Image Description: A young girls' soccer team. There is a coach and 8 players in 2 rows, wearing pink uniforms. In the top row from left to right is the coach, with dark hair in a pony tail, and three players with medium length. The player to the right of the coach has her mouth closed with limited expression. The other 2 players are smiling. In the bottom row, 4 players are smiling. The second from the right is Ani, a transmasculine kid with short, dark hair, squinted eyes, and a straight face.
Embedded Files
How Living with ADHD Shaped My OCD
How Living with ADHD Shaped My OCD
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
I've committed to writing a blog post each week to practice exposing myself to obsessiveness around being perfect. One of my biggest themes of OCD is Perfectionism or Just Right OCD. When it comes to writing, this presents as feeling like I have to express myself "just right," feeling an intense need to purge everything out of my head so that what I am sharing is as close to "The Truth" as possible, being "right" about what I am saying, and not making mistakes. Writing has become a trigger for obsessions and I compulsively write, read and re-write my sentences as I try to convey a message.
Today, I decided that I would be in public and try to write my blog in a completely new place, which is very much out of my comfort zone. I had a doctor's appointment in the Highlands Neighborhood here in Louisville, and I knew I would be near coffee shops on Bardstown Road. As I was rounding the corner of Breckinridge Street thinking I would go to Quills, I noticed an A-frame sign that was advertising for coffee. I stopped and looked to my right and through the window, I saw a bar and cafe tables. I looked up at the name on the side of the building: The Myriad. I was intrigued, and wanted to walk in but I had to check the menu and the website for a preview of what I was getting into, as neurodivergent folks may understand. It turned out to be hotel with a cafe called Switchboard. There were no customers inside that I could see, which is ultimately the reason I chose to step in. With less people, there is usually less complex noise from chatter, different volumes of voices, music, hustle and bustle. This can help reduce distraction and sensory overload when I'm in public. And I was hoping to have space to think in my own chaotic ways as I wrote.
Immediately when I walked it, I felt warm. The ambiance created by the aesthetic felt like a hug. There were large art pieces with splashes of red. The deep blue walls and charcoal gray ceiling wrapped around me, while the dark, wooden trim surrounding the tables made me want to take a seat. The chairs and booths were orange and red velvet. To the left was a tall entrance to the hotel reservation area with golden velvet tapestry hugging the frame. I went up to the bar and greeted the barista. He was smooth in his demeanor and welcoming. I ordered a drip coffee and found a seat in a booth. He served me a mug and saucer that was an earthy gray color. It felt textured and smooth at the same time. I was so happy to take my first sip of the day.
I was the only customer in the cafe and it was a fairly small space. Once I sat down, my obsessive scripts created chatter in my head and my body began to feel like radio static. It turned out to be a little too intimate and quiet; I could hear everything the baristas were saying and I was the only person they needed to pay attention to. My obsessions came flooding in. This place looks too pricey for me. I don't really have like, money money. I'm poor. Will they know that? What if my card declines? No, I just got a small deposit yesterday. But what if they think I'm pretending or notice that I'm trying not to look poor. Can they tell I'm anxious? Am I supposed to talk to them? Are the baristas paying attention to me, but pretending that they're not? Do I have to act a certain way to be here? What do I look like to the baristas? Am I scary-looking? Is my fidgeting bothering them?
Once my brain starts to kick into obsessions, it becomes really difficult for me to unhook from them. I am usually fidgeting when I'm calm, but my energy can become visibly kinetic and busy when I am obsessing. My obsessions become so loud and my body tightens. Just sitting at a table drinking coffee with no one around me, I was in an over-activated state. I could not focus on what I wanted to do, which was write a blog post. I kept opening Safari on my phone to pretend to be doing something, and my Wise Self reminded me I wanted to write, but it felt impossible to even open up my Google Docs. I would open it, then close it, then go to Instagram, then go to Safari, frantically trying to calm myself down. I started panicking that I couldn't even do what I wanted to do, which was write. I felt scared to be seen, noticed, and clocked as anxious, fidgety, out of place. I felt like I wasn't really supposed to be there. Eventually, it clicked. Just started writing everything that is happening. Thought to thought. Eventually I type, "I hear you, brain. I hear you." And then continued typing: And what if I'm clocked as trans? What if I'm seen as out of place? Divergent? Chaotic? Out of control?
