Settling For Less

I settled.

You settled.

We’re all settling, and we aren’t even noticing it.

What does it mean to settle? My Dear Readers by now should know that I am not one for looking in to the dictionary to give a definition, so I will share the essence of “settling” instead. Settling is when we choose to accept what is in front of us, even if we know that it is less than what we or the other party involved deserves.

Did you catch it?

In order to settle, we need two parties with a goal in mind. When we settle, we come to an agreement with that other party, accepting some in-between goal that rarely reflects what we or the other person deserves.

We settle for less, and as a result, we force the other party to settle for less as well.

Why do we settle?

I think we choose to settle because we are afraid. We’re not so much afraid of what would happen if we didn’t take the deal, so much as we are afraid that there would be serious consequences if we went for what we really wanted. We fear losing what we already have, and so we settle for less than what we should have in the end.

We see this in legal cases where a large corporation takes a settlement instead of going to court for fear of losing more money. The individuals affected receive some compensation, but there is little justice in that.

We see this in relationships when someone is so down on their luck that they just accept the person right in front of them. The potential for true love is lost, and both parties are hurt.

We see this in young scientists who just do what they are told, never making up their own hypotheses. Ideas are lost, and the mentor losing energy from having to be creative for two people instead of one.

The act of settling goes far deeper than just in the simple exterior activities I briefly mentioned here.

We settle for less because we are afraid to believe in something more.

This is true for both the believer and the non-believer. I could speak to the tragedy of not believing in something more from the non-believer perspective, but I think it is the lack of faith from the believers that is making it so difficult for the non-believers to ever accept faith in to their hearts. Even though we know that God has created everything for us, we still lack the faith to believe that He can and will do everything to make our lives as joyful as they can be. Without accepting that joy, the non-believers cannot see why a life of faith would be any different from the lives they are living now.

And without something more…It would be hard to believe that there is much worth to the lives we are living anyways.

Why are we so afraid to believe that there really could be more for us in this life than what we are seeing right in this very moment?

We stopped believing that miracles could happen.

“Tell me,” Fr. Chris said one Monday afternoon, “How is your prayer life?”

I was taken aback by the question. I had already told Fr. Chris that I prayed for everyone in my life, whether I spoke to them or not. The act of praying for others, intercessory prayer, has been a part of my life ever since I was a little girl. I prayed for people, especially my enemies, because I wanted them to know that God loved them and that everything was going to be ok.

Miracles happen in response to these prayers.

Love comes in where it never was before, and that alone is a miracle. Anything other than the increased love in my community was an added bonus from God.

But I had stopped praying about my own heart.

I settled.

Why did I settle? I settled because I stopped believing that my prayers would allow God to work miracles in my own life. For most of my life, I had seen miracles in response to prayer, whether it be my own or the prayer of another. I didn’t believe that miracles weren’t possible; I just stopped hoping that they would happen for me. After all, there was a point in time when I thought my Jesus had finally answered my prayers, and it all came crashing down around me.

Like many Christians, I allowed the world to permeate in to my heart. Because my Jesus cares for the poor and lowly, I had little reason to ask for His help…at least that’s what I told myself.

That just isn’t true.

Dear Reader, Our God created everything around us. His imagination is boundless, and His creation is perfect. Whatever it is that we dream of, He can dream of something far greater and more perfect for whatever we want most in life. If we are searching for meaning, for a miracle, then we just need to let Jesus in to our dreams so that He can make all things possible.

But if we do not believe in His love for us, then we are unlikely to see the miracles happening before us every single day.

How do we start seeing miracles? How do we bring faith back in to our world?

Believe in Love.

Expect nothing but for God to love you. For as Ben Rector says in his new song Extraordinary Magic, “Is love nothing short of a miracle happening over and over every day?” If you choose to believe in love, to seek it out in every person and every situation, then you will start to see little miracles happening everywhere you go. You will start to see how many things could not have happened if not for the love of God made manifest in His Holy Spirit, guiding hearts every day.

Life becomes beautiful in the light of love.

You see, miracles do happen, and they are not just meant for the person affected. Miracles are made for everyone to see God’s love acting in the world. I know this because the miracles I’ve most recently witnessed have given hope to some of the most hopeless feeling people I know. 

