Article Review: Tim Beshara “Inattentive ADHD and Me”

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Author Tim Beshara wrote a great article a few months ago on what it’s like to be a high-functioning guy with ADHD-I. I read it first on ADDitude’s website, but it was first published on Medium.

For review, ADHD-I is also called ADHD (Primarily Inattentive). This means that you have the same executive functioning problems as other people with ADHD, but you don’t have the hyperactivity. The main symptom is that you appear to get distracted easily.

It reminds me of this legendary character in William Gibson’s book Count Zero named Wilson. The protagonist kid is just learning how to be a hotshot computer hacker, and when he messes up he says he “pulled a Wilson”. His mentor responds, “Wilson, I knew the guy.”

Protagonist: “Was he dumb?”

Mentor: “No, he was smart as hell. Just a complete f— up is all.”

Beshara captures the feeling precisely. Below, I’ll reprint a few quotes that stuck out to me, and say why they did, but I suggest you read the original article. Some issues you, dear reader, face each day may be due to this disorder.

What Stuck Out

1. “[E]ven if I’ve reminded myself several times I need to put my lunch in my bag before I walk out the door for work, the thought will simply not enter my mind at all.”

You don’t even remember that you need to remember something. It’s only since getting on meds that I realized my awful memory may have something to do with ADHD. The need to remember something short term can couple with the fear of forgetting, and drive me into a real panic attack.

2. “You get judged by your friends, colleagues, teachers, partners and relatives as being weak in character or lazy. And you don’t know if they are right. Eventually you believe them.”

This is something dangerous to both close relationships as well as job security. I got serious about my ADHD at the prompting of my wife. After the first few years with her, I began to think that maybe I really did want to hurt her by not doing important things, or by doing important things half-assed. Nope. It’s typical ADHD-I.

3. “People diagnosed with ADHD later on in life, like I was, wear the scars of a lifetime of judgment from failures you could never explain.”

Beshara begins his journey by visiting a psychiatrist to get diagnosed for a mood disorder, only to find that the mood disorder is a result of his ADHD.

One good effect I’ve seen in myself since being diagnosed, is my interest in helping others afflicted with this silent knee-capper. For example, I’m very conscious now of building habits to defeat the effects brought on by ADHD. Since I’m so conscious of this, I am eager to help others build the same habits, so they don’t have to go through half their life wondering why they suck so bad.

As the existence of Beshara’s report demonstrates, he feels the same way.

Read Beshara’s article!

Please go read Beshara’s article, and share it with your friends. It’s good for us to know what events and self-conceptions were caused by ADHD-I, and it’s also good for our loved ones to know what we’re going through.

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