Being in any social space elicits anxiety for me. My brain is constantly analyzing, thinking, and vigilantly attentive. On top of that, I am hyperactive and impulsive. Once I realize that I am not feeling calm, my train of thought can become inquisitive and analytical in defense of my neurodivergence. The reason I feel anxious in social settings is because I have experienced years of trauma as a repressed trans kid living with undiagnosed neurodivergent conditions. I was punished for anxious behaviors such as biting my nails or obsessively touching my hair, ADHD traits such as forgetting small items before leaving the house, talking too much in school, and queering gender such as playing with GI Joes instead of Barbies and playing sports with cisgender boys. I remember always talking a lot and getting in trouble for it. My brain was doing what it naturally does, but I learned to constantly monitor and change myself because it is viewed as excessive or out of line. I could hear parents talk about me in ways that were judgmental: "She'll grow out of it." "Eventually she'll want to wear a dress." "She shouldn't be so aggressive." There was so much that parents, peers, strangers, and family had to say about me. And what I internalized from their judgy attitudes was how I naturally think, act, desire, move, show up, and just exist is "wrong." At least to society. And to the people I care about.
I know my friends cared about me and my family loved me. But it was still clear to me that I was different and that other people knew I was different. I eventually fashioned ways to try to mask being queer and neurodivergent during adolescence, but I still felt different. Whether people thought I had "grown out of" being Autistic, ADHD or genderqueer (without those words available to describe me) or thought I was doing an acceptable job of camoflauging, my queerness wasn't a topic of discussion the same way it was when I was in gradeschool, running around the neighborhood with cisgender boys, shirtless.
Something else that comes to mind is how my family members gossiped about anyone with mental illness or neurodivergent traits in the family. One of my younger cousins has ADHD. I remember folks speaking about him negatively, including myself. There was so much frustration and irritation about his hyperactivity and impulsiveness. In retrospect, I internalized a pervasive cultural attitude that ADHDers are out of control and that we just don't have enough desire to not be neurodivergent. That ADHD is a character flaw versus a neurodevelopmental aspect of someone's brain that can't be undone, changed, or outgrown unless you lobotomize us. Which I'm sure was used on neurodivergent folks in the past.
Having been on testosterone for 8 years, I experience everything with more punch in my body. I already was hyperactive and very busy internally. And being on T feels like the dial was just turned up a notch. I wish I had known or had diagnoses early in life so there was a framework for how my brain works. I wish my family could have been directed to resources. I wish people I cared about were more gentle and curious about why I was different versus fearful, anxious and judgmental about it. I wish I had their support and advocacy instead of punishment, avoidance, or pretending like my neurospicy traits would just go away. I understand that in the past, there was less information and more stigma around ADHD, Autism, OCD, and any other conditions that diverge from what is considered normal, normative, and conventional, but the explanation doesn't take away the trauma. The residual pain and the conditions that my body-mind has to live with now are constantly questioning my own existence, whether I will be seen as too loud, too talkative, too fidgety, too impulsive, too out of control, too much or not enough of some ideal that society thinks human beings are "supposed to" be in lieu of exactly how I am.
I don't know how I want to wrap up other than to say that my recovery and healing will be a lifelong process. I'm grieving how much pain I was in and still feel. I wish I felt free to be authentic to myself without all of the obsessions that occupy so much of my time. I wanna know what Ani is like when I am not obsessed with trying to be perfect. I hope that I can eventually feel connected to my younger self: that naturally spunky, fidgety, talkative, passionate, neurodivergent trans kid. I want to feel OK with being judged, unbothered by feeling like my existence defies conventions, breaks the mold, or makes others uncomfortable. I just want to practice being free. I have a ways to go, but I feel it in my heart that I will get there.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse