Everyone, meet Obstructo II

I mean it this time

I have ADHD.

I was diagnosed late in my 20’s - and only accidentally - despite having been held back by it for, literally, as long as I can remember.

I was impaired impacted by ADHD by the time I was in kindergarten.

In my very first classroom, before I could even read or write, before I knew what ADHD was or could process how it felt or affected me, I knew I was different than other kids in some ways.

The work was easy; doing it was hard.

By the time I was six, I was being told that I was “bright” but “didn’t apply myself” or “put in enough effort.”

I doubt there is an adult with ADHD who didn’t spend the years pre-diagnosis being constantly conditioned to believe there was some deficiency in them: They were an underachiever. They weren’t “living up to their potential”. They didn’t put in *the effort* — as if they were just lazy and didn’t work hard enough or try or care because of some weakness of will or character.

I am 52 years old. I have not yet even begun to fully unravel the constant, battering feedback loop people with ADHD are subjected to and how that has affected me. I don’t know if I want to. There would be some deep grief at the end of that ball of yarn.

I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t an underachiever. I wasn’t just sloppy or careless.

I had - and have - a brain that is configured differently. That difference is both wonderful and terrible. It is the catalyst for many of the things I like most about myself… and it is at the root of many of the things that most hurt me and haunt me and hold me back.

It is like having two pets: a cat and a dog.

The cat, you begrudgingly took in after a relative passed away even though none of your friends have cats and you would have been very happy to not be the only one with one. Half the time you have no idea where the cat is but you know it’s there somewhere and sometimes it comes out and lets you pet it a little and that’s kind of nice, actually.

The dog, on the other hand, is a bit of a dick. You inherited that one too and you would absolutely drop it off at a shelter if you could… without even slowing down or opening the car door.

It barks endlessly and rips up the furniture and bites the neighbors and you are just so damn tired of constantly apologizing for it while knowing fully well that the next time you leave some door or gate open, it’s going to get out and bite someone all over again.

That dog is an asshole. I hate that dog.

It literally spends every minute trying to fuck up my day. And I spend every day trying to fight it off.

To make that a little easier, I’ve changed the metaphor and turned my nemesis into more of a classic villain… a Joker to my Batman… a cartoon nemesis I can imagine and picture and fight directly as an enemy to be defeated. Plus, who wants to be mad at an imaginary dog.

Enter: Obstructo. Nemesis of Hoarse and Man.

Obstructo is a bastard. His singular purpose is to get in my way. He doesn’t care how. He just wants to derail my train. He has some simple, predictable tricks he throws at me daily. And he has some more devious little methods of generally undermining me and my life.

One of his absolute favorites is The Artificial Precondition.

The way my ADHD works, once I get going on something, I can not only focus, I can *hyperfocus*. I can tunnel in and stay on task and just freaking hammer the pedals.

Leisurely rides around the block feel harder than the Tour de France *before I get on the bike*… but once I’m in the clips, oh, I can crank for miles.

Case in point: I have been sitting here typing uninterrupted for an hour and a half in a loud cafe, editing as I go. I have a drink I haven’t touched, earphones I haven’t put in, and a phone I haven’t looked at…

I am in hyperfocus; I can feel it; it is productive; and it feels good and happy and soothing in ways people without ADHD wouldn’t understand. It’s a subtle “See, I’m NOT unfocused. See, I CAN apply myself” to every teacher, professor, and manager, who thought otherwise and held it against me.

The problem isn’t the pedaling; it’s getting on the bike.

Obstructo knows that… and knows that the easiest time to stop a train is before it leaves the station.

Take this week, for example.

I had intended to write a second installment from The Diner days ago. I already know the content of the next two editions. I’m excited to write them. I’m looking forward to posting them. I was primed. I just had to write them.

Then Obstructo pushed me three days behind by derailing me *once*.

On Monday, I had planned to drive out to The Diner to write the next in that series.

