When forgetting causes problems...

...many of you have read my previous posts about my migraine-related vertigo disorder. Well the nortriptyline they gave me to prevent this problem has been working REALLY well. Within 6 hours of my first dose, I was back to 90% of my normal self. Let's hear it for being super med-sensitive! It's supposed to prevent vertigo/migraine problems, and because I'm such a med lightweight, I noticed dramatic improvements very quickly. All of the benefits of this type of treatment are not immediately noticeable however. Gaining back my last 10% of awesome has taken several weeks...let's see...ah yes, about 6 weeks. That's about right for this type of medication. So in just the past week or so, I suddenly have felt that last bit of "me" coming back. I feel sharper, quicker, and the signs of vertigo have ebbed away. The last little twinges are now rare.

However, this is an ADHD blog...

It is generally laborious for me to establish a routine...it often takes several weeks for me to really solidify a routine...I can then sustain it fairly well, until something knocks my concentration off, or my visual cues are interrupted or...you get the idea. Once the routine is disrupted, problems arise.

And so with my vertigo/migraine medication...oh yes. I keep my meds in a small purple lock box, so that my small step children do not get into the goods. Especially important since I started the easy-to-od-on migraine meds. The other purpose of the lockbox is that it allows me to keep my meds out as a visual cue to remind me to take my meds everyday, without my little ones getting a bad surprise. A couple-few weeks ago the lock broke on the box and I couldn't get the meds out. After about an hour I was able to pry the sucker open with, of all things, a beer opener. The brute force, however, broke the lock.

Which means I can't leave it out anymore...and I was afraid to get a new box, fearing that a second box would lock in the same way and I might get stuck not being able to take my medication. The ADHD meds I can function without if I need to, but I'm basically disabled without the migraine meds.

Since the box has been "out of sight" and out of reach, it's been very hard for me to remember my meds. A couple of days ago I finally forgot to take them altogether...tonight too, though I just remembered a few hours late.

I either need a new box, or a new system...it's just frustrating, since we ADHDers have to put SO much effort into establishing routine, to have to go back to point A and start over. Even more frustrating right now because I finally just got to the point of maximum benefit for my medication. All these weeks have been building up to this return to my normal self, after a couple of rough months spent essentially disabled, prior to the medication. This timing could not be worse.

Obviously, I just need to DO something about it, and the challenge right now is not to let another priority pop up in my ADHD mind that will delay the implementation of said plan. I often forget things, but another feature of the way my mind works is...well, you know how in restaurants they might have those "ticket" holders in the kitchen that revolve? That's what my brain does. I put a ticket in for "new meds system" but then another thing pops in my head and becomes a ticket that says "dog needs a raincoat" and another one that says "make stepdaughter a dress" and another one that says "laundry" and things pop up in my head and the ticket holder spins around and around and it's highly likely that the meds issue will pop back up, it just might be three weeks from now and by then I will have forgotten my meds a handful of times.

So I'm looking for a post-it right now (where did they go!) to write on it "new med system" so I can stick it on my phone for the morning so I can deal with it. I hate having to create new systems for such mundane things that SEEM like they should be easy but this is one of those characteristics of the ADHD mind that would make Jeff of Jeff's ADD Mind say "see...this is why it's not really a gift"...lol...and I really just have to do it. There is no escape from the hamster wheel, so we may as well make the best of the ride.

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.

Parallel Universes

Some really magical things happen sometimes in the ADHD brain. Yes...I have an example.

For a week, I have been looking for my flip-flops. I only own one pair, and our home is not very large...this should not be a big mystery, and yet, swearing has occurred on a few occasions. And he mystery has plagued me.

Simultaneously, I have been fully aware that my flip-flops were in fact on the front porch with dog poo stuck to the bottom of them...which is why they were not in the house!

That means that at least a dozen times in the past week, I have walked around the house looking for them, swearing about them, yearning for them...and have then put on other shoes and walked out the door, passing the flip-flops on the porch, even looking at them as I walk by and thinking "dang, I wonder if I'll ever get that poop off of them". And: zero dots have connected in my brain. It's like having two parallel universes exist side-by-side in my brain! It's magic!

I used to call these moments "stupidest smart girl in the world" moments...followed by the big bang where suddenly it all comes together. Two days ago I walked past them on the porch and thought "oh man, I really need to figure out how to get the poop off of those buggers..." kept walking and then suddenly thought "OH...OH...wait...oh...wow, my flip-flops". Sonny had even discovered them and actually tried to get the poop off of them during their absence. and then put them back..however, I did not realize this without him telling me because I was just so excited to see them that I didn't even notice the poop was gone.

