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.

Drive v. Hyper Drive

Okay, Jeff hit a nail on the head with this comment on a previous post:

"This is a little bit of the problem when you find "the cure" for our gift. Pre-cure, your anxiety and general psychosis would keep you going. All your crazy coping/survival mechanisms kept you at the top of your game...but it also caused burnt out. Post-cure you are like..."ok dude...I'll get to that whenever...like...ain't life beautiful...let's stop and smell the flowers." You feel much better, a bit mellower, more in control - post-cure. But now a certain edge is gone. The drive is still there but not that continual hyper-drive. The dilemma is that going back to that earlier state - pre-cure - is a bit of hell in and of itself."

Dammit dude...that's exactly the problem. It's been driving me nuts for months. I broke the spell of obsessive drive that was propelling me forward every waking moment...which is good because I initially asked for heeeeelp because I was way burnt out. But I started school and made still other commitments when I was in the grip of the "I'M GOING TO PROVE MYSELF TO MYSELF" psychosis and...well...here I am post-mellow, trying to keep up an obsessive pace in order to simply finish those commitments and get them off of my plate for good. And realizing that I can still get a shitload done without even making myself that crazy again, which makes it even harder to pull off this ridiculousness. Dammit.

So...having to return to that level of mania is...it's painful. It's really and truly horrible feeling. It makes me literally queasy just trying to gear myself up. In fact it infuses large chunks of my recent days with quease, because this is a little bit of an endurance test and I can't just take care of everything I need to take care of overnight. I need about a month...and that month is probably going to suck a wee bit.

I spent a lot of time talking to the therapist about my anxiety the other day...because it was feeling really BIG. After talking to her I realized that I've actually made a ton of progress in the past year (Ex: my personal filing, for example, equals one small bin...not 10 boxes...and I'm way stressed about that one small bin, lol, so I had to enlist an assistant, who will be coming tomorrow to polish it off for me!). So it makes sense that I'm completely freaked out by having to return to pre-sanity levels of motivation.

I guess it was a little startling to read that comment though and realize...yet again...that I'm not the only one. There's millions of us! We're everywhere!

And hey, look...treatment does help! It just becomes obvious sometimes in weird and painful ways :)

Meltdoooooowwwwn!

I should have a meltdown dance...kind of like a touchdown dance. Because like touchdowns, they're inevitable at some point and I may as well celebrate them, though not excessively :)

I'm graduating in May. So this is my last official mid-semester meltdown. Awww...the warm sentimental feelings overcoming me...just kidding, I'm still in hate with my homework. Oh, sorry, need to clarify...this is not a general sort of meltdown, that's not my style...nothing makes me turn to a seething ball of unpleasant like schoolwork. There are several reasons...

School is repetitive, boring and involves jumping through hoops that are sometimes just a little bit arbitrary. I also am not terribly fond of externally imposed structure...which has the capacity to make my brain explode under the right conditions. And after three years, a lot of the assignments, though lovingly crafted by my instructors, are starting to look a leeeettle familiar. It is a Master's degree I'm working on after all, so there are certain components that are inevitable, and certain academic goals that must be included...I suppose. Oh I get it...and even more clearly, I get that this is boring.

Instructors need ways to measure general progress and to measure relative progress within a group of students...however, often meeting proscribed boundaries and expectations does not necessarily involve thinking...or at least challenging or novel thinking. "Prove you're on the same page as the rest of us" is the equivalent to jumping through hoops. And that's...AWESOME. And time consuming. And sometimes crazymaking to the ADHD mind.

I know, I know. My comments are disrespectful to the educational process, and disrespectful to the contributions of my classmates and disrespectful to the preparation that my instructors have put into creating this structure within which to learn. What I'm blogging here is an emotional reaction of my ADHD mind. Most of the semester I can gleefully dive in and just do it. But this semester I am behind...I have loose ends to tie up from last semester because of bumps along the way of this year's mental health journey. Behind the 8-ball is no place for an ADHDer to start from...at least not one in which I'm likely to find myself in a good mood.

Oh...I'm doing what I have to do. My therapist said "it sounds like you know what you need to do and you just need to do it". I'm doing it. But I'm miserable. I just have to keep reminding myself that my only choice is to continue, to push myself, to kick ass, to take names, and to finish.

I know that I have another option: not finishing. And isn't that the stereotypical path of the ADHDer? Aren't we supposed to live lives punctuated by unfinished projects? Some years ago I decided that I disliked the feeling of unfinished business in my life more than I hated pushing past the tough parts, the boring parts, the challenging parts, the parts where I feel like my brain might implode.

But that doesn't make my mental space right now any more enjoyable. I'm completely fecking miserable. Unapologetically miserable. Pretty un-admirably miserable. Negative, pissy and overexplain-ily miserable. I think my only redeeming quality right now is my ability to articulate it, at least on "paper", in a reasonable way, because I'd rather be throwing pies...at...like...cars...or something.

So...let me describe my brain right now. It's a dark place...full of self-pity, anger, annoyance, and desire to throw pies.

I feel a little better, having eaten some delicious, nutritious protein, and even better since having a delicious beer. But...I'm still in hate with this homework reality. So...how am I going to get through this? By employing my ADHD superpower of hyperfocus. I've been working in big ass chunks/spurts. Compelled by my misery...because at least misery is good for something...first it immobilizes me, and then I just ride it to the finish line, after I've fought with myself for long enough that I'm exhausted and crash...and then, voila, I rise like a phoenix from the pity party.

I picked this life after all..nobody pointed a gun at my head and said "you have to go to grad school". I chose this...and only I can finish it. And like I said...I don't consider not-finishing an option. But by the end of this week I'll probably owe a few loved ones a few apologies because I'm seriously unpleasant right now.

I think there are two points I'd like to make here...for the non-ADHDers, when you see us like this, we're not coming from a place of logic, we're coming from a place of mental misfire. Oh I may be articulate about it...but that's the result of years of practice. I started at age 9, learning to express myself with words instead of temper tantrums. That does not means I feel any better and should YOUR ADHDer have the same issue, please just keep that in mind. This is not logic. We know it's not pleasant...actually in the moment we may not care, but we'll be sorry later and in the meantime it's probably best if you don't try to argue logic with us.

To the ADHDers out there: GOD DAMN IT, SHIT GETS ANNOYING SOMETIMES but it's up to us to make whatever choice we need to make to "do the right thing". Regardless of our impairments we can always strive to make "better" choices. Even if it's not easy. Even if you'd rather down a 6-pack...which I would rather do right now even though I'm not a big drinker. Even if you'd rather throw pies at cars. Personally, I've chosen blogging as an awesome outlet. It means admitting my imperfections to a growing readership but...hey, I'm me. I'm done apologizing to myself for being me, so I may as well be done apologizing to the rest of the world too.

Having vented, I'm going back to--oh hey, Sonny Rollins is offering me RingDings. A novel approach, but probably as effective as logic right now. He's sure digging them. Me, I'm going back to my homework hell in progress...