AIDS

[bradly1101]

All my now public albums:

https://www.facebook.com/BradlyGSmith/photos_albums?lst=100002482877186:100002482877186:1513703859

 

[bradly1101]

This look toward the skinny guy in the wheelchair with the camera, as if to say, "Your struggle is all our struggle. Keep on."

My wheeled brethren, but with a motor on his, maybe some sadness for what's to come. Joy can falter, but is never really out of reach. Look at your colorful decorations! The prism has expressed its expanse.

 

[bradly1101]

 

[bradly1101]

This thread has been quite an education for me. I had shame (not about you) about this disease, and I realize that I'd probably have the same shame if I had any other disease if I truly bore the responsibility for it. And AIDS seemed even worse. Oral sex isn't much of a risk if there is no wound, and clean needles are zero risk (not my thing). I have been poked so many times in the arms by nurses and techs. that my bruises are obvious for several days, the last tech. told me I was such a difficult stick partly because of all the scar tissue. I have been getting regularly stuck since late 1993 plus all the times they'd miss a vein or there was extra intervention. The misses were lame because they usually dug uncomfortably around in there, which never seemed to work, just gave me big black/purple spots on my arm. Not super bad, and I wouldn't line up.

Once while on Gancyclovir [infusion for CMV-op] I had to get a catheter placed in one of my big veins that went way down and up to my chest under my skin, but there was always a right angled needle in it pointing down. I protested a bit, it was just taped off on my chest, and it seemed an obvious point of entry to me, it was. By that time my t-cells had risen enough that I didn't need the nasty stuff that weakened me all over and it was removed. Goodbye.

Oh no, there was a time, brain, keyboard, words. I had an experience with getting stuck when I was dehydrated from not being able to keep anything down. They had to go for my jugular [medical article]. I wish I could say it was the weirdest medical intervention. The doctor had to invert me somewhat, and multiple tries didn't work. Eventually a nurse got one in my hand. I'm still not the easiest stick, and the technicians over that time seem to have improved. They recommend water if you're constipated, the reverse works some. Digestive havoc wreaking HIV+CMV+meds. make life....different. And a bitch. I remember hearing someone say that about life.

My shame has lifted in big part thanks to you. You weren't just empathetic, there was a lot of good stuff; I was schooled on tons. The humor was priceless. I knew stuff but only what I thought I needed to know. There's so much more. Thanks cloud, you and the people on it stimulate my mind. Electrons thaw ignorance. Then there's the compassion... I had never typed "funny gay aids" into google before. Do you take payments? I could repay with words. Suddenly I'm speechless.

 

[eng2d2]

You are a strong person...

 

[nakedfrog]

Just heard from the patio behind the next building, "So you're gay, work in finance, have a good relationship, and you're transgender. That's so great!"

The growing empathy in my country is amazing to watch and experience. Waking up to others' struggles and putting a warm glow on your own. Magic.

I live in a deep red state in a small town, the high school my teenager goes to has around five hundred students. There are three openly transgender students that I know of, and it's going much better than I would have expected. The school is pretty accommodating (other than sticking with "use the nurse's bathroom" thing). So, hope for the future.

 

[bradly1101]

I live in a deep red state in a small town, the high school my teenager goes to has around five hundred students. There are three openly transgender students that I know of, and it's going much better than I would have expected. The school is pretty accommodating (other than sticking with "use the nurse's bathroom" thing). So, hope for the future.

The bathroom thing has always fascinated me. Out here in librul land it's a bit different. There are two bathrooms outside my doctor's office. They used to be marked one for Men and one for Women. Now they both say "All Gender Restroom." If I was a woman I'd be pissed; men can be such pigs in the can.

I'm glad people around the country are more accepting.

 

[nakedfrog]

I'll tell you, I've had jobs that involved cleaning the restrooms, and women can be just as disgusting as men in there.

 

[bradly1101]

.

 

[bradly1101]

I'll tell you, I've had jobs that involved cleaning the restrooms, and women can be just as disgusting as men in there.

Yeah, until now I only saw one side.

