When I read my psychiatrists notes it said; ADHD, but likely mostly ADD as she sat still in the chair.
The missing H is the hyperactive, impulsive, fidgety side of ADHD.
I was sitting still. I remember.
I was concentrating very hard on the psychiatrists glasses; the way he kept leaning back in his chair and looking around the room. I was full of relief that I’d got this far with my diagnosis and was waiting for his take on what he thought the next steps could be.
My body was still.
However, if he’d looked closely, he might have noticed that I was picking my thumb nails. I also flexed my fingers out underneath my knees and stretched my arms. If I hadn’t been wearing shoes, he’d have noticed that my toes were moving continuously.
If he’d looked closely at me, he might have seen the times I tensed my jaw, biting my teeth together.
I learnt that squirming about in my seat and not messing about with the pens in the pen pot on somebody else’s desk was something that 33 year olds didn’t do. But the impulse has to go somewhere.
There’s this thing I do when there needs to be a release. I scratch/tickle my nose and top lip. If I’ve been somewhere where I have had to conform, then it happens a lot. It also happens if I’m excited by something in the moment - where I’ve had an instant, unexpected, unplanned, dopamine hit. I also scratch/tickle the back of my head too. (The adult version of the hand shaking/flapping and jumping up and down on the spot I did as a child. Okay fine.)
I don’t get it when I feel held and seen and allowed to be entirely myself. Then I do something else - I have a northern accent. Only if I feel entirely comfortable in your company and seen for who I am do I allow the northern in me to be heard. (My great grandmother was from Newcastle so I’m certain it’s a channel of sorts!)
So here’s the question I ask my ADHD coaching clients - “what do you do as an adult that releases the hyperactivity you had openly as a child?”
I don’t want surface level thought on this; I want a deep discovery of what you allow yourself to do to feel the release of the H in your ADHD. There’ll most certainly be something, however subtle you think it is, and if there’s not…then why not?
And drop me a line and take that call - it might be the best thing you’ve ever done today.
Pip pip.