Lifting The Mental Block

A surprising revelation finds Deborah entering a new phase of her life.

- Deborah Hill Cone

I have spent my life thinking I was too much, too messy, too needy, too loud. Now, at the age of 51, I seem to have found an explanation, of sorts. I’m not a fan of labels, but it turns out I’m ADHD. Yes, the thing that naughty seven-year-old boys get diagnosed with when they can’t sit still and throw a chair during story time. My journey to getting diagnosed was very different but perhaps equally painful.

At the end of last year I completed a graduate diploma in psychotherapy and despite being an A student and having my first peer-reviewed academic paper accepted for publication in an international journal, I was turned down for post-graduate psychotherapy training. No reason was given. This was a painful rejection. We have a dire shortage of mental health workers, so I must be real bad, huh? It led me to deeply question my way of getting on with people and whether I was simply a jerk.

I had always known that I struggled with the give-and-take of communicating in a reciprocal way: if conversation was a dance between two people, I was often pogo-ing on my own or doing a wafty interpretive impression of seaweed like Lorde that year she had the flu at the Grammys. In interactions with others I was often impatient, I lacked impulse control, my mind jumped from topic to topic and I found sitting still in work meetings almost unbearable and could not tolerate crowds. I could work obsessively, but could also switch focus frequently, leaving projects half-finished, and procrastinate at starting new ones.