The ADHD I can stand...

...it's the anxiety that kills me.

ADHD makes me have a good time. It makes me energetic, it makes me have fun ideas, it makes me bounce around. Granted this is not always to my advantage, but it doesn't make me feel trapped, sick, mentally unwell, unable to make decisions, and unable to cope with anything.

Anxiety does.

And I shit you not when I say that the fact that my dog and two cats are having a pissing war that has destroyed my entire home this week has not helped. Or that certain people in my life who qualify as "high maintenance" have also not helped (hence I have hit the "ignore" button on their bullshit).

Oh, and the fact that my Remeron/Mirtazapine, isn't doing shit? Yeah that's not helping either.

We've tried two dosage bumps now, so I feel sufficiently convinced that no, this shit is just not going to work anymore. That's not unheard of in the world of Remeron. Sometimes, for some people, for no particular reason, it just stops working. And when that happens, and you start to think of Ativan as something you really want to take on a regular basis, you know it's time to ask for something new. The other night it was a tiny tab of Ativan and "oh look, a wine tasting, I think I'll pop in!".

Of course, here I am trying to finish up the dregs of school so that I can graduate...after having to ask for more time to finish my homework from last semester, because medication changes were making it impossible for me to think straight.

A lot of ADHDers talk about ADHD and how it kicks their ass and makes school harder...and it does for me too...but it's not even half as bad as dealing with unchecked anxiety. And meds changes in the middle of a semester. This is my last shot...I HAVE to finish this work this semester...and I am extremely sensitive to meds as anyone who's read this blog with any regularity knows. This is not anxiety talking--it is a fact that every time I switch anxiety medications, my thinking ability falls to shit for several weeks. But is that worse than literally hating life for those same several weeks because anxiety is running the show? Running my life? Either way the choice is heartbreaking.

At 7.5 mg of Remeron, I remember how it melted the anxiety away...and then we went up to 15 and all was still well...except that it made me so sleepy I couldn't function unless I piled my ADHD stimulants on top of it (which I honestly don't need every day). So we went up to 30 mg...but it felt like, even though the sleepiness pretty much went away...the anxiety was creeping back in. And so we went to 45mg...and gradually I have felt nothing but worse.

I've written about the anxiety before, and described it as a white noise, polluting the backdrop of every minute of my waking life, for as long as I can remember. It's back in full force. If white noise isn't an potent enough descriptor for you to grasp what I'm saying, perhaps this is: imagine fingernails on a chalkboard every time you're trying to have a conversation, make a decision, or get work done...and there's no off switch. Or someone beating a drum right next to your ear, that unfortunately nobody else can hear, so that when you react to it, people think you're being really unreasonable.

Oh I have a bottle of Ativan, the chemical equivalent of an off-switch. But I simply don't see drug addiction as a healthy alternative to chronic anxiety. Ativan has the potential to make very good friends with your body chemicals in as little as 7 days. The way I'm feeling, I don't doubt the potential for addiction could be very real.

This is why, and I have to remind myself of this, it is a fucking miracle that I made it in life as far as I have without a serious drug addiction problem. This is why everything about the general functionality of my life is freaking commendable. But knowing that doesn't make the anxiety go away, and this morning I kind of lost the battle I've been quietly waging for several weeks now. Poor ADHD boy, even though he suffers from anxiety himself, has never seen me this way, and was honestly, and understandably a little overwhelmed. Because you see, I'm able to be articulate sitting here several hours later, tying onto a page, but this morning when I began to unravel, I wasn't able to articulate the problem...so he was a little at a loss to know what to do about it, if anything. He politely speculated that perhaps PMS could be the issue...but the first clue that PMS wasn't the problem, was the fact that I had no inclination to argue that point :)

Knowing that I've defied some odds doesn't make me want to cry less. Knowing that doesn't make it easier to explain to people around me. All they see is irritable...cranky...illogical inability to make decisions...sharp and sudden reactions...what they don't see is that the inside of my head looks like armageddon, and I'm just trying to crawl through the day with the stumps of my sanity held to my chest in desperation. Regardless of my actual surroundings, my mind and body are engaged in fight or flight.

I'll call my prescriber on Monday, but right now, Monday feels like a long, long way away.

Because shit ain't all dipped in gold...

...my roommate Ariel is the best.

When I'm having a "moment" she's always got the answer. And often the answer is "well shit ain't all dipped in gold Miss K".

I think every ADHDer needs to keep this mantra in mind. It's perfect for those days where life feels like one frustration after another.

Life isn't perfect and that's okay.

Shit ain't all dipped in gold.

Ugggghhhhh, one of THOSE mornings...

...where I drop things, and bump into things and my brain feels like pea soup, and the dog is running around the house like a maniac just out of my reach every time I try to catch him to put him in his room before I leave the house, and I stepped in a puddle of water with socks on because my eyes were hardly open, and the cats wouldn't STFU, and I got 8 hours of sleep but feel like I got none, and I keep hurting myself accidentally, and I'm pissed because the cat litter got stuck to my feet, and look, I'm dropping things again, and I can't get the gas cap open on the car and...

You get the idea.

I used to have mornings like this all the time.

I was also 20 minutes late to therapy. WHICH SUCKED. Even though the session was good.

Gah...but here's what I realized, and said to my therapist when she asked why I was so damned late...I used to have mornings like this all this time. ALL the time.

And I don't anymore.

:) Let's hear it for self-awareness and treatment. In light of this realization, I guess I'm just thankful that I don't have lame mornings like this every day anymore. Even though I hate this morning, looking at the stuff that "wrong", there's some that I just plain don't have control over. And I know what to do about the things I do have control over.

