DIVERGENT CORNER

 How I Discovered My Brain Was Playing Hide and Seek with ADHD

I use to be, I mean, I still am very forgetful. I was always losing my stuff. My keys, my phone, my wallet, in fact, my sanity. 

My friends joked at how very forgetful I am, especially for someone still young. At times it is as though I am incapable of keeping track of anything. 

There were times I really thought I had early onset dementia or some kind of degenerative disease. 

 I thought long and hard for any family history of dementia. I don’t know much about my mom’s side of the family but I did panicked once when one study showed a higher prevalence in the Fulani ethnic group, of course, I have Fulani blood.

I have the memory and attention span of a toddler. My family thought it was hilarious, and I’d hear stuff like “Vreng, Walahi tsufan ka akwai labari “ or “how can one person be so smart yet so dumb”?

For as long as I can remember, my life felt like a sitcom, only without the laugh track to remind me when to chuckle at my own misfortunes.

School, the place where I consistently proved that the only thing consistent about me was my inconsistency. I am that one guy who will mess up a simple fluid balance chart in one of the most important exams of my life in Belfast, I kid you not, a 5 year old could easily solve that. But I failed the exam, in spectacular fashion too.  It is the easiest thing you’ll ever see. But then, a few days later, it took me less than 3 weeks to tutor myself python including Pandas and matplotlib.

Don’t even get me started on how long it took me to pass reading module of IELTS. 

 I wondered how I went from failing the simplest OSCE to becoming a coding expert in a matter of weeks, but these kinds of ironies have been the theme throughout my life.

Speaking of spectacular failures, my struggles meant I couldn’t hold down a job even if it were glued to my hands. In 2015 I impulsively resigned my job in Jankwano, few years later, I went on to fail probation in one of the easiest jobs in world to be honest. Of course, it was too boring I simply couldn’t focus no matter how hard I tried. I spent several months in the glamorous world of unemployment, which included binge-watching documentaries about ancient civilizations and finally figuring out why making gote with brisket bones hits better than with regular beef

My struggle wasn’t just academic or work-related. Socially, I was and I am still a misfit. I’ve never really felt understood even by people closest to me.

I always knew there was something wrong with me, I just couldn’t place it, even for the fact I process emotions and information very differently. While others navigated their way through school, acing exams and breezing through tasks with ease, I was the one who couldn’t find my stuff, let alone complete a task. My mind is like a computer with  hundreds of open tabs all running at once. I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with that. 

I couldn’t hold down any romantic relationships, I always wondered the need for it anyway, because I thought I was awesome all by myself. I was incapable of having feelings and I thought it was because I was too broken. I used it as an excuse far too many times to avoid anyone interested 

From the outside, I looked like I had it all together. I had unconsciously developed coping strategies that masked my quirks so well that even I was fooled. Here’s how I became the stealthy strategist, all while looking like the poster child of normalcy.

In March of 2023, while casually chatting to my then manager, about how I just realised that I learn better in reverse. Like how I prefer to see the bigger picture of things then working my way backwards to the smaller details. I said, It’s as if my brain has a manual that reads: “First, observe the chaos, then figure out the details later.” 

That conversation was the turning point of my life. Little did I know I was blabbing all the symptoms of ADHD she knew too well. 

When she told me I could be neurodivergent, a small part of me vexed. In my mind, I was like, “For this small jist wey I tell you, na hin you wan insult me?” For weeks, I ignored all the materials she shared with me about ADHD and how to get help. 

When I finally, reluctantly, opened it after several weeks of procrastination, My God, I almost cried. My legs were literally shaking from all the stories I saw. I said to myself, “my whole life I thought I was just stupid.”

I was referred to see a GP who then broke my heart even more when she told me I could be autistic too, my response was ” I can’t catch a break”. 

She carried out an initial assessment after which she then  referred me to a specialist,  I was on a waiting list for over a year. A few months after I moved to Wales, I managed to see the consultant and was diagnosed with spectrum disorder on 02/08/2024. 

ADHD with high masking Autism and started on medication. I sometimes still struggle to believe that I am a disabled man.

The realization hit me like a plot twist in a Nollywood movie. On one hand, I felt immense relief, finally an explanation for my square-peg-in-a-round-hole life. On the other hand, I was disappointed in myself. I mean, I’m an experienced nurse, I’ve spent a whooping three and a half decades on this planet. You’d think I’d have figured it out by now. In my defense, I always thought I knew what neurodivergence was. Turns out, like Jon Snow, I knew nothing!

 I thought I had it all sorted, but my brain had been playing hide and seek with me this whole time. So, there I was, a seasoned nurse who couldn’t diagnose himself if his life depended on it.

But my journey isn’t just about personal triumph. I realized that my story could help others, especially back home. Neurodivergence is still a relatively unknown concept in Nigeria and Jos especially. Too many people are struggling in silence, labeled as lazy or unintelligent, when they might just be like me. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder affects about 5% of children and 2.5% of adults worldwide.

To be continued…..