“i’m pretty worried.” and then i laughed, high and weird and strained.
he nodded at me and i nodded at him and i pressed my hands very hard together, which is what i do when i want to be politely still but i’m nervous and want to move.
“so there’s a lot of ways to think about this test,” he said, “but for what i’m about to show you - well. let’s picture the test is out of 100.”
“okay,” i said. i had begged him to give me a “half test”; one i could afford out-of-pocket. i had good insurance; behavioral health wasn’t offered for me. i’d been paying for a therapist by working 3 jobs; a situation that stressed me out enough i joked she earned her keep. if i took the whole test, the pricetag began at nine hundred and thirty.
robert the learning specialist is nice. robert was referred to me by a friend. i like all his books and his nice chairs and the warm browns he decorates with.
this is a funny story. i think this story is very fucking funny.
he places his hand on the side of the monitor and looks up over it at me. “so, there are diagnostic requirements for each condition to be considered medically significant. nobody really scores lower than, in this example, 30.”
okay. i was 25 and ready for this - that all the self-care, self-treatment… it was pointless. it had always been possible: i don’t have adhd, im just fucking stupid. im lazy. im the worst student and a terrible friend. everyone was right about me. this was a personality kind of a thing. i was pretending. i was jumping on an internet trend.
“at 60,” robert continues, “and - again, these aren’t the real numbers - but at 60, we would consider that to be significant enough for diagnosis. after that, we tend to think of it as increasing in severity.”
his brows are knit. he looks strained. so i probably got a 14. i probably didn’t take it right. im probably the first person on earth to waste three hundred dollars just to be told i broke the test. fuck. they’re going to cancel my meds.
robert turns the screen around. there’s a graph on it, a bunch of lines and numbers too small for me to read. “here’s the diagnostic line, this 60 i talked about”. he points to a yellow band, a little bouncy wave close to the middle. “here’s the average citizen, at a 37”. this is a red one, closer to the bottom. then he points to a blue. “at a 75 to 78, we would consider the situation to be severe. it’s not marked, but 90 would be extreme.does this make sense?”
“yes. definitely.” more nodding, more hand pressing. i skitter my eyes around the grey shape, trying to find where my results are. maybe along one of the control lines?
“out of a possible score of 100,” he says, “you scored ninety-eight.”
he points up at the top, a sparkling lime green wiggle. i hadn’t seen it; it was too close to the border of the graph. he gently points back-and-forth from yellow to green, like he is breaking bad news to me.
“well,” i say. “so i won the test? or is that a bad thing.”
“i’ve been doing this work for over forty years,” he tells me, “and never in my whole career have i seen someone score so highly.”
“i have adhd,” i say.
“well, these are preliminary tests, and it would be unprofessional for me to confirm until we continue to -”
“isuper have adhd,” i repeat.
he turns the screen back around. “i think it’s - i would be remiss not to say that i find it extremely impressive you’ve been able to structure your life around this in such a way that you have remained undiagnosed until now.”
“well,” i say. “i did have a feeling.” let out a little laugh again. sharp like a bark. “sorry. oh my god. sorry, i don’t mean to laugh. it’s just. i have,” i repeat, “like super severeadhd.”
robert rests his hands on his desk and looks at me. he looks sad, even though this whole thing is hysterically funny. “yes. i think that i can confirm that, but, like i said, i have to encourage you to take the whole test and to -”
“i thought,” i say, and for some reason i think it’s funnier than anything i ever said - “i literally thought i was faking.”
“well.” he moves the monitor so it isn’t between us. “if i might say something? if you’re experiencing these symptoms so frequently that your entire life has been structured around preparing for their inevitability - my question is always; why would you be faking? when you are alone, when you are struggling, what is the point of faking? wouldn’t you be able to turn it off? once you received the attention or the accolades, wouldn’t you stop? you’ve talked to me about how much you feel this - and i’m quoting you here” he looks at his notes. “… ruins your life. why would you submit to that, without any actual payout?”
“oh my god.” i have to text everyone i know about this immediately. “i have adhd. like big. like the biggest. severely.”
“well,” robert’s brows are creasing.
“sorry,” i can’t stop laughing, “you just - i mean. i just had the stray thought - what if i’ve faked this so well that the test can’t tell that i’m lying?”
Btw, I finally talked to my roommate and was like “You make me uncomfortable and you feel it too, but you go home every day so you can escape. I’m stuck here.” I also may have mentioned that it’s absurd for her to not only clean my room but to fold my laundry. Oh, and I might have mentioned that everything i own is here in this tiny ass room. And I threw in something along the lines of, “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. My side is a representation of me, not you. And they’re your friends and quite frankly I don’t give a shit what they think. They aren’t my friends.”
TMA has irreversibly changed how I react to things. My boss was like “hey do you might doing some really boring stuff? Can you digitize these old pictures for the archives?” And I’m like OH BOY I WOULD LOVE TO
today at work, it was the last day of the indoor mask mandate for california and this woman asked me “didn’t that end today?” and I was like “no it ends tomorrow, the mandate is still in effect today, it says here on this sign” and pointed to it and she was like “I can’t hear you because you’re wearing a mask” and I got closer and basically said, I don’t make the rules but today the mandate is definitely still in effect so if you need a mask I can give you one free. and she smiled and creepily told me “Boy they have you trained well, you’re just like sheep to the slaughter…” and I just think that goes down as the creepiest shit anyone has ever said to me at work
i love these gay mages with all my heart. theyre the ideal combination. the floofy, eccentric jock and his edgy goth bf. idyllic. immaculate. all i ever want out of life.
if you want me to consume a new media you MUST catch me at the exact moment when the stars are aligned and the air pressure is equal to the current degree of the sun’s peak against the horizon and all the cosmic energies are perfectly unified (aka my old interest is fading out) or i will nod and say “im adding that to my list!” Knowing theres no chance i will check it out
“unless its a book!” “unless you tell me it has gay people in it!” “this but only for live action shows” “theres a good chance i’ll get to it eventually” no wrong this post is not for you this post is ONLY for bitches who could have a treasured friend recommend them something that sounds grown in a lab to be your personal catnip and, with no choice in the matter, immediately know it will never be the right time to watch/read/listen to it
