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...