If we did not believe in the miracle, then we would not have seen the beauty of God’s grace in that place.

If we settle for The Cross, then we do not get to see The Resurrection.

If we settle for a lukewarm faith, then we cheat God the opportunity to give us more than we could ever imagine. If we stop dreaming, then the Dreamer cannot make our dreams come true. If we give up on what we have been hoping for our entire lives, then we refuse to allow God to love us.

All God wants to do is love us.

Will you let Him?

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.

The Little Lamb

“It was early in the evening when I heard my brother crying. He was supposed to be beside me in the Pasture, but he sounded far off. So far off that no one else seemed to hear my brother’s call. My family was asleep, resting comfortably in the green grass beside the cool waters our Shepherd brought us to for the night.

The cries grew louder, yet no one stirred. My ears started to hurt, and with them my little heart.

That’s when I realized my Shepherd was missing.

In terror, I jumped up on my little feet and rushed towards the sounds of my brother’s cries. What if a wolf got him? What if he got hurt and our Shepherd was not there to take care of him? No. No I had to try to help my brother. I needed him in the Pasture, resting with me and playing with me.

In to the darkness I ran.

I could not see, so I ran even faster towards the cries of my brother. I did not need sight. All I needed was to hear my brother. All I needed was to find him. We could get back to the Pasture together.

But I did not see the fault line, drawn in the stone long before my time.

I fell in.

Now I was the one crying at the bottom of the fault. I was the one crying. My legs were broken by the fall. My head hurt because I couldn’t see where I was falling. My body ached, and all I could do was cry out for help.

No one woke to my brother’s cries. Who would find me?

A faint light came above the fault, and the sweet voice of the Shepard called out to me.

“Where were YOU?” I screamed from the bottom of the fault. Over and over I shouted out at the Shepherd as He climbed down the fault and scooped me in to His strong arms. He held me as I shrieked and cried and cursed. Not a word came from His lips.

In the silence my Shepherd carried me home to the Pasture.

My family took me in with my broken legs, and they took care of me.

But I was not satisfied.

I laid in the grass, but I could not rest. Night after night, I would watch as the Shepherd walked out of the Pasture. My eyes watched the edge of the Pasture, desperately waiting for my Shepherd to come Home. And as I watched the darkness, the cries of my brothers and sisters came to my little ears. Their cries were so loud that I could not sleep, nor did I want to sleep.

All I wanted was to go out in to the darkness, go to my siblings, but I knew that I could not. My broken legs reminded me that I was never going to be able to bring them back to the Pasture.

Just before the morning would break, at the darkest moment of the night, the Shepherd would walk back in to the Pasture with my sister or brother in His strong arms. They would be bruised or broken like me, but they were home at last.

As my eyes adjusted to the light my Shepherd carried with Him, I noticed something dreadful.

He was broken too.

My Shepherd was bruised. My Shepherd was cut to the bone. My Shepherd was covered in blood, sweat, and tears. My Shepherd was hurt, and He chose to be so. Broken, like me, my Shepherd brought my siblings back to the Pasture. Broken, like me, my Shepherd went in to the dead of night to bring life to the day. Broken, like me, my Shepherd was made whole.

I did not want my Shepherd to notice me watching Him, so I would shut my eyes as soon as He came through the narrow gate.

But one night I forgot to close my eyes.

“Why are you awake?” My Shepherd asked with a sweet smile. It was as if He was laughing. Did He know that I was watching Him all this time?

“You’re hurt,” I said with tears in my eyes, “Why are you hurt? Why do you get hurt?”

“I’m like you,” My Shepherd said, “I ran out to your brothers and sisters, and now I am hurt too. But now you are all safe, and I am with you.”

“Please,” I started to cry, “Please let me help you.”

My Shepherd looked at me with pity. The little lamb could not possibly do a thing to help Him. The little lamb was too broken to play in the Pasture with her family. Yet here she was, listening to the cries of her brothers and sisters in the darkness, asking for a chance to help. Yet here she was, unable to rest in the Pasture, pleading for a purpose.

