Taking off the Blinders

One of the most amazing things I have discovered since beginning my ADHD treatment is my newfound ability to fully take in what is happening around me.  For years I have studied meditation and held a deep importance for being in and experiencing the present moment.  But the truth is my ADHD often led me to tune out those moments so that all of my focus could remain on getting from a very basic point A to point B.  

When I began to treat my ADHD in earnest one of the first things I discovered was that there was a vibrant world around me that I had been missing.  Small children, mothers, dogs, men, trees, all of the things I had tried so desperately to tune out so that I could stick to the task at hand.  Now I notice that when I do simple tasks (i.e. going to the grocery store) I see things that I didn't see before.  I make eye contact, I make conversation and my interactions are more sincere and less rushed.  

It feels great, but why is it happening?  For one, I have noticed that my overall stress level has decreased substantially.   Having ADHD I think that I overlooked the tremendous burden that the disorder adds to an already heavy stress load.  When I was able to effectively manage it and gain more control over my life the simplest of things took on a whole new viewpoint.  I also notice that although I am a very outgoing and social person, I have always been terrified of meeting new people and beginning new social interactions.  I believe this stems from a lifetime of not fully having access to an internal edit button and therefore living with an underlying fear that what I say or do might make me look lame or incompetent.  In the past by tuning out my surroundings and staring straight ahead I was able to mitigate the likelihood of ever having to socially interact and therefore save myself from the potential awkward or embarrassing moments that might follow.

So while opening my eyes to the world in a different way did not happen over night, I felt it was worth celebrating as one of the many glorious perks of weeding out the noise and getting back to a life full of just that… life.