Falling off the face of the internet ...

It has been almost exactly four years since I posted to this blog. I cannot believe it has been that long. Even though I have only a tentative grasp on measuring time under the best of circumstances, the weight of realizing it has been FOUR years is heavy. (When I first wrote this, I thought it had been five years... I'm just saying).

Now I know exactly how long it's been since I've felt like myself. How long I've been clawing my way back to normalcy - my "normal". I am saddened by all the missed opportunities, connections and happiness.  I started this with a great sense of excitement and energy, on a high of a diagnosis and wanting to help others.  The universe had other plans.

Here I am again, giving it another try to make sense of what it means to have ADD. I now have the insight of what it's like to have ADD during extreme personal and professional loss.

Starting five years ago I watched my father's health spiral after years of near status quo with a debilitating illness.  Eventually it lead to his death after a three month hospice stay. I fell in to the deep end of depression, mourning the father I lost when he died but most devastatingly mourning the father I lost when he was diagnosed, more than a decade before.

Later and less importantly, I was unceremoniously fired on a Wednesday afternoon. (The only other time I was fired was over 30 years ago when I was a college aged mother's helper who refused to iron.)   I joined the ranks of the unemployed and unmotivated. For the next several months my biggest achievement would be to shower. My biggest joy being when my favorite podcast, True Crime Obsessed, would put out a new episode. (Hero Bell!)

It's been about a year of kicking my way back to the surface, following rays of sun that insistently shown below the surface: family, friends, community and my own total frustration with myself.  So, let's try this again...

Tip of the Day

It's an oldie but a goodie: set your watch ahead even just by a few minutes. Even though I know my watch is fast, in stressful times, the trick works and it sometimes saves me from missing the train home. 

Extra tip: Apple Watch has a feature that allows you to set the time ahead. 

"Isn't Everyone a Little ADD?"

"Isn't everyone a little ADD?" is a comment I've heard from more than one person who is skeptical (like I used to be) of ADD.  They seem to consider it to be an over-diagnosed/over-used lame excuse. Isn't ADD just bad parenting and too much sugar?!

 Does everyone misplace things sometimes (including your car)?  Yes.  Do most people sometimes forget appointments and miss occasional deadlines? Yes. Do we all have trouble focusing and sitting still in certain circumstances? Hell yes! The difference is the degree to which these seemingly trivial things impact a person's life.  There is a difference between an occasional "senior moment" and a daily struggle. 

If occasional forgetfulness or inability to focus is a minor annoyance then you likely don't have ADD or you've learned to compensate for it. But if these issues negatively impact your daily life - jeopardizing your job, relationships or just making you think you are losing your mind - then you may have ADD. 

All is not lost if you do! I am learning that ADD is not an excuse of any kind and it is NOT a horrible diagnosis which will lead to my eventual doom. It is quiet simply, a miraculously different way of processing information and moving through the world. There are many awesome aspects to it and it is only disabling to the extent the world is not set up to encourage and support this way of thinking. 

So what is the value of recognizing that my brain operates in a different way? One - now I know I'm not "Lazy, Stupid or Crazy" (love the book by the same title). Two, I can make changes to how I live day to day (such as using alarms and timers and a paper organizer) to function better. Perhaps most importantly, I realize now that I need to give myself down time and not over promise, so that I don't set my self up for failure.

No, not everyone has ADD, only a small percentage of lucky people, like me. More to come on what makes ADD a miraculously different way of thinking.

Finding Myself in a List

October is ADHD* Awareness Month. I didn't know that before this year. I know it now because of an emailed newsletter from a friend who is a professional organizer. Usually, I pick up a tip or two from the newsletter and so I began to read and when I got to this part, I felt the spark of recognition:

Do you have 1,000 or more emails in your in box?  Do you spend your day triaging email instead of doing your actual work and addressing your priorities?  Are you frequently missing deadlines?  Are you consistently running a few minutes to an hour late?  Do you have "shiny object syndrome"?  If you answered YES to at least one of these, I can help! (emphasis added) Destination Organization - October 2015 Newsletter 

It was the comment about "shiny object syndrome" that caught my eye. For the past 18 years or so, if my husband wanted to avoid a conversation or get me to change subjects, he'd say - "look, something shiny." Believe it or not, it would often work and get me off track.  But wait!!! - ADHD is mostly in hyperactive boys. Okay, maybe a few girls get it too - but you GROW OUT OF IT!? Right??? Thankfully, I read on.

Discovering My True Self

Most of my adolescent and adult life, I have felt like an impostor: my internal life, not matching the external one. Appearing to others as an organized, smart, capable and confident person. Inside, fearing the day they would realize I was none of those things. Others seemed to be able to move through life so seamlessly while I struggled with the every day and mundane. This only intensified when I had a child. Having more than one child was unimaginable.  I waited for the day when the chaos of my mind would triumph over my ability to fake it and all would know me for the fraud I was.   

I'd be lying if I said I felt like a fraud 100% of the time. Sometimes I did feel organized, smart, capable and confident - but it would be for a short period of time when I was able to laser focus and get in the zone. Sometimes the state of flow would last for days or even weeks - then I would drop the ball on something really silly, but that something would result in negative attention from a teacher or a boss and I'd be completely knocked down again, for days, weeks, months or more. I could never understand why I kept sabotaging myself. Was I afraid to succeed? More likely, I was afraid to fail - so I wouldn't try at all. Regardless, I was only capable of two settings: confidently full speed ahead or full stop feeling broken and hopeless.