He scooped me in to His arms and kissed my forehead.

“Rest now so that I may love you,” he whispered, and I fell asleep in His arms.

I slept in my Shepherd’s arms that entire day. I did not notice because I fell asleep without even a single thought. Not a thing could stir me awake. In silence, I slept in my Shepherd’s strong arms, unaware of what was to come. All I knew was that I was safe, that I was at peace, that I was loved.

I awoke in the darkness, amidst the screams of my siblings. 

I had never heard sorrow quite so loud.

Fear filled my heart. All of the pain in the world surrounded me, and there was nothing I could do. I nearly jumped out of my Shepherd’s arms, but when the fear took a hold of me, My Shepherd clutched me even tighter. He held me so close that I could not dare to move away from Him. Instead I looked up in to His eyes.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Let Me Show you,” my Shepherd cast His light out at the darkness. 

In the dim light, I could see a bush. The bush was filled with thorns and brambles and other terrible things. Yet as I looked even closer, I noticed the light was just a bit brighter at the center. In the bright light, I saw my brother. He was crying. He was hurt. He was trapped in the bush, and no one could get him out.

“I will go in to the bush,” My Shepherd said.

“No!” I cried, “You are too big to go in the bush! Let me go in the bush! Let me go! Please let me help You!”

My Shepherd lowered me down. Without hesitation, I ran in to the bush. Thorns snagged at my fleece, but I did not care. Brambles caught my ears, but I did not care. All I cared about was my brother, lost in the thorns and bushes. His cries were so loud now that I could barely hear my own heart racing as I pushed through the bushes.

My brother continued to shriek as I pushed the thorns from his face and nudged him out of the bush.

It took so long to get out of the bush that my once white fleece turned pink. I don’t know if it was my brother’s blood or my own that covered me, but I did not care. My Shepherd was there. He would take care of us. He got me out of the fault, and He would save my brother too.

Before I could even get out of the bush, My Shepherd pulled my brother and I out of the bushes. Blood flowed from His strong arms as He pulled us out of the thorns. It fell on my fleece, and suddenly the blood I shed on behalf of my brother turned white. The cuts remained, but the stain was gone.

Then I realized that my legs weren’t broken anymore.

“I can walk,” I gazed up at My Shepherd as He scooped me in to His strong arms again.

“Not for long,” he said, “You are still broken, but because you love your brother, you can walk for him. It will be a long time before you will play in the Pasture again.”

“But why?” I teared up, “Why don’t you want me in the Pasture?”

“I do want you in the Pasture my love,” he whispered to soothe my angry heart, “But you cannot sleep at night. You hear the cries I hear all day, and you cannot rest. So I must hold you close in the Pasture. You cannot heal without rest. So I will heal you in the darkness, where no one can see you. As day breaks, you will sleep in my arms as I tend to your family. Your dreams will be filled with love of your family, and that love will compel you to walk again in the darkness. So your love will help you walk again.”

And so I followed my Shepherd day and night, following the little ones. Broken though I might be, my love for them made me stronger. My Shepherd made me stronger.

My Shepherd took me in to the places where only the littlest of lambs could go, and he gently cradled me as my body healed from the torture. Not once did He ask me to go. Not once did He tell me to do anything. He let me love the little ones.

In time, My Shepherd let me walk beside Him in the darkness. Light followed wherever He went, but no one could see me. It tired me to walk, and I longed for the days I could sleep in My Shepherd’s arms.

But I could be strong for My Shepherd.

I thought I had to be strong for My Shepherd.

As I started to walk in the darkness, I started to awaken during the day in My Shepherd’s arms. My legs were weak, but I could stand up straight in the Pasture now. With wobbly legs, I started to walk towards my family. They rejoiced at seeing me, but when they realized that I could not play like them, they were distraught. Some blamed My Shepherd. Some blamed me.

No one knew about my brothers and sisters.

They never saw me in the darkness. Even if they did, what they really saw was My Shepherd’s strong hands which drew them in to His strong arms. I would snuggle beside my brothers and sisters on our way home, but they could not see me in the dark.

So they blamed me and My Shepherd too.

