It just don’t ADD up

Am I sick? Does it matter?

For a very long time I have understood that I have ADD. Or maybe ADHD, the edgy one with the extra letter. No, I have never been formally diagnosed, nor have I self-diagnosed, or even consulted Dr Google. It’s weird, it’s as though it is such an element of my psyche that to have it diagnosed would somehow domesticate it, diminish it. Heaven forbid, someone might even want to medicate it.

Now I do not want to minimise or treat lightly the suffering that a mental disorder can impose. Nor can I be hard-line on the use of medication or therapy to ameliorate the effect of any psychological disorder, in order to assist a person to live life as fully as possible.

But in society we have observed a bizarre valorisation of a range of illnesses, conditions and disorders. We now witness the celebration of mental illnesses. All kinds of mental conditions and the pain and suffering they can confer should be validated and sufferers affirmed. I applaud this impulse; it is necessary and commendable. The stigmatisation of mental illness, the abominable attempts such as those performed in an effort to “cure” women of post natal depression, have been a stain on society and the medical profession. In my time as a high school teacher I worked with many damaged and struggling young people, and have seen at first hand the tough road some kids have been put on. So I used to be open with students and tell them: hey, I have ADD but you know what, it didn’t stop me from making a professional life for myself.

In recent years care and compassion have metastasised into shouty affirmation. This is a fine word, which to me should convey courage, hope, and support. But like many words it has been hijacked into contemporary language such as to drain it of, ironically, its affirmative power. People suffering from mental disorders are often now “affirmed” into narcissistic helplessness. Ordinary feelings such as sadness or fear have become pathologized. People experiencing these now expect to be validated and affirmed for it. Some people celebrate their mental condition as conferring some kind of superiority.

True Romantics, they suffer, feel more intensely, are glorious outsiders, living a life more deep, dramatic and tragic than the rest of us. At the same time, so very vulnerable. That surfeit of sensitivity, I guess. Celebrating the self as spectacle. Micro-aggressions can bring them undone, their feelings, fiercely dramatised, must be protected and always assented to.

Seems odd, this image – on the one hand edgy outsider, and on the other, lachrymose victim. Psychological disorders will always provide validation. I am [insert psychological disorder]; this is me, it makes me special and unique. Oh, and it also lets me off the hook for all kinds of misdemeanours.

These contradictions are both interesting and tragic. If I see myself as [insert psychological disorder] in perpetuity, then that condition has a hold on me. I do not move on. There is no better version of myself to be discovered. I am perfect just the way I am. It is not “my” [insert psychological disorder], it is a transcendent and eternal power that gives me the security of a special identity, externally bestowed, a gift.

However, there is another way of seeing all this. Sure, I can say I “have” ADD in the same way that I have the flu. But ADD is just a medical term. Useful, no doubt; it’s good to name things, to classify, describe and categorise. It helps us to communicate and share understandings. But language lets us down as well. ADD then becomes a thing, a particular kind of thing, a psychological condition. It comprises a range of behaviours, for the most part negatively perceived in our society. Some parts, or elements, of my character, have been abstracted from the whole, and labelled, as though they were simply body parts.

I can choose to reject transcendental ADD and look at it as one part of the complexity of my character. It does not control me or determine me, it can be accepted for what it is. If I also have gifts such as intelligence or musicality then I can appreciate ADD as another type of gift, and each is an expression or manifestation of my character. Why would I be foolish enough to identify with, let alone valorise, a psychological disability above all else? If I can exploit my musical ability or my intelligence, then I can explore how ADD helps make me who I am and can help fuller expression of my being and my development as a person.

We live in a capitalist, consumer culture. Its purpose is to make us want stuff and buy stuff. Including our own minds and bodies. Yes, that is “stuff”. We consume our own image. We have been turned into products that we “consume”, sold back to us as consumer items. Self as spectacle, as I said earlier. We are enticed by all manner of psychological disorders that can be turned to profit. Consumer capitalism tries to tell me what I am and to betray me into becoming a collection of commodities. I must look outwards, not inwards. Or if I look inwards, it is only to see what has already been planted there. One of the prime experiences of modern western society, alienation, applies also to the self.

“Othering” has a bad reputation, but it can also be a useful practice. You can use it on yourself, and allow your body and mind to speak on their own terms. For instance, ADD. What if I let these elements of my character speak for themselves, not merely exist as labels? What might they tell me that surprises or changes me? If nothing is challenged, nothing is changed.

A thought experiment. Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, just imagine, for the purpose of the experiment, that it is true. So before you were here you chose all that there is about you. Why did you choose to have [insert psychological disorder] as part of your “bag of tools” (from the Heptones’ song “Book of Rules”)? “Other” yourself, and see what you find.

I don’t care that I have ADD. It doesn’t make me a victim, or special. I accept the characteristics that might fall under that umbrella term, how they hinder, how they help. Being a person is messy. Why would you have it any other way?