#mental illin-ness

[copperbadge]

I’m a reasonably upbeat person most of the time, probably not despite but rather because of a lifelong diagnosis of clinical depression that was likely just exhaustion from the undiagnosed ADHD. (My mental health is a weird labyrinth that until recently I thought was a chess game.) 

So I didn’t realize I’d been doing this lately but I’m kind of glad I have, I’m sure it’s been good for me: I keep crediting the cool shit I do to the ADHD. 

Not exclusively; I also credit some of the real dumb shit I’ve done to the ADHD. But I’ll get bored or notice something weird and do something to entertain myself, which will delight or perplex those around me (there’s a spectrum). And then I’ll think, oh, that’s probably the ADHD talking, the sidelong approach I take to so much in life. A normal person wouldn’t do cool shit like that. 

(Disclaimer as always: Normal is a cultural consensus and when I say “normal” what I mean is that we have a stringent social idea of “normal” that I do not conform to, nor could I even if I wanted to.) 

Most of the examples I have of this would take too long to explain, or not seem that weird because they’re fandom things that fandom people, who are by and large Very Not Neurotypical, do. To keep it vague, recently I pulled a small prank on a group of people in the same room as me, and it took them about half an hour to notice, and when they did they were all highly amused -- but I laughed so loud at their reactions to the prank that they had to shush me. Prank: fun, but definitely ADHD. Inappropriate loudness: Inappropriate! Also ADHD. Working on that. 

Anyway I caught myself thinking it today -- thinking that an impulsive thing I did which turned out cool was probably spurred on by ADHD-led boredom and curiosity. I never noticed I felt that way before but I definitely have been for at least a few months. 

It’s really nice to have a mental health issue that I feel positive about. Like yeah I do feel hobbled by it sometimes but more by the late diagnosis than anything, really, and it has undoubtedly made my life way more interesting than it otherwise would have been. So that’s cool, and probably pretty functional of me to do. Ultimately I’m the one doing both the neat stuff and the dumb stuff, like I’m not externalizing the ADHD, but if I’m going to think “Hey, mental illness probably made me say that dumb thing the other day” I at least also think “Hey, mental illness made me look real cool just then.” 

Not illness as in infirmity, but as in THAT WAS SICK, BRO.