Using ADHD to combat anxiety, anger and everything else

Sometimes I find that documenting thoughts can really help for later on in life when you’ve forgotten certain workflows. As you are well aware, I document pretty much everything here. However, some things sometimes get left out, and the problem with not documenting those things is that you end up forgetting what you had made.

In some way, it’s like the Guy Pearce character in Memento – who has extreme memory loss to the extent that he needs to take polaroid photos and make tattoos on his body as notes for himself. It’s not that bad for me, but I find that when I don’t document stuff adequately, I tend to forget thoughts. And even when I forget thoughts and ideas (that happens all the time), having documented them somewhere means that I stumble upon it sometime (yes, I randomly read my old blog posts from time to time), and that surely helps.

For example, I know that when I go through a prolonged period of depression (most recently happened last December), reading the first chapter of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life helps.

Anyway, this is one thing I’ve followed from time to time since 2013, but have never really documented it. As long-time readers of my blog might know, I was under medication for both anxiety-depression and ADHD for the large part of 2012. I discontinued most of it in early 2013, but have occasionally gone back to taking ADHD medication (it’s a pain to get that medication – being highly controlled, you need doctor’s prescription in triplicate, etc. to get it. In the UK, the entire process through the NHS took a year and a quarter!).

Part of the reason why I’d been able to discontinue the medication was the realisation that it was in some way my ADHD that had contributed to anxiety and depression (making lots of small mistakes -> some of these mistakes proving costly -> fretting endlessly about these -> random pattern recognition based on small samples).

The other reason I was able to step down on all the medications was that I could actually “use my ADHD” to combat anxiety. The thing with ADHD is that while you can sometimes be incredibly distracted and unable to focus, you are also able to go into “hyperfocus” when you are doing something you are interested in. This thing you are hyperfocussed on could be work, or watching certain kinds of TV, or even getting lost in old cricket scorecards (or reading my own old blogposts!).

So the method I developed to combat times when I was anxious about something was to find something quickly that I could get hyperfocussed about (there are plenty of those) and use that to fully distract myself from whatever my thought process was at the time. Having ADHD also means you  can let go of whatever thoughts you have in your head rather easily. And so once you’re done with your hypefocussed task, you don’t usually return to the earlier state of high anxiety, and you can get on to normal life.

It’s a simple enough process, but ADHD also means that you very often forget simple solutions you’ve found to problems earlier, and keep reinventing the wheel. And hence the need for this documentation.

Recently I discovered that this method works for other forms of mental instability as well. For example, the common advice given to deal with anger is to “walk away from the scene” or “take a break”. This has largely worked really badly for me. I get angry. I walk away. Obsess over what just happened. Come back angrier.

But I have a secret weapon to deal with this – ADHD! Just walking away doesn’t help. I just end up hyperfocussing on what just happened. Instead the trick is to find something I can get absorbed in. A rabbit hole I can get into and get out of without remembering what had happened just before I got in. And there’s no way the anger can survive this kind of an experience.

The only problem is that when you’re angry with something, and that’s resulted in a “live fight”, walking away to do something totally unrelated can get the counterparty even angrier. I didn’t say I have solutions for all the problems in the world, did I?

Whether to surprise or not

Today, my wife turns twenty five. It hasn’t been a good birthday so far, for she feels depressed that she’s growing old. It doesn’t help matters that I’ve failed to surprise her, while on my birthday six months back she had put together a series of fantastic surprises. In my defence, I treated her to an afternoon of unlimited shopping a couple of days back,which I had assumed was her”birthday gift”.

Anyway, the point is that it had been brought to my notice before I went out somewhere this evening that I’d failed to materialize with a “birthday gift” and I was wondering if I should get something on my way back. It is not like I didn’t have ideas. I had several. But as I went through them one by one I realized that for each of them, there was a credible rebuttal she could come out with for each of them that would make it seem like there was no “thought” behind that gift and the only reason I had brought it was that she was unhappy.

I reasoned that irrespective of what had happened in the intervening couple of hours when I was out, she would still be upset with me at the end of it. Given that she would be upset with me, the odds that the gift I would bring would completely melt her and she would be satisfied would be miniscule. Instead, I would only have to endure more sulking, with the added charge of my trying to bribe her out of her anger.

