Why ADHD Is Not A Superpower

The first time my aunt met me, I was four years old. She looked at me for a long moment before turning to my mother and announcing, “This child is retarded.”

Now before you condemn the egregious ableism, let me add some context. Firstly, this was the Eighties, in Venezuela; a different time and place in which the term ‘retarded’ was still a medical descriptor. Secondly, and rather soberingly, my aunt was a child psychologist - so she knew what she was talking about.

Dutifully, my parents took me to another psychologist for a proper assessment. The conclusion was clear: I was not retarded. In fact, I had above-average intelligence, albeit coupled with a disastrously low attention span. I can’t recall the exact wording of the report, but it was clear that this issue might cause problems down the road. My parents, who didn’t have much money, were relieved at the non-retardation of their offspring, and moved on with their lives. Unfortunately, the “low attention span” diagnosis wasn’t going anywhere; it would plague the rest of my education, and indeed, my life.

Name a subject, and I likely flunked it. I even managed to get a D in Spanish - my first language. In some ways, that’s a more remarkable achievement than if I’d passed. I asked for that paper to be remarked, convinced there was a mistake, but there wasn’t; I had simply misread every single question. In my English A-Level exam, I earned another D - this despite winning the school’s academic prize for my essays. My brain would seem sharp in one context and utterly useless in another. The moment I sat down to write an exam, my dreams of attending a prestigious university would evaporate faster than P. Diddy’s reputation. No matter how hard I worked, failure was a constant companion.

Eventually, I just stopped trying. And that’s when drugs entered the picture.

For better or worse, I have always been fiercely driven; if I couldn’t succeed academically, I was determined to be the best in another field. And if that field happened to be the ingesting of dementedly high levels of banned substances, then so be it. Drugs became my refuge, compensating for chronically low dopamine levels and plummeting self-esteem. The more potent the tonic, the greater the relief - and so the vicious cycle took hold.

One hallmark of ADHD is impulsivity - acting on a whim before the consequences even register in your mind. One moment, I’m strolling past a tattoo shop. The next, I’m shirtless in the chair, halfway through a six-hour session, as a Japanese death skull takes shape on my upper arm. At that stage, it’s too late to change your mind. You may as well just accept it, or as the Japanese might say: shō ga nai…¹

Impulsivity doesn’t discriminate; it affects big and small decisions alike. Certain things that happened make me laugh now, but others fill me with deep shame. When I was eighteen, I threw a pint glass through a kebab shop window, after my friends had been kicked out for boorish behaviour. The owner, understandably livid, threatened me with a knife - a perfectly warranted reaction to appalling, indefensible behaviour.

As time has passed, I’ve begun to understand how deeply my condition fuels these kinds of behaviours. Which is not to excuse them, in any way. It is fully my responsibility to manage my impulses and ensure they don’t cause harm to myself or others. Past girlfriends have told me my impulsivity frightens them, and they were right to feel that way. They could sense I was not always in control of my actions, and nobody wants to live with that unpredictability. Chaos can be amusing at times, but not on a Tuesday morning when your boiler gives up the ghost and you find yourself screaming down the phone to the gas company.

Now, I do have a bone to pick. I detest the phrase, “ADHD is a superpower”. It’s not. People say that to comfort themselves, and to virtue signal to others. It’s part of a wider societal inclination to aggressively normalise everything, ostensibly to avoid hurting people’s feelings. This may appear noble and compassionate, but it does far more harm than good. Managing ADHD requires a clear, thorough and honest understanding of the condition, and hollow catchphrases like the above just get in the way of that.

If I was able to, I would rid myself of ADHD. I’d rather be able to focus effectively, and not have to wrestle with crippling anxiety, intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation. But that is my reality, and my job is to manage it - just like it’s everyone’s job to manage their own particular demons. Please understand, this is not a plea for sympathy, but for honesty. Kids growing up with ADHD don’t need to believe they’re ‘superheroes’ in order to live fulfilling lives. They need to be told the truth, namely that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that will throw up various challenges. But it’s a disorder that we now have a detailed understanding of, and there are many proactive ways of dealing with it, so that it need not hold you back.

That’s the truth - it just doesn’t look as good written on a T-shirt.

1. A Japanese idiom that variably translates as “it cannot be helped” or “nothing can be done about it”.