Mel Buttle reveals surprising health diagnosis

By the end of a Zoom call about my symptoms that I’d had my whole life, the doctor seemed pretty sure I had it, writes Mel Buttle.

“Although a pleasant and quiet student, Melinda is really struggling to engage with maths this term, she is regularly off task and often needs teacher support to complete class work in maths.”

This is an excerpt from my Year 5 report card in 1992. Most of my school report card comments were of that flavour, with the occasional addition of a compliment to jolly me along, which would centre around my abilities in tee-ball and my dutiful service to the school as library monitor. Sorry, I’ll cut that brag off there.

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I spent a lot of time in primary school on the veranda at a single desk with a teacher aide leaning over me, while I did a maths worksheet from a year or two below me.

Whatever self esteem had been built up behind the returns counter of the library would be melted away once Mrs Bryce appeared in the classroom door, a few minutes after maths had started: “Can I have Melinda please?”

Thankfully due to stretched resources this one-on-one support dropped off, and I was left to use my time during maths class as I saw fit, which for a while there, was writing poems about Kieren Perkins.

The year 1992 was a very big year for Perko, his win in the 1500m at Barcelona captured my imagination, so much so Mrs Bryce even tried a bit of this approach with me. “If the pool is eight metres long and Kieren swam seven laps how many metres would he have swum?”

A valiant attempt, but I just didn’t know the answer, I’d get mesmerised by the warmth of the sun on my face, and then my body would start twitching. “Sitting still on our seat please, come on we’ve got work to do here,” Mrs Bryce would chide.

Until this week, I’ve always assumed that everyone else’s body twitched when you had to do something a bit boring, like listen to a story from your partner about people at their work you’ve never met. Especially if it’s one of those long ones, with two different people called Elouise. You’re not quite sure who’s right or wrong for not tracking the change in the client file, so you just say “that’s crazy” every few sentences. My legs could power a Tesla during one of those tales I reckon.

Mel Buttle comedian.

Apparently, jiggling legs and lip chewing while others are speaking on beige topics isn’t a universal experience.

I guess I’m just unlucky that my body completely gives me away whenever the subject up for discussion isn’t directly hardwired to my interests, which this week are the Matildas, linen sheet sets and building a pizza oven.

It might not blow you away then, that this week I found myself on a Zoom call with a psychiatrist to find out if I have ADHD.

I’ve never seen a psychiatrist before, and quite frankly I’m into it. A very nice lady asked me a series of questions about one of my favourite topics: me.

I’d love to recount to you here in a humorous manner our chats, but I genuinely can’t remember much of it … what a surprise. I do recall her asking how people would’ve described me at school.

I said, “Quiet, a bit weird, anxious and very into sport”. That’s an honest and accurate wrap up – I know my product.

I didn’t think I had ADHD, I thought I’d do these sessions with the psych, and she’d say, “Mel, what a waste of both of our time, you have a mind like a steel trap, you don’t have ADHD, your ability to focus solidly for up to 15 seconds is close to a world record, now get out of here you scallywag.”

Suffice to say this didn’t happen. By the end of the first session, the doctor seemed pretty sure I had it.

Probably not quite as convinced as Mrs Bryce, but certainly on the way.

Until my Zooms about me and how I have no idea where the car keys are, I wrongly thought ADHD was purely the domain of energetic little boys who’d swing from the ceiling fans if they had a red drink, not early-40s women who have Belgian flax linen sheet sets and all the bricks necessary to build a pizza oven.

@melindabuttle