Monday, March 29, 2010

The sound of silence...

...I've been very quiet for the past week because quite frankly I'm getting my ass kicked by this "gift" we call ADHD. I'm really seeing how un-giftlike it truly is. I'm seeing that treatment brings its own adjustments, and those adjustments are totally overwhelming right now.

I literally cannot achieve my pre-treatment levels of mania-like operation. Just can't do it.

Sigh.

And I have so much to do.

It's also true that because of my innate anxieties, that my perception of disaster is usually a little skewed...I worry about things more than I need to. But I think what I'm seeing right now is that I've reached a level of awareness, and due to the amount of work I need to address right now, the timing is just really bad.

To get done everything I need to do right now (even after actively delegating) I need to simply not eat and not sleep and not take breaks. I used to do this all this time. I can't seem to do it anymore. I don't want to do what I'm being asked to do if what I'm asking myself to do is destructive on a survival level.

Plus...I tried and it didn't work, lol...I don't seem to be able to function on no sleep or no eat anymore...which, in its own way, feels like failure. It really does. I always had that to fall back on and I can't this time.

I need to take a hard look at new solutions, and ask for help...waiting for a note back from my grad school advisor, hoping she has some suggestions.

4 comments:

  1. I totally understand - I hate when I have made lists and lists and I feel like I'm in a dead-end alley. It's tough. Good luck - I'm going for my first assessment for ADHD on Wed - nervous.
    Cheers

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  2. Ugh, that's totally it. I know what you mean...right now I keep making lists or setting expectations and then I can't seem to meet them, and then it feels like failure when I can't meet them.

    But I made these expectations when I was still not in treatment. To finish grad school, I feels like I have to revisit my former life, one that I left behind on purpose...because it didn't work.

    Don't let my woeful tales make you nervous about your ADHD assessment...I can quantitatively say that my life has gotten MUCH better since I started treatment, I'm just going through a difficult transition. The only advice I would give is that it's important to give yourself reasonable expectations when you're learning to steer your brain in a new way :)

    For me, because my life HAS improved so much, but I'm still so self-critical sometimes, this is where a therapist comes in handy (and I highly recommend finding and sticking with a good one). Ex: when I freaked out about being behind on my personal stuff recently she asked me, for example, how much filing I was talking about. I was talking about a foot-high bin. A year ago, this would have been an improvement. But I've been so diligent about finding solutions and raising my expectations about certain things that my perception had totally changed. She reminded me that this was an improvement.

    Don't forget to remind yourself of the improvements, when the transitions feel big. I'm having to remind myself of that right now...and it does help put things in perspective ;)

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  3. "I literally cannot achieve my pre-treatment levels of mania-like operation. Just can't do it." This disturbs me in large part because I had assumed that at least part of the reason I could not keep up my own manic-productive state was because of my age. But this indicates something different is going on since age cannot be the key variable. Maybe being sort of non-ADHD isn't all it's cracked up to be?

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  4. Well, I've also been through an extraordinary amount of brain chemical adjustments in the past 12 months due to my oversensitivity to meds...so...it's possible that has been impairing my productivity as well. Recently I do feel less sluggish, though still unable to mimic the mania, lol. And actually, the other night, I was able to get a lot of work done...just not until 3AM :) I put myself at my office desk, where there are fewer distractions...

    I do think that our ADHD perception of what's normal and what isn't is off too...I was burning out because I was attempting the superhuman and doing with the extra obstacle of ADHD. I'm still getting a lot done, but I still have overly critical expectations...so...it's not that I'm getting nothing done...some of it is relative perception ;)

    I still can't crank 15/7 like I was though...and I think that's good.

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