Because mornings are never going to be fantastic...

...I will probably never stop bitching about them. Here's a description of how I generally feel in the morning:

I literally feel like I have been punched in the brain about 1000 times, every morning when I wake up. Then, once I'm out of bed, it's like a full squadron of aircraft, really old ones with grinding engines screaming are bearing down on my senses and carpet bombing my ability to think. What the heck...I should at least get to drink like 8 cocktails before feeling this way...gah...

Hilariously, there have been a few times in my life when I have actually been "the morning person": when I've dated people who don't get out of bed until noon! In those relationships I get this terrible reputation for being perky, ambitious and ready to take on the world in the morning. I'm the one SPRINGING out of bed at 9am, talking non-stop. And that's the key, really...I simply cannot function before about 8:30-9am. It's never been possible. But boy, if you let me roll on my body's natural schedule, BAM, here comes Mrs. Rollins with a to-do list!

I have tried going to bed earlier (and laying there...sometimes for hours)...I have tried other ways of altering my sleep schedule. I've tried getting a better bed. I've tried coffee. I've tried having jobs that start later--oh wait, that's not true, because NONE OF THEM DO! I have tried getting more exercise to make me more tireder. I even take a migraine medication at night that allegedly sedates a person, but unfortunately my body seems to have adjusted to that effect just fine, so sedation no longer occurs. I seriously and truly believe that I was born with some kind of genetic programming that makes it literally impossible to alter the schedule that my body seems determined to adhere to. I'm frickin' 35 after all...I've had a few years to observe and attempt to alter this phenomenon. I'm not a teenager, feeling oppressed because getting out of bed is like so hard (tho' even teens have legit biological reasons for feeling that way!).

I DO have the ability to make myself get places in the morning, regardless of my very real misery. It requires extreme effort and doing that every morning really sucks. The harder I push it, the more likely I am to forget things, drop things, accidentally hurt myself.

It DOES help to take my ADHD meds when the alarm goes off, that is absolutely true. But it does not solve the problem, it only keeps me from screaming, destroying small galaxies or becoming a cannibal while the squadron bears down on my sanity. That's a huge improvement and I appreciate its value, but what I would really prefer is a way to just turn the fucking ON switch on. Fully on. None of this dimmer switch "now I can stumble through the dark" shit.

I truly have no ill will toward employers who can't relate to my experience of mornings. Business starts when it starts. I get that. I work to accommodate that.

It's one of those possibly ADHD-related issues that exists within the painful realization that the rest of life would be so much easier to just attend to if some of the seemingly small things weren't so hard sometimes. This isn't a poor me rant...these are the words of a person who enjoys doing a good job, helping people, making the world a better place...I'd just like to be able to spend all that energy that I have to spend on mornings, on THOSE goals.

It's one of the mind's unwinnable games.

And just like that, poof....

...it was like someone flipped a switch one day.

For a few weeks there, I was trapped in a fairly serious depression. I wrote about not wanting to write about it.

Then one morning I woke up and instead of the depression, I was wracked with an equally intrusive anxiety. It's been about 6 days now I think, and I'm still there. I used to be "there" all the time, that's part of why I decided that a now defining visit to a certain mental health center was necessary. Having been free of this kind of consuming anxiety for a long time now, it's beyond uncomfortable to feel it again--it's almost unbearable. But how do you define bearable in a situation like this? Unless you're literally indulging in self-destructive behavior of some kind, you are "bearing it". That doesn't mean you're thriving.

And yet...and I feel it's important to point this out...I'm still performing all of the functions of my normal life. I clean my house, I function as a member of my family, I go to work, I just met up with friends for a beer. The whole time, it feels like I'm consumed by an energy that won't leave me alone, and it feels like my entire chest and neck and lower face area of my body might explode, and I can't stop "moving". This is literal, as in I have tics that others might not notice, but that drive me crazy, like a subtle throat clearing for example. Sometimes it's a more physical thing like I can't stop moving around the room, or talking or...it's different from the ADHD feeling...and it's not the "oh, some medication I'm taking might be making me anxious" feeling. It's the white noise...it's the native grinding kind...and it's back. It compels me to move and speak as a means of escape, and it literally feels like running...but running as hard as I can in quicksand.

"Trying to relax" by doing things like breathing can help, but but not much. I can't control it. Even Ativan couldn't control it the other day, so I just don't bother taking it. I have too many things to do, too many responsibilities to be doped up. Over the last few days I've adjusted to this sickening feeling a bit, but it's still awful.

It makes me trapped...and trapped by something that I thought was in the past, no less.

ADHD medication does not make it worse, in fact, it actually helps me feel better. The other day, I had forgotten to take the ADHD meds first thing in the morning so I took it later in the morning. Within 15-20 minutes my body and mind began to relax and focus, but that baseline of anxiety was still there. I'll tell you what though, just taking that edge off was like cold Mexican beer on a 106-degree day.