 

[Azraele]

Thank you for sharing your story. It can be easy to forget, steeped in our own daily lives, the journeys that others who walk alongside us take. You have strength, grace, and character that many should aspire to. Best wishes in your journey.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Here’s the story of the wheelchair (it’s HIV related), it’s a bit sordid, that’s a warning to the squeamish.

Although I crushed those three vertebrae (OP), after wearing a back brace for about nine months it healed. No incursions into my spinal cord. I was walking fine in early ‘94. My first partner (we had ended things amicably about a year earlier while I was still down south) had come up to Fremont to support me through the depression I was having.

He saw me have the seizure in late ‘93, and called 911. I will always know him as my lifesaver.

After, he helped me move back south around my family as “full blown” AIDS was taking hold (I’ve never felt more fully blown), we tried to make a go of it. We were better as friends. He suggested an HIV support group. I didn’t know of such things, and found out there were local ones, one just a couple of blocks from home held in a UCLA mental health extension location.

It was a bit weird, but very inviting. We’d talk about our struggles. One guy was eager to make introductions. We talked and later he asked me on a date. He became my second partner (before Eljon the magnificent). He was kind and handsome. I met his ex who lived in an apartment on Orange right around the corner from Mann’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. We’d drive to rural Washington where his family lived on Puget Sound and Vashon Island. The ferries. Mount Rainier and all the other snow-packed peaks in the distance. Visits to amazing Seattle, Vancouver, Whistler. Leavenworth aka Christmastown, snow and lights and holiday cheer, not the prison.

I knew he drank, but I didn’t know how much. Early on we went to the always outrageous West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval. We met early at The French Quarter (with the cute, kitschy shops upstairs - easy to imagine Paris) with some friends, including the lady with the tarantula (above in thread). I had bought a Navy sailor’s white hat at a uniform shop to go with some white trousers and a white shirt with a broad, long collar, and a navy blue, narrow scarf tied at my chest. If I say so myself, I was pretty convincing as it appeared that fleet-week had arrived.

My new boyfriend was dressed as a woman, makeup, hair, heels, and all. He was less than a convincing female, too masculine to pull it off. As we sat and gabbed, I saw another gender bending costume coming through the front door. I said to my boyfriend, “Look, finally some competition!” (on this festive night I had strangely seen no other transvestite costumes - yet). I was trying to be funny.

The next thing I knew, his open hand struck my cheek really hard with a loud whack. Everyone at our table stopped talking. I held my face with an intent look at him and said, “Owww!” An omen for what was to come.

I saw that he drank like a fish, and finding one who didn’t was like finding the proverbial tiny piece of a needle in a 100 acre field of hay. I tried to accept it. He also smoked weed. I had done so when I was younger and took it up again with him. It became a way to cope, and it helped the AIDS symptoms of low appetite, nausea (partly from the AIDS drugs which also made much worse the constant diarrhea), pain (neuropothy - above, from one of the meds.), and sleeplessness.

He was lying to me about things and obviously cheating on me (why do they always reveal their own deceit?).

I had had that gut surgery (above), and after his second strike with his hand, I knew I had to leave. I foolishly told my parents of my plan to get out. They saw him as my savior, someone to take care of me as I declined. He was anything but. They covertly went to my doctor to tell him of my crazy plan to get out, no confidence in me taking care of myself. It was ‘96. So after signing some forms at a hastily scheduled doctor’s appointment like you regularly have to do (I didn’t read them, they were so long and I am a slow reader, I didn’t want to hold people up - stupid, one was a release into madness), my dad drove me to a local hospital (that is going to be torn down since it was built on an earthquake fault - justice*). I didn’t understand, but dad said I needed help and that they were going to give it. I was led to the mental ward. A strange place with heavy metal exterior mesh over all the windows. I remembered One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

My dad left, and I was a crazy among crazies. I didn’t have a penny to my name despite the income from SSDI, my boyfriend had access and always spent it all (at the new Best Buy store, booze, and God knows what else - later having multiple “payday loans” at 400+% interest), so when I went to make a call, I found out that only payphones were available to the crazies, better to not have them connect, or talk about the elderly naked man who always tried to climb into my bed in the middle of the night.

I played along with their activities and a support group held by a doctor who kept looking at me inquisitively after every time I shared. I made a trivet out of clay and little multi-colored tiles. It held together after the kiln. I threw it away when I got home as if I could discard the memories. The inquisitive doctor pulled me aside after the group and asked me my understanding of why I was there. I told him of the events leading up. He thanked me.