I guess the big problem with me that I’m too cold and rational most of the time (the few occasions when I get emotional, I go crazy and cry loud enough to bring my whole apartment complex down). So the rationalist in me decided to make the rational decision that the chances of winning over my wife with a superb gift was so low that it would not justify the effort involved in bringing that surprise. So I came home empty handed.

My wife is inside the bedroom now, pretending to read a book that isn’t particularly interesting, while I blog this sitting in the hall, having taken control of the TV and watching the French Open final. I guess I was guilty of not giving myself that chance to turn her over today. But then, I didn’t spend all that mind space in trying to find that superb gift. I told you right, that I’m too cold and rational most of the time. And I write about too many things on this blog.

What the hell was Vettori thinking?

I’m writing this post in anger. In disgust. At the sheer lack of strategic vision shown by Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Daniel Vettori. What the hell was he thinking when he threw the ball to Virat Kohli for the 19th over, with 43 required off two overs? Yes, there had been a miscalculation earlier which meant that one of the last five overs had to be bowled either by part-timer Kohli, or by Raju Bhatkal who had been torn apart in his earlier two overs. While it is hard to pardon miscalculation in a twenty over game, it is nothing compared to the strategic error of the 19th over.

When overs sixteen to eighteen were bowled by Zaheer, Vinay and Zaheer respectively, I thought it was a tactical masterstroke by Vettori to keep the one extra over to the end. Given the skyrocketing required run rate, I thought it was a great idea that he was trying to put the match beyond Chennai Super Kings by the 19th over itself. And it worked well. From 75 needed off 5 overs, the equation was brought down to 43 off the last two overs (now, it is reasonable to expect Zaheer and Vinay to go at around 10 an over in the slog overs). And then what happened?

You have two overs left, 43 runs to win. You have a reasonably experienced medium pacer who is generally good at bowling at death, but is also prone to buckling under pressure. And you know you can’t trust whoever the other bowler is going to be. What you want is to have your good bowler bowl without any pressure on him. Without any pressure, you can expect him to go for about 10-15 in the 19th, leaving the batsmen to score nearly 30 off the last over – which would tilt the odds significantly in favour of the part timer who would bowl that over, since the pressure would be on the batsmen.

Instead, what do you do? Give the part timer the 19th over. He has no answers for Morkel’s slogging and edging, and goes for 28, leaving Vinay to defend 15. Now, it is Vinay (who is vulnerable under pressure) who has to bowl under pressure, and the batsmen know that. It is a miracle that the match went down to the last ball.

Of course you might say that I wouldn’t have reacted so angrily had either RCB won or Kohli had gone for less in his over. That’s not true. The match was in RCB’s pocket, to be won. The probability of victory reduced significantly the moment the ball was thrown to Kohli (for the 19th over). The ultimate result doesn’t matter. I would have blasted Vettori even if we had won.

Now, there is another uncharitable explanation that comes to mind, and I’m not very proud that this comes to mind. Was it mere incompetence or some sense of malice on the part of Vettori to give the 19th over to Kohli? I’m not talking about bookmakers here, I respect him too much for that. But think about it. Just yesterday, both Mint and Cricinfo ran articles talking about IPL 5’s poor TV ratings so far. The BCCI Chairman N Srinivasan (who not so coincidentally owns CSK) said that the answer to increasing TRPs was to play on batting-friendly high-scoring pitches, and to have close games.

The first wish was answered, when RCB set a target of 206. I wonder if there were some kind of instructions from “big brother” instructing that the game go into the last over, as a means to increase flagging TRPs. If Vinay had bowled the 19th and gone for 10 (say), that would have left a near-impossible 33 off Kohli/Bhatkal’s over. Match over by over 19. One more match that is not “close”, which will do nothing to boost TRPs. But keep the contest alive till the last over, TRPs would be boosted?

As an RCB fan, I hereby call for the immediate sacking of Daniel Vettori as captain and his replacement at the helm by one of Kohli or AB De Villiers  (maybe even Vinay Kumar or Zaheer Khan). Maybe I should create an online signature campaign for this purpose, and use my contacts to get the results through to Anil Kumble and other powers-that-are at RCB.