Password Karma

Have I ever explained to you people how every time I speak up and really bitch about something, it comes back to bite me in the ass?

Remember the post, a few back, where I bitched like none other about how I hate having to remember passwords for every stinkin' website? Well...my oldest email account got hacked into the other day, so for days, "I" have apparently been sending everyone in my email address book awesome deals on Viagra.

Arghhhhhhhhh!

So what did I do? I went in a changed my...ahem...password and some other, uh, top secret stuff. It's really screwy too now, with symbols and capital letters and all kinds of other password gymnastics that I'll never remember. But at least my friends can stop feeling insulted that I'm making assumptions about their private lives.

Notice however, that I'm not bitching...call me superstitious, but I'm telling you (and this is a special hell for an ADHDer with a lot of opinions) every time I really get my RANT on, I get a bitch slap upside the head from the universe.

Actually...this reminds me of a story that's PERFECT for right now. One time, in grad school, I was working on a group project and one of our group mates was a girl that was clearly not pulling her weight and seemed to be WAY over her head in the course. We all talked about it a lot when she wasn't around, because we were frustratedly trying to figure out how to get the work done, with a person who seemed to be having a hard time, and couldn't seem to communicate.

This was a classmate who would often become the focus of group ire, no matter what group she was working in.

Bitch bitch bitch...bitch bitch bitch.

Let me add one more detail before I give you the BIG REVEAL to this story: one of my ADHD coping mechanisms for dealing with school, is that I am very type A+++ about starting projects early, adhering to deadlines like my life literally depends on it, and I'm the first to admit that I have to WORK to be flexible in dealing with other students...though I generally make up for my impatience with clear communication and I work really hard to be understanding of other people's lack of interest in working exactly the way I do. The result is that I'm often DYING on the inside...but working really hard to be nice on the outside.

However, this girl drove me nuts. It's just plain hard to do a group project when you are working with someone who just will not communicate, even when you are directly asking her if there's anything you can do to help. At one point I finally contacted a professor to complain/ask for help in figuring out how to deal with the issue.

REVEAL: One day during a class presentation she revealed to all of us that she has ADHD and had spent her school years in special ed classes, never thought she would go to grad school and was struggling mightily just to keep up.

1) I felt like a total asshole.

2) I was proud of her for speaking up finally.

3) I wish she had spoken up sooner.

4) The next year I was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD.

5) It was humbling to realize that she and I were dealing with some of the same issues but--

6) Fascinating to see that we were working through them differently, though with probably equal amounts of stress.

7) It made me really reflective and careful about dealing with my classmates from then on, taking into account that I might not have the whole story...and that we all have our special quirks that others have to deal with, even me.

Yet again...I finally get really cheesed and intolerant about something and BAM...and then BAM again with my own diagnosis.

And...yeah, that's all.