It's times like these when I feel compelled to point out that I'm a person with a Masters' Degree and who generally has jobs that require a high degree of responsibility. I am able to function in academia, in daily life, and in relation to my employment...JUST FINE with a bit of extra effort. and I put that effort in, big time This is one of the points I try to drive home through writing this blog. "Having ADHD" doesn't have to mean you don't have a productive life, it just means you need to be attentive to the quirks and the curves of your non-linear thinking, and address those quirks in realistic ways...and be prepared to work your ass off. If I have to leave a garbage can in the doorway to remind me to take garbage out...fine. If I have to organize everything on my desk in folders that are labeled in a particular way, in effect organizing my very brain on my desktop...then that's what I do! If I have to set up my morning the night before, in a series of visual cues so that I can more effectively get through my day...then allllright.

But dang, I can't believe I couldn't find my flip-flops right in front of my face like that! Really, it's a perfect example of why I need to organize myself the way I do at work, and when working on projects that actually affect other people :)

Sonny Speaks...

...and why, you ask, isn't he speaking for himself? Well it's like this...it occurred to Sonny this evening that he hadn't read my blog for a while. He sat down to catch up and read my post from earlier today...where I make my claim that I am usually "The Unloader" of the dishwasher. While he appreciated the goal and spirit of my post overall, he wasn't exactly in agreement with my claim and wrote a very witty rebuttal...that got erased when we were trying to figure out how he should log in. Oopsies!

I promised him I would express his "rebuttage" for him...accurately and with compassion for differing world views, so here it is :) :

Sonny refutes my claim with a statistic (source unclear) that he is "The Unloader" 60% of the time. Perhaps he deduced his statistic from my response to his question "when was the last time the dishwasher was unloaded" to which I responded with "uhhhhh...I don't know...when?".

And so, there seems to be disagreement in the Rollins household...but there is no lack of good humor. And...I suggested a tally sheet but as Sonny wisely stated "oh that should go well in a house with two adult ADHDers!".

It's okay...he's good lookin'...I can overlook this disagreement for a guy that good-lookin'!

Who unloads the dishwasher...

This is not a joke, this is a serious dilemma in the lives of a couple where both partners have ADHD! A lot of times, Sonny and I find that we have different "dislikes" in terms of household tasks, which is great because household chorse tend to flow nicely. However, because we both actually really like cleaning and organizing the house, those "dislikes" are generally determined by how much we CAN'T STAND something because it clashes with our ADHD thinking processes...and this is a problem when we both CAN'T STAND the same task.

Which brings me to the dishwasher. We both LOVE loading it, because it's satisfying to clean off the countertops and you feel "done" when it's full.

(pause)

...when it's full.
...when it's full.
...when it's full.

(smack-smack) Sorry, that's where our brains start skipping and the white noise begins. It's easier to write about emptying the dishwasher than to actually empty it.

Emptying it requires ferrying a bunch of little things to different cupboards and drawers and holes in the wall and...well that's just not ADHD-friendly. Whether you are hyperactive or inattentive, that task (we find) is just flabbergastingly frustrating.

In this case, it means that I generally end up doing it. This is not a slam on Sonny, it's just that I've consciously taken some extra steps in my relationship with the dishwasher to try to give it less power. I have a little mind-game that I have to play with myself where I tell myself HOW GREAT IT'S GONNA BE TO FILL IT UP AGAIN! Thus, I find that it's easier for me to motivate myself to do it, obviously, when there's dirty dishes in the sink again, waiting to be washed. To make it an extra challenge though, and more of a game, I try to get ahead on it so that the washer is just standing there OPEN and READY before the dishes even pile up. This type of game brings me right up to the line where ADHD starts to look like OCD...

That seems to be the key...make it some kind of game in order to make it interesting. It works, but I'll tell you what, it's a lot of work for the result of an empty washer. Thankfully, Sonny, when asked, will help me do it...it doesn't take two people to do this, obviously, but it's more fun that way :) (Although I'm pretty sure it takes longer because I start talking...gah...)

Can you identify the ADHDer...

...in the mental health center waiting room?

