When high functioning becomes low functioning

Uhhh. Alright. Where to start with this one.

I am what pretty much anyone would consider a "high-functioning ADHDer". Whatever that means. I mean really...am I really functioning particularly well if I'm coping myself through life with self-destruction? Yeah...not so much.

Anyway...so here I am, a person with ADHD who has begun to try to unravel the coping mechanisms that brought her to this point. The stuff that I do that lets me get the work done...but also hurts my health and psychological wellness. I work too much, too long, too often, I overcommit, I mimic OCD, I have no respect for my own boundaries. I have terrible self esteem because I feel out of place, so I don't respect my own boundaries and I only recently have I begun to actually believe, really and truly, that I'm a smart person...too many humiliating timed tests in school when you can't concentrate will do that to a person. But blahblahblah, back here in the present, I am in a very, very weird position, for the first time in my life.

An interesting note about stimulant medication...that will set the stage.

When you have spent your life with a racing, impulsive mind that won't shut off...stimulant medication is both a miracle...and also, I speculate, just like giving a person who has been deaf for a lifetime a hearing aid. Fascinating and painful.

Now that I have had a taste of calm in my mind, I have no tolerance for chaos.

Now that I see the spaces between things, I want to honor instead of accidentally fill them.

When I began this process of treating my ADHD, when people would ask me questions like "are you easily distracted" or "are you bothered by distractions" I would have said no. Because, I now realize, I didn't even know what distractions were! I just thought my environment was filled with magical discoveries all day long! I was pulled to each with equal enthusiasm, and not bothered, not one fucking bit. I loved them, I indulged them, I juggled them with virtuosity (while, um, managing my MUST DO list much less well, yes, I'll be honest). I wasn't bothered by coworkers...I would migrate from office to office all day long, gathering information and sharing my neurotic musings on life on anyone willing to engage me. (Yes...I was THAT coworker. I'll apologize for my cubicle wandering brethren. We really can't help ourselves, but I'm sure you knew that.)

Oh I somehow got my work done...and it was boring as hell...and...I would have to work extra hours to get it done because the shine had worn off after about two months, if that...but I didn't mind. For years I didn't mind, even though it was obvious that my work habits looked nothing like anyone else's in the office no matter what office I worked in. When I needed to work I would bury myself in my office for hours with the lights off, and headphones on, to eliminate these things I did not consider distractions, so I could just focus...and all day...actually THIS was pretty annoying, people would come by and flip the light on going "oh, your light is off" as if it seemed impossible that someone could need the light off to work. I finally trained them to leave the light the frig alone. I knew that I truly could NOT work without the headphones and the low light. I knew that much at least about the light, by the 3rd grade...but still, I did not really know what distractions were. Because to me, it was totally normal to be assaulted by my environment.

I also became that employee that has no boundaries between work and home. You see, my unconventional ways of working made me very self-conscious, and like I always had to say yes...or volunteer, when a boss needed someone to do something early in the morning/late at night/insane. Good stuff. Good for job security, makes bosses more able to see past the fact that you are always late for meetings, and for that matter, always sneaking in late from downstairs in the morning...but bad for a lot of other reasons...but again, all of this, to me, was normal.

Enter Vyvanse. Exit problems with anti-depressants. Enter...enter...holy shit! I see order in the universe! I see space between breaths! I see London, I see France, I see intolerance for distraction...bwahahaha! What the frig?!

No seriously...what the frig?! Oh no, I know that stimulants can cause people to be agitated and angry, and I'm pretty sure that's not what's going on...because I'm not angry. I'm pretty frustrated though...and I really want to simplify my life. I think the problem is this...I can see NORMAL now. And I actually don't mind it. And I actually want to work within it.

The problem is that I chose this life, and all of the people, and things, and evils of the world in it...when I didn't know how to recognize distraction for what it truly is. When I accepted chaos for normal. When I was happy and able to bounce through life like a superball.

Vyvanse helps me slow down...I can sit and work for hours...but I'm fighting with all of these factors that if given the choice now, I would probably never choose, because I would recognize that they are all frickin' nuts.

This made me think two things...1) sometimes high functioning is low functioning. If you have a hard time getting motivated...you might get some medication and start making what they call progress...toward trying some new things, etcetc... but if you are already flying through life at a quick and dirty speed of light...and have found ways to cope yourself into submission...and you know that if you let go for one second you could lose hold of everything...it makes it harder to let go...harder to make progress, perhaps, in a way (or maybe just equally hard)...because you have to let go...and lose control...a let some of the loose pieces fly away...before you can RE-learn your surroundings, and what they are, and what they mean, and write yourself a new map of behaiors to cope.