One day I woke in the middle of the day. I did not want to leave My Shepherd, so I pretended to sleep. He knew that I was faking. He always knows when I am hiding, even when I don’t want Him to know why I am hiding. With love in His voice, My Shepherd asked me to open my eyes.

“Why won’t you play in the Pasture?” He asked, “Is this not what you want?”

“I do want to play,” I said, “But I am not strong here. I am strong with You.”

“I am always with you,” My Shepherd reminded me.

“But not like when I am with my brothers and sisters outside,” I said, “If only I could spend all day and all night with them. Then I would be strong. Then I would be able to play again. Then I would have someone to be with.”

“Am I not someone?” My Shepherd asked.

“Someone like me,” I said, “A little lamb who can hear the other lambs. Why can’t they hear our brothers and sisters crying in the bushes? Why do they judge my scars and bruises when You have the same ones? Why am I alone?”

My Shepherd did not answer. He just kissed my forehead and held me tight. It was not time for me to play yet. In the silence, My Shepherd made the Pasture feel even greater than the darkness.

Night came, and I waited for My Shepherd to take me out in to the darkness.

Instead, He sat in the Pasture, and He let me watch my family sleep. At first it seemed boring, but as I continued to watch, I noticed that there were others who could not sleep. Their eyes were fastened shut, but they were not at rest. They were like me.

“Why can’t they come with us?” I asked.

“Because they have already gone where you are going,” My Shepherd said, “There will be many more like you, and there are many more who are still like you. Just as your brothers and sisters cannot see you in the darkness, so too can you not see your siblings who walk in the darkness beside us. You cannot see the ones who snuggled beside you, but they are there too.”

“Why can’t I see them?”

“Because you and your siblings were made to be forgotten. Not for forever, but for now you will be in the darkness. I will never forget you, not a single one of you. I will never forget those who can rest in the Pasture either. I will never forget my lambs because I will always love my lambs,” My Shepherd’s eyes met mine, and He placed his hand on the top of my head.

The next night I walked out with My Shepherd, and even though I felt like it was just the two of us, I also felt like there were many present in our little journey.

We walked towards the cries, unafraid of the cuts and bruises we would receive. I will never know why My Shepherd never cared about His own wounds when they never fully healed. I knew that I was safe in His presence, so I did not care if I got hurt again. Nothing could destroy me when My Shepherd walked beside me.

I climbed out of a fire-pit with my sister over my shoulders. My Shepherd came down in to the pit with me, and He was badly burned. Yet He still smiled at us as He cradled us in His arms.

More confident than ever, I decided to ask another question.

“Will I ever remember one who walks with us?” I asked, “Surely there are more lambs here and now.”

“Someday you will have a lamb to walk with in the darkness, and I will come to you both as I have come to you every night. For now, you must rest in My arms. For now, you must wait for the other to be strong too. They will be stronger than you, My little one. They must be because you are little, too little to walk on your own. I will make him strong. That will take time, more time than you can know,” he paused, “But I will not leave you alone in the darkness when your time comes to walk to the Pasture. I will give you a companion who will walk alongside you, and together you will help my lambs find the Pasture.”

Someday I will be remembered, but for now I will walk in the shadows of death with My Shepherd, caring for His little lambs.

For now I will walk with my Shepherd because I know that I am safe at His side.

He walks with me, casting light amidst the shadows, softening the shrieks of my siblings whom I love too much to bear. 

And when the darkness tries to hurt me, my Shepherd scoops me up in His strong arms, kisses my forehead, and tells me to sleep. There I rest in His arms, safe in the silence, and I know that I am well. When I awake, I am in the Pasture, and my Shepherd is still holding me in His strong arms. He smiles down at me, and He helps me stand and play with my family in the Pasture.

Then, as night falls again, He calls me to His side, ready for another night with me.

At times I feel the presence of my siblings who share my path, but I do not seek to see them. All I need to see is the light my Shepherd gives me.

But someday I will walk on my own in the Pasture. Someday I will walk through the shadows. Someday I will be strong.

But for today, and for every day I can imagine, I will rest in my Shepherd’s arms, trusting that He will not leave me to walk alone.

Amen.

