Why It's Important to Develop “boredom Response” Techniques
Instead of drinking, drugs, or acting impulsively...
The primary and cardinal characteristics of ADHD are distractability, impulsivity, and a need for high levels of stimulation or novelty-seeking. They show up in different ways at different times in the lives of all of us Hunters, and one doctor I corresponded with after having lunch at a conference where I was speaking on ADHD gives us all some great insights into how to deal with the problem of Hunters’ need for regular hits of adrenaline.
From a physician who asked that his location not be identified
All my life I’ve been easily bored. That’s why, when I went into medicine, I gravitated toward surgery: it’s exciting stuff. When I’m in surgery, I’m totally in my element, and things are racing along I love it.
But when I’m not working, life can be boring And I’ve done some pretty stupid things in my life to get rid of the boredom. I drank a lot when I was in college. I took a lot of drugs. Even when I finished my residency, I was still taking drugs, sometimes even stealing them from the hospital. And it was all just to turn off the boredom.
I can tell you, this is a hell of a difficulty for a physician. I can get just about any drug, any time. Particularly as a surgeon, it’s easy for me to get the most powerful painkillers and I can even get clinically pure cocaine (we use it as a local anesthetic).
At first, I thought maybe I had an addiction-prone personality, and even thought about checking into one of the programs for impaired physicians. But that can be a very dangerous step: people eventually find out about it, and there can be a real stigma associated with it.
Besides, when I was working I had no real desire for the drugs; it was on my time off that I’d start thinking about them. This didn’t seem to be an addiction pattern, but I really didn’t know what to make of it.
Then, about two years ago, a friend invited me to go skydiving with him. I went, and it was the same sort of rush that I experienced during surgery. I was not at all bored, and, in fact, wouldn’t have wanted to jump out of an airplane high on any drug.
So I started paying attention to the things that stimulate me and the things that bore me. Social things bore me. Books by certain authors stimulate me. Skydiving and flying (I’m now a certified jumpmaster and licensed private pilot) stimulate me, and next month I’m checking out hot-air balloons. Watching TV bores me. Sex stimulates me (particularly with my current girlfriend).
Noticing these things, I also noticed that when I was doing the things that bored me, I’d start thinking about how good a beer sounded, or even how good four milligrams of IV Dilaudid would feel. But when I was doing the things that stimulated me, the last thing I wanted was the drugs.
So now, when I find myself getting bored, I use that as a cue to shift to something stimulating. And if I’m stuck in a situation that I can’t get out of (sitting through meetings, for example), I think of the stimulating things I’ll do later, instead of thinking of getting high.
Looking back on the past ten years, I now realize that what I was really battling all that time wasn’t just boredom but the “seeking novelty and stimulation” aspect of garden-variety ADHD. The boredom was the most visible manifestation of ADHD for me, but there are other symptoms as well.
Some of these work to my advantage. I love the stimulation of surgery, and when I’m working on a patient’s body I notice everything that’s going on. (I really am one of the better surgeons in our city.) The downside was that the low boredom threshold associated with my ADHD led me to drugs.
So now I jump out of airplanes and look for opportunities to fly IFR in choppy weather. I’m well past the drug issue (which was really a boredom/lack-of-stimulation issue), and am now beginning to tackle some of the other aspects of my ADHD, one at a time.
I wonder if I fall into clear-cut ADHD categories.
Then I remember. There was a passage in my life. The aunt I was living with had just died. I had no job, no car. My focus was on her care. I was days away from being on the street.
But I became aware of the frenzy going on inside. Every resource was drawn from. For a normal situation where months of planning were allocated, I had days. In the midst of despair, I felt rigorously ALIVE. It was much like the moments before you see you are in a car accident that is unfolding in front of you.
I have no recollection of the days immediately following. But I learned moments like that and in military hardships, in findings we don't talk about... I learned resilience.
I would agree that it's important to develop "boredom response" techniques that are not self destructive or risk taking. Good school teachers keep their ADHD students interested and involved because they know what behaviors to expect if they don't.