ADHD and Suicide
Suicide is a very touchy subject. I was able to get past my demons and belts with suicide and depression years ago. Unfortunately, there are so many kids growing up with ADHD and battling depression and thoughts of suicide all the time.
I'm hoping this article spreads like wildfire, because I want children with ADHD to know there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the suicide demon can go away.
You may feel like you’re all alone, and no one understands you. You can tell when someone asks how you're doing that they really don't care. Maybe you've almost committed suicide before and called the suicide prevention hotline. But there was no compassion on the end of the line and you were worried about them tracing the phone call and sending the cops to your house. Or maybe that was what you wanted – you wanted the cops to kick in the door and give you the final reason you needed to bring it to an end.
Trust me when I say I know how you feel, and you are not alone. There is going to come a point in your life where you rise above everything, and you realize the thoughts and opinions of others mean very little.
You'll understand that ADHD is not a disorder but a gift. You will find totally different meanings in songs, movies, paintings, and many other things that people without this gift cannot. Once you realize how special it is to have ADHD, your true journey will begin.
Don't end the journey before it even starts.
Finding A Way to Hide Your Emotions
Every person with ADHD has their own method of controlling their emotions. As a child, more often than not it comes out in the form of being hyperactive. As time goes on the child learns different forms of control.
My family was always full of jokes, so it isn't surprising that humor became my way of hiding my emotions. I can look at anything and find a bright side and a joke to make about it. Likewise, the greatest artists in the world use paintings to hide their emotions. Writers write their emotions down. Albert Einstein used math.
I became so good at hiding my emotions that when I told friends from high school that I struggled with depression they didn't believe me. They will all tell you I was really a wild and funny guy.
Being Misunderstood
If you are a parent or spouse of someone with ADHD ask them two things.
- How many people know you really well?
- How often do you feel misunderstood?
Their answers to these questions will amaze you.
If I had to describe my life in a word, that word would be ‘misunderstood’. My whole life I’ve been told I am different. It wasn't until September 2012 I realized how different I was.
In school, I could be given a project to work on and have every single point of it figured out and written down. But when it came time to present it to the class, the social anxiety of being called different or having a disorder would engage. My words would come out all jumbled up. Nothing would make sense.
I opted out of reading out loud in class and try to avoid it as much as possible, not because I couldn't read but because my mind would get so entangled in the story I would start fumbling over simple words. The teacher would correct me, which broke what little concentration I had, which made other students snicker, which caused more social anxiety.
This did nothing more than push me into a shell. I am very fortunate to have the parents I have. When I came home they knew how to break the shell open. I was lucky enough to have parents who let me make the jokes.
Doctors
Doctors need physical evidence of something. They want to be able to see it on an x-ray or in blood work. If a doctor can't see physical evidence of something they put it in the category of 'mental disorder'.
But is thinking deeper about something really a mental disorder? Is showing emotions on a greater level a disorder? Is bouncing off the walls because you're hyperactive a disorder? Or is it just who you really are?
Have you ever noticed that doctors don't like to talk about things they can't explain? The fact is there is little information out there about ADHD that people with ADHD will relate to and agree with. People with ADHD can recognize compassion and can see right through people, and I can tell within the first five minutes of talking to a new doctor what they think of me.
Why should I tell them anything about this gift when they don't believe in it to begin with? I find most are not open minded or compassionate enough to even hear what I'm saying.
It is even harder for young people. How can you describe what's going on when you don't know yourself what's going on? And so doctors just medicate and move onto the next patient. They have no desire to look deeper or think harder, and young people suffer because of it.
Depression Demon
Growing up with something you can't explain is very difficult. You know you're different and you know you have more emotions than other people your age, but you haven't found an outlet to help control them. You've got social anxiety that keeps you in a shell and every time you try to escape the shell you are beaten back into it by the words or actions of another.
When you go to your doctor you can tell he cares very little about you. You can't get into relationships because your emotions drive people away. You have very few friends because most kids don't want to be friends with the one who is different or has a disorder.
I was fortunate to have two solid parents. But some children with ADHD are not as lucky. You can be in a room full of people, but you can't let your guard down because you see through them and understand they don't have the compassion it takes for you to do that. So even in a room full of people you feel alone.
Someone can tell you how much they care about you, but it means very little to you because you see inside their soul and you know they are not the person they pretend to be. You see all their ulterior motives. No one understands you because when you start talking your brain jumps all over the place. And your other classmates belittle you because you can't keep your thoughts organized enough to have a conversation about the simplest of things.
You fall into this deep state of depression, because you know you're different and no one understands you. Unfortunately, a great number of people with ADHD end up committing suicide.
Recipe for Disaster
Let's look at what we've got so far. We have a child who has been told he has a disorder. The child goes to a psychiatrist who couldn't care less about him, but to make it look like he does he tosses medicine after medicine at the symptoms. The child can't connect with anybody, can't relax and be himself anywhere. He's probably been held back a couple of times because he wasn't as fast as the other students, devastating his self-esteem and making him feel ashamed.
Now the internet is flooded with articles about ADHD and shootings, so even fewer people want to talk to him. Other students call him a mental case. Due to the social anxiety the student becomes quiet. When he starts talking no one understands him and he can tell most people think he's an idiot.
He might go home to family that cares about him or not. He might go home to parents that are too busy to listen to him. He might go home to a parent that punished him for showing emotions. He might have had parents that criticized him for crying. His parents may have told him to "man up" at emotional times in his life.
He is in a constant state of depression and he maybe only has one or two people he can talk to that have the compassion and truly understand who he is. Many days I came home from school and planned on taking my own life. Fortunately I had parents with good souls, and knowing how much they would miss me prevented it.
Are we really surprised when these children commit suicide or shoot up a school? I am not justifying these children's actions by any means – I have never once felt that harming another person would make me feel better. I credit that to the way my parents brought me up. But is it a surprise some of these kids have snapped?
The media is quick to point out that many of the perpetrators of school shootings were on ADHD medications, but they don't mention the other thing they have in common: most shooters have been bullied. Do you really believe in individual with social anxiety is going to be able to come forward and report school bullying? Is ADHD and its medication really to blame, or is it society, parenting, and the closed-mindedness of physicians?
I am not afraid to address these issues of ADHD and suicide, because I care very little what people who don't know me think about me. At the end of the day I am a father with ADHD raising two boys, one of whom has ADHD. If your child has ADHD, letting them see this article could make a big impact on them. I promise you most of them will be able to relate.
Unfortunately the majority of them will not tell you they do because they will not want to cause you any unnecessary worrying. They might even tell you it's wrong. They've got enough people thinking they are a mental case and will not want you to feel the same way. But the facts are the facts and the truth is the truth. This article will let them know they are not alone.