He and about five others (doctors?) met with me the next day. He explained that he didn’t think I needed to be there, and that he understood my parents’ concern. I told him the frustrations of living with a lying, cheating, abusive alcoholic. He said he couldn’t help there, and suggested I seek counseling.

After that my boyfriend brought a guy home to be our new roommate. It was very fishy. This guy just looked deceitful with his darting eyes, I later found out that he had no home and was a gay prostitute tired of living in a garage. I remembered the hospital and tried not to seem unwelcoming. I found myself cooking for them both, and staying in another room so they could have privacy. Such a life.

I got a bit angry after a truly unspeakable event, but I was rational. Then another call from my boyfriend to my dad. “Brad’s going crazy again.” A 5150 was my ticket back to the hospital. Punishment for speaking up to a monster. I didn’t resist; I remembered Mr. Nicholson and the movie. The staff saw me again and empathized, and I could tell they were getting frustrated with my case. One doctor met with me and told me if I returned again, they could no longer justify the visits to insurance without doing medical intervention. He told me they’d have to give me electro-shock treatments. I knew about them from the movie and my mom’s stories about working in a mental hospital (that were common back then) before establishing herself as an opera singer. A way to electrically erase memories, trauma. That didn’t sound too bad compared to the horror I was living at home. Scrambling my brain could be a path to peace.

After that trip I never rocked the boat at home again. Wild orgies became the norm in my living room. I stayed in the bedroom with headphones on listening to the classical music I grew up with. (My boyfriend said, “It makes my ears bleed.” Too bad for him, and Madonna was good too.)

I also sought counseling as the first doctor suggested, but was only eligible for a psychiatrist’s nurse case manager, the doctor was back east somewhere - Boston?

After speaking mostly with my parents and partner she prescribed a “medication.” Zyprexa. I looked it up on the amazing Internet I had available at home. According to the manufacturer’s slick website, it was for tourettes syndrome in children. F#ck, damn, sh#t, you f#cking bitch - not really, but I learned about tourettes on LA Law. I didn't have it.

I looked at the alarming side-effects. I failed to lookup one - ataxia - it sounded unconcerning, probably some rare exotic condition. But it defined the fact that my cerebellum was losing mass (I learned later from an MRI - thanks Dr. Aranow! He went by Aaron, his middle name - cool. A truth telling doctor with a very alliterative name. He now works at the amazing Desert AIDS Project, helping the affected in the Palm Springs area where all the fabulous desert denizens live). I started losing my balance. I needed a cane at first, then a walker (at 35). After falling a couple of times with the walker I needed the wheelchair. I figured out how to scoot around, stairs no longer an option. Thank god my legs still worked, making transfers easier (especially later into my vans). The nurse case manager blamed my marijuana use for the gaining imbalance. Other professionals I knew disagreed, one asking, “Do you know pot-heads who smoke more than you?” I said, “Oh yes.” She said, “Are they in wheelchairs?” I had my answer.

The med. also made me zone-out, but not like marijuana, I was emotionless. My mom died while I was on it. I didn’t even care (at the time, but mustered some words at her memorial where I was told they were touching, but I felt so distanced from my love of my mom, anything really, the curtains rarely parted, but did at my mom’s musical wake - above in the thread). When I told my boyfriend that I was going to stop taking it, he threatened to keep count of the little devastating pills and report any discrepancies (my word) to the doctors. I dutifully swallowed.

I forged on very carefully. I endured a lot, until I realized I could get my finances back if I called my bank and cancelled my debit card that my insignificant, potently controlling other (not unlike my dad) had control of. Another call to my dad, “Brad’s going crazy again.” A call from my dad while the man holding my strings was at work. I explained everything calmly, from the prostitute to the payday loans. He finally empathized. I got out, a little wounded, but out. A new life more wary of drinkers than before. Where was my brother in all this? Oh yeah, he and his new lushy GF were partying with my AH while I was in the mental ward. No one visited me there, not even my family.

