A Look Inside My Brain
“wandering thoughts” by Hannah Wool
A Look Inside My Brain
Sonia Alfandre
I’m tired. Always tired.
My brain won’t shut up. It’s louder than an active construction site. It’s louder than a punk rock concert. It’s louder than twenty-foot waves crashing onto a rocky shore.
It’s as active as a beehive, never stopping, always moving. Buzzing, buzzing. It’s busier than an international airport, flying in and out, always coming and going.
Those are both highly organized systems. My ADHD brain is not organized. There are no detailed filing cabinets to contain my thoughts and memories in an easily accessible fashion. It’s a gusty city street littered with newspapers and trash that flit along the crowded sidewalks, spinning in invisible wind tunnels, diving into alleyways, falling into sewer grates. You can chase those fluttering newspapers for miles, but just as you reach out with shaky fingers to snatch them from the air, they slip into a passing garbage truck headed to a landfill, sentencing themselves to a bitter death among the thousands of other lost or broken memorabilia in my brain.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious—shut up, I’m trying to fall asleep—what time do I have to get up tomorrow?—expialidocious—you already said that part—wind’s from the west, storm’s coming in—even if you said it once, you really gotta notice—those aren’t the words you idiot—I wish my heart would stop racing—am I having a heart attack or a stroke?—how can you tell if you have a blood clot?—oh my god I need to find a job—maybe you should figure out what you want to do before you commit to a job—ting tang walla walla bing bang—shit I should vacuum my room—when will I find love?—ooh eeh ooh ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang ooh eeh ooh ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang—I’m never going to fall asleep if you don’t fucking stop—I’m so tired—oh shit I forgot to email him back—you don’t own meeee—PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP—ooh eeh oooooh ahhh ahhh—why is my leg so itchy?—I’m never gonna give you up—did I plan—
I’m terrified. Terrified that I’ll never truly enjoy something. I’ve never not lost interest in something. I get excited about a potential interest, participate in it, and eventually stop getting excited about it. It’s a distressing feeling when you know you won’t keep loving an activity or subject forever, and it’s possible that you’ll actually hate it at some point. There isn’t a specific reason why I always lose interest in things, and that’s probably one of the scariest parts of it. How can I commit to a career path that I likely won’t be excited about months after starting my first job? The spark of excitement when I want to experience something isn’t so sweet when I know my interest will fade.
You can chase those flashing, fluttering papers for miles, but just as you reach out with shaking, shimmering, flitting fingers to snatch them from the glimmering air, they slip away.
I feel suffocated. I don’t have enough time, not enough time to get anything done. The numbers on the clock blur and spin, and I can’t catch my breath as minutes turn to hours and hours turn to years. My life is slipping by, threading through my outstretched fingers, tumbling and picking up speed as it rolls down a hilly countryside. I don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough time, and yet, life is agonizingly slow.
If it’s 2 o’clock, and I need to leave by 3, will it take me an hour to get dressed and brush my teeth? You would think not, but somehow it does, and I’m late, and I can’t get my shoes on, and my keys are missing, and I’m parked too far away, and it takes so long to back out and start driving, and somehow, I’m late again.
I’m stuck in the shower. The walls are closing in on me. The cold, slippery curtain sticks to my skin, bumping me, grabbing at me each time I move. The bright fluorescent light flickers, sending black spots skittering across my eyes. The ventilation fan drones a rhythmic bullfrog-like beat, vibrating my chest and sending pain into my temples. I’m upside down, water cascading over my hair and into my ears. Blood rushes to my head, blinding me. I can’t tell where I am, what time it is, how long I’ve been running a brush through my curls. My roommate knocks on the door—"are you almost done?” I jump. With wet and pruney hands, I check my phone; I’ve been in here for an hour, and I couldn’t tell you what took me so long. I forgot to shave my legs, and I don’t think I washed my face. Ashamed, I don’t mention my issues: a fear that I can’t even do basic care tasks. I can’t even explain why I struggle, so how could I expect someone to understand? I feel like a child. Am I getting worse? How could I be getting worse?
“Why are you just sitting there on your phone? You have so much to do!” Of course, I know I have important work to do, but I can’t move. My chest is tight. My heart’s beating too quickly for someone who’s not moving, a crushing, suffocating feeling when I have something important to do, but I physically cannot make myself do it. I keep scrolling through my newsfeed, my brain screaming at me to just get up and do my work, but my body refuses. I’m fighting an invisible battle with myself, bargaining, begging, kicking and punching, internally pleading to just get a simple chore done. To others? I am motionless, lazy, frustrating, ridiculous, irresponsible.
I’m floating through space, bouncing against asteroids and whirling in spirals. Yellow lines fly by, red pulsing lights dot my vision. My surroundings move in and out of focus. I blink, swerve, veer around a curve. My muscles tighten, gasping for breath. I’m driving down a country lane. I don’t know how long I’ve been moving on autopilot, not truly paying attention to my surroundings. Was that light green? My brain is full of static; I’m buffering, struggling to focus on the road. I open my eyes. I’m back.
It’s estimated that approximately 2.8 percent of the adult population has ADHD, but in my opinion, it’s definitely higher. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 21 years old. I knew something felt wrong, but I couldn’t vocalize it in a coherent manner because my brain has always been like this—it wasn’t just some random onset of symptoms. I never would have been able to figure out what my issue was if it weren’t for TikTok. I saw videos of people talking about their experiences in a way that made sense and didn’t sound clinical, straight from a diagnosis book. They were talking about their day-to-day life, and I was astounded to relate so much. I had never related so much. Why did no one notice how much I was struggling?
I was always “a pleasure to have in class.” An honor student. 5th in the grade. 3.8 GPA. Anything below a 95 was a failure. I took multiple college and AP classes in high school. I got into every college I applied to. How could I have a neurodevelopmental disorder if I was a “success”?
What people didn’t see was the extreme anxiety forcing me to complete my work. My fear of disappointing others drove me to fill every waking minute of my life with never-ending tasks. Keep moving. Never let the panic subside, and you might just be able to put on the façade that you’re doing okay, that you’re not stupid, that you’re not a mistake. Every success I had felt fake, like I was lying and cheating my way through life. Every time I did well, I was sure it was just a coincidence. I constantly compared myself to others, knowing they were actually the smart ones. They didn’t have to fight a battle with themselves just to read a paragraph or finish a math problem. Tasks most people find simple can be nearly impossible for me. I drag myself through life, struggling to mold into the world, but my rough, jagged edges don’t quite fit into the straight lines of society.
