A mystery passenger has lived inside all my life. It is the creation birthed from ADHD and Autism as they have struggled for system control. The endless battle left me strewn with the remnants of their relentless conflict.

Their wants and desires are often at odds. Their symptoms present in opposing ways. The ironic thing is that they can play extremely well together if the chaos of ADHD is tempered and focused. When that happens, autistic needs have room to breathe.

Since the mystery has been revealed, I’ve learned to see the benefits of having both conditions. I liken ADHD to an explorer and autism to the mapmaker that assists and helps provide structure.

Before, the war between them created an invisible parasite that siphoned energy for almost any task. What appeared to be ‘high-functioning’ from the outside came at almost unfathomable cost on the inside.

The effects on the mind and body often ground me to the bone. When I was twenty-four years old, I reached a new pinnacle of somatic symptoms. Repeated visits to the ER and doctors followed. No one could figure out what was happening.

Anxiety and depression were diagnosed later, but those were only expressions of a deeper root cause. I rode the misdiagnosis roller coaster for almost two decades. I figured out how to survive in spite of the vampiric force inside.

Surviving is all it could be considered. I was not living. Not really. I was not whole. I was in fragments. I had no real sense of identity, so I instinctively took on many masks to walk in this world.

It’s a world that wasn’t made for me.

However, a deep resilience somehow pushed me to find new ways to navigate this foreign land. Some days, even the simplest tasks took great effort. It wasn’t that anything was particularly challenging from a cognitive standpoint. No, it was that the fuel required to take action was tremendous.

To know what you’re capable of but never being able to fully break the chains that weigh you down is an infinite loop of frustration.

I assumed it was completely normal that life always had to be so difficult. But I had no barometer for that. It was simply my reality.

I did not know what it was like to wake up without feeling exhausted. I did not understand that a consistently turbulent emotional whirlwind wasn’t the only option.

I like solving mysteries. I want to know the why and the how.

I could have given up. I might not have made it, and I suppose I barely did. It was worth every tormented step. I would never change the path that led me here, now that I know what I know.

These curses slowly become gifts. They allow me to see and experience the world on a deeply intimate level. The parasite has loosened its grip. The mortal enemies have become allies.