DadHD Brain

I am angry.

Not irritated. Not stressed. Not just tired.

Angry.

And I think the hardest part to admit is that my anger is not coming from not caring. It is coming from caring more than I know what to do with.

Lately, I have been living through the crazy. My anxiety has been loud. My depression has been heavy. And my focus has been almost impossible to hold onto for more than five minutes. Which feels especially strange to write, considering the whole thing is called DadHD Brain. Apparently the brand has decided to become a little too accurate. Very committed. Terrible timing.

Therapists have brought up ADHD with me before. I do not know if I have ever had the kind of official diagnosis that lives neatly in a chart somewhere, but I know enough to say it has been part of the conversation for a while. For a long time, though, it never felt bad enough that I thought medication needed to be part of the conversation. I could push through. I could manage. I could white-knuckle it and call that functioning, because adults are very good at confusing survival with stability.

But lately, focusing has been so hard that I cannot ignore it anymore.

Tomorrow, I have an appointment to get started with a psychiatrist again. I have been treated for anxiety and depression before, so this is not my first time admitting I need help. But this is the first time I am really looking at the ADHD piece and saying, “Okay. Maybe this needs more attention than I have been giving it.”

And maybe that is part of why I am angry too.

I am angry at how bad things feel in my country right now. I am angry at how many terrible things seem to happen “in God’s name,” even though deep down I know people are not always following God when they do that. Sometimes they are just using faith as a weapon and calling it righteousness.

Faith has been hard lately.

I am angry because my cousin is 29 years old and fighting for his life with stage 4 cancer. He has a beautiful son and a fiancée, and they should be getting to focus on being new parents. They should be tired because of diapers and bottles and normal life, not because cancer forced itself into the room and refused to leave.

And here is the part that is hard to admit: I do not know what to say to him.

I do not know what to say to my aunt. I do not know what the right words are, or how to start the conversation, or how to walk into something that heavy without feeling like I am going to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, or fall apart in a way that helps absolutely no one.

I am scared to go see him.

I hate admitting that, because part of me hears it and immediately wants to call myself an awful person. Like if I really cared, I would know exactly what to do. Like love should automatically turn into courage, perfect timing, and the right words.

But that is not always how love works.

Sometimes love is scared. Sometimes love freezes. Sometimes love stands outside the door with its hand on the handle, not because it does not care, but because it cares so much it does not know how to move.

I have reasons I have not gone. Real ones. I am in school. I am working two jobs. I live in another city. I have two school-aged kids. Life is full and exhausting and expensive and chaotic. All of that is true.

But it is also true that I have used those reasons as cover.

Being busy has been easier to say than being scared.

And I do not think I am the only person who has done that. Sometimes the people we love are going through something so painful that we convince ourselves our silence is safer than our awkwardness. We tell ourselves we do not want to intrude. We do not want to bother them. We do not know what to say.

And maybe some of that is considerate.

But sometimes it is fear wearing a polite outfit.

I am not proud of that, but I am trying to be honest about it. And I think that is where a lot of my anger has been living lately. Some of it is close enough to touch. Some of it is happening in hospital rooms, in family text threads, in bills on the counter, and in the quiet places where people are trying to survive things they never asked for.

But some of it is bigger than my own family too.

I look around and see people fighting against other people’s rights to live their lives, to feel safe, to exist, or even to live here without being treated like a threat because of how they look. I am angry that everything is so expensive. I am angry that my wife and I both work two jobs and still feel like we are not making ends meet.

I am angry that sometimes support feels harder to find than I wish it did. I know people have their own lives, their own stress, and their own battles. I do not want to pretend nobody cares. But there are moments where life feels heavier than it should, and I wish it felt easier to lean on people without feeling like a burden.

And the friendship part has been hard too. I honestly cannot remember the last time a friend reached out who was not a coworker.

I hate typing that, because it sounds sadder than I want it to.

But it is true.

I am angry. And maybe that is the part I have been trying to avoid saying plainly. Not irritated. Not stressed. Not a little overwhelmed.

Angry.

But I do not think all anger is the same. Some anger is cruel. Some anger wants to destroy. Some anger looks for someone smaller to crush so it can feel powerful for a few minutes.

That is not the anger I want to live from.

The anger I feel lately is different. It feels like grief with its fists clenched. It feels like caring more than I know what to do with. It feels like looking around at people suffering and thinking, “This cannot be what we were made for.”

That is probably why certain songs have been hitting me so hard lately.

One song got stuck in my head because it felt like a blunt little survival manual for adulthood. Keep going. Pay what needs paid. Avoid the things that can destroy you. Try to make it through another day.

Another one reminded me of my cousin. Not because I have any perfect comparison or neat explanation. I just kept thinking about the feeling of a heavy forecast. The kind where you already know tomorrow may be hard, but some part of you still waits outside hoping to see the sun.

That image has stayed with me because lately, the forecast has felt heavy.

For him. For his family. For my own head. For my faith. For the world. For the bills on the counter. For the people I love and cannot fix.

And still, somehow, I keep coming back to this: love has to come first.

My family still comes first. My wife still matters. My kids still need me. My cousin’s life still matters. My faith still matters, even when I am angry at what people do with it. My future still matters, even when my brain makes it hard to believe that.

And somehow, in the middle of all of this, I got an A in my most recent class.

I am proud of that. Not because a grade fixes my brain. It does not. An A does not pay the bills, cure depression, calm anxiety, or make ADHD sit quietly in the corner like a respectful little neurological gremlin.

But it reminded me that I am still moving.

I also got approved for support from Bellevue University so I can keep going with my cohort. That means more to me than I can probably explain well right now. It felt like a door staying open.

And right now, I need open doors.

I need help. I need treatment. I need support. I need to stop pretending that being able to carry a lot means I should have to carry everything alone.

And maybe I also need to stop pretending that being scared means I do not care.

That is part of why I am writing this. Not because I have a neat ending. Not because I have some inspiring lesson wrapped in a bow. I am writing this from the middle of it, from the angry part, from the tired part, from the part where I am still trying to believe that getting help is not failure.

I am writing from the part where I am trying to learn that showing up imperfectly is better than disappearing because I do not know how to do it right.

Tomorrow, I am going to show up for that appointment. That is the next right step. Not the whole solution. Not a magic fix. Just a step.

And maybe after that, another step.

Maybe a message. Maybe a visit. Maybe admitting, even clumsily, “I do not know what to say, but I love you, and I am here.”

Maybe that is enough of a start.

Because when everything feels too loud, too heavy, too expensive, too unfair, too lonely, and too much, maybe the bravest thing I can do is not pretend I am fine.

Maybe the bravest thing I can do is tell the truth, ask for help, and keep going anyway.

Still here.

Still angry.

Still trying.