Learning to Laugh

Most of the day is foggy, but I’ll never forget the day when my mother shared an article with me describing the prevalence of undiagnosed ADHD in highly-intelligent women. It was the first time I saw the words “intelligent” and “mental health” associated with one another and sticking.

I saw the description, and I recognized myself.

The phrase, “many are misdiagnosed with general anxiety as children” stuck out to me like a sore thumb. It transported me back to high school graduation when all of my friends were sitting with the top 10% of our graduating class, and I was next to a kid that was high on something stronger than weed, but not something I wanted to ask about.

“Look at how much you’ve accomplished with your anxiety!” my parents said as a consoling statement.

I was not consoled.

Anxiety didn’t stop me from doing my homework. What stopped me from doing my homework were the nearly flawless exam scores that indicated that maybe I didn’t need to practice with homework. Anxiety did not make my math exams the only bad exams. What hurt my math grade was the fact that unless a goal was presented in a word problem, I had little reason to care if the equation was balanced in the end. Anxiety did not lead me personally in to an emotionally abusive relationship. What brought me there was a fixation that could not be severed by self-thought alone. Anxiety wasn’t why I loved Jesus so much. What made me love Jesus was the fact that He was only person outside of Team Newton that I knew would love me forever.

Anxiety was not the reason why I struggled in life.

It was undiagnosed ADHD, masked socially by my love for each person in a room and academically by my slightly higher IQ which helped me discern the best way to approach questions in my own way.

So when I saw the phrase that I was misdiagnosed, I nearly jumped for joy. This was not to say that I thought ADHD was any better than anxiety, but rather it explained why I still struggled in life even though I was treated for anxiety.

Of course I still didn’t want to believe it was true.

I was fine

…right?

After I read the article, I sat down on top of a table on the Patton side of the Sixth Floor Penthouse and waited for my mother to call me. I sat in front of the doors of the residents I knew were either sleeping off a hangover or not in class. I made sure that I was closest to the people who didn’t know me very well that morning because that was the day I was going to go over the questionnaire Dr. Sharpe gave to patients who were considering an ADHD diagnosis.

My mother was going to administer the survey over the phone because I was just too against the idea of having a new mental health diagnosis. Yes, I was happy that I could say that my issues were less likely to be caused by anxiety, but I still didn’t want to believe that I was any different than anyone else.

After all, the only person I knew with ADHD prior to my diagnosis was one of the least successful people I knew in high school.

I wasn’t annoying like her.

I wasn’t bad at school like her.

“Yes you do do that,” my mother said with a chuckle over and over throughout the survey. Every time I wanted to be frustrated, my mom’s reassuring laugh reminded me that it wasn’t just about me. Maybe this diagnosis was helpful for my mom too. I didn’t want to continue with the survey, but I completed it all for her. Laughter was happy. I wanted my mom to be happy. After all, she was my best friend, and she still is my best friend.

I sat down with Dr. Sharpe, and we confirmed my diagnosis.

He gave me a drug and taught me how it worked. I loved Organic Chemistry, so he used my knowledge of chemistry to describe the drug. What with all of the art in his office, I could imagine Dr. Sharpe could connect with just about anyone.

Thus began my treatment of ADHD.

To be honest, I did not notice a difference at first.

What it took was my parents acknowledging the little things that were changing in my life. They pointed out that I could sit through an entire movie without having to get up between most scenes. They pointed out that I could ride in the car without asking how long we would be riding. They pointed out that I did not interrupt as much.

But I still had issues.

Class was boring to me now. Biochemistry, my favorite class until that point, was so easy that I felt like I didn’t need to be in the room anymore. Remember my ADHD was masked academically by my ability to think through problems on my own. Now the answers made sense to me in the “normal” way, and I did not want to be stuck in that room any longer than was necessary.

I still had many social issues. I interrupted people. I picked enemies and stuck with them. I made assumptions about myself in any group without even stopping to consider the fact that no one really cares about all of the little things.

My medication was close to perfect, but I still needed help adjusting.

Right after my diagnosis, people started coming out of the woodwork to tell me that they also had ADHD. Some of my sweetest friends had the same manifestation of the disorder, so much to the point that our testimonies sounded almost identical. These were smart, kind, and likeable people.

