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COLUMN: ADHD can feel like ticking timebomb

'Due to my inability to deal with my lifelong ADHD, I have many so-called 'legacy' projects that I have been working on for the past 15 years,' writes photojournalist
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My fingertips are on my laptop’s keyboard right now.

I want to write this column and I know what I am going to write about, but my brain is keeping me from starting.

I sigh and get up out of my seat without the intention of doing so.

I push my chair in to the table, aimlessly wander around the room, knowing full well what I need to be doing.

But I just can’t do it. It’s impossible.

I lie down on the couch nearby and my mind wanders away to other things. And time passes.

It's the day before my deadline and I know that I will not be able to complete this today.

It will, however, get done at the last minute, as it always does.

I’m not panicking over the situation. I just understand the reality of it.

This is how my mind works. This is severe ADHD.

Nearly 12 hours pass and I have finally returned to my computer.

Let’s continue this story, shall we?

Rewind my life back to a small elementary school in Mount Albert and you will find almost all of my report cards say, “Kevin needs to pay attention in class much more” or “Kevin needs to focus on completing tasks.”

Back then, in the 1970s, I would be reading a book instead of concentrating on math, playing with my pencil instead of using it to write, and also entertaining my adjacent classmates with my ability to accurately recreate spaceship and laser noises from Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

Not much has changed in that regard, really, although my co-workers today don’t seem to be as entertained as my classmates were with my space noises, which is too bad, as I’m still pretty good at it.

How best to describe ADHD?

Quoting a renowned American psychiatrist Dr. Russell Barkley, this is as clear as ADHD gets: 

“You have a brain, the back part is where you learn, the front part is where you 'do', it is knowledge and performance. Knowing and doing. And ADHD splits them apart. I don’t care what you know. You won’t use it. You could be the brightest kid in the world, it’s not going to matter. You can know stuff, but you won’t do stuff. That’s a serious problem and it’s called a performance disorder. You have a disorder of performance, not knowledge. You know what to do but can’t do it.”

Think of ADHD as “time-blindness” or “intention deficit.”

It is a disorder of the “when and the where.”

My problem has never been with the consequences of not being able to do the work; the problem I have is the delay to the consequence. Time is my enemy.

Barkley suggests that I need to tighten up the accountability and make myself more accountable more often with more people and with more consequences, be it artificial or real consequences, as they need to be.

I need all the consequences that I face, as close to me all the time, eliminating the delays, and as much as possible, sprinkling these artificial consequences all throughout my environment. I need to be held more accountable than other people to improve my functioning.

He calls ADHD the “diabetes of psychiatry,” and it’s a “chronic disorder that must be managed every day to prevent the secondary harms that it’s going to cause.”

This information is all well and great, but apparently the people I answer to in my life must build these consequences and the paths to get there. If they do not, then none of this works, sadly.

I am slowly learning that external motivation is the key, as I can’t create internal motivation. I depend on my immediate environment for my motivation, such as deadlines, and the consequences must be put in the “now” or it will fail miserably.

I am now in my early 50s and due to my inability to deal with my lifelong ADHD, I have many so-called “legacy” projects that I have been working on for the past 15 years that are lying dormant and stagnant that need to be completed.

The most important one of these projects is my expansive book of photos and stories about Canadian musicians over the years and across many genres. I’m so proud of it. It’s 80 per cent complete, but the delays that have been my enemy, as an ADHD sufferer, caused by many factors, one is having to deal with publishers, along with other hoops and hurdles, and the finish line never seems to be within sight.

I reached out to my family doctor about a year ago asking for help, but was met with this response: “You’ve gotten this far in your life and you’ve been successful." There was a reluctance to refer me to specialized help, such as a psychiatrist, and the proven medication that can help, in concert with the help from others in my life that I described above.

I need to return to my doctor and not take no for an answer.

Time is ticking and time is my natural enemy.

Kevin Lamb is a photojournalist whose work often appears on OrilliaMatters


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About the Author: Kevin Lamb

Kevin Lamb picked up a camera in 2000 and by 2005 was freelancing for the Barrie Examiner newspaper until its closure in 2017. He is an award-winning photojournalist, with his work having been seen in many news outlets across Canada and internationally
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