Medication

Last week on Sam’s Life…. Sam got the diagnosis. We laughed. We cried. Hyperactivity was channeled into overly verbose attempts to be funny. Baby prescriptions were born and grew into capsules.

Okay I’m breaking character here to say that I really will try to move along, and at some point try to tie in all this nonsense with my ARP and the actual unit itself, you know… the thing that I need to get graded on. It’s been kind of nice to write this out though and reflect on all that I’ve been through, and frankly, perhaps an entire book could be written on all of it, so in that sense a couple pages worth of ramblings is a very condensed version of all that I’ve gone through this year, so LAY OFF ME! Jeez. Youth today, can’t even read a page of a book, sheesh.

I’m gonna try to speed it up and stop making so many jokes, because it’s taking too much time and energy, and again probably isn’t really a wise use of my time – filling out my Ethics Form is far more pressing and important – but such is the nature of the beast that is ADHD – I will go to extreme lengths to procrastinate something that my brain is not looking forward to and frankly an Ethics form sounds like it’s not really got a lot of that sweet sweet dopamine that my brain so loves.

So – medication – right.

What if I told you that the last blog post was written whilst on my medication already? Not that surprising right? I mean if you thought I was able to spin such beautiful webs of comedic biography while both simultaneously procrastinating one aspect of my coursework and masterfully passing off some high school style journals as another piece of assessment fodder – you don’t know me that well yet.

Alright, maybe it’s not that obvious I’m on the meds. After all, I’m focused on what I’m doing which is a big step in the right direction, but I’m doing something creative and silly, which is where I feel comfortable – not writing ethics forms. Damn it Sam, just do the ethics form. Shhh, wise Sam, goofball Sam is working his magic here and writing his future standup routine in case he somehow morphs into someone with a grain self confidence and does stand up.

Well look, the drugs aren’t a miracle. They can’t fix 36 years of habits overnight. Maybe if I was 13 and taking them again, this time with a bit of guidance from an adult, I’d wake up a new, motivated, clever Sam and then I could grow into the stand up comedian slash Pixar animator slash part time NASA astronaut I was born to be.

I woke up and took my first pill. Nothing for an hour or so, and then I began to feel a pleasant change. It’s hard to describe. It doesn’t feel like I’m on a drug… It feels like if I hadn’t taken the pill I’d just think I was in a much more relaxed, easy going state than I have been for a long time. Eager for the meds to work in the areas of my life that I’ve been struggling with, I spent some time with my family – my wife, the baby, and her parents.

I felt good. It’s hard to describe. Not amazing, not cured, not euphoric, but BETTER. Better. I felt as though my brain was less irritable. We went for a walk as a group, and I noticed that small things like tying my shoes, putting the leash on the dog, waiting for a family member to catch up to the group, these little things were fine. It’s just a couple seconds, no biggie. I wasn’t even aware that I was annoyed by something like that normally, but I guess I was. It made me feel bored, and irritated, and frustrated. Not all at once, but each one adding up, and ticking away at my enjoyment and patience. I’d come back feeling desperate, annoyed, and I’d disappear to be on my own, angry that my precious time was wasted and I could go do whatever thing it was that was going to provide me that dopamine hit that the walk had deprived me of.

And that little difference felt massive. I sat down with the boy. Normally I’d feel the same way as the walk. Ugh he doesn’t do anything, he just sits there looking at things, it’s so boring, I can’t do anything I want or need to do, I can’t make art, I can’t learn anything, wasting time. But I wasn’t feeling that way. Okay maybe a tiny bit if I’m honest, but I was able to sit there and be OK and that was incredible.

My wife noticed the difference in me immediately, too. I was more upbeat, there was a flicker of life in my sunken eyes. I wasn’t all doom and gloom.

I’m a pessimist at heart, and I’m not ready to call myself cured or start shouting from the mountaintops “AMPHETAMINES ARE LIFE!”. I’m aware that my body will build a tolerance to the drug and the benefits will diminish. I’m aware of the placebo effect, that my sense of achievement and novelty I’m feeling as a result of having something that I can put my hope into may be also partly responsible for the positive effects. But it felt good to feel good for a moment, and I have to take a victory where I can. It was nearly 3 years to get to this moment and it took many an argument, begging, cajoling, and near rock bottoms to get me to eventually put my mental health first and finally relent to spending the money to get help, instead of buying a video game or a gadget to try to fill the void I was feeling, and that’s pretty huge, right?

Now let’s hope it can help me to finish this ARP once and for all. The hero’s journey. The boss at the end of the dungeon, the mythic dragon, once faced and almost lost it all, ready to come back, armed and ready to return home victorious, clutching it’s bespectacled academic head and claim the fame and glory of his village. Or you know, just not keep shaking my leg so much.