ADHD and Complex Trauma
An essay from my book, Unbound.
Since I was a kid, I have struggled with anxiety. I lived in an extremely unsafe and chaotic home where sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, physical and emotional abuse were a very real part of my every day experience in the world. I lived in a state of fight/ flight and was always trying to identify ways of staying safe.
I remember my anxiety developed as a fear of germs and bacteria. I would wash my hands compulsively until my hands bled. I would avoid drawing pointed angles when I drew or wrote. I would pinch my neck until it bruised and eventually as a teen, I would self harm as a way to physically feel on the outside how shitty I felt on the inside. I still have scars on my left leg. I would have trouble sleeping and have racing and obsessive thoughts. I had no support as mental health was seen as a weakness or “faking it for attention” in my home. I considered suicide multiple times both as a child and teen, but had nowhere safe to share these thoughts or fears.
Living in a state of constant fight/flight leads to the development of a heightened nervous system. After years and years of chronic abuse, the nervous system identifies fight/flight as the normative state. Living in this state chronically, as opposed to short amounts of time, leads to a number of physiological changes in the body and nervous system. Interestingly enough, many of these symptoms mimic ADHD.
When I look back to high school, I can identify a number of challenges that I coped with silently and on my own. I would struggle to sit in class and pay attention and would often distract other students. I would multi-task in order to stay focused - such as listen to music or doodle on my homework sheets (shout out to the teacher who publicly shamed me in front of the class for doing so). I would have extreme test anxiety and struggle with memorization. I was hyper sensitive to noise and would easily be distracted by sound and movement around me. I wrote all of this off as “normal” and did not seek medication for anxiety until university. My text anxiety and stress became so high that I started experiencing what I now can identify as depressive episodes. I would function as if I had a motor running inside of me, I would take on multiple projects and tasks, I would volunteer, work and go to school full time. I would run at top speed until I would “crash”. Crashes would look like me staying in bed and feeling like I wanted to hide from the world. I would skip class and withdraw from all of my extra curricular activities, then start the cycle all over again. These crashes were also present in high school, but it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that these crashes became de- habilitating. After a major depressive episode, I finally went on anti-depressants after my sister connected me to a doctor who was informed on mental health (another shout out to my old doctor who when I went to talk about my depressive episodes, refused to give me medication and recommended I hang out with friends...).
After I went on anti-depressants, my mental health improved, but it still felt like something was missing. I would still have bursts of high productivity and feeling like I could not sit still, even if someone paid me to. I continued to struggle with fidgeting and moving and keeping busy until my body was physically exhausted or until I smoked enough cannabis to sit TF down. Racing thoughts and the inability to focus on one task continued to be difficult. I would have challenges with remembering details, being late to appointments unless I tried really, really hard to be on time and would often lose attention if someone was speaking to me. I was still very sensitive to noise and distraction. If I went to social events or spent the day out and about, I would come home exhausted because of the amount of energy it would take to focus.
It wasn’t until I learned about Polyvagal Theory that I began to notice the similarities between ADHD and Complex trauma. When the nervous system develops in a heightened state and remains in that state, hyper vigilance becomes the norm. This means that you are unintentionally and automatically always scanning for danger, you have difficulty remaining still and your senses are highly sensitive. Noise and light are the most activating for me, personally. I began to research symptoms of ADHD and Complex Trauma and found that many of the symptoms in fact, overlap. Perhaps there was more to my mental health than anxiety and depression.
After some of my clients shared with me their journey of going on ADHD medication and seeing how it helped relieve some of the symptoms they wrote off as anxiety for most of their life, I finally spoke to my doctor and completed the CADDRA Adult ADHD Self Report Scale assessment. After completing the questionnaire, it was apparent that I definitely met the criteria for ADHD and my doctor and I discussed trying ADHD medication.
Today, is my first day on Concerta. I will be trying the medication for a week to assess whether or not some of my continued challenges with focus, racing thoughts and sensitivities to sound may be finally relieved. I also acknowledge that as always, medication is only one part of the solution to decreasing the impact of my potential ADHD. I hope to practice mediation, engage in physical activity to release my energy and establish some stricter routines. I plan on doing more research on adult ADHD and am interested in exploring this more.
Healing is a fucking journey, but I know that I am only 30 and making more progress in my trauma healing than the family generations before me. I feel hope in learning more about ADHD and connecting the dots of the causes of symptoms I have just “managed” for so long.