The plan was simple. Drop off my son. Drive out to The Diner. Order breakfast. Open laptop. Write while I ate.

Obstructo originally seemed pretty down for this plan.

“That sounds great, Mike. You DO really need the right setting to write… and that place is just so perfect. It’s not like you can just pop open your laptop at the Starbucks a mile from here… You need the right environment. Let’s go.”

So, we set off and then Obstructo was all “Wow, it is such a beautiful day. Sigh, autumn goes so fast, doesn’t it. These leaves will all be down in a week…”

And I’m all “Yup. Autumn. Goes fast. Anyway, we’ll be at The Diner in 20 minutes.”

And then Obstructo nonchalantly added “Only 20 minutes?! Well, that isn’t long. We’re making such good time, why don’t we swing past the lake and just absorb the beautiful fall day and really GET IN THE MOOD. I bet Robbie Frost did that kind of thing all the time.”

And that’s how I ended up blowing past the turn onto the road that leads to the diner. That’s how I instead found myself driving past the lake where my son caught his first rainbow trout… and then past the little town grocery where we stop in to get fried chicken… and then past the little ice cream place that serves the peach ice cream on sugar cones that has become a tradition for us.

That’s how I came to be winding down a rural road as leaves ablaze in reds and yellows fell from the trees. That’s how I came to be struck by the perfect fall beauty of trees giving up their last greens as gold.

And that’s how I came to be thinking corny shit like “trees giving up their last greens as gold.”

And that was all good and fine… but by the time I got to the diner, it was way later than I wanted it to be and that made me feel bad about having wasted time and that made me want to think about something else - anything else - so I ate my eggs and checked my phone and dawdled…

…and never got on the bike.

Today though… Today, I got up, dropped my son off, drove to somewhere imperfect but close, opened my laptop and started typing.

Somewhere, out in rural New Jersey today, there’s a country road that looks like a picture-perfect scene out of Bridges of Madison County. Quaint little homes set back from a winding road that runs along a brook. In one yard, there’s a pleasant-looking woman, her hair pulled back, a few loose bangs hanging in her face. She has on a flannel shirt that is worn enough to be a little thin at the elbows, the cuffs unbuttoned over two hands covered in gardening gloves. She’s patiently raking the last gold of fall into neat piles.

Had I driven by, she would have absolutely waved at me and I would have smiled and waved back… and then I would have spent the next five miles purposefully committing the scene to memory so I could write about it in some future piece about how we treat each other in places where life slows down enough to wave.

And I would have been 100% convinced that the future piece would be good and thoughtful and well received.

And it would have never gotten written.

Nor would the one I had originally meant to write this morning. This one. The one you are reading.

Meanwhile, Obstructo would be in the passenger seat wearing a scarf and chunky sunglasses, window down, smiling because once again he had kept me off the bike…and all it took was an Artificial Precondition.

“You should really go somewhere that just feels ‘right’ before you start writing, Mike, no?”

No.

“You know where the best place for me to write is, O? Wherever actually gets me on the bike. Now, fuck off. I’m busy.”

And here we are… at the finish line.

That took a strategy. It took a deliberate plan to manage how my brain works. It took work that is significantly harder for me than for most people.

And it really doesn’t get easier. Maybe I get a little better at work-arounds and strategies to win today’s round with Obstructo but that doesn’t make it easier; it just makes it possible.

And then I start all over again.

This afternoon, when I try to work on the next installment of The Diner, and then tomorrow and every tomorrow after that, I will go through that whole damn internal process to just get pedaling… and man, that is tiring.

When you have ADHD, you live your whole life being shamed for how hard it is to get on the bike.

Every day that you do, it is a fucking triumph.

Every post you see here, no matter how good or terrible, is a little triumph for me.

The fact that it exists means I got up and tried again and faced a nemesis and got the better of it… that one time, at least.

Everyone, meet Obstructo. He’ll be back tomorrow. So will I.

We’ll see how that goes.

I’ll do my best.