fact that I was in a relationship, I was flirtatious to the extreme. I welcomed deep emotional connection, and I thrived off intimate conversation. I liked to make people feel good, and the adrenaline that came from maintaining pseudo romantic friendships was like pure sugar to my brain. In short, I was shit as setting healthy boundaries and, because I was constantly placing myself in situations that created dopamine, my brain didn’t want me to. Needless to say, I had a lot of firecracker friendships that burned bright and fast, and then exploded in my face. Of course, not every friendship ended in a ball of fire, but when one professor lovingly nicknamed me Catnip because of my Cassanova-esque friendship cycle, I realized that something was clearly different about how my brain worked. Not knowing I had ADHD, I decided to stop making friends altogether and began to segregate myself from my peers. Within three years, I would be a university drop-out.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved university. I loved the people, I loved learning, and I loved the freedom to discover who I was. What I didn’t love was how exhausting it was to keep pace with other students. To put it simply, the old coping strategies I had developed to make it through high school were grossly insufficient. I lacked study skills, I was horrendously disorganized, and my distractibility had become best friends with procrastination. I was drowning—but sometimes neurodiversity has its perks.
One of the benefits of having a mind that is hyper-alert is that you pay attention to everything all at once (contrary to the misconception that people with ADHD lack attention). Within moments of walking into class, I knew which people I could sit near and which I couldn’t, who was going to be a distraction, and who was mostly likely to share notes. Within a few classes, I would determine which type of students the professor responded to, how they liked being spoken to, and what they were looking for as educators. My strategy was: please the person, pass the class. The problem was that I was a perfectionist.
Getting a C in a class was unacceptable and getting a B was barely better. The only option for me was an A—which would have been fine had I scheduled my time effectively. Instead, I would wait until the last minute and then have a complete and utter meltdown because I wasn’t satisfied with the quality of my work. I also discovered that I couldn’t keep up with readings because I read too slowly and found it painful to sit for long periods of time. Regardless, I would force myself to read for hours, and when I couldn’t finish my assigned texts, I would use my peers’ in-class responses to formulate comments and questions on the fly—fake it until you make it, I suppose.
My first student teaching placement was the beginning of the end. I was placed in an inner-city school where my cooperating teacher was a tough as nails almost-retiree and the six-year-olds skipped class and swore at the staff. I was miserable, and when I was told that I wouldn’t be able to return home at the beginning of summer break because I had to make up for missed days, I impulsively quit the ed program mid-placement. I would continue floundering in university for a few more semesters but, since I didn’t have family savings and was using student loans to fund my education, I eventually decided to drop-out altogether.
The next few years were filled with a mix of aching loneliness, crumbling creativity, and a general search for meaning. Just before moving to Winnipeg, I had been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and spent the first few years in the city on an extremely restrictive diet—there was one point where I wasn’t eating gluten, dairy, soy, almonds, eggs, or sugar. My diet made every meal a challenge and going out with friends to restaurants or pubs was nearly impossible. Feelings of isolation crept in.
Contrary to my university persona, my social anxiety had also gotten worse. I was unable to use public restrooms and would have anxiety attacks every time my girlfriend planned us an outing with friends. I started to stay indoors more frequently and would often cancel get togethers at the last minute.
The antidepressants I was taking made me feel horrible and caused weight gain, so I frequently (and impulsively) tried to quit them cold turkey to horrible effect. I bounced between jobs, tried and quit a vet tech training program, and overspent our budget regularly. Life was slowly crushing me, and I didn’t know why.
Creatively, I also bounced between projects. I began writing another two graphic novels and had regular meetings with a local artist to create a finished book. I started a supernatural novel series and tried to complete a collection of poetry. None of these projects came to fruition and every time I failed to complete a piece of work, I fell further into despair. Even my creativity, it seemed, was abandoning me.
The years began to slip by and, in a last-ditch effort to pay off my student loans and mend my relationship, I decided to enter the trades and take a job as a plumber’s assistant. That decision changed my life and set me on a collision course that would inadvertently land me in a crisis centre.
Check back soon for the third and final part of my neurodiversity origin story where everything comes together, everything falls apart, and I finally find my calling.
