Being Diagnosed Part 2: In Sickness and In Health

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DRAFT - Major reorganize and clarity needed. 
POST NOT COMPLETE
- expand on skills developed that have a direct relation to my ADHD
- expand on general "character traits" that might be related to ADHD
- explore direct correlation to relationships (Cris and going back to highschool)



I've never thought I'm "special" but people always tell me I'm different, interesting, weird, strange, unique or one-of-a-kind. Every social group or different circle of friends, they would always say the same. I have always chalked it up to having a diverse collection of interests and a diverse collection of friends, where these different experiences would rub off on me.

But I've recently learned that the source of this difference with social norms and thought processes is more likely to do with my brain itself and the way it functions. Being diagnosed with ADHD/nerodivergence, albeit on the milder end of the spectrum, has been eye opening and provided a lot of answers to things I always thought of as personality quirks. Although they may be quirks, there is a deeper reason for many of them.

But with every wonderful thing that I'm capable of, there have always been things I struggle with that seem so easy or effortless for other people. Like how easy it is for me to get stuck in prolonged periods of alcohol use (an easy hit of dopamine), or simply talking on the phone when I don't understand the point or purpose of the conversation, especially when I can visually see a dozen things that need to be addressed or are more interesting.

unfinished draft....work on post later.

-list of symptoms
-how/if they affect me daily and longer term
- how they changes relationships
-things I was asking for that were "soothing" or helpful to me before knowing they were common coping mechanism for others with adhd
- advocating for myself. My poor way of asking for help/change. Now understanding there are real reasons for these requests
-changes with new coping strategies
-changes with new medication
-affects of alcohol and why it was difficult to quit...but extremely easy once I understood why i subconsciously drink excessively to "self-medicate"

DRAFT –
ADHD is incredibly misunderstood in the public sphere, my self included. My perceptions of this condition were wildly inaccurate. I’m learning with more clarity on how the way my brain works and viewing things from the perspective of clinically diagnosed ADHD

Cris expressed something early in our relationship that I now realize had way more meaning than both of us thought at the time. She said (I’m paraphrasing) that she’s worried I’m going to get bored of her. She felt she’s not an interesting person, or at least not interesting enough for me. Cris said I have a lot of curiosities and interests….it sounded like she was a little insecure that my attention will wander to other things, and most concerning to her, someone “more interesting”.

I was falling in love with her and that feeling, although valid and deserving to be explored/be addressed, it was the furthest thing from the truth. Over the two years we were together, she was in the front of my mind even when I was busy working on other stuff. Not once did I want to break up with her, until she stonewalled me again holding our relationship hostage, on January 25th. I thought about the possibility of breaking up with her many times. But always found reasons we will be good and continued to see the good.

Little did we know that this feeling was most likely related to my personality traits and habits that are a result of ADHD dopamine seeking tendencies.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOIRrzpkVRL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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Relationships and Hyperfixation
– explore ADHD hyperfixation that happens with me early in relationships (this is a new realization from therapy)
– signs that Cris felt this but both of us didn’t recognize it
– how this would come and go through out our relationship
– how this contributed to Cris’s feelings of “neglect”
– how I saw it as my focus shifting to solve issues and clear my life of mess….so I could redirect all my attention to our relationship and be the partner Cris knew I can be…and saw that I truely am (at times)
– examples when I’ve experienced this before in past relationships
– how viewing things from this lense, during that period, would hve helped BOTH of us understand what is happening and how we can change/influence my behaviours to be more consistent instead of hot/cold, all/nothing, intense/absent
– ADHD people’s tendency to “start fights”
https://www.simplypsychology.org/adhd-hyperfocus-relationships.html

The Health – Some of the wonderful things I’ve been able to do that highly likely have deep relation to ADHD and how my brain works.

What is ADHD hyperfocus?
https://www.simplypsychology.org/hyperfocus-in-adhd.html

ADHD skills

A list of things I have became “hyperfocused” on through out my life. There are others but these are the stand outs for me with a large amount of personal attachment or attached to very positively nostalgic times in my life.