A new life that included Alanon with understanding, compassion, and empathy for the alcoholic. And learning that sometimes you just have to escape. I had done a right thing. Then Eljon…

*After one of Eljon’s hyponatremic seizures, the ambulance took him to emergency at that same hospital with the mental ward. I was so scared as he was totally disconnected from reality, his neurons unable to fire properly without sufficient electrolytes. A tall male nurse with an eastern-European accent started poking Eljon in the chest pretty hard, saying twice, “What’s wrong with you?!” I wanted to jump out of my wheelchair and choke the giant out. I just said, sheepishly, “He had a seizure.” He looked at me as if I couldn’t comprehend his job’s challenges.

I’m not unhappy that that hospital is closing, and I empathize with (most of) the employees. OK I can be a little sadistic.

We all have a twisty path, trying to steer around the pitfalls. They can be deep, but not inescapable. The brake is my friend.

So many great memories to fall back on. Handsome Brock looking over at me in the break of a wave as we rode it in, sharing the rides of lifetimes. A powerful oceanic force made incredibly fun. Tucking-in in the common shorebreakers at the Wedge just before the big wave you’re riding crashes you into the sand. You have to be brave sometimes to see your abilities and have fun with them.

Mom and Eljon might be watching, best to be good to myself.

Gotta love sailors in their hats. If only time could be turned.

Everyone must stand alone.

Reading this makes me want to kick people who earned it in the face.

 

[bradly1101]

Reading this makes me want to kick people who earned it in the face.

They were doing what they thought was right, and they were ignoring my already proven ability to take care of myself. I try not to judge too much. I've never tried to control others like this (at all really), and I have made whopper mistakes before, mostly about trust. I give it away, and I can be as naive as a baby. And I learn, hopefully without becoming hardened.

In college, both my careers, and in my last relationship I was able to freely give out my trust with no ill consequences. It's odd to me that even to this day, I can't do that with any of my family members, and they have substance challenges, so I'm in Alanon, a different kind of family where I only get smiles, big, long, tight, warm hugs, and support beyond measure. It's easy to trust folks who treat you like that, and anonymity is strongly guarded. We grow together. I have much compassion for all my family.

Edit: The more I truly forgive, the lighter my load.

 

[William Gaatjes]

They were doing what they thought was right, and they were ignoring my already proven ability to take care of myself. I try not to judge too much. I've never tried to control others like this (at all really), and I have made whopper mistakes before, mostly about trust. I give it away, and I can be as naive as a baby. And I learn, hopefully without becoming hardened.

In college, both my careers, and in my last relationship I was able to freely give out my trust with no ill consequences. It's odd to me that even to this day, I can't do that with any of my family members, and they have substance challenges, so I'm in Alanon, a different kind of family where I only get smiles, big, long, tight, warm hugs, and support beyond measure. It's easy to trust folks who treat you like that, and anonymity is strongly guarded. We grow together. I have much compassion for all my family.

Edit: The more I truly forgive, the lighter my load.

Indeed. To forgive is generally speaking to free up the subconsciousness which allows a persons conscious self to experience the world around that person more in a more positive context because no longer fighting him or her self. Giving room to a more enjoyable life experience because of removing any self created mental hell.
But it is good to have a healthy amount of self preservation.

 

[bradly1101]

Indeed. To forgive is generally speaking to free up the subconsciousness which allows a persons conscious self to experience the world around that person more in a more positive context because no longer fighting him or her self. Giving room to a more enjoyable life experience because of removing any self created mental hell.
But it is good to have a healthy amount of self preservation.

Darkness is just that. The times I held onto things could never be dissolved normally with an apology, they are so rarely offered. I had to do it myself. When my permission doesn't allow others to control my brain, I get to.

 

[bradly1101]

Thank you for sharing your story. It can be easy to forget, steeped in our own daily lives, the journeys that others who walk alongside us take. You have strength, grace, and character that many should aspire to. Best wishes in your journey.

Wow. Thanks from the bottom of my heart.

 

[bradly1101]

A poetry submission (I've never done that before). It's for an AIDS poetry project. I wrote it last night, and is not an indicator of impending doom unless The Big One shakes my building down soon. The thirty-four years is my HIV+ date.
-----------------------------------
Life and Life

Thirty-three years now,
no thirty-four.
It’s 2018, wow,
shocked to my core.
An oft hilly road,
horsepower to spare.
A big heavy load,
fuel getting rare.