It makes the little things difficult. I'm thankful that I'm busy because if I wasn't, I would be focusing on this, and I also wish I wasn't busy, because it takes so much work to function this way.

It's disrupting my eating, and disrupting my sleep.

I'm a little angry that nobody at my prescriber's office has bothered to call me back after I told them that I was feeling horribly depressed. Although I wasn't suicidal, they didn't know that...because they didn't call! I could be really be dead right now and they would have no idea. But I'm not, I'm just infused with an anxiety that makes drug addiction and innumerable other outcomes that anxiety often leads people to, seem so much more plausable. Just because I'm able to "function" this way does not mean I should have to live this way. Makes me glad I sought help...makes me realize that there's nothing wrong with my determination, just my body chemistry. Also makes me pissed that again, nobody has called me back. I do not deserve to have to "function" like this.

I remember writing about this before...and writing about how it was like my body is a house, and in one of the rooms of that house is a person who just sits and screams, and I'm unable to just shut the door. She's back. And I have all the sympathy in the world for her, but all the sympathy in the world won't soothe whatever it is that makes her scream.

I sit here tonight, writing instead of sleeping. I spent my day working furiously, instead of eating.

I will call them again in the morning because I am unwilling to give up on advocating for myself, but I get tired of being ignored because I seem functional. Because I'm able to articulate. my experience in a way that seems calm, and "not that bad". Because I'm "not crazy". I'm so frustrated to be here again with this feeling, and so frustrated to feel ignored on top of it. I'm working so hard to just do what I need to do and it shouldn't be this hard. I'm tired of the act of tricking myself into gratefulness with "well at least I don't feel this way all the time anymore". I feel this way NOW. I've felt like this for 6 days. I need help.

But until I can get help, I'll go to bed, I'll get up, I'll go to work, I'll run a meeting, I'll remain suspended in perpetual motion until I get to the side of the pool, and something I can hold onto.

Juxtaposition...a classic plot device.

So there I was last night at Borders, two Additude magazines in my left hand containing a piece written by me, and in my right hand, a copy of "Understanding Girls With ADHD".

I cried.

Left hand: proof that I have come a long way. That I am able to express myself effectively in words. A small victory if you will.

Right hand: Someone who never met me wrote my life story. Someone knows what it felt like to be a girl whose brain was doing strange things. Someone knew what it was like to be a little girl in plain sight, yet be invisible.

Left hand: The fruit of years of hard work finding myself.

Right hand: Documentation of those years during which I was lost.

Left hand: Proof that hard work and being true to yourself pays off.

Right hand: Proof that I had to work harder than anyone guessed, to get here.

Left hand: The power to help others by telling my story.

Right hand: ...what? I have a disability?

Left hand: I've arrived!

Right hand: (I exist...)

How can a person not cry, when being pulled in two directions?

Happy ADHD-iversary

This blog began in May of 2009.

However, my "WTF do I do with ADHD" journey began before that. It began in the cold winter at the beginning of 2009, in January or February. I was desperate. I was in grad school. I had left my full time job and could not find a part time job. Never since age 15 had I been unable to find work. And school was extremely stressful. The combined stress was pushing me into obsessive anxiety and I could not shut of my mind...nevermind focus it. At the time, I had no idea what focus was.

Normally, I had been propelled through life on the whim of adventurous ideas. Nothing crazy, but certainly beyond the level of spontanaiety that most people subscribe to. Life with ADHD was an adventure, for a long time. Sometimes heartbreaking...I alternated a certain native practicality with spurts of big risks for big rewards, interpersonally, geographically, artistically. I wrote plays, acted, learned to flamenco dance, explored extreme territories of love and emotional landscapes.

But school has always made me feel constrained and I had no control over my work life that winter. I'd moved into a fixer-upper apartment that should have been a good idea--a big risk...that should have been a big reward, but thanks to the drug dealer downstairs, was a totally unsafe nightmare. It was icy winter in New England. In winter here, everything dies.

Trapped in that place, I had nothing to distract me from some nagging thoughts that I'd had for years.

Thoughts that I was beyond my ability to cope with just being myself anymore. Thoughts that other people didn't seem to be as challenged as I was, to complete many ordinary tasks. Thoughts that I felt like I lived outside of something and worked hard to be seen as "an insider". That I worked hard to seem normal...and that maybe that just wasn't normal. And of course...there was the simple fact that it took me up to 12 hours at times to read articles for school that should have probably taken an hour.

So there I was. And here I am.

This isn't a literal anniversary, but it IS an anniversary.

I write this not just for myself, to celebrate a milestone. I write this to make a point: it's taken me two years to get here.

