Concerta

I wanted to post this, but I'm not entirely sure I should. I think I will anyway.

I've told a few friends either that I might have ADD or that I have recently been prescribed medication for ADD. And those who I have told so far have reacted rather strangely, like I just confessed to getting a tatoo or voting for Nader. It was like they didn't understand, and maybe even disapproved a little bit, but didn't feel it was their place to say anything. I admit, that caught me a little off guard.

I realize there are a couple of factors at play here - there's the stigma attached to ADD and other mental conditions, and there's me.

It is easy to view mental and emotional problems as excuses or as societal constructs, fixable with a better diet or more love or a little bit of willpower. It's in my mind, I can interact with it, I'm conscious and able to control my actions. And suppose the condition is actually real, then it's even scarier, it means something is wrong with me, with who I am. There is something particularly unsettling about that last thought that sets mental conditions apart [in our minds] from other health issues.

I also have Crohn's disease. Basically, I have something wrong with my digestive tract. If you want details, use the search bar at the top of your browser. Or here, I'll make it simple, www.google.com. Now, for Crohn's disease, if I don't take my medicine, my guts don't work correctly, I have pain and weakness and can't function. The same is true of my brain. The brain is indeed extraordinarily comlpex and the seat of our consciousness. However, it is easy to forget that the brain is also living tissue, flesh, material. It can malfunction, just like my guts. Its malfunctions inhibit my behavior, just like my guts. Medication improves its functions, just like my guts. Get the idea?

I understand this still takes some getting used to. Mental conditions can be scary, both in oneself and in others. They are harder to understand because they interact with a person's free will, and sometimes only God can discern the two. Yet I have grown up under someone who has one, and that has shaped my understanding. As most of you know, my mom has Bi-Polar (which is much scarier than ADD, oh my word, so much worse). I have seen her depressed, I have dealt with her mania and I have witnessed medication bring her back. I know that so many things my mom did and said were the result of her mental illness, and that she was not herself. I am completely convinced that mental conditions, where they actually exist, are physical, just like Crohns and allergies and the flu and heart disease.

That means that, even though there is a malfunction in my body, there is not "something wrong with me" as a person (at least, nothing more wrong with me than that which afflicts the whole of mankind). But I suppose that is the next question - is there, in fact, something wrong with Bethany?

I have been called "the most sane woman I know," by one friend, and others of you have made similar statements about my level-headedness and rationality. Could it be that I just don't "seem crazy" to you guys? Does it seem strange that someone as "on top of it" as me should need chemical assistance?

Well, let me cast this in a different light. Many of my friends have also stated that I "think too much" or "take myself too seriously." I've had a couple of friends over the years state they would not want to be in my mind for fear of getting lost. Let me ask you - how is that not crazy?

But that is not what the medication is for, only an example. I graduated from UGA cum laude. A great achievement to be sure. Yet, am I the only one wondering why I didn't graduate magna or summa cum laude? I had other priorities, sure. Grades weren't a big deal. But I could have done it. For three and half years, hour after hour, night after night I thought about doing homework and spent my time elsewhere. I was not that person who was too busy to study. Rather, I was usually just talking or spacing out. It was fine for most of college, I still got As and Bs. I'm just a procrastinator, so what?

Well, in the last couple of months I realized this was not just procrastination. Projects and assignments that needed doing, even when I didn't want to procrastinate, did not get done. I couldn't even begin. I completely, completely, lacked focus and motivation some days.

I know this sounds strange to most of you. It sounds strange to me too. For years I have told myself, "If I just try a little harder, I can get ___ under control." Any number of things could go in that blank - time management, organization, produtivity, punctuality. I just didn't try hard enough, I must not want it badly enough, this is just how I am.

Years of telling myself to just try a little harder? Years? It never occurred to me that this might be something effort couldn't solve until I felt completely broken and worthless because of my inability to accomplish a single thing (e.g., I wouldn't clean the bathroom on a Saturday when nothing else is going on). Yet that brokeness set me on the road to realizing something in my brain isn't quite firing correctly, which brings me to today and my first dose of Concerta. We'll see how this works. Just don't let me drink soda.

Well, now you know. Hopefully you also understand a little better, disapprove a little less. And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.