Joy in my last season,
forgive I have done.
Light is the reason,
esteem I have won.
Gone is self-hate,
new families grow.
Tears for my mate,
a journey we sowed.

A trailhead to peace,
suffer no more.
Sight with a crease,
feet are all sore.
Go I will let,
life has been great.
I no longer fret,
courage finally a trait.

Full is my soul,
happy and free.
Bells do not toll,
I reject sympathy.
Be happy for me,
I’m happy for you.
Life is a tree,
a branch with you too.
Nourished our lives,
on contact so sweet.
Together deep dives,
life now complete.

 

[interchange]

It's weird, maybe I'm going crazy. It seems like there's a newer place in my mind. It's spacious, filled with words and thoughts interconnecting somewhat differently, apparently brought on by posting here, I'm not afraid to say things that I believe (see P&N), and I've bared it all here, there's no skin on my onion. There's very little light needed on the truth when the opposite is trying to force its way down your throat, its habit of always doing that. Truth hums along at a less feverish pitch.

I think you have known that you possessed something inherently that was met in the world with envy, and you learned to hate it yourself and see yourself as dangerous for it. And that hate can never go away, but I believe this new space constitutes a parallel awareness that the thing which everyone has hated is an instrument of goodness. It may be that neither you nor the world is ready for this instrument, but at least there can now be a place within you that is. If I have some time later, I would like to share my own story. I cannot offer deliverance from those feelings, but I would very much hope you appreciate commiseration in its stead.

 

[bradly1101]

I think you have known that you possessed something inherently that was met in the world with envy, and you learned to hate it yourself and see yourself as dangerous for it. And that hate can never go away, but I believe this new space constitutes a parallel awareness that the thing which everyone has hated is an instrument of goodness. It may be that neither you nor the world is ready for this instrument, but at least there can now be a place within you that is. If I have some time later, I would like to share my own story. I cannot offer deliverance from those feelings, but I would very much hope you appreciate commiseration in its stead.

There is word in the fist step (Alanon, AA,...), powerless. I remember that of all the things that exist I only have true power over my mind. Its electrons are all that carry me from reaction to none. From ignorance to wisdom. From fear and hate to serenity and love. My instrument may not always be in tune, and it has many keys, its imperfect pitch drawn close by my embouchure. A tuneful life is light and floats past being misunderstood. Vast empathy and support are waiting on the opposite side. I look there now.

Your story would be greatly appreciated. Telling mine laid waste my low esteem of not only myself but of others on paths unimaginable. Appreciation, gratitude fill my brain where fear had run wild like a loose cannon firing at its own supports. A weapon against myself can be let go of like so much else.

 

[interchange]

OK then. I will share. It will involve some preamble, and although that preamble has purpose, I'm not sure how much of it is my own defensiveness.

Firstly, I will disclaim that people with emotional gifts often find them trapped in situations where they are depended upon by another who seeks them out in apparent good faith, and this is all the more complicated because the empathic ability that makes them a target of the dependence also makes them intensely want to fill that need. In such cases, often the anticipation of some need to maintain boundaries for another can be exhausting. I do not want you to think that this is the case here. I do not wish you to do anything for me aside from sharing an appreciation for what makes us human.

Secondly, I will add that I am certainly a highly successful person in the ways an average American would idolize. Successful people often are successful not because of their inherent talents but because they are raised in an environment which teaches them that success is part of their identity and are exposed to models of success for which they identify. That is not my story. My mother came from abusive alcoholic parents and was adopted by her aunt at a young age. Her uncle became her savior, by her accounts a remarkable individual. He was murdered when my mom was a teenager by her aunt, and my mom was sent off to Catholic boarding school and moved to New York as soon as she was of age, quickly became married, abused, and divorced as a single mother with 2 children. One of her sisters was raped around that time and later committed suicide. The other became an alcoholic. My mom persevered, and eventually married my father when she was a bit older. My dad comes from a patriarchal Jewish family in Chicago whose men made their living through boxing, gambling, and ownership of liquor stores. About 15 years ago we met for the first time his cousin, the black sheep of the family. We found out then that she was the black sheep of the family because she pursued higher education, got a PhD, and married a doctor. My parents were taught an amazing set of values under a veneer of corruption but were somehow stronger than that. Still, neither completed college, and my mom was a homemaker (part-time secretary when we needed the money). My dad sold shoes. At various times he had a managerial position but left more than 1 job because of the lack of ethics in the workplace. Amazingly, I never knew that the best I was growing up was decidedly middle class. My parents never complained about their lot in life, and they made their choices because they thought they were the right ones.

