ADHD

So, I volunteered for an ADHD study recently and am pretty psyched about it.
I've always thought that I was a victim of some kind of pshychological defect and after my initial interview with one of the shrinks at a major medical center I feel almost justified in wasting countless years worrying about what was wrong with me. Apparently I answered all the questions right. Even the ones that weren't asked!

As a young boy, I remember seeing the film "The Omen" which actually has a remake coming out this week. In fact today is 6/6/06, so there's a method to my madness after all.
Anyway, I remember thinking that there was something wrong with my mind and after I saw that movie. I worried that I might one day not be able to enter a church or that holy water would burn my skin. Of course, after I saw "Jesus of Nazareth" I also considered the possiblity that I could be the third coming - which of course also meant that I was here to get the Book of Revelations on a roll. Either way, I was bad news for the not-so-good people of Mother Earth.

As time passed and I realized that I didn't have telekinetic powers and that I couldn't make my enemies commit suicide or have untimely "accidents" no matter how hard I willed it to happen, I started to realize that I might be retarded. This idea was reinforced in fifth grade, when my mother and father forced me to change schools and attend St. Bernard's Academy where I proceeded to have problems with math. Up to then, school had not been much of a challenge but then this math thing happened. I couldn't get it. I was completely lost in class and had almost no idea what my torturer, I mean, my teacher, Mrs. Calcification, had in mind when she was talking about fractions and decimals. It was like she was speaking Chinese sometimes, but she was Italian-American and I'm pretty sure she didn't know any Asian languages.

So as the years passed, my math problems continued and by the time I was in high school they spread to the sciences and philology as well. Well, I pretty much knew there was a problem as soon as it started in fifth grade. I immediately began to seek help within myself. I had always found myself to be my best counselor because whenever I asked anyone else for advice all I heard was "wah wah wah wha..." and that didn't usually help much.

So my inner voice told me several times - from the age of ten to the much-more-recent past - that I was retarded. I was doing well in other areas though. I was also keenly aware that most of the people I dealt with on a daily basis, including many of my teachers, were vastly inferior to me both intellectually and physically. I therefore concluded that I was a "special" retard. I was kind of a lucky retarded person because I was able to fool everyone around me into thinking I was normal because I didn't have the physical characteristics of a retarded person, nor was I so spastic. I was also able to get through school as a farily above-average student despite having no idea what anyone was talking about most of the time.

I avoided intellectual and sporting activities that required a lot attention to detail. If I had too much to think about I was sure to get confused and either made fun of by a teacher or hit in the head by a ball and laughed at by my peers. School became a very stressful environment for me and by the time I was eleven I couldn't wait for it to end. "Only eleven more years of this", I told myself daily. By the time I was in college, though, things got easier. There was less pressure to perform in front of others and I could take my time writing and thinking. I found myself to be much less inclined to want my enemies to die by being hit by speeding 18-wheel trucks or to be eaten by cockroaches. I started to think that maybe my mother might have been unwittingly abusing some kind of narcotic disgused as a diet pill while pregnant with me. That could be the reason for the challenges that I faced. At any rate, I was still getting by and at times was praised by my teachers - though never to my satisfaction.

I have a friend who has hinted that I might have ADD or ADHD but I never took it too seriously since I think it's something most people have to some degree. Only now, I have come to a point in my life where I feel that something is amiss to the degree that it's preventing me from growing. I guess only time will tell. I just hope it's not too much time before I know more about who I can be and if I like him and want to stay him or go back to the me I am now.