This shit does not define me.

I have had some very persistent, frustrating, cruel factors fucking up my mojo consecutively for a good 12 months now. Sitting here burning in anger, because I'm so SICK of it, I confidently and assertively, and with certainty, realize that THIS SHIT DOES NOT DEFINE ME.

I'm not even talking about ADHD...although god knows it doesn't help, haha.

I'm talking about my body rejecting nearly every anxiety medication I've tried. I'm talking about the thrill of remembering my natural anxiety I was trying to get rid of in the first place...now that it's back and beating me upside the head on a regular basis as I am sans anxiety meds. I'm talking about how I spent the entire day today, perfectly "functional" but feeling like my entire body was going to explode. People DO NOT GET how much it sucks to be able to FUNCTION like that. Would non-functional be better? Oh, we're talking apples and oranges here people. When you are good at pretending you are functioning just fine, the expectation is that you are fine when you are not. And it takes a lot of energy to appear that way. It's a cruel reality either way.

I'm talking about how I can't try any new medications at least until May because I can't go through another semester, when I'm trying to graduate, having my brain chemicals hijacked by yet another indelicately calibrated dosage of prescriptions drugs because they don't make them in smaller increments.

You know...because people like me apparently don't fucking exist in FDA land...well FUCK YOU FDA, I fucking exist, and for the moment, I'm refusing your male-centric pharmacoepia. In your fucking land, FDA, only men and large people with "normal" metabolisms exist. In your world, 20% is a perfectly acceptable difference in effectiveness for drugs that are going to psychotropically FUCK me. Imagine that, being the person that makes a rule that actually says "oh hey, it's totally cool to fuck with people's psych meds by 20%". What a fucking asshole. Yeah you, asshole...when you go to hell can I light the fire?

I'm talking about trying to get caught up on school and life after months of pharmaceutical misery only to have physical details of my surroundings conspire to fuck me further. That means you Comcast...who insists that there's nothing wrong with our internet connection...and yet it waxes and wanes, just like my ability to focus. Unfortunately this totally compromises the ability of my ADHD brain to get any work done because every time I sit down to work at home your fucking substandard service stops working just when my brain is best able to concentrate. Every time it stops and starts it re-sets my brain. AWE.SOME.

And perhaps this also means I'm talking about YOU Google Docs, who REFORMATTED 50-60 pages of work I had already done...that I know have to RE-DO...because your fucking software vomited when it tried to speak Word. (Please techies, DO NOT OFFER ME SOLUTIONS FOR THIS...been there, done that, don't need to hear it right now.)

And of course...then there's the fact that when I don't have a solid internet connection, participating in online courses is...um...impossible. All of my current courses are online.

And let's just briefly mention that some interpersonal dynamics conspired in the past 12 months to really suck some life-force out of me, and while I learned a LOT, it would have been way awesomer to learn these things NOT while changing my brain chemicals. NOT while receiving a mental health diagnosis for the first time. NOT while trying to finish grad school. NOT while trying to run two businesses to the best of my abilities under these circumstances.

And could we perhaps discuss this assignment I need to finish tonight...that is a full 20 times more intensive than anything my classmates are working on, through a fluke of my past with this professor. It's been 15-20 hours of work so far. Hoping only five more to go? Because I can't do anything else until it's done.

I am angered, not because ADHD makes me impulsive...not because ADHD makes me reactive...I am legitimately angry because after the year I have been through I DO NOT NEED THESE EXTRA HELPINGS OF SHIT I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER.

Oh yes. I'm angry. I can see the finish line on all of this...I can see it and stupid crap just keeps popping up and obstructing my view, and delaying my homestretch run...it's cruel, and it was breaking my heart, and making me so anxious I thought I might explode...but right now, I'm really just fucking angry.

Angry as fuck. And I suddenly realized that this SHIT does not define me. It does not have my permission to exist and so you know what? FUCK IT. IT DOESN'T. I am finishing this work at all costs so I never, ever have to be angry in quite this way again.

My boss bought me a pizza and a giant brownie. And I'm sitting at this computer until that god-damned piece of crap assignment is done and I can get past it to the next one...

I'm DONE with this...I am SO DONE.

Sometimes you just need the lights off...

...today is one of those days. I didn't take my Concerta today and was feeling just a leeettle more reactive around the edges. Totally a "lights off" day. No overhead please, it makes me feel a bit assaulted. Ahhh that's better...

Active Communication

I think the thing that is helping me the most right now, in the stress-management department, is active communication.

I have been very active in communicating to my professors that I am going through a transition right now of re-learning how to approach my academic endeavors, post-treatment.

They've been surprisingly receptive to at least tolerant. As I go through this slog of crap on my desk and in my brain, it's nice to know that they're at least hearing me, and seeing that I am taking active steps to move forward and produce the work that I need to produce.

Amen to that.

Balls, meet wall

I am hosting a one-woman work marathon at my office desk this evening. And it seems to be working. I've hardly stopped since 2pm and am continuing until I have reclaimed my soul.

First I finished my entire to-do pile of office work. Then I launched into the homework tangle.

I seem to have mustered just enough pure unadulterated anger with the situation to motivate myself to just crank.

I just can't have this crap hovering over my head any longer, I can't stand it. It's literally driving me nuts and I won't stand for it.

I've got the conditions in the office just right: deep house radio is on, the desk lamp (covered in paper to make it less bright) is on. The dog has been fed and potty mission accomplished so he's snoozing. And I printed out the info I dug up that I need to complete the assignment, because sifting through it on the computer was totally overwhelming.

F*ck that. Overwhelm can kiss my ass.

Grad school advising, done right...

I am delighted to announce that I have a grad school advisor who is awesome. She is always supportive and solution-oriented. She does not pass judgment on my ADHD-student dilemmas. She's willing to hear where I'm coming from, and she genuinely wants to enable me to do the best that I can.

I suspect it also didn't hurt that until I got to these past two semesters, I had a 3.8 and had been a lively and very participatory student in my courses for two years. So...she knows I'm not just a screw off.

Whew.

Anyway...finally heard back from her...I still have a ton of shit to do, but she's good at helping me focus on possible solutions and where they can take me, and what I need to do to get there. I'm usually pretty good at doing this for myself, but right now I'm just so tired and frustrated that it's nice to have someone there who is able to help me see past the immediate and keep going.

So...we'll figure something out.

And I'll pull a late night at my office where there are no distractions...like internet connections that work only intermittently...like pets driving me nuts...and just get some work done.

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.