Still, I never felt normal. This wasn't because of them. It was because of me. I was never given a choice in the matter. This fact was as obvious as the sky being blue. When I was 3, the only word I said was cookie. Until 1 day my brother had to be taken to the hospital after an accident while we were playing, and my parents desperately turned to me for information despite believing all they would get was "cookie" in response. I not only spoke but spoke full sentences, and when asked to explain their shock, I offered that speaking was my brother's job. He always did it, so that's how I understood the world to work. Unless, apparently, I wanted a cookie. Not too long after, despite having the attention span for learning in the home comparable to that of a gnat, I saw a keychain in a store and said "T-o-d-d that's me". This was no amazing turnaround for me. Apart from these seeming miracles, I was still living in a world decidedly different from everyone else. Do you know what it is like for a small child to hear their parents argue about what is wrong with them? Imagine it without any attempts to conceal their feelings. After all, if they think their child can only understand the word cookie, why bother concealing anything? I was sent to preschool at age 4 where I sat by myself and played with an object or daydreamed. My preschool tried to convince my mom that I was mentally retarded. My kindergarten teacher, more empathetically, tried to help along those same lines. She became so frustrated in class one day when I was attending to my own internal world that she thought to make an example of me. We were sitting in a circle discussing a lesson about honey bees. She demanded that I repeat to her all the things I learned about honey bees. Well, I did so and more. I related them to the grasshoppers we talked about the prior week. Thing is, I really wasn't paying attention either. The information I gleaned was passive and incomplete, and I could only recite it because I filled in the missing information via imputation. That was probably the first time I learned of my power to hide and also the power of impressing someone with the products of my mind. This is no aggressive power, mind you. It was only something safe to use in self-defense. After that, she became an ally for my mother who was all alone (even against my father) in thinking there was anything of value in me. He did not hate me; he loved me and wanted the best for me, but how could I know anything other than his inability to have faith in me? It is bittersweet to me that, only after his passing, have I become aware of how misconceived my notions of him have been, and who knows who misconceived they still are? When I was 6, I got extensive workup by various specialists. It was spurred by an incident where, upon having an exciting idea cross my imagination, I suddenly stopped in the middle of the street I was crossing, and my mother could not snap me back to reality to cross the street before oncoming traffic was on a path toward me. Well, they stopped, so there's that. One concern was absence seizures (nope). I had to wear an ambulatory EEG setup, and in perhaps my greatest feat of social awareness to that point in life, I asked my mother if I could skip school the next day so that my classmates would not see the wires coming out of my head. I know one of the diagnoses (inaccurately) rendered was autism. My mother became my advocate and fought the doctors who would pathologize me instead claiming my oddness was a product of exceptional intelligence. She had me tested and found someone who apparently agreed. For that I am thankful, because this idea was the only one which ever lead me to imagine there could be anything in life for me but suffering. Yet it is a dangerous sword. It is not usual for someone's intelligence to become central to their identity at that age. And, while it proved to be what could save me, it was also the explanation for all that was going horrifically wrong. When I was able to focus it, no one liked that. Peers of course had envy, and there were times in which I was bullied, but that picture really wasn't more of my experience than anyone else. Instead, I was like the ugly girl in the other thread here on ATOT. It wasn't that people hated me, it was that they appreciated some abstract and temperamental barrier between us that rendered them uncomfortable and without any tool whatsoever to address that discomfort. Thus, I was avoided. I wasn't sat next to, partnered with, etc. This was not absolute. By and large I had friends and was part of the class, but there was plenty there to make the difference palpable to all and closed for discussion. Teachers, though, were another story. Either I was lost in my own mind, perceived to be contemptuous and unruly, or I was engaged and overpowering my peers and frequently enough asking questions which the teacher did not know the answer to or occasionally correcting their mistakes. No that does not feel good, but no one seemed to consider that this was simply my earnest curiosity and difficulty in attentional awareness to the social rules being threatened. I was met with envy, accused of malice, trying to show off to my peers, or better my teachers. None of that was true, but I learned quite readily that my curiosity and creativity were dangerous. And that is all I learned of it. Although my mother was my protector and would always defend me, she could never name the virtue in how I was acting nor teach me how to utilize it. And of course she was still human, sometimes affected by those same emotions and conflicts as my teachers, so I learned it was not even always safe to seek her counsel. So I hid. Suppressed my curiosity. And I hated it just as everyone else had, because it never brought me anything other than suffering either.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, I am not seeking to profess some amazing genius here. I am a highly intelligent person, but this is not actually a picture of what highly intelligent people experience. What was lost here was rather overt inattentive ADHD, and although the behaviors associated with it were abundantly clear, those who might help could not see it clearly due to confounding from my giftedness, and my mother ferociously warded off anyone else's attempts to tell them that her son was anything less than that. Unfortunately, as I grew older I became more skilled at compensating for the things that were problematic, and since I learned that if I shared my difficulties, not only would I not get help, I would receive envy and accusation, my ability to hide them became quite extraordinary. Socially, I wasn't exactly ever part of the norm, but I caught up enough to have a peer group to identify with, and by the time I went to college I found that those peers lacked the all-too familiar unspoken appreciation that I was different. Largely because they had similar experiences.