I just wish I would stop dropping shit. That's got me on my last nerve.

xxxxxxx <-----------See, there it is...my last nerve. Figured I'd type it out so I can keep track of it...

ADHDers can even be found on status lists...

...and today I was honored to be published in just such a local affair in a major newspaper.

For my community event organizing work.

Wheeee!

See...don't ever let anyone tell you that ALL of your ADHD "big ideas" are bad ones. Some of them are good. Some of them are BRILLIANT! Some of them are at least partially good and even better after you step away from them to analyze them a little more closely.

This particular idea has blossomed into an endeavor that feeds my soul...that makes me feel good about myself...and helps other people at the same time, and adds something really unique and special to my community.

Proof that there's no reason that we ADHDers should apologize for our "random" ideas...that there's value in learning to focus and asses and develop them...and really, you know what? People with perfectly normal brains have crappy ideas every day! People with normal brains also sometimes miss the value in idea that an ADHDer will find novel, intriguing and worth investing time in.

ADHD may not be a gift, but it does have plusses sometimes as well as minuses. I'm working to maximize the benefits of the plusses :) And today, my state community recognized me for doing just that...wicked bonus...!

Is this the eye of the storm...

...or the result of treatment? Or both?

I feel like it's way easier for me to juggle my life these days, for the most part. It's still busy, it's still wild...it's still creative, but there are moments where it feels REALLY busy, and then...moments and chunks of days where it just feels calm. Even when I'm busy.

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!?

It just feels like less work to get certain things done. Less work to deal with ordinary details of life.

Like...and this is really bizarre, I've actually been keeping my clothes sort of organized and hanging up my coats...instead of leaving them where the cats climb in them and then having to spend time getting the hair off of them so I don't look like a slob when I leave the house. And not in an OCD kind of way, where you feel driven or compelled to do something...I just hang up the coat.

Huh.

Anxiety: the other white meat

I write about ADHD a lot and anxiety a little...even though anxiety has really inserted itself into my life in unforgiving and nearly crippling ways since I was a small child.

And that really says a lot right there...that it's such an unremarkable part of my person. Such a constant companion that I would forget to introduce it thoroughly if at all.

So I'd like to write more about it. Starting here:

I spent my childhood under threat of terminal illness. My mind ruminated constantly over thoughts of the impact of death. Every lump was cancer, every surface touched was contaminated with something unstoppable and deadly. Why was I never diagnosed with OCD? I have some theories.

Much of the angst and anguish that I endured, I endured silently and privately inside my own head. I was smart, and I knew that my thoughts were unreasonable...well...I sort of knew...in that way that children who are smart "know" things because they are capable of logical thinking, but can't stop their irrational thoughts because they are children, and still emotionally immature. Consequences always feel bigger when you are small.

I had very particular habits. My shoes had to be tied just so, and my pigtails had to be cinched to my head very snugly or I would think about it all day long. I always buttoned all buttons on clothing. And I was quiet; and I spent a lot of time watching...and thinking...and worrying...and fidgeting in small quiet ways. And for the most part, I kept my worries to myself. As a teenager, my relationship with control only became more calculated. I knew that if I ate just enough, I could starve myself quietly without anyone knowing. My mind could not stop moving from one worry, to the next, and the next...but only I was aware of the actual depth I was drowning in.

I have aged backwards. And if anything, addressing my anxiety has made my ADHD more, not less obvious. I anchored myself to the ground with these thoughts, routines, worries. As I have grown older, for various reasons I have been able to slowly let them fall away...Remeron has only furthered a process I'd begun without chemicals.

And I am thankful for this...because even at the age of 9 I had begun to make myself actually ill from all of the worry. I was tested for autoimmune diseases because my immune system genuinely began to fail under the weight of my fears. They were unable to diagnose me with any particular rheumatological disease...because I don't have one...but my mind was literally causing my body to turn in and fight to destroy itself.

You can't outrun anxiety. The only way past fear is through it. More on that later.

Being Proactive Without Driving Other People Nuts

Of course many of us with ADHD have issues with certain kinds of follow through issues and remembering issues. Oh the joy.

So I have some ways that I deal with these things...for example, I try to either do things right when I remember them or at least create an effective reminder for myself to make sure it's done later. Or I make sure to get a TON of work done when I'm "on" so that I don't screw myself when I'm having an "off" day.

I try to consolidate a lot of things in my life too...for example, I will send a landlord a stack of signed checks for the term of a lease so that I don't have to forget to send a single check every month. Or, if I have the money, I will actually pay chunks of rent at a time...right now I don't need to pay rent on my apartment until March because I already paid three months in advance. (You then have to set a reminder to actually then PAY it in March!)

However...sometimes people don't "get" these things. The person I pay my work studio rent to, for example, was utterly baffled as to why I would want to pay the rent for the entire remainder of the lease now, so we got into a mini-standoff of her saying "no, you can just pay me each month" and me responding "right, but I have the money now, so I'll just pay you now"...until I finally just said " Ah...I try to pay things in chunks to eliminate repetitive tasks and make sure things are done when they need to be done. If it's truly not convenient for you, that's okay, but if it IS, it would be much better for me to pay you now.". That did the trick.

However, there ARE times when our "accommodation" isn't reasonable for others to have to put up with. This wasn't one of those times. But it's good to remember in the back of your brain that the world won't always work the way you want it to, even when YOU are in fact having the best of intentions...