2) I am going to proceed with the "plan" that I'm on, even though it's uncomfortable right now, and even though it may create total war between me and every other influence in my current life.

For example...I do like my primary job. I do love my ADHD boss. But yesterday, as I just kept trying to finish one particular task, and had spent half the morning looking for a file, and had asked the two other people in the office twice, if they had seen it anywhere, and everyone was talking over everyone, and no file was in sight, and the phone kept ringing, I finally blew a cork. I had selected this task as one that I wasnted to finish and for three hours had battled my environment over it. It sounded something like this, as I stood between the two of them "WHERE THE FUCK IS THE MCCARTHY FILE?!". Silence. Then one of them ran to the other room, found it, and brought it back, and I finished my task. Am I going to have to go work in a cubicle???

Maybe this is just a case of "it gets worse before it gets better". Okay...I'll try a little longer.

No, I swear to god it's not meds induced rage. I have two jobs, two side-businesses, one of which involves managing a herd of artists, two parents who ABSOLUTELY have ADHD, a very public life, I'm a full time grad student, a boss with ADHD, and some relationship issues we are working through. I am also helping my parents with the family business for the next little while because of an unexpected issue. I have had three meds changes in 6 months, some of which have gone VERY badly and made it impossible for me to think to the point where I now have to delay graduation until next semester. In general, I choose quirky environments and quirky people to exist with. And on top of all of this, I am trying to relearn how to "do life".

This life would give anyone rage. Just add Vyvanse, so that I finally have the clarity to distinguish chaos from calm, truth from ADHD bullshitting, the acuity to actually SEE distractions for what they are instead of following them like a trail of candy...and the power to just barely begin to make different choices? Yeah...I'm a little frustrated, SUPER cranky, and popping an occasional cork.

Other than that, I feel great. But never has high functioning felt so, so low functioning.

Only two sure things in life...

...and since I'm not dead, that must mean it's tax day. Yes, because I filed for an extension. Yes, I know this is posting on the 16th, and the date will read as such, and no I don't care because I DID transmit it online hours ago.

A BIG FIRST: A few weeks ago I hired a friend to do my bookkeeping. I can't believe how easy it was to do my taxes with all the information right there!!! And Quickbooks makes all these cool little reports and charts and things to show you how your businesses and stuff are actually doing in reality.

I loved that! See, I had no real idea how much money I was making. Classic.

When was the last time that tax day was this much fun? Uh...never 'til now. I think I could get used to delegating more often if this is what it leads to...

'You Can't Haaaandle the Truth!"

There's something that bothers me about descriptions of adults with ADHD. It bothers me because it's true, not because it's somehow offensive. And it bothers me because...I REALLY don't understand it. And I really don't understand it...BECAUSE it is so true.

Adults with ADHD apparently tend not to set goals because...how can you set goals when you don't know what the future IS.

There are certain kinds of questions that annoy me or puzzle me when people ask them, and they tend to be the ones that, with an ADHD brain, I am least likely to be able to wrap my brain around. Unfortunately the people asking them are usually the ones working with me at the mental health center to help me learn to deal more effectively with ADHD. Of course. I'm sure my perplexed responses only confirm my diagnosis for them.

When regular folks ask me these things like "What ARE you goals?" I have found some answers that I only now realize are kind of um...well you see, I do not HAVE goals. Not in the specific, time-oriented way. Not even in the "I want to be an X when I grow up" way. I answer these kinds of questions in a very abstract way, and thus for many years was able to avoid making concrete goals at all. And not making goals means never having to fail! It means that when you repeatedly make plans that ultimately leave your life unstable (for worse, but also SOMETIMES for the better...no really) yet nothing seems to be amiss to the untrained eye.

If you choose a nomadic life, regular people will assume you are a nomad. If you choose stormy relationships, people look to their own occasional love "near misses" and chuckle, thinking you are just having one of those moments and perhaps even wishing that they had such excitement of their own..not realizing that this drama is THE defining feature of your love life. Occasionally, when you are having a REACTION to something...they just think you're nuts, but they're too polite to say it, so they silently label you "a little neurotic".

