You ever get that feeling where your mind- not the physical part, but the vast, expansive, thought-filled, almost-metaphysical, open-sandbox mind that can think of a hundred different thoughts about a hundred different things and still make sense of it all, even the ones that don't actually make sense- is taken and placed into a clear jar.
The jar is small. The mind is big, but it's wispy, too. Like thick fog. It all fits inside the jar, but it's a very uncomfortable squeeze.
Now, inside this jar, you can't think about everything anymore. You can't think in that big, expansive playground. You have to stay in the jar, and the way you're folded up inside means you can only look at a few things at a time: the things close to the jar. But at the same time you know there's other stuff- a whole wide world to look at and think about- and so the back of the inside your head itches because you can't turn around and look at them.
And then you feel twitchy. Not the mind part of you- that's all been bottled up. The physical you. Every inch of you is screaming to go run around, to poke things, to do things, rather than just sit there staring blankly ahead. But you can't, because they've got to your head, and without your mind, there's really not much your body can do.
So you twitch and cringe and writhe on the inside, while on the outside, you're relatively calm. You nod and smile and the teacher gives you a gold star sticker because you didn't bite anyone today. On the inside, in a place that kinda feels like your general chest/stomach area, but at the same time isn't actually there, your soul is curled up on the ground, kicking like a dying animal. But it's okay, because you got the star, and that's all that matters.
That's what it felt like to take the ADHD meds.
Needless to say, as a child, I hated taking my meds.
Hate, hate, hated it.
I don't know if other kids had the 'mind being stuffed into a small space' feeling, but that's the best way I can describe it. Trust me, I've been trying to put words to that specific sort of agony since the I was six, and that's the closest I've come to it.
I don't blame them for stuffing the pills down my throat. I was a hard child to put up with. My mother loves telling the stories to anyone who'll listen- including myself.
I used to glue things to my desk for the fun of it. Pencils, papers, erasers- my hand, once. In the middle of class, I would get up and walk around, looking at all the books and stuffed animals and things that lined our fourth grade class. The teacher told me to stay seated. So I went back to my desk, and then my desk would 'magically' start scotching around the classroom, bumping into to other kid's desk and going around to the big empty space in the back where the counter with the books were, all while the teacher tried desperately to continue the lesson. Every day, I'd get sent home with the orders to write lines.
"I will not sing in class" - 50x
"I will not bite people" - 40X
"I will not touch the teacher's desk" - 80X
"I am not allowed to write on walls" - 40X
My personal favorite:
"I will not use abbreviations when writing lines" - 100X
They started feeding me the pills around the second or first grade. I took them until we ran out sometime in the sixth/seventh grade, and due to a combination of outside influences, we never got them restocked.
I want to say I'm cured. That I've grown out of it, that ADHD is a bullshit disorder and that there was never anything wrong with me but the usual childish free-spiritedness society so eagerly crushes in youth and then tries (and fails) to cultivate again in adulthood. (Don't believe me, look at any job where they insist on 'innovated thinkers' who 'think outside of the box'. The box you put them in, fuckers!).
And sometimes, I really think that. I tell myself I was misdiagnosed during a period of time where any excuse to drug up and shut up kids was all the rage.
But that saying that over and over doesn't stop me from waking up at two AM and going rollerblading outside. Or from working on seven different projects at once and getting only half of them finished. Or why I get bored of some things so easily for arbitrary and pointless reasons- if there's a reason at all. Or why in the middle of class, I'll suddenly find myself sneaking outside- not to ditch or smoke or any of that, but to run around the building a couple times before returning.
It was all particularly troublesome in high school, where I basically failed all six of my classes freshman year. After than I started drinking copious amounts caffeinated soda and energy drinks. My grades went up, as did my pant size. So I switched to diet soda and coffee, lost twenty pounds, and passed with four credits to spare.
Why am I bringing all this up? I'm not really sure.
Last night, I really couldn't sleep because of the noise in my head. And I thought of the meds for the first time in ages, and I thought of the soul-wrenching feeling of being inside the jar or the box or whatever small container there is. And then I thought of My BFF.
My BFF was visiting the other day from the faraway foreign land of Nevadia. She's got regular ADD, but unlike me, she still takes pills. And social anxiety pills, to counteract the side effects. During the middle of the movie we were watching, we both got bored at almost the exact same moment. She pulled out her 3DS and played Pokemon rumbleblast. I got up and went to walk around the house aimlessly for a bit. Neither of us mentioned the fact that we weren't watching the movie anymore. In fact, after about five minutes, we both reached for the computer to put on something else. . . which lead to an awkward 'Oh, you do it. No? Okay, I will- oh wait! You're going to'? game until MST3K was finally put on.
I'm not sure what that says about us, if anything at all. But I think I'm happy just to have someone who gets it.