But do you LIKE me?

I mean really, really like me? Because for the past week I've been a ridiculous ADHD ball of insecurity. Life holds a lot of big changes right now, so in a way it makes sense...break new ground in life, and you're bound to feel a teeny bit unsteady for a moment as everything settles.

But I think that we with ADHD (or many of us) have learned to question ourselves in ways that the normies don't. And, me, I also juggle a little bit of anxiety along with the ADHD, so that adds a teeny bit of challenge to the management of that kind of insecurity.

I would say that generally these days I'm at about an 8 on the anxiety management scale. I feel it, but it doesn't disrupt me, I'm just rolling with it. Which is probably why this insecurity I'm feeling now feels more significant than it is.

All anxiety disorders aside, I'm sure many hyperactive ADHDers can relate to many of these thoughts:

"Am I annoying this person?"
"Am I talking too much?"
"Oh shit, I think I forgot to turn my TMI filter off today."
"No really, I think I forgot to turn off my TMI filter off, look, it's raining TMI!"
"Am I getting to the point?"
"Do I have a point?"
"Am I talking really loud, I can't tell, but I think I am."
"I must be annoying people right now."
"These people must hate me right now."
"I think I'm too far out of the box right now."
"Oh shit, now I'm talking louder. Wait, am I?"

I can't imagine that I'm the only hyperactive adult ADHDer who has learned that their behavior, at times, is just far enough left of center that we need to "think" about it and modify it a bit...and of course, that breeds insecurity over the years. I usually don't succumb to the insecurity part any more, but I used to...a lot...I used to be so insecure about it that I was actually very quiet most of the time and terrified to have attention on me because I worried about what people thought...a lot.

As I care less, and behave more freely, I feel better about myself...most of the time.

But this week, not so much. I feel extremely anxious about whether people like me, and whether I'm annoying them. I must have asked Sonny about 8000 times if I'm annoying him...if he's mad at me (he's not, for the record, at all)...and I can't seem to shut the worry train off in my brain.

Urgh. This will pass...but I'm probably annoying myself more than anyone else right now.

I only lost my purse...

...30 times this afternoon. The purse didn't move. The only thing that was moving was me. I buzzed around the room, eating, drinking, being merry, and freaking out several times thinking I had lost my purse. Every time I would exclaim "OMG, I don't know where I put my purse!" and then everyone would look concerned for a second and then I would look for a few seconds, and then...embarrassed...remember where I'd put it. Right where I'd put it when I came through the door.

Oops. ADHDumbass...lol....

Assault on my senses....

Today, light and sound feel like torture devices.

At the office my boss comes bounding in, and everytime he pops in my office, would FLIP the light on. It felt like he was bounding in and I was right behind the door and he was whacking me in the face with it, over and over. Rebounding from the stun would take a few seconds, during which he was firing questions at me that I wouldn't have had answers to, even if I wasn't feeling assaulted. All in all, it was a rough situation for my overstimulated ADHD brain.

All day long I have been needing to hide from light as sound. Most days I notice something in the realm of light of sound that is just "too much" for me. Today is an extreme day.

Tonight, the kids are back at the house and strangely, their brand of usual mayhem and sound doesn't typically bother me. There were a couple of moments where I needed to manage my environment though, for the sake of sanity.

One was when my step-daughter and I were working on a craft project. I was very distressed because the overhead light was just too much. I thought about asking her if she would mmind my switching the lighting options...but instead just prayed that she would not object, and just changed them.

I flipped a smaller light "on" and she said "oh, that's better" and I flipped the overhead light off and she said...she said "ohhhh, that's much better". I guess lil' ADHD girl and big ADHD girl were in agreement, and I was relieved.

Later, I almost pinched a nutty on Sonny Rollins because he was asking me to listen to a Youtube video with sound, and I just couldn't do it right then...the sound was making me SO uncomfortable, and I needed to sit suddenly.

I explained to him (or tried) that I was just over my limit and that if he saved whatever it was on my computer desktop I would come back to it later.

And just now...the cat is grabbing me and pushing at me...arggggghhhh....

But the lights are off and the sounds in the room are quiet at least...thank goodness...it's been a rough day!

This was supposed to be an improvement...

...sometimes digging for gold brings nothing but misery.

Many good things have come from embarking on my personal mental health journey last year. But it's hard work even when the outcome is good. And today...today I just can't help thinking about how my journey toward greater mental health indirectly provokes change in my relationships with other people...who are not so mentally healthy...and then it just...it just...

Oh I'm sure you can see where this is going. Despite my best attempts at sanity these days, dysfunction comes knocking on my door. All I can do is keep the little tapes of my therapist playing in my mind as I confront each assailant.

And I do...but I'm tired.

My dog is more self-reflective than most of my exes...

...and so am I.

I hear that self-reflection is sometimes a challenge for ADHDers. I don't seem to have the problem. If anything, I'm probably way too self-reflective. Emotional puzzles are interesting to solve...and self-reflection is tied to this really cool thing called intuition.

Self-reflection may be a challenge for some ADHDers, but intuition is not. Intuition is that step right before self-reflection, where you go "OHHHH" or "ah-HA!" and suddenly understand something your brain had been ruminating on behind the scenes without your conscious attention. And because you're an ADHDer, you may even blurt it out.

That blurt may be met with a variety of responses, but often, because we ADHDers haven't always formulated a clear path to our answer, others MAY tell us that our answer has no meaning. Because they cannot formulate their own path to our answer, they may brush it aside.

After years of this kind of response, we learn to question our intuition.

I have been practicing honoring my inner voice, and it has transformed my core.

More and more I allow myself to determine the value of my own ideas. I have loyal and valuable advisers of course...every ADHDer can benefit from the value of such counsel...but these advisers are the ones that ask me the right questions, but still respect my intelligence, my ingenuity...AND my intuition.

Recipe for...

...well hopefully not disaster.

What do you get when you take one ADHDer...just add grad school...just add several large life changes in a short period of time...just add family drama...just add major mystery illness that has completely incapacitated me for all practical purposes, for the past month (with no end in sight...yes I was pushing through that while trying to graduate too, which was awesome)...

Do we get a disaster? An ADHDer in crisis?

HELL NO BITCHES!

I'm just doing what I reasonably can to get back on track. I mean I did graduate...I went to the ceremony and everything, trying my best not to pass out while standing there. So that's one big ass serving of misery-inducing crap right there that has been flushed successfully (I managed to graduate with an almost 3.7...woohooo!).

I can't really go in the personal drama aspect but will say this: if you are an ADHDer who does NOT have a talk-therapist, you're nuts. Just plain irresponsible (or just plain uninsured, in which case ignore my nuts comment). If I had not had a therapist during all of the whackadoodle-doo that I've been juggling (or semi-comatose or hospitalized for) I MIGHT be an ADHD disaster right now.

Life changes, illnesses and craziness in our midst can easily throw off even the best intentioned ADHDer, especially when they literally happen ALL AT ONCE....having an awesome therapist and approaching life with a positive attitude can really ease the burden though.

Do it. Do. It. Now.

Quiet because...

...I've been significantly ill for at least three weeks now and feel awful. Not going into the details, but I'm a big fat medical mystery at the moment and until they figure out why, and I can shake this all-consuming fatigue...I'll be off a map a lil' bit...

Ciao for now...