There's all kinds of cute ways that regular people will rationalize your eccentricity. And can they be so wrong? Being eccentric isn't ALL bad.

Until you get to that pesky ADHD diagnosis criteria called "impairment". And do I feel impaired? Yes. Do I feel like a failure? Often. Is it because I hate my artsy, nomadic, stormy life? No actually, not at all...but I feel like a failure because I don't seem to be able to exercise as much CHOICE over this reality as I would like, or as much as I would need to "succeed" in a regularly measurable way. I'm a very stubborn, forceful, values-driven person...who has often failed to choose accurately between chaos and peace, in her own life. I attempt choices all the time to NOT exist like this...and in the moment it seems so easy and clear...sometimes I even make what seems like the right decision and discover too late that I utterly misread the situation...either way, what I discover is enormous and painful struggle...because it's hard for me to exist "normal" sustaining the effort...well, sustaining the effort...uhhhh...it seems like I accidentally do that sometimes? I mean sometimes my mental hyperactivity/poor self-esteem combo does a great job of stepping in for persistence even though it's more like OCD. Which is pretty unhealthy...but it makes me effective!

The hard answers to these questions in my life then, are always bound to surface in the mental health center because...that's the only place people ask these kinds of questions and expect concrete answers.

They ask "is the medication working"? I try to respond but it's like speaking a second language...or living life as a second reality. I don't know what that MEANS. So I guess...I try to describe what is happening because I don't know how to place value on it. "It seems like I pay less attention to other things that I shouldn't". "I feel more calm when I take it.".

So...what ARE my goals. I can honestly say that I don't know, and that I don't like that question. But to continue describing my life in terms of glamorous and dramatic abstraction...it is far more likely that I am simply describing the course of ADHD in my life, not describing life choices that I have made.

Is this all a response or backlash to my post a few days ago about how great it is to be the person my 16-year old me wanted me to turn into? Not intentionally. And I meant what I said in that post just as much as I mean what I am saying in this one...of course. (Heh...let's hear it for accidental punchlines.) I am ready for the next step, and I don't even know what that means. I have made certain kinds of choices, because they were the only kind I knew how to make...are STILL the only kind that I truly know how to make...in the moment, between layers of emotion, riding the wind to its maximum height, and artfully breaking the fall as gracefully as possible when everything crashes down. I've mastered the slow-crash ballet aftermath of my unforeseen disasters...so rational, and beautiful as the pieces disintegrate...but have never learned how to prevent the fall in the first place.

Where is the line between healthy control and decision-making...and obsessive, anxiety-driven marathons of achievement, the only kind I know how to have? I believe that grey exists, but at this point it's a pure act of faith.

What are my goals...how do I use that only language that I know, to describe an experience that I have never had? Or that I might be having, thanks to the medication, but have not learned to recognize yet? Perhaps instead of asking me these questions, they could give me some kind of map that I can use on my way there? Oh...there's no map. There's just a subjective range of "normal" human behaviors that read to me like Chinese, and little handouts that my therapist gives me with a wink, telling me "you're doing great kid, this might be a little easier to read if you hold it upside down and set a timer for ten minutes".

I never cared what future meant. Now I want to know but I realize that I may never understand.

10 Minute Rule, My Ass

I went to visit my therapist today and I hate her because she did her job.

I'd remarked that I had found myself at that lovely point where I was being very vigilant and aware of the habits I should not be indulging anymore, including anxiety-stoking and over-commitment ensuring...had gotten used to knowing when to tuck my impulsivity into an inner pocket instead of wearing it on my lapel and letting it call the shots (pow! pow!). And that armed with that knowledge I'm a bit stuck, and stressed, because I don't know how else to move forward.

So she handed me a sheet or two of paper, stapled together. They say things like "Quick Effective Daily Organization at Work" and "Tools You Can Use Today" and "Scheduling".

We didn't go over it together, she wanted me to check it out on my own first, probably because she knows that if left to my own devices, with just a small amount of prompting, I will torture myself far better than she ever could...I eyeballed it when I got out to my car. As I read it, my core began to degrade. A brown dwarf in my gut. When stars deteriorate they transform through several stages (brown dwarf is one of them; Dewey Decimal # 520, stars...uh, yeah, anyway...). Oh I'm aware that whatever stage I'M in is actually taking me in a positive direction even if I feel like crap right now. But my gut doesn't know that...and it feels like it is imploding., thanks to these two little white pages...matter becoming so dense that a spoonful would be too heavy to lift, as I read phrases like "10 Minute Rule!" and "Use A Timer" on the sheet before my eyes.

