RFK Jr. Wants To Investigate Autism

And I’m Here For It

It’s amazing to me how many people are attempting to normalize mental disability. RFK Jr. wants to investigate why exactly people are so disabled in the United States, and as someone who has had ADHD her entire life, I’m all here for it.

I’m now a stay-at-home mom, which to be honest has afforded me a lot easier time managing symptoms. But let me walk you through what it is actually like to have ADHD.

For starters, working on one article at a time is next to impossible. As I write this one, I have two others that I’m working on with entirely different topics, because while I enjoy writing, being able to concentrate long enough to write an article about one topic in a single shoot, seems next to impossible for me. 

People love my writing, and I wish I was more efficient but I simply don’t have the capacity to concentrate on a single topic for very long.

There are lots of coping strategies that I use to make it through the day. For starters, if I see something that needs to be done I usually do it right away, because otherwise I’ll forget. If that’s impossible, I’ll write it on my hand. I also break up larger tasks into smaller ones.

Even so, I have been known to leave things unfinished, after meticulously loading the dishwasher for example, I realized I left the rice cooker, full of rice, sitting on the counter overnight after dinner. I found a bug in the kitchen (because of course, I did)  and proceeded to scrub it from top to bottom.

Interestingly I’ve never forgotten about a living thing, I’ve never forgotten to feed my dog, take care of my child, or the garden. There are some nights where I think “Did I remember to turn my child’s air conditioner on?” And I push my ear up against her bedroom door just to be sure.

Author and Founder of Wrong Speak Publishing’s 'Black Victim to Black Victor: Second Edition' is now available at Wrong Speak Publishing, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble! Pick up your copy today!

“Just take medication” I’m told. Accept there are a couple of problems with how these medications personally affect me. Sure it helps me focus and concentrate, it takes me two days to write an article that way.

But writing and X is all I’m focused on. Simple questions from my husband like “what would you like for dinner?” Are met with “Uh huh.” All I do is sit with this phone in my hand and write. A bomb could go off in the living room and I wouldn’t respond.

My child, desperate for my attention, would walk up and slap the phone out of my hand. And if she couldn’t reach my phone she would bite my toes. It wasn’t until I was off the medication that I realized why she was biting me.

And creative thinking? Well, you can forget that too. I remember sitting around trying for months to come up with a business idea. I always wanted to have a little print shop, but I couldn’t think of a single thing someone would want to buy from me. After a month off the medication, I finally came up with something, and it’s coming together, but it was like there was a mental block in my ability to actually think outside the box. 

Plus, the medication turned me into a mean, nasty person, and the only thing my doctor could think to do was counteract the side effects with SSRI’s. He did his best, but I simply wasn’t the same person.

I found a supplement that helps me focus without the nasty side effects of hyperfocus, lack of creativity, and personality issues, called Lions Mane Mushroom but it has been a rather difficult adjustment to be off of my focusing medication.

So yes, there are a lot of issues with having ADHD. The upside of the disorder is that hyperactivity allows me to do twice the amount of physical work as a normal person without getting tired, which definitely has been helping me get the family homestead off the ground. I have energy to play with my child for hours at the playground.

See my mind, while everyone else’s is on a constant straight track, from point A to point B, is like a giant bowl of spaghetti. I’m juggling childcare, cleaning, gardening, chicken research, writing a book, writing articles, and this small little business I’m cooking up, flitting from thing to thing in my mind. It’s hard work to concentrate, to make deadlines, to drive a car, and by the end of the day I’m pretty much spent.

I’m sick of this “neurodivergence is a blessing” crap. These are disabilities. These are not things that parents typically want their children to have, because it makes life difficult, and it’s certainly not something I want my children to have either.

So what’s the cause of these disabilities? Is it the vaccine schedule causing fevers, leading to febrile seizures in children that are actually more dangerous than previously thought? After all, we were told that they don’t cause “permanent brain damage” but yet a very interesting study, using video cameras of children, has pointed to the idea that they can cause death.

Is it the pesticides? My grandfather, a chemical engineer, ranted and raved about pesticides and was known to wash vegetables for thirty minutes plus if he bought them from the store (my grandmother, also a PhD chemist, grew a lot of her own vegetables.). Several pesticides are known to cause neurological problems. 

And organic vegetables? They still contain pesticides, just less of them, so unless you are growing them yourself without pesticides I recommend washing the vegetables very thoroughly.

Is it the food ingredients? In other countries so many different food ingredients are illegal. I was a red dye number six kid, and after there were so many complaints about it causing hyperactivity it was finally pulled from the market.

Is it Tylenol? More parents are suing the makers of Tylenol because they took it while they were pregnant.

Is it the age of parents? My father was 45 and my mother was 36 when I was born. Both of those age markers have an increased risk of having children who have neurological problems.

It could be all of these things, but regardless I’m extremely excited about having a man on Trump's team who cares about this issue. 

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.