Academic Deficit Disorder

“I’m tired of feeling tired.”

That’s a phrase I’ve repeated to my partner many, many times in the past ten years. But I’ve been tired, at least intermittently, for decades before that.

And not only that.

I’m going to lay it all out right here because I’m tired of being tired, and I’m tired of continual disappointment in missed professional opportunities, unrealized professional goals, and unfulfilled personal pursuits.

I’ve been asking myself, probably as long as I can remember, “why can’t I get done the things I want to accomplish?” Objectively, there’s no lack of intellectual ability (I’m not a super genius, but I’m smart enough). There’s certainly no lack of ambition — I have no problem applying for top jobs and competitive fellowships, even when my actual professional standing is probably not commensurate with them. And there’s no lack of ideas or plans — I pretty regularly come up with all kinds of notions for new historical research projects, SF short story ideas, and board games.

But the list of books, articles, short stories, novels, memoirs, and board games that I imagine producing is far, far longer than the list of what I’ve actually finished. And this doesn’t include all the avocational things I would like to do, sometimes start, but rarely pursue very far.

This can all add up to a lot of disappointment and discouragement.

Part of the puzzle is brain function. In the 90s, around the time I was in graduate school, I remember the increased public discourse about ADHD, autism, and related manifestations of neurodiversity. I wondered about ADHD as part of my own physiological and mental picture, but was too busy with my professional pursuits to give it much thought. But in my 50s, I was seeing a talk therapist about some other issues, and he asked if I’d ever been diagnosed. One thing led to another, and I was officially labeled as having attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

I’ll write more about this another time, but it was a relief to discover this. Apart from the potential benefits of treatment, I was relieved to find that so many aspects of my behavior and mode of work fell under the rubric of this disorder, and so many of my experiences going back to early childhood made sense in light of this diagnosis. It helped free me from moralizing about my apparent failures.

Yet as much of a relief as knowing this about myself has been, and the treatment (medication and various adaptive techniques) has been helpful, it has not been enough to escape the disappointing performance, or lack of performance, in my professional and personal life outlined above.

That’s because ADHD is only part of the picture: it has been aided and abetted by other complaints (too many to list, but I will highlight the three most prominent). A pattern of migraines has played a major role here. Although these were not diagnosed as such until I was about 37 years old (and was popping at least the maximum daily dosage of tylenol and advil every day), I’ve been suffering from migraines since about age 14 — as of this writing, 46 years. In fact, the first major headache I remember having was at the annual high school beach outing in September in my freshman year. While I’ve never found a smoking-gun cause for these debilitating episodes, I have found periods of relief through various preventative treatments, dietary practices, and the like. But none last for long. By the time I finished my PhD and was teaching regularly, major headaches were a weekly occurrence. The longest stretch without any headache since that time was something like three months; during the worst stretches, though, I was getting five headaches a week (even long after I’d been diagnosed with migraines and thought that I had a handle on them).

Migraines are often accompanied by severe bouts of fatigue, sometimes before, sometimes during, sometimes after, and sometimes throughout. In my mid 50s, my migraines were getting worse again, but even when I wasn’t experiencing an actual headache, I was often knocked down by fatigue. Not sleepiness, but physical fatigue — like not enough energy to get out of bed. This wasn’t completely new to me, I had experienced fatigue like this earlier in my life, but it seemed to come in phases and then would pass, followed by longer periods of energy and productivity. But by the time Covid hit, I was tired all the time. In fact, as stories about long Covid appeared in the news, I thought, “yeah, I know what that’s like”! But it wasn’t long Covid. What it was, I finally discovered, was a hormonal imbalance caused by a benign pituitary tumor (known as a microadenoma). 

This was reassuring — a clearcut diagnosis of a recurring problem with treatment (medication, not surgery) that eventually brought relief. At least partial relief. Truth is, although my hormone counts are mostly normal, I still have intermittent fatigue. Sometimes there are physical causes that can be identified, such as iron deficiency anemia that I developed last year (which might be a side effect of the medication needed for the tumor — go figure!) or the side effect of a different medication I recently tried to help lower my blood pressure. But other times it’s just not clear why I’m so tired.

So, ADHD, migraines, chronic fatigue . . . and depression. You’re probably thinking that it’s no surprise that I get depressed with these chronic ailments, but while it’s easy to get discouraged by the physical problems and the limitations they place on me, my depression dates back long before any of them. I have clear and distinct memories of my kindergarten teacher trying to interest me in new and different things when I was clearly listless and uninterested in doing much of anything. While many children were happily playing with one thing or another (back when kindergarten was mostly playing and socializing) or a few others were being engaged in early learning activities, I often didn’t have the motivation to participate in any of those things even when they actually appealed to me. 

Even as I write this, I feel this way today.

This is not easy to talk about. I fear the stigma attached to mental health problems. I also fear being dismissed for being emotionally troubled or having my behavior or personality or concerns or whatever relegated to the “he’s just depressed” box. But I do want to talk about it because depression and ADHD and fatigue and migraines all add up to a complex of physical and emotional challenges that I’m working to untangle so I can live my best life.

Indeed, much of the reason I retired early from an otherwise good job is that I couldn’t manage the demands of work on someone else’s schedule while trying to improve my own physical well-being. Retirement for me, however, is not about escaping demands and challenges, it’s about finding the time and space to be as well as I can so that I can pursue the things I want to pursue, both professionally and avocationally.

I hope I don’t appear to be complaining — I don’t actually believe I have anything to complain about. No one is without challenges to face, internal or external battles to fight. But I do want to share some of mine as a means to face them head-on and perhaps as a means to give others hope.

This post is titled “Academic Deficit Disorder” because, for me, this complex of conditions and ailments has posed huge challenges to having the kind of success in my academic life that I long envisioned. Yet I have had success. I earned a PhD in history. I’ve held two different long-term academic positions. I served in a variety of professional capacities besides these. I’ve published books and articles. And even if I haven’t played guitar as much as I wanted to or read as many science fiction books as I would have liked or fished all the rivers and lakes I would have liked, I’ve been fortunate to play with a band in public, read some great SF stories, and fish some beautiful streams. And I expect to keep doing those things.

My ADHD brain wants to do more than I’m able to and has trouble accepting limitations on my time and abilities. My fatigue and headaches often mean that the time available to me to pursue my goals is short and I can’t reliably plan on when I can work or how soon I can complete projects. And when I’m depressed, I feel as though I’m in a glass box where I can see all the things I want to do, but can’t reach outside the box to grasp any of them.

And yet I just wrote this blog post — one more piece of evidence that I am not completely incapacitated or unable to do anything. I just have to take small steps and do the best I can with what I have. And I’m grateful for what I’ve been able to do with my life so far.

I hope to get stronger and more capable and to do more, but if I can’t it will be okay. I know why, and now you know why.