By the time I got home and was trying to explain this to my boyfriend, my voice had raised two octaves, the lead had already solidified in my core, I was overcome by the repetitive OCD-like gestures that I succumb to when under enormous stress and I was only speaking in partial sentences like "it's bad...it's bad...I hate my therapist"...which unfortunately had the boyfriend laughing. "But you love the therapist." he says. "No...hate her." I say.

I hand him the sheets of paper. He says "Oh cool! Ways to organize yourself...oh hey, what are all these notes in the margins...". I squeak out "...hate therapist. Stupid papers. Stupid 10 MINUTE RULE! STUPID TIMERS! STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID! ...made notes...eeeeehhhhhhhhh...about hating 10 minutes rules, timers and therapists and fuckyou".

Clutching my stomach I wander around the dining room finally landing on a chair.

There's just no logical or reasonable way to explain this so I'm just going to let the ADHD do the talking for a minute...and she doesn't use punctuation or grammar very well so bear with us:

Can't do ten minute rule 'cause that is the LONGEST INCREMENT OF TIME IN THE UNIVERSE...I already work hard and get shit done, leave me the FRIG ALONE...jumping from one task to another in 1-2 minute intervals, that is how I GET IT DONE people...ten minutes, what kinda sick shit is that, ten minutes...ten minutes where I'll be thinking about what ten minutes means, and then thinking about the meaning of life as it relates to...wait, ten minutes...did I set a timer...okay look, don't even...timers, timers my ass, the only good thing (?)... just kidding, NOTHING GOOD ABOUT TIMERS timers are for stupid people who can't concentrate and I GET LOTS OF WORK DONE so leave me alone, and let me do something fun, that's the only thing i use timers for is screenprinting because I have to heat set the ink and you have to have a timer for that and you know what I do because I get so bored waiting for the THREE MINUTE timer to go off, I flippin' heat set 5-6 things at one time so can rotate through them until that looooooong THREE MINUTE timer goes off and while I'm doing it I'm thinking about inks and then I put the iron down because I have emails to send and if I don't write it down I'll forget so I'm looking for my notebook and there's the computer...oh wait, gotta finish the heat-setting...run back to ironing board, timer, timer, timer....TEN MINUTES is she joking that's like flashback to me being the classroom math retard who couldn't finish more than two math problems on a timed test because I couldn't think, and I couldn't fuckfuckfuckfuck timers...I punched a kid once because he made fun of me for being slow while the timer was on...uhhhh...ehhhhh....brown dwarf in the belly and universe on the shoulders...crap, I can't waste time thinking about this, I have THINGS TO DO and I have to KEEP MOVING TO DO THEM, and I just thought of 8 more things I need to DODODO...take your timer and shove it up your Amsterdam!

Okay...taking the pencil out of math-retard-girl's hands for a minute here, I think she needs to cool down, but at least now you have a taste of a) my double life with crunchy, sweet, spunky, seemingly together cookie on the outside, and friggin' stressed out 800MPH ADHD girl smooshing out the sides from the middle with the cookie girl just barely holding her in. And b) you see, clearly, that ADHD girl is a little stressed out right now. She's so stressed out I have to refer to her as "other" instead of as "self" right now and I'm sure that my thoroughly evil yet very effective therapist would have a heyday with that one...WILL have a heyday because I'll have to print this blog post for her to express myself next week instead of reliving the explanation because even THAT is too stressful.

And you KNOW she's gonna ask me about what I thought about those damn sheets of paper. And I'm gonna shove my iPhone right up her ass.

(Pause)

Okay fine, ADHD girl wants me to shove my iPhone up her ass, but I won't, because when I'm done freaking out maybe I'll try like .5 of one of these "new things". You know why? Okay, a couple of reasons. First being that I am very stubborn and hate to let my anxiety make decisions for me because I know I will regret it later if I do and I don't try new things. Which makes it into a game. Second...I have this blog and weirdly, it makes me feel really accountable to not just myself, but to others as well. Makes me feel like me and smooshy-ADHD-math-retard-girl-who-has-timer-phobia-because-they-make-her-feel-stupid-and-afraid-she-will-fail owe it to our audience to at least TRY new things, and least TRY to deal with ADHD in constructive ways instead of the same old ways. Plus, if the "same old" was working...I wouldn't have sought diagnosis in the first place. I was heading for a heart attack at 50.

