I was struggling with listlessness and despair, as well as the classic inability to focus. The pills had an instant effect – so why do I feel like I’m cheating?
I’ve been getting treatment for attention deficit disorder (ADD) for more than a year now. My life has changed for the better, yet I can’t shift some nagging doubts about the whole business.
The diagnosis took a while to get to. I had long suffered from a constant kind of chest-bursting, enervating surfeit of adrenaline, dipping alarmingly through anxiety into listlessness and often periods of utter despair. I never linked any of that with my general inability to focus on anything for more than about 15 seconds. Or the fact that I was often just as able to focus on something to the exclusion of everything else for hours on end. Both of which, oddly, are indicators of ADD. I was always drifting off, disengaged. “Daddy, listen to me,” my kids have been imploring me, since they were old enough to yell the words.
