I went to the doctor last month and got a physical for the first time in almost a decade. They did a blood draw and tested me for all the things. When I got the results back I felt like a fool. My iron and B12 deficiencies were still an issue. I’d known about these since childhood. My mom used to harass me and tell me to take my iron and B12 all the time. I refused constantly and eventually forgot it had ever been a thing. After my mom passed, all of that faded to the background.
As an adult, I’ve had a hard time breaking the energy drink addiction. Coffee was never enough for me, I needed the full suite of energy stuff. My dependency got so bad this year that I had a full on caffeine overdose at work one night and had to go home early. I got nauseous and my heart was racing. This happened a few times in the past year since I’ve gone back to work full time. I never realized that I was covering for an actual medical condition until I got this blood test. At 37 years old, I feel like I’m finally Figuring Shit Out.
At this point, I’ve been on iron + B12 supplements (and a bunch of others) for almost two weeks. I feel like a new person is being born, someone who doesn’t need that extra boost from the chemical sludge those energy companies are peddling. The whole thing reminds me of a song by Deerhunter which goes, “take your handicaps, channel them and feed them back, until they become your strength – hollowed out it’s all the same”. This has become a kind of mantra for me in adulthood. I spent most of my early life feeling inadequate for this or that reason. Getting older has led me to handling those perceived inadequacies one by one until I become the best version of myself.
Everyone used to tell me that my caffeine addiction probably meant that I had underlying ADHD. I don’t believe I have that at all. I have my suspicions about my potential diagnoses, but I’d rather not disclose them here. ADHD never felt like it fit. I tried a few different medications and every stimulant felt like I was getting high on something. To my understanding, people with ADHD don’t feel high when they take those stimulants. In my case the solution was vitamin deficiency. I was operating on a deficit. Take my situation as a word of caution to get checked out by all the doctors before making assumptions about what is causing your caffeine/stimulant addiction.
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