129 million people live with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder worldwide. This is my story with you. 

I shower in complete darkness. It frees me from the cruel, watchful, and judgemental gaze of the world. The darkness and the warm water embrace me and protect me from every little sound in the world. Devoid of all senses, I can finally feel at peace. I am away – away from all expectations and away from You. 

You were there for as long as I can remember.  You were there on many of my firsts – my first day of kindergarten, my first day of school, my first time on stage. You helped me read more than a hundred Chinese characters before the age of three. You helped me converse with my neighbours before most toddlers even learnt to talk. Because of You people think of me as inherently intelligent. 

Though you never left my side, I could never understand you. You took on many forms – the first of many was whiteness. White, pure, and beautiful. Like the first drop of snow on a cold winter morning. Snow, how soft you must be to touch. Soft like the fluffy clouds in the sky, morphing into various shapes and sizes as they please. I could see you shapeshifting. A bear. A rabbit. A… dragon? And suddenly, you came into focus. You were merely the solid block of white wall that was sitting in front of me.

As time passed, you morphed and shifted. You were sights – the loose thread hanging from my teacher’s skirt. You were smells – fresh baked pastry. You were sounds – the tick of the clock, the desperate fluttering of a beetle trapped in the classroom. And you were the songs that never went past the first few lines before restarting from the top again, songs that kept me up every night, songs I could not stop listening to. There was no escaping you. 

You gave me such joy then took it all away just as quickly. You helped me feel smart, helped me learn fast but your constant droning kept my grades poor. I couldn’t control You and my inability to make sense of it took its toll on me. I felt myself losing control over my life. Confusion turned to helplessness then desperation and it all started to consume me. I wanted to scream, to point my fingers at You. When my parents sat me down with that look on their face, I wanted to blame it on You. When I was among the worst in my cohort, I wanted to blame it on You. Just when I needed You, I couldn’t find You. You disappeared from my room that night, and you left me wondering what went wrong.


I decided to make amends after that day. I set goals for myself and pushed myself to work harder than You. For every ounce of strength, You put to derail me from my goals, I would put in double to pull myself back on track. The flames of my passion grew stronger with each passing day fuelling my steam engine to blast past your distractions.

But I soon felt my tank go dry and I found myself caught up in your antics. It was like putting a boulder on a pile of weed. I hoped that the sheer brute force would be enough to kill You off. But like rooted weeds, you always found a way to grow and wrap your vines around me, restricting me, binding me. Each day under your control was another day surrendering mine. Your hold on me strengthened with each passing day, and You showed no signs of yielding.

I was 23 when I eventually lost the strength to fight You. That marked the beginning of the end for me. I gave in to all the frustrations I had against You and against my life. I let You tighten your grip around my neck, and though I was fearful at first, I knew that once I let You squeeze out the last breath in me, I could be free. I would no longer be a slave to You. And perhaps, I would be able to achieve my goals in my next life. 

That incident happened. I was diagnosed with depression. I was heavily sedated. I had to be counselled but I wasn’t ready to have that conversation. I sat in the cold sterile room waiting for my doctor to open her mouth, but nothing would have ever prepared me for what she said. For 23 years, I lived with You, but I never had a name for You. I looked into the mirror my psychiatrist held up to me, and for the first time in 23 years, I saw You. My psychiatrist spent the rest of the session explaining to me what living with undiagnosed ADHD meant, and what I could do to break free from your shackles. 

A pill and a nap later, I was reborn. For the first time in my life, it was quiet. I no longer needed to drown out your noises with the gush of the shower. I could perceive everything around me with such precision I felt invincible. I was walking over the vast and endless ocean, but there were no tides or waves. A sheet of calmness, a breath of fresh air. With my senses heightened, I could feel the slightest breeze, taste the subtlest salt in the air. My body finally felt like it belonged to me. All my life, I assumed everyone lived with a presence like You. I never knew my perception of the world differed so greatly from others.

Without You, I found coherence. I could listen to lectures for hours without my mind wandering and nothing would distract me from my tasks. I was more productive than I’ve ever been for the last 2 decades, and I was the happiest I have ever been. Or I thought I was. I tried to establish a new normal in life without You. A life without You that I’ve always wanted.

Pill after pill, I started to forget what life was like with You. Singing has never been easier; without your constant droning in my ear, I could hear myself better and control my vocal mechanisms more easily. I was better at the games I loved playing too. Without You, I could finally get through my academic readings without having to reread each sentence thrice to make sense of it. Without You, I no longer had to seek solace in dark showers whenever I experience sensory overloads. In fact, my senses never got overloaded again.

But without You, I felt that a part of me was missing. It wasn’t until you were gone that I realised how deeply entrenched You were in my life. You see, most people understand ADHD as the name suggests, attention deficiency and hyperactivity. And while these are symptoms of ADHD, there are other impacts of ADHD that is lesser known. For starters, hyper fixation is a part of You that got me to where I am today. As much as you made me procrastinate on my tasks, You made sure that I would finish it up when the deadline was approaching. As if to make up for the distractions You caused, You would always be there to block out any distractions when stakes were high, and I needed to focus on getting a task done. I’ve also grown to miss the short spurts of inattention and hyperactivity. They’ve played a big part in my social development, cementing my spot as that quirky guy with an absurd sense of humour in every friend group. People always questioned how I was so quick and witty with my punchlines, and I couldn’t have done it without you.



I decided to skip a dose of my medication one day in hopes of seeing You again. You were not the big bad that I thought you were, and you have shaped a big part of the good in my life as much as you have shaped the bad. It was never about eradicating the roots of the weed. Now that I can see you for who you are, it was about finding a balance. Having a new perspective on coexistence with you was exciting, and I’m grateful that things have been going well for the past five months. I tamed You when I needed to get things done, but I let You roam when it was a slower day. In fact, some of my best ideas in work were conceived when I gave You the liberty to express yourself once more. Looking back, my diagnosis was far from the beginning of the end for me. Instead, I recognise it as the end of the beginning chapters of my life.