Still, if you are skeptical about ADHD or have never had someone expose you to the distress it causes, then there is something very powerful missing from your experience. Since most people have a version of my experience in seeking help for it (at least early on), it is common that this distress is locked away even from the sufferer themselves. Once you become aware of the social desires of your behavior, ADHD becomes a state of perpetual threat. Even with sincere desire to conform with behavior, you can never simply enact that desire. Any competing stimuli cannot be removed from your awareness, and they become a danger to you that you know you are powerless to overcome. Your internal state is often one of fight, and it is a fight for utter survival. In a state of heightened arousal and anticipated challenge, it is no surprise that people's natural inclination is toward defiance. That is interpreted as willful disregard by most well-intentioned parents, and the task becomes to punish a person into compliance. Keep in mind they are trying to punish you into a behavior you are already trying your damnedest to accomplish, and their punishments and communication of the threat of punishment only serves to make that behavior harder to will yourself toward. Even if you share your organizational difficulties, for example, with a regular person, they may give you what seems to be practical advice in terms of how to develop a routine, partition your notebook, etc. And you will see the power in it and want to do it yourself. And you will fail. You will utterly and repeatedly fail. And you will assume it is your fault and that you are bad and that the reason for your failure is not wanting it enough -- an ironically tragic assumption. So what happens is that you hide. Even when people who have grown up with this identity are able to recognize their pathology and seek help, they are often averse to treatment because successful treatment brings into awareness all the things they have neglected and believe they are a failure for, and if they succeed with medicine it serves as confirmation that they are not good enough themselves. It is a twisted con-job that is utterly reinforced by societal rejection of the illness because of people who are motivated for the diagnosis as a means of escaping personal responsibility. The people who actually have it must now contend with confirmation from society that they are the cause of their problems, something that is hopelessly believed far too much already.

As a child I remember crying in solace repeatedly asking God why I was different. And the strange thing was, as those differences began to realistically fade as my development partly caught up and the usefulness of my differences became honored, I even temporarily forgot what it was like to live that story. But the intensity of the pain I suffered still marked me. It eventually drove me to become a psychiatrist, to turn my own deficits and differences as a human being into tools for understanding the humanity of others. In that way I experience more of humanity and deep connection to others than my peers who marred me into believing it was something I lacked. I am still hurt, stymied at times by real social, intellectual, and practical rules but more often by the ghosts of the past. These days, the ghosts are more like uncomfortable allies. Thankfully, since my parents were in reality fundamentally genuine and high character people who happened to have some normal human faults, despite the torture of my life, each moment is also filled with love, hope, and appreciation for misunderstanding as the basic element of humanity's failures.