Living with ADHD: ‘I spent 33 years thinking I was lazy’ - The Indian Express

Ankita Das had just finished a sales training at a hotel while at work at Long Beach, California, and took another three hours to drive back to her home in San Diego. She reached at 10 pm but was happy that she had time to shower, eat and prepare for the next day. She had an early morning training at a centre just half-an-hour away and was not unduly worried. But soon the 33-year-old field application scientist at a private lab in the US realised that she did not have her suitcase full of lab supplies that she needed for the training.

“I panicked. My colleagues were already questioning my competence. They had started to notice that I forget things, that I rush. And the worst part was I did not even know where the bag was,” Ankita recalled. “My husband was annoyed at my forgetfulness and while he was deeply worried about me driving all alone so late to get back my kit, I felt completely misunderstood, isolated and overwhelmed,” she said.

For Ankita, what had been dismissed as carelessness did not disappear as she grew older. It followed her from school into higher education, research and eventually the workplace — showing up as forgetfulness, difficulty getting started, last-minute preparation and trouble staying organised. What she did not know then was that these could be signs of ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a condition that can continue from childhood into adulthood and affect how a person manages attention, impulses, motivation and everyday tasks.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition — in simple terms, a difference in how the brain develops and manages certain functions. A person with ADHD may find it difficult to stay focussed on tasks that do not feel stimulating, remember things, organise work, control impulses or get started even when they genuinely want to. It is not simply a matter of being distracted or lacking discipline.

According to Dr Archana Kadam, consultant developmental paediatrician at KEM and Jehangir Hospital in Pune, ADHD is characterised by inattention, hyperactivity and/or impulsivity occurring in more than one setting, such as school, home or social situations. “ADHD can affect a child’s learning, social interaction, impulse control and self-regulation which may lead to academic difficulties and later challenges with relationships and employment. Anxiety, low self-esteem and learning difficulties may also coexist,” she explained.

However, everyone forgets things or loses focus sometimes. A diagnosis of ADHD, therefore, requires a persistent pattern of symptoms that causes difficulties in everyday functioning and is seen across settings. Doctors also consider whether another condition or circumstance could explain the symptoms. There is no blood test or brain scan that can confirm ADHD.

One part of the explanation lies in the brain’s systems for attention, motivation and reward. Dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain, plays a role in helping us regulate attention, motivation and our response to rewards. Research suggests that dopamine signalling and reward-processing pathways function differently in people with ADHD. This may help explain why a person can understand that something needs to be done, genuinely wants to do it, and yet struggle to begin or sustain the effort — particularly when a task is repetitive or offers little immediate reward.

ADHD is not, however, simply a matter of having “low dopamine”. The condition involves several brain networks and processes, and dopamine is only one part of a much more complex picture. Dr Nora Volkow, who leads the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, US, and has researched how dopamine system abnormalities connect to ADHD, particularly regarding reward processing and self-regulation, told The Indian Express that when dopamine signalling is less effective, some tasks may feel less salient.

“It is harder to focus or stay motivated. Understanding the broader role of dopamine provides a more complete explanation of why sustaining attention and persisting with tasks can be challenging in ADHD,” Dr Volkow said during an interaction organised as part of the Health Coverage Fellowship programme hosted by the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health.

For Ankita, the pattern had been there for years. Her earliest memories as a child were of adults telling her that she was careless, lazy, inattentive, distracted, impulsive and disorganized.

For Ankita, however, the struggles had begun long before she had a name for them. She hails from Agartala, pursued a career in research at IISER, Bhopal and IISER, Mohali, and got a PhD in molecular genetics from Columbus, Ohio. Yet, prior to each of these milestones in her life was a trail of long sleepless nights, last-minute panic preparations, hours going without a proper meal and chronic exhaustion.

“I lived in constant fear that I was not fully prepared. Every time I went to a new place, a new institution or a new environment, the pattern repeated. People around me would eventually start noticing that I am inattentive, careless, lazy, out-of-focus, distracted, impulsive and disorganized,” she said.

Ankita desperately wanted to ‘fix’ herself because she believed something was wrong with her. “I knew in my heart I am not lazy and this was not a lack of willingness. I wanted to be successful and wanted to execute all the tasks I had planned in a timely manner. But something stopped me and I could not explain what it was,” she said.

A year before her diagnosis, Ankita was fired from her job due to what management called small and careless mistakes that led to several operational problems. “When that happened, I internalized every bit of it and walked away convinced that I simply was not good enough,” she recalled.

Then she heard a podcast on ADHD. “Hearing another person describe their life felt like someone was reading my personal diary out loud.” That moment prompted her to explore the possibility that what she had spent decades seeing as personal shortcomings could have a neurological explanation.

Medical consultations confirmed the diagnosis, and Ankita decided that, for the first time, she was not fighting who she was. Ever since, she moved back to India and lives in Pune with her husband. “I spent 33 years trying to hide. But since the diagnosis, I realized ADHD is not a failure of character, but a fundamental difference in how the brain is wired,” she said.

Symptoms often emerge between ages 4 and 7, particularly when hyperactivity is prominent, but ADHD can be missed in girls, who may predominantly show inattention. Diagnosis is based on the child’s behaviour at home and school, parent and teacher assessments and clinical evaluation.

Dr Kadam says that the primary challenge is that there is no blood or imaging test that can identify ADHD.

“The other challenge is that the child’s performance can fluctuate – today he/she is good, tomorrow may not be.” Parents and teachers who notice persistent attention difficulties should seek an early evaluation and accurate diagnosis.

The hardest part of having an ADHD brain is just getting started and remaining consistent when the internal battery resets to a completely different level every single morning. Ankita has been consulting psychiatrists and counsellors, taking non-stimulant medication to improve focus, supplements like Vitamin D3 and magnesium apart from her own recovery tools to ensure that her bucket of dopamine is refilled.

“There are some students across India who are currently sitting in classrooms and told they are simply lazy or undisciplined. If we can replace judgment with awareness, we can save the next generation from decades of silent self-blame,” says Ankita, who is passionate about learning how to work with the ADHD brain rather than wage a war against it. “I am unlearning decades of self-criticism, understanding my natural rhythms and discovering strategies that actually support me,” she adds.

Anuradha Mascarenhas is a Senior Editor at The Indian Express, based in Pune. With a career spanning... Read More