Daredevil

I used to not like super hero movies.

This year, however, I had the pleasure of sitting next to one of the biggest fans I’ve met nearly every Friday night to watch all of the MCU movies leading up to Infinity War. Sitting beside this fellow allowed me to not only be sucked in to the thrill of Super Heroes, but it also allowed me to gain insight in to the complexity of each character and how their unique stories fed in to one another.

Intrigued by the story lines, I branched out to the Netflix shows as instructed by my friend who had been helping me through the seventeen movies or so that we watched this semester.

I never thought I would have a favorite super hero, but now I do.

His name is Daredevil.

Many would assume that Daredevil is my favorite superhero because he’s Catholic…and hot. Although both of these statements are true about the character, they are not the reason why I love Daredevil so much. In fact, it is actually his abilities which made me fall in love with Matt Murdock aka Daredevil.

Daredevil is blind.

However, because of the nature of his accident, all of Daredevil’s other senses are heightened. He can sense where people are based off of the sound of their heartbeat. He can smell further. He can tell how someone is feeling, how someone is moving, and how someone is going to react because he can sense things most people miss.

It sounds dumb right?

I remember how I felt talking to my friend after the first two episodes of Daredevil. I told him that I was confused as to why someone with super senses could really be a superhero. How would that even work? Why would Matt Murdock, a fighter’s son, become a hero because he could sense better than other folks? What’s more, why would he hide the fact that he could see more without vision than normal people could?

Motivated to finish the Netflix shows, I continued to watch Daredevil.

And I fell in love.

Although I am not blind, I deeply connected with Daredevil. The accident which caused his disability also gave him powers. These powers seemed too good to be true, and yet it were these very abilities which gave Daredevil the chance to help those who could not help themselves.

I was not physically handicapped, but my developmental disorder made me part of a “disabled” community, which I wrote about last week.

The missing synapses which lead to my ADHD have given me abilities others could only dream to have.

To explain, here is a Ted Talk: 

This guy suggests that ADHD might have emerged in response to hunter gatherers attempting to survive in the wilderness. It’s true; I can sense just about everything when I walk in to a room. As soon as I come in to a space, I notice the emotions of every person in the room and can assess the situation at hand. That doesn’t mean I can come up with a solution. It just means that I know within an instant where everyone and everything is.

Then my mind will immediately fly to the most compelling concern.

Before I received treatment, the idea I chased would change from second to second. 

It was almost impossible to keep me in one place at a party because I was chasing whichever group seemed most interesting. It was extremely difficult to keep me focused on one biological concept in class because I would hear an interesting question and immediately search Pubmed for answers. It was hard to keep one hobby at a time because I could see the value in every art form, every video game, every workout, everything.

By not having a working memory, I have the ability to see worth in just about everything.

At the same time, without a working memory, I could drop things that weren’t important with ease.

The beauty of being a hunter-gather badass is that you don’t have to worry about what you are called to do in life. If you are not meant to do a certain job, then you won’t stick around too long. If you aren’t supposed to be in a relationship with someone, then you will just drop your emotions all together. If you aren’t happy, then you find a new way.

ADHD is not a handicap. It is an ability to adapt.

Having ADHD in academia is a lot like being a blind superhero. Just as Daredevil has to fight criminals who are well established and know where they stand without being able to see, so too does an ADHD academic have to fight dogma that is well established and well understood without being able to make the same connections as other academics. The way we approach a problem is outside of the box because it is the only way we can see the question.

In my first year of graduate school, I discovered that I could not follow the same experimental path as most kids.

Unlike most graduate students, who can take the most recent set of experimental results and tie them together in to a solution and a next step, I took in each and every branch of biology and connected that knowledge to my esoteric project. I connected different cell types, cholesterol metabolism, cancer metastasis, infectious disease, and neurobiology to formulate a hypothesis that even my advisor thought was too far outside the box.

He didn’t see where I was coming from at all. No one did.

No one, except for my undergraduates.

I could sense my students growing tired with being in the shadows. I could tell that they were losing motivation, and I could tell that they were frustrated. Their struggle captured my mind, and I utilized my senses to develop experiments that would slowly make them become relevant. I utilized my ability to see science differently to develop an assay that would prove our hypothesis once and for all.

My advisor set me loose, and within 8 months we had a novel signaling mechanism and a potential therapy for our rare disease.

I realize now that I am writing this as if it is completely easy to be an ADHD academic. However, we have to remember that all superheros struggle with their super life and their regular life.

Again I turn to Daredevil.

As his work became more and more important to Hell’s Kitchen, Daredevil struggled more and more with his friends asking him to stay in for the night. He would hear the cries in the night and spring in to action. He knew that he could help. He wanted to help.

And it cost him dearly.

It’s the same for an ADHD.

We see where we fit, and we immediately want to act. It’s part of our impulsive nature. Many of my ADHD friends have lost a sense of stability because of their impulsive need to be a part of the solution.

I am not immune to this. I’ve gone months without seeing people because of my motivation to help my students and my advisor. It has costed me a few friendships. I’ve worked myself to the point of total exhaustion. In fact, I almost passed out in lab two weeks ago because of this.

And that’s why I still need help.

When Daredevil had to finally step away, he threw himself in to pro bono cases so that he could effectively help the less fortunate. When I realized that I overworked myself, I decided to start using my ability to sense a group of people to build up the social order around me.

I started to help my friends in a more personalized and authentic way. I stuck around longer than I would normally so that I could understand them.

And now I am starting to develop a more genuine connection with my community.

I have Daredevil to thank for that. I have my friends here who have been so patient with me to thank for that. I have my parents who have spent countless hours listening and loving me to thank for that. Most of all, I have my God to thank for that.

Someone asked me once if they could “cure” ADHD if I would support the action.

I said no.

ADHD makes me a hero in the lab. ADHD makes me a hero at a party. ADHD gives me abilities that I never thought I could possess, and it allows me to give back to others in a creative way.

I am blessed to have ADHD, and I wouldn’t want to live life any other way.