Reading time: 8 minutes and 40 seconds
So most know the general things of what people with ADHD deal with, but not the dark and ugly things. One of the symptoms of ADHD that is not talked about is suicide. Oftentimes people go a great deal of their lives being undiagnosed. This can cause issues with confidence and low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and for some isolation. Another issue alongside being undiagnosed that a lot of neurodivergent people face is misdiagnosis. Oftentimes when being evaluated, Doctors will only see the symptoms present of anxiety and depression. These symptoms are often caused by the lack of hormones present that are needed for the brain to function properly. As time goes on lack of these hormones makes it harder for the body to regulate itself. This can show up as a lack of focus, memory issues, motivation, basic hygiene, and interest in hobbies, just to name a few. Naturally, when a doctor hears these things the first thing, they go to is depression or anxiety, but they never address the root issue of the problem.
Story Time
When the root issue is never addressed it can cause people to either attempt to commit suicide because of feeling like a prisoner living in or body, or for some the ideation of suicide as a means of escape. This brings me to my own story of how I have dealt with both suicide attempts as well as ideation. Alongside this, I speak on how after thinking that the issue had been resolved and I was on the road to healing it showed up in unexpected ways.
I have had attempts, ideations, and thoughts of suicide in the past. As time went on life was good, nothing major was taking place that impeded my mental health. Fast forward to the year 2020, it decided to reintroduce itself. I was pregnant with my daughter and had a 4-year-old son. I was in a bad place mentally that only 1-3 people knew about, and even less understood the depths of that pain. I was in the darkest place I have been in, in my life. Having to decide to bring another child earthside and potentially place myself in a position where my son, whom I suspected had autism would not get the full attention he deserved because outside of my mom, I had no major familial support that did not come with a price. So, as I lay in bed where most of my days were spent, I told myself, I cannot go a day longer, if I continue like this, I will end up killing myself. Those words echoed through my mind. As I thought, damn I have been suicide thought/ideation free for about 6 years. Why is this coming up now? Either way, I had to make a tough decision and let my daughter go.
Fast forward again to another dark time in my life, my emotions and mental health were at their worst. I was struggling to get up out of my bed, keep up with my hygiene, and be mentally present overall. The thought crept in once again. This time it took me back to an evaluation I had in January. The psychiatrist asked the big question “Have you tried to commit or have had thoughts of suicide in the past?” To which I replied “Yes.” The psychiatrist responded, so what happened to those thoughts? I said you know I do not know. She said they never went away. I was again free of those thoughts when I just placed them in my back pocket for safekeeping. 6 months later I came across a list of things that both men and women deal with when they have ADHD. “Sadness, anxiety, forgetfulness, depression, suicidal ideation….” Did I think ideation? As I had been seeing that word for months. So, I chose to google it, “suicidal ideation is when there are no attempts, but you often think of it as a means of escape.” I then realized those thoughts never left, they just transformed into something different. Someone would argue it was progress because I went from unsuccessful attempts to thoughts to ideation.
The issue with this was this was not the end of it. Upon recent revelations with a life coach, I realized again, that the ideations had resurfaced but in a new and improved form. Astral travel. I am sure you are wondering how can wanting to take your life be connected to astral travel.
You see, I have been learning since 2020 how to astral travel. Over that course of time, not only did I learn how to navigate my dreams, I learned how to control them so that I was able to come and go as I please. Allowing me to wake up at any moment when I was fed up with the dream. Around the time I was pregnant now that I think about it. Over time I became particularly good at it, to say the least. But it was not until I realized I stopped meditating at night and my sleep was of lesser quality. What hit me was that my reality was too much for my nervous system some days.
Sleep became a source of you guessed it, escapism. So now, what should have been used to help replenish my body, became a source of me energetically running rampant. Causing me to be exhausted in the mornings. So now, I am in a space where my nighttime routine MUST be intentional. I must make it a priority to shut my mind and body down, journal, brain dump, or whatever to prepare my body to rest and recharge. It blew my mind when this revelation came up in the session, simply because I told myself I thought I was breaking out of the escapism cycle, just for it to manifest in other areas of my life.
Now you see the issue with my nighttime routine is when it is not successful it bleeds into the new day ahead. I just recently started medication for my ADHD, even though the doctors only see it as anxiety and depression. So now, my mood has improved, I have been paying more attention to my body and hunger cues, my mood has been steady (for the most part), and I can get more done. But now there still tends to be a smidge of struggle with tasks. Which may or may not be fully normal. Given I have only been on medication for about a week and a few days.