A loose chronological order….a lot of these things overlapped or I circled back/revisited at later periods

– Completely changing my handwriting in grade 10
- spent hours practicing almost daily with markers in old text books….writing words and the alphabet until the page was fully black
- I have lost a lot of my “style” over the last 10 years from not handwriting much


– Basic guitar before moving on to the drums

- Learning the drums
– Drawing & painting graffiti

– Painting and drawing portraits

– Sexual exploration and ability 
- super weird to say but conversations with past partners (casual and more serious) would show there is something to this
. The amount of times in the last 6 months alone, (nevermind all the years prior to dating Cris) that I’ve heard about this from old friends/partners is astonishing. Even new people I’ve been dating and it’s kind of scary at times…..like I get confused if they’re in to me as a person or simply caught up in the sexual play and how it makes them feel.

-Learning Photoshop to design my magazine
. My girlfriend at the time literally hated Photoshop. I’d spend 3-6 hours A DAY almost every day for over a month doing tutorials and experiementing
-Nightdreamer Magazine project!!! Holy fuck, that was fun and exciting.
-Learning how to DJ (before gear made it super easy)



– Journalism and media skills
(my classmates literally hated hanging out with me sometimes….I wouldn’t shut up about exploring topics from classes. Definitely a major hyperfocus phase)
- we often had to do projects in pairs. I notoriously chose to always work with our friend that sucked at school (he just didn’t care)…..so he would let me do everything and just help carry all the gear. I was OBSESSED with learning everything I could….often having the best video reports and video projects. Our classmates always joked that my name should be at the bottom of his diploma haha.


Building/construction on houses

- carpentry/framing at a 4th year apprentice level

— doors/windows/trim

– drywall and mudding/finishing

– basic electrical and adding new circuits

– electrical rough in

– basic plumbing repairs….sink, faucet, toilet, shower

– roof replacement and repairs
– Woodworking and building furniture


-Event promotions and throwing club parties
– Brewing beer (over 60 batches!)
– learning cocktails and formal bartending

-Making Nightdreamer Magazine
-Making semi-custom websites (built 11 websites in one year!)


-Learning how to race motorcycles
-Learning how to fix motorcycles
Fixing my own cars

-Photography….turning this in to a profession
-Making videos….turning this in to a profession

-Gardening and growing plants
-Growing weed
-Growing mushrooms
-Composting…like extreme. Like, going out to the forest and collecting materials on New years day…type of obsession

-Researching and learning about sex work/prostitution industry when Brittany started doing that again after I broke up with her…and she dragged me through the mud as her emotional support person (what the hell was I thinking with her??? Sex work is fine and no judgment. She was just a horrible vindictive and manipulative person…..but Cris seems to think me expressing that is me wanting to be a “victim”. Why do I have so many fond and nice things to say about other relationships that didn’t work out or mutually decided to move on?
– I told Cris a horrifically gross story of how I had to go to Montreal to help her. Cris’s response “Why didn’t she go to a doctor? Why did you go help her?” Ummmm…emotional manipulation, maybe? Did you think of that at all? Instead of trying to understand, it was easiest for her to accuse me that I AM TRYING TO BE A VICTIM and trherfore, in a hand written letter, called me a “narcissist” for telling Cris that traumatic story.

-Fixing fairings and carbon fibre on Motorcycles


-Obsessively fishing for salmon for 5 weeks (funny how Cris didn’t bring up when she told me many times “I was pretending to be someone just so she likes me” and chooses my temporary hyper fixation with rolling 100’s of joints after harvest season
. Fishing was not a “skill” but more of a represenation on how I can get hyperfixated on things for weeks at a time

-Learning how to use and fix my boat

Spring/summer 2025
– saxophone.
– Rock climbing.


Most recently – spring 2025 onward

– learning about relationship structures and how my “issues” affect myself and my partner in that context

– exploring ADHD. Learning about and trying to adopt coping strategies that work for me

THIS FUCKING JOURNALING PROJECT!!! ONLY ABOUT %15 OF THE THINGS I’VE WRITTEN OR RECORDED IN VOICE NOTE OR VIDEO BLOG HAVE ENDED UP BEING POSTED ON HERE!!!!!
Dozens and dozens of hours of my inner thoughts and feelings.
Probably close to 150,000 words written by now



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Her boyfriend told me on the phone that he’s experienced mental health issues…then gave me some unsolicited advice to seek medical help (my favourite type of advice! **sarcasm**). I wonder if when he told her about his struggles with mental health, if Cris accused him of wanting to be the victim and looking for sympathy? I wonder if she called him a narcissist when he was being vulnerable and expressing very difficult experiences from his past?