I accidentally arrived a full hour early for my appointment with my therapist. Arriving early is WAY more stressful to me than being late, which gives me great insight into some of the reasons that it may take me a while to get out of the house in the morning. I walked up to the check-in counter, and was cheerily informed that I was early, as though it was an early Christmas present. The receptionist looked disappointed that my face fell and I said...a little desperately... "what?!".

With all that time, what was I going to do. I hadn't planned to be early, so I didn't bring any "activities" and it was the end of the day so I was tired and didn't want to go for a walk. This, then, is how you identify the ADHDer in the mental health center waiting room:

A look of tension on my face thanks to the BRIGHT overhead fluorescents and the music that somehow is always slightly too loud...but I don't want to ask them to turn it down because it's making me so irritable that I'm too embarrassed to talk to anyone. As I settle into my fate for the hour, I end up juggling a bag of chips that I didn't need but was eating anyway as an activity, a magazine that, thanks to my anxious state I couldn't stop thinking about all the fingerprints on as I flipped through it...and using my occasionally free chip-eating hand to flip around on the internet and post stuff on Facebook about how I was really in ADHD hell sitting there in that waiting room. All the while, I'm fidgeting and moving around trying to get "comfortable" and it isn't working. Sonny texts to me "at least you have time to relax". ARGGGGH! This is where we see that he is "inattentive" and I am "hyperactive" and how different that can be at times, because that's the whole problem...when I'm in that state of mind, relaxation is an impossibility. And the nice ladies behind the desk kept asking "do you want to check IN now?". I think they were trying to be helpful, but it was flipping me out a little bit, because I know that when I'm feeling that way the last thing I want is for people to be "poking" at me. And those LIGHTS, did I mention the lights?

So...you can ID the hyperactive ADHDer when you see someone multi-tasking at fidgeting while they have to sit there in the waiting room. Sometimes when I'm just a few minutes early I wander around a little...that's another good indication.

I survived...but I didn't like it! Gah.

"Why Can't You Just Focus!?"

This has got to be the defining question in the compromised self-esteem of every adult ADHDer out there. Followed quickly by various accusations we've all heard about being lazy, or unintelligent or willfully difficult in various other ways.

The fatal flaw in this question is not in its accusation. Clearly, many of us are not totally focused all the time. You can't deny that. The error lays in the use of the word focus. What does that even MEAN?

There are dictionary definitions...there are common usage definitions. Anyone who speaks the English language over the age of 12 can give you some kind of definition for the word focus. But as for the actual sensation of being focused...why would one ask an ADHDer why they can't DO that? We don't even know that it means.

What does focus feel like? What color is it? Where does it live in the body? What color is it? What is the mechanism by which you achieve this thing called focus? When you ask us this question, we THINK we know what it means and we'll really TRY to make it happen, but we actually have no idea what the end point looks or feels like. How do you set your mind to a goal when you don't even know what the goal looks like, what its parameters are?

I have a similar experience of the word "relax". My whole life, people have told me that I need to relax. I have tried self-hypnosis, and deep breathing, and yoga, and exercise and biofeedback...but how do you know when you have achieved the sought after "relaxation".

I can honestly say that until I tried medication for both ADHD and anxiety, I had NO clue what either of those words felt like. They were words, existing in two dimensions on paper. Focus was something I tried to pretend I was doing like other people, and relaxing was something I simply could not comprehend, nevermind achieve. I was superficially attentive while on the inside of my skull my thoughts popped like popcorn and anxiety moved its way through me, decomposing and generating heat in the fibers of my muscles, creating twitches in fingers and toes and further cluttering my mind with the ill feeling of not being able to stop.

Now that medication has helped me to experience what others take for granted, even if I don't take the medication, at least I know what to mechanically work toward achieving, and I can now measure the degrees of my success, instead of going through life wondering "Was THAT it? Did I do it? Those people look like THEY did it, do I look like I did it?".

The first time I felt true relaxation was when I was trying out Remeron. I can't really describe the feeling except to tell you that I had never had that feeling before. Ever. The tension in my body was gone, tension that had defined my relationship with myself for the duration of my conscious memory. And the first time I took Vyvanse? I ironed clothes for 45 minutes. My mind was a clean, welcoming room, sparsely decorated, but friendly. A space I could work in. Never before had I felt that.

Now that I know what to work for, the work can, and has, begun.

Meds are not a cure, or a perfect solution, and some people can't really tolerate them at all. But many of us can benefit from the perspective that filling in the blanks can bring. This is why it makes me bluntly angry when I hear people universally pan ADHD medications, or meds for other psychiatric issues.