Furthermore, clearly, while ADHD-girls feelings are TOTALLY valid...you read her shit...she should NOT be the one making all the decisions around here. Crunchy cookie girl will make the final call...but she'll be nice to ADHD-girl for a little while longer to get the hell-fire out of her gut and clear the way for something new. Something along the lines of surrendering to change.

The thought of which, right now, kinda makes me want to puke, so I'm gonna just stop writing while I'm ahead.

Oh hey, time to update that banner!

My banner says I'm 33. Well nobody's 33 forever. So I am now 34. A 34-year old woman, recently diagnosed with ADHD. That's just funny to me when I say it back to myself...and even funnier when I think about how limiting the "official" diagnostic criteria for ADHD can be at times.

I think I'll go run around the room and climb on some furniture...what, isn't that what all highly functioning women with ADHD do when they aren't writing blog posts?

34...wow, that means I'm firmly in my mid-30's. That means I'm gonna need a new blog soon, about the far more urgent issue of my CHILDLESSNESS. Yes...because isn't THAT what 34-year-old highly functioning women with ADHD do when they aren't running around the room and climbing on furniture: obsess about their biological clocks?

So many what ifs. So many things I could have tried to make myself do, if only...if only I didn't have ADHD to make it impossible for me to focus. (pause) *snort* More likely that I actually have a few shreds of self-respect, and an inability to manipulate myself into fitting into boxes that I simply don't fit into. I have never willfully failed to marry or produce children. I have never wanted to run around and climb on furniture (even if my BRAIN was doing virtually the same thing, for my whole life). It's like I always say: come along if you can keep up, accidental children welcome.

As I reflect on all the things that 34 COULD mean...ADHD or not...and being in the midst of rediscovering myself through the process of figuring out what ADHD even means to me...I have to say, that despite certain categories of self doubt...I am PROUD of who I am at this point in my life. Happy Birthday to ME! (yes, I know my birthday was last month, don't split hairs). Yes, of course I have the typical ADHDer "regrets" if that's what you want to call them...but not really. Even before I was diagnosed I don't know if regret was the correct word...more like confusion about why I could not fit into certain boxes, about why I didn't "get" people, about why I felt so far behind in some ways, but light years ahead in others when I compared myself to my less scattered peers. This was and IS painful, but I still don't think that regret is the accurate term.

Most people probably shouldn't grow up to be the person their 16 year-old self wanted them to be...but I have, and that makes me happy. I wanted to be creative, and well read, and "intriguingly artsy"...haha, sorry, channelling my inner 16-year old and she's just a little pretentious. I wanted to have passionate love affairs, and travel to fascinating places, and learn to speak French (hey, I was 16, I didn't know these were all big clichés yet ya jerk!). I wanted to write plays and be an actress, and never do anything JUST because someone tells you that you have to. I wanted to be well-known, but only if I was really GOOD at something, not just as a pretty face. In many, sometimes unexpected ways, that is exactly who I have been. And what an adventure! And what a fun foundation to move forward in time upon as I continue having different, NEW kinds of adventures.

Now that I know that ADHD has been with me all along as a travel companion? I can consciously choose adventures that I might not have even attempted before. Wow, that's scary AND cool. Things that my 16-year-old self might not have ever even thought of because she always had a nagging in the back of her mind that something wasn't quite right...that she seemed to have invisible limitations but couldn't figure out what they were....and she wasn't really convinced that she was as smart as her parents said she was...well she's back, and she's armed and she's smiling...and she's digging the Vyvanse, and likes her therapist...so who knows what she'll come up with for me next!! Heehee!

NEW TOY! NEW TOY! NEW TOY!

After I wrote my last post about my CRAP-tastic weekend, I went searching about, compared some reviews and voila: I was due for an upgrade on my cell phone...and we already have AT&T...and if you are even halfway hip to technology I'm sure you can see where this is going.

I ORDERED AN iPHONE! It arrives Thursday, and I am counting the minutes (at least until I am distracted by something more fun, or more delicious...and delicious could be very tempting right about now).

No, I am not worried about this becoming a problem distraction. I actually don't like being "tied to a phone"--the cell phone I already have gives me massive anxiety (long story...I'll tell it another time). I am MUCH more likely to get distracted on the computer. But I can't do everything on the iPhone that I can do on the computer anyway, so I don't anticipate unholy iPhone love rearing an ugly head or anything. Whatever...on Thursday when it arrives, I'll find out for sure if any of this logic makes sense or if it's just ADHD-think making craziness seem logical if not downright reasonable.