Where is here? Well, frankly I'm a little disgruntled at the moment...but not because I can't figure out what to do with ADHD. And not because I'm having some big undefined anxiety issue. I've taken on a challenging new life that was bound to come with growing pains. Another big risk for big rewards, another big ADHD adventure. But I am better equipped now, thanks to the past two years of experience.

I'm pretty good at steering myself through the day now, and through my resources, even when I'm having challenging emotional experiences (and I do still have them). I am able to express myself in far more patient ways, even at challenging times, because I understand the processes that are happening in my mind. Because I know the territory of my own ADHD so well now, I rarely panic now at those times when quirks arise.

If you've followed this blog, you know that I did not take a magic pill that fixed my life. I have worked to get here. I have tried quite a variety of different magic pills to find ones that work for me. Through it, I still lived my life...I had jobs, I had relationships, I had a wedding, I got stepchildren (and those are just the highlights!), I rocked my community work and won awards for it. I have been very contemplative and conscious about selecting coping strategies that help me to operate at my best. I have tackled some of my oldest baggage.

Diagnosis was a moment, but learning what to do with this diagnosis has been a process.

Progress is a reasonable expectation, with effort expended.

But a quick fix? Quick fixes don't exist.

Medication made many things easier, it laid a foundation for certain learning experiences to occur more easily...but it did not cure me or fix me.

Therapy can help you learn strategies, and explore baggage...but it takes commitment and time.

So here I am. Here I am. I absolutely recommend beginning your own journey, if you haven't already, but know that it will take time to really extract your rewards.

Lying is lying is lying. Oh, and also...it's lying.

Lying corrodes relationships. I'm not talking about keeping a secret because you're planning a surprise party. Eliminate all the teeny untruths we tell that make perfect moral sense and what we're left to discuss here is: lying. There's a million other names for it, but it's all lying.

But I was trying to protect them.
But I was trying to protect myself.
But I didn't think they would love me if they knew.
But I don't think they'll want to be my friend if I tell them.
But I didn't think it would hurt anyone.
But they'll leave if I tell them.
But reality is boring.
But my real life isn't very interesting.
But I don't want people to know who I really am.

And it's all a huge fucking waste of time. I realize this is hypocrisy for a semi-anonymous blogger. I omit certain truths about my identity in order to protect my family's privacy. It's an extremely moral flavor of untruth because I have dependent children who deserve the protection of anonymity. So...I'm eliminating that variety from the conversation as well.

Oh, okay, there are sometimes life and death situations where you have to lie. Yesyesyes, I KNOW. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the cheap stuff. The manipulative stuff. The stuff that dishonest relationships and families are built upon. The stuff you say yes to because it "made you feel bad" to say no. The stuff you said to make someone do something they didn't want to do. The stuff that keeps people from knowing who you really are. The stuff that you think you're protecting yourself with. The stuff that helps keep things sick. Part of being a victim is often "saying yes" to things you don't even want to say yes to.

It's easy for people who don't see themselves as "normal" to feel that they should lie to fit in. It's so easy it's just plain lazy. And it's fabulous insurance that you will, indeed, always be alone. Even in a crowd.

I've eliminated a lot of liars from my life...the big challenge was learning not to pick them again, over and over and the only way to get past that was to start being honest myself. That was my half of the responsibility, my half of the work. I sound like a pompous ass on this topic because I've been there. And when you work really hard to put yourself out there and really be present in relationships with other people, you lose patience for people who take the lazyman's approach.

I would rather spend my life alone, than spend it surrounded by people who ask me to drink poison. And I wish more people felt the same way.

The Spring Issue of Additude Magazine!

I'm in it! Check it out!

That is all...for now :)

It's more than just ADHD

My stepdaughter and I are finding that we have more in common than just ADHD.

For example, we went to the mall today. I asked what she was looking for. She said:

"Skulls. I want things with skulls on them." And not cute ones with pink bows and stuff.

It's not really the place of a step-mother whose hair currently looks like Joan Jett's, to deny a child stuff with skulls on it. Though she IS still only 8.

So...we did some wicked bargain shopping and ended up at home with a bag full o' rock and ROLL!

But we had several candid, but panic-free conversations about what types of necklines and lengths of things are appropriate for the 3rd grade. And what kinds of things, while very cool, will NEVER be worn in the the classroom (even when the envied "teen-age" arrives)!

"I just don't like to wear the kinds of things that other girls like to wear." Tell me about it kid.

She ended up spending her hard-earned $25 on a very classic fedora, a chunky black bracelet, and an age appropriate tee shirt with some metallic, swirly embellishment. Punk rock lite. Super cute. I wish I could claim to have picked it all out, but she did it on her own. And Daddy approved. (Daddy is a professional musician who once rocked a mullet longer than North America, and busked his way around Europe. While he wants his daughter age-appropriate, he also understands the urge to rawk.)

It was fun. I liked it.

Next week we can go get matching tattoos! (<-----um...never!)