Outline story of Cris being sick in October…and why it’s relevant/
– i didn’t go see her for 2 days
– I wrongly assumed she was just a little sick
– day 3, I went to take her to the doctors
– I went and drove for 1:30 mins in post-work traffic
– she didn’t confirm in advance where we were going and I drove for 40 minutes around toronto to a clinic that was closed. Made me feel like she was just using being sick to guilt trip me in to going to Toronto. That was wrong for me to think that.
– I was apprehensive and didn’t go for selfish reasons…after she asked on day 1 & 2 thatI was thinking about how dismissive she had been towards me telling her I’m struggling recently. It was wrong for me to not help her just because she wouldn’t help me
– also elements of resentment towards her reasons for wanting to live in Toronto to be closer to her friends. I though, why not ask your friends that you want to live closer to in Toronto? Why don’t they help you? It’s your choice to not move closer to me. I have to be in Hamilton for work 2-3 days a week….sometimes 5 days a week. You work from home.
—–expand on relevance of this to my internal struggles.

ADHD is not a sickness. It’s incredibly misunderstood in the public sphere, my self included. My perceptions of this condition were wildly inaccurate. I’m learning with more clarity on how the way my brain works and viewing things from the perspective of clinically diagnosed ADHD.

I hve to be careful though and this is still a learnig phase.
– 2 of three medical professionals outright agree with diagnosis
– 3rd one does agree but with a lot of caution and exploration required
– their hesitancy is that a good chunk of my symptoms have overlapping with major depressive dissorder

External validation. Other people telling me things (unprovked – as in, I’m not fishing for comments or confirmation bias or pushing to convince someone to take on my viewpoint – they simply offered their opinion).
I have been hesitant to point to other peoples opinions or what they tell me.
I have feared that will be perceived at a narcissist “triangulating”
– narcissist accusations even affected the way I try to ask for help and discribe what I was experiencing internally

People told me how hard it is to be bouncing around place to place for 7-8-9 days in a row with zero routine. Cris response “Did those people help you do the dishes etc”

She didn’t understand the importance of the things I asked for. How much of that is because of my inability to articulate what is going on inside my head?

Could she have accommodated or been more patient, open minded and showed empathy towards some of my issues?


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ADHD is not an illness. But the results of symptoms not being managed enhanced mental illness

Not an excuse for bad behaviour. Method and different viewpoint to help manage and reduce effect….especially the “meltdown” or extreme swings in emotions

My symptoms that have cross over with depression and anxiety
– list

Stuff present in childhood (list examples)

Therapist hesitant at first to call it ADHD because we needed to identify where some of these issues were coming from
– method of identifying what is caused by what…is a loooooong process

Good times when anxiety and depression are not existent, other ADHD related symptoms/behaviours still present.
– list

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ADHD—- I’m kind of happy that I discovered this with without Cris. I don’t know if she would have the patients and understanding to be supportive in the way I need (which is to literally do nothing physically. I just needed patients, time and occasionally space. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOIRrzpkVRL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)

When I talked to her about my medication and diagnosis long time ago with major depressive disorder, she question my doctors authority to do that. Said I need to see a psychiatrist . Question the usefulness of my medication.

ADHD is very misunderstood socially. People think it’s all about bouncing around and being fidgety like a crazy kid. It manifests differently for many people.

So I can imagine with Cris’s reaction to my diagnosis with mental health struggles . I don’t want to fall in the same trap as Cris’s “fortune telling” my future reactions and always painting a negative picture of them……but based on her lack of patience, compassion, empathy and effort to try to understand things I already was working on and taking medication for…..I can imagine she would be dismissive and minimize this diagnosis as well (this is not a daily/weekly thing - it comes in waves and generally easy for me to manage. Sometimes it’s hard with many stressors)


she questioned my reality by saying things like (this quote is paraphrasing) “people get sad but it doesn’t mean they’re depressed”….(this quote was verbatim word-for-word) “People in Colombia don’t get depressed. They have other problems to deal with.”

So is It better that I’m on this journey alone? Or at the very least, not with her? I’ve met some very understanding people that have been comfortable talking about this stuff on 2nd and 3rd dates.
So is Cris’s empathy limited to things she agrees with or can relate to? Is that true empathy? Am I being unreasonable asking for help to accomodate things I'm struggling with?

she questioned my doctors ability to prescribe me anti-depressant medication

she questioned the effectiveness and if it’s worth me taking it. Was concerned what happens if I take it for a long long time (A fair concern and question that I don't have an answer to).