I had a choice. I made that choice.
I would embrace my ADHD or I would fight it. It may seem like an easy choice, but anyone who has ADHD can tell you, it’s not. Even so, it seems like it would be a clear yes or no.
What’s the difference between fighting it and embracing it? For me, fighting ADHD means to search for a cure outside of one’s self – something to permanently solve the reality of ADHD symptoms. It seems to me, fighting ADHD in search of a cure is akin to searching for that magic answer which will cure the world of all evils.
Embracing ADHD means, at least to me, to look at the symptoms and say okay, you are a part of me and I will find a way to make you work for me and not against me. By doing this I can look upon therapy and other medical influences as a means to help make those symptoms work for me and not necessarily cure them.
Sounds simple, right? Never quote me as saying that embracing one’s ADHD is easy. It is not. Who doesn’t fantasize about being free from the symptoms from time to time? For me, those fantasies are fewer and fewer as time goes by. When I look in the mirror I want to like who I see, imperfections and all. Now, though, when I look in the mirror I don’t see any imperfections, I see me as a person and each part of me makes the whole of me.
Yes, there are nuances and many areas of grey (I write about them); however, if there is anything I have learned for myself, it is that one can get lost in those areas and never find one’s way back out, or, the trip back can be a very long one. Those places are like a never ending ring of mystery and complexity that, far too often, just leaves one feeling worse and worse. That’s my experience.
I embrace who I am, all of me. I can work on this and that (I do), tweak this and that (I do), learn as much as I can about ADHD (I do); and still, as a whole – I embrace me.
Bryan