I am relieved by this purchase actually because in "my line of work" (one of them anyway...okay really all of them, but one slightly more than the others...jeesus, who let OCD girl in here today...) I need to be able to answer questions for people about things like "scheduling" and "availability" on the spot, and I always have to say to them "you know what, the best thing to do is to send me an email, and I will respond as soon as I get your message". That way, THEY are responsible for helping me to remember, lol...and I'm not sure that's the most proactive customer service technique, but it has worked thus far with all faces still smiling (at least while they're looking at each other).

Life was good...or uh, at least functioning...until the great Columbus Day Scheduling Massacre that I just went through. And then, with customers asking me questions about "scheduling" and "availability" this weekend, on top of everything else...godblessthem, I love my customers...but I pretty much just wanted to origami myself inside out to disguise my appearance, and run for the hills, all anger and angles.

Clearly the "have your people email my people" method results in MORE EMAIL, so this method, depensing on who you are can skew, oddly, to the "better for the sender than the receiver" end of things. And I'm gravely serious when I say that I DO NOT need to recieve any more emails in my inbox (in my FOUR separate inboxes that is, which all relate to different aspects of my life...I had to have separate boxes or I would have blown a fuse). I will now be able to answer very specific questions on the spot, and make quick scheduling changes on the spot...which will save me from having to answer a few dozen emails each week.

What am I going to do with myself when I've got 24-36 fewer emails coming through a very particular inbox in a week?

Well geez, I'm creative, I'll think of something. Or I will INTENTIONALLY try not to DO anything (I think my therapist would vote for that). Or stare at those fish on my blog sidebar until the next Great American ADHD Brilliant Idea Of The Day comes along to distract me from my iPhone.

But I can't be in three places at once!

My father's business had an unexpected crisis and me, my mother and sister all had to jump in to help...and may be required to continue helping for an undetermined amount of time while some issues are resolved. We have rallied and we will stick it out.

Enter my life-in-progress, which was already WAY too busy. There was no question that I needed to fully adhere myself to the family effort. But there is always danger ahead for me when I have to deal with too many unknowns all at once.

While working for my father, I forgot that I was supposed to be at one of my workplaces, filling in for a vacationing co-worker. I STILL KNEW as of Friday that I would need to be there on Sunday morning. Then, the family shit hit the fan, and I ended up working for poppy, running my OWN daylong business/event, and making deliveries for dad, then squeezing in a friend's wedding, then getting up the next morning with getting back to dad's shop on the mind. That entire time, I had no computer access. My calendar is on the computer. On the internet to be exact. And because normally I am always near a computer, this is beginning to work fairly well. But things were moving so fast and couldn't check my calendar, and I need that reminder to t prompt me to even write myself a note to remember and things moved so fast...until I picked up the ringing phone at my dad's shop and found a mushroom cloud on the other end of the line. My boss...calling to tell me I was two hours late and where the heck was I and what the hell happened.

Oops. I felt awful. I would recount that whole incident complete with tears and apologies, but it won't really make me feel better and it won't really enlighten YOU.

Then, because I wasn't as present at MY business/event yesterday, I had a couple of participants sneak out and leave early, which in this context is TOTALLY inappropriate, NOT done...very looked down on in this particular business because it is disrespectful to fellow participants, as well as the event itself. And how much does it suck to have people (who incidentally I have cut some MAJOR slack lately because of family problems that THEY were having) take advantage of you when you're in a shitty spot and can't really do anything about it?

Basically tried really hard to do the right thing, in every regard this weekend, and yet I feel totally shitty about the whole weekend. It was stressful, and disheartening. And I'm a little angry, and feel taken advantage of.

This isn't an ADHD-unique scenario. This would have been stressful for anyone. But add in ADHD...and clearly, this was way too much. It's enough that I was working a work shift that I don't usually work...and that I was literally too busy, and unable to access my one organizational lifeline.

I hated this weekend.

I am going to see how much a Blackberry will cost me. I need my schedule on my at all times, everywhere. It's bad enough trying to remember to use the calendar in the first place, but trying to remember to look at a calendar when there's no computer to even prompt you to "remember to remember"...yeah. You're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down, I'm sure.