Being on this medication has made me very aware of how badly ADHD/anxiety/depression can heavily affect not only a person’s day-to-day but also their mental health. It also in a sense released a fog that seemed as though it had been in my face for years. It is as though I was here, but I was not here you know. So now that I have these newfound sightings and levels of awareness, I want to use them to spread even more awareness of how ADHD impacts people. Most days ADHD feels like a silent epidemic that is slowly killing people’s spirits. Now that may not be the case for everyone, but there is a major part of the community that it has an impact on. With no one to be a soundboard for the struggles that it is we face. ADHD/Autism and many other neurological disorders have gained traction on social media, specifically TikTok. I can only hope more solutions and groundbreaking information can be discovered and spread.
Resources
Some resources that I personally use that have helped me are going to therapy, thought dumping (which consists of getting all your thoughts on paper), getting a life coach, taking spiritual baths, reading books about ADHD so that I can learn to understand myself better, taking medication, drinking herbal teas, breaking tasks up rather than trying to do everything all at once, having groceries delivered, confiding in someone you trust about the struggles you face.
Down below I will link an e-book that has helped me, along with a book for those who deal with ADHD. I have found both very helpful and insightful when it comes to gaining more knowledge. Some coping skills I have acquired and will explain below are body doubling, utilizing timers and alarms, writing important dates down in both my phone and on a calendar, buying certain foods precut, utilizing apps such as NaturalReader, having music playing during certain activities, on a rare occasion coffee just to name a few.
Tips & Tricks
Now to explain in depth what each one means:
- Body doubling refers to having someone present whether it be in the room or on a device such as phone call or video chat. This helps the person trying to complete a task to keep them motivated and also held accountable.
- Utilizing alarms and timers. Most people with ADHD deal with something called time blindness where they are not fully aware of time and can tend to get distracted. Having alarms serves as a reminder for the tasks that need to be completed. Whereas a timer helps to keep you on track and if breaks are needed allow the person a visual aid to be aware of how much time of the task is left.
- Writing down important dates. Doing this by phone allows me to see at any time when I have something important that is coming up. One setting that iPhones have is you can set it to give a reminder every day, or whenever you choose so that you get notified of it. I also like the idea of it making an alarm sound so that I am aware of what I have going on. As for writing them on Calendars, I love doing this because I am a visual person and on top of seeing it in my phone, having a calendar to look at every day is extremely helpful.
- Buying precut foods. This has been one of my best tricks yet. Having ADHD, we don’t always view things as a task, we view them as steps. So, when we are cooking, we don’t say, “Oh I have to make this, this, and this.” We view it as I have to cut this, chop this, peel this, dice this. This alone makes preparing meals more dreadful and less likely to be done. Buying certain foods that are available pre-cut saves you time and energy and makes cooking a bit easier. I also want to add to this, buying easy to make meals such as boil in a bag rice, pre-made pastas already in a sauce, snacks, fruit/meat and cheese platters, getting meals catered to substitute meal planning just to name a few.
- Utilizing the application Natural Reader. Y’all when I tell you this was an absolute game changer for me. I stumbled upon this while in school when I realized I could not retain anything I was reading to save my damn life. The one thing I like about this is the variety of files you can upload whether through a link, PDF, or copy and paste. It also allows you to choose the voice of the reader, the speed, and much more! An added bonus is it’s FREE, now some features do cost money, but it is rare you will need to use them.
- Drinking coffee. Now this will vary from person to person, but for some, the way the coffee interacts with the chemicals in the body it has a grounding/calming effect. So, it allows you to be able to focus and get things done.
- Lastly, having music playing. This is similar to having white/brown noise, it allows you to have some type of background noise to cancel out the noise in your mind. Which allows you to focus and get more things done.
Now, for the e-books and tools!
This a book recently written by Jane Kennedy. In her book she explains different terms, includes scenarios, goes in depth about what ADHD and how it affects the brain and the body. You can purchase her book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRBJDTWC
This last tip is a guide I found on TikTok by the name of Kunal Pathade. In this guide you will find 42 tips and tricks to better assist you. The e-book can be found here: https://stan.store/KunalPathade/p/get-my-templateebookcourse-now-x37hy