I did not expect the communal aspect of the ADHD life.

And yet it was that community which gave me the confidence to talk to my doctor about my dosage. It was that community which taught me the language to use with my parents about how I really felt.

Most importantly, it was the ADHD community that taught me that you don’t have to be so serious about ADHD.

I stopped being offended by ADHD jokes, and I started to make some of my own. In a way, making ADHD relatable and understandable to my neurotypical friends made me feel more in control than when I tried to keep it to myself and be serious about all of the unexpected side-effects of treatment and understanding the social aspect.

In the upcoming weeks, I will share the ADHD perks, but for now I will stay on this phase of ADHD treatment.

In response to how I was feeling, my doctor upped my dosage. Even though there was a dose in between the starting and the one he gave me, we went straight to the higher dose. I was a little unsettled by the change, but I trusted that my doctor knew what he was talking about. After all, ADHD is his specialty.

First day on my higher dose: I laid on the ground and stared at the ceiling for two hours straight without noticing. I forgot to eat.

Second day on my higher dose: my heart started beating irregularly and I felt like I was going to pass out, or throw up, or both.

Third day on my higher dose: I told myself that it wasn’t real and that I was just anxious about how I felt on a higher dose. I started to mask the fact that I didn’t feel well so that my doctor’s recommendation would be correct. The default is to mask.

After two weeks of an irregular heartbeat and paranoia, I told my mother how gross I felt. Then I told my father. Together we made it so that I could take the middle dose. I wanted to go back to my original dose, but they insisted that we at least try the middle dosage.

I am so glad they did.

Because once you hit your “sweet spot,” it is like night and day.

When I say that it is like night and day, I mean to say it’s more like dusk and dawn. No matter how many medications you try, no matter how many therapists you see, no matter how long you’ve been treated for ADHD, there are still going to be missed connections and problems you have to work out on your own.

Being on the wrong dosage is like being in dusk.

You can see, but not very well. It’s more dark than light, but you can’t turn on your headlights just yet. They say that that is the most dangerous time to drive because you can easily miss a kid running across the street or miss a street sign because of poor vision.

When you’re on the wrong dose, you can focus, but more often than not it helps you focus on what isn’t quite right in your life.

And because it isn’t quite right, but just right enough, you lack the motivation to do anything about it.

My bedroom is the perfect indication of dusk. 

They say that it is important to keep things organized when you have ADHD. Translation? You need to clean your room. Determined to prove to myself that I could do anything, even with a developmental disorder, I attempted to clean my room. I still laugh when I think about my first few attempts at getting organized.

My floor was cleared.

My clothes were washed.

But all of my stuff was just thrown on to shelves, and my clean clothes just stayed in the clean hamper because “it’s organized enough.”

Now look at the dawn.

When you are on the correct treatment, the fuzziness of your mind clears up quite a bit. However, because ADHD is a developmental disorder, there are many things that will never be fixed by a medication. We have less neurons in our brain, and as a result, we have fewer opportunities to make a connection in our brains. Again, this can be a perk, but I will save that for later.

Working memory will always be difficult, but on the proper dosage, it lasts a little longer.

Interacting with the opposite gender will always be a little more uncomfortable, but on the proper dosage, it is only as nerve wracking as it would be for a neurotypical.

Sticking with an activity will always be a challenge, but on the proper dosage, it is easier to maintain motivation.

When I was put on the proper dosage, my room suddenly became organized and cleaned. I washed the walls, vacuumed, and even dusted. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but my room was finally livable. I wasn’t ashamed to invite my residents over for cookies and conversation anymore. I didn’t have to lie to my mom that I cleaned my room anymore.

It was hard to get to the right dosage, but it revolutionized my life.

There is a point that I will make next week about treatment. As your brain adjusts to proper activity, it starts to change. This is called synaptic plasticity, and it is a normal biological function. However, as the connections change and are strengthened, the dosage and even medication you will have to take will also change.

ADHD is not a one and done sort of disorder.

ADHD is developmental, which means that every development in the brain has an impact on treatment.

But with a community and trust in your doctor, your life will change.