Brook, it’s so wild that you just wrote about your diagnosis. Diagnosies? What it the plural of this word? I too have been thinking a lot about my mental health.
I wish my disabilities had come with super powers, like being able to read chapter books at age three. But sadly, I’m 44 and can still barely spell. (see above)
Like you Brook, I was one of the few kids in my school that was singled out as being neurodivergent. This was in 1987 when you sort of had to look like Stephen Hawking to be flagged as needing special attention.
My issue was Dyslexia. And while I looked less like Steve and more like Carl Anne from Poltergeist, it was painfully obvious that I had issues. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t write. Oh, yeah, and I also sucked at math. Thank God, I gave a mediocre blowjob.
IN HIGH SCHOOL! Jesus, people! Get your heads off Epstein’s island!
When Sid first started school, I was convinced that somebody was going to tell me that he was dyslexic. I was also convinced that somebody was going to try and molest him, but that’s because two fucking astrologists told me so.
This feels like a good moment to tell you to NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, have your children’s astrological charts read. But I digress.
I’ll never forget Sid’s first grade teacher showing me his math homework.
“OH MY GOD! He’s like a wizard!” I exclaimed, looking at his addition test like he’d discovered the Fibonacci sequence.
The teacher looked at me nonplussed. “We have a very strong math class.” She replied, letting me know that Sid wasn’t winning any Nobel prizes any time soon.
Jason hates when I talk about Sid’s strong math skills like they came out of nowhere.
“He is half me you know.” he always reminds me.
“Baby, Of course, I know that.” I agree, while secretly assuring myself that he is most likely eight-five percent me.
Recently, I started to worry that maybe I wasn’t just dyslexic. Maybe I was also ADHD. To be honest, it seems like all the cool people are.
I brought my theory up to Jason one night in bed.
“Jason, what if I’m ADHD and I just wasn’t flagged because I was a girl and a superb actress and good at hiding it?” I asked.
“Jenny, there is only one superb actress in this relationship. Stay in your lane.” He rolled over, turning his back to me.
“I’m just saying, it makes a lot of sense now that I’ve been reading all the Instagram memes about it.”
Jason sighed.
“I love to hyper focus, I get distracted easily, I can’t write with music playing, I get enraged if someone disturbs me when I’m in the middle of a project, I am impulsive, I get overwhelmed with small tasks, I’ve lost every pair of sunglasses I’ve ever owned, I act without thinking, I can’t read directions, I hate waiting in line, I want to do everything at once, and I throw myself one-hundred percent into anything that isn’t the thing I’m supposed to be doing.”
Jason took a beat. “Maybe you are ADHD.”
I went to see a child psychiatrist, by accident. Or maybe subconsciously on purpose. I needed someone to diagnose the adult me, but also the child me who was clearly neglected. We had a two-hour session. In the end, he determined that I wasn’t ADHD, just neurotic and anxious.
I went home with my tail and a prescription for Prozac between my legs.
A few weeks later, I was with a girlfriend who offered me one of her kid’s old Vyvanse chewables.
“I don’t know if I should be taking someone else’s meds.” I said, chewing up the chalky tablet and washing it down with a shot of espresso.
Roughly an hour and a half later I was a different person. I mean, I was still me, but like the coke head version.
At hot yoga, I was so focused that I put myself in an actual trance. I then went home and walked six miles on the treadmill. Why? I’m still unclear.
I opened my computer and banged out a two-thousand-word essay about how I hate the Super in my building, then made the feast of The Feast of the Seven Fishes for dinner… in February.
I was productive but in all the wrong ways.
I took another chewable the next day, and instead of writing my Substack or working on my book proposal, started selling everything in my closet on Instagram.
I got into a fight with The Real Real for selling something that I asked to have returned. It retailed for thousands and they sold it for two hundred dollars. I was indignant and decided that I needed to liberate all women from the cluster fuck of consignment hell.
On day four, I abandoned my real job as a writer and created a new account: @thecommitaphobescloset.
On day five, I stopped sleeping eight hours a night, opting instead to stay up late scrolling online looking for vintage to meet the growing demands of my new page.
On day six, my friend’s kid’s prescription ran out and I crashed. I was depressed the way I used to get depressed after a night of cocaine and drinking in my twenties. (read: thirties). The whole time I was on the meds, I sort of felt like I was strapped to the front of a rollercoaster. I was going so fast that whatever I was doing, seemed fuzzy. Yes, I was getting a shit ton accomplished, but I was hurdling through it, unable to stop and absorb, even if I tried. Truth be told, I loved it. But, I can tell that it probably isn’t good for me or my relatioships. I was a real bitch when it wore off.
I did the math this morning and realized that my profit on one YSL blazer, was thirty-seven dollars. It cost me twenty-five bucks to ship it to its new owner.
I don’t think I have ADHD. But I definitely have something.
(Doing an Insta-live for Commitaphobe’s closet ant the end of the month. Chanel bags, Dior, YSL, Hermes blazers and more! Portion of the proceeds go to charity. Portion of proceeds go to my therapist. We obviously have more digging to do.) Hope he doesn’t charge me more than thirty-seven bucks.
AND WHAT IS YOUR DIAGNOSIS, JENNY?