A bird's nest of notes to self-

-perches on the desk before me. I'm supposed to be going through it to consolidate my notes and get rid of the ones that reference tasks I've already completed, but instead I'm sitting here bloggin', while trying to find a magic way to get myself to give a crap.

Incidentally I'm out of Concerta and "meth" this morning so I didn't take any, but isn't that the lazy man's way out, blaming the lack of meds?

Yes, yes it is. There are tasks and actions that I file under "not enough Ritalin on the planet earth to get me to give a shit about this" and this goes on the list. I'll use blogging as a coping tool though, vent my dissatisfaction and then threaten myself with the importance of job security to get myself back on task. Anxiety is unhealthy, but MAN is it useful.

It's hard not to laugh when I think about how many times in my life I have had to resort to mental self-torture to get things done. I can recall sitting in my room in junior high school, watching Gilligan's Island on my little black and white tv doing anything but my homework...trying to convince myself that I would do it in 5 minutes...for hours. In junior high, when I was still early in my self-steering journey, mismanagement of my time got me kicked out of a gifted students program. It hasn't gotten me fired from a job yet but there's still time I suppose.

This is a pretty special pile of crap on my desk here, taller and denser than usual, I don't normally let it get to this point at work because I can't function in clutter. I usually am able to organize things and categorize things, but many of my tasks at this particular job are...only tangentially related to one another...and I haven't found a good way to keep my work flow streamlined yet. So I'm sorting through a pile of scraps of paper. On the one hand at least I write stuff down. On the other hand...I look forward to creating a steering mechanism that works more effectively for THIS work.

Blargh.

When ADHD meets arrogant douchebags...

I possess zero tolerance for arrogant/stupid/self-centered/narcissistic people these days.

Many of my friends are mid-menopause and one of them humorously refers to this as a case of "don't give a shit". I am not mid-menopause, yet I also do not seem able to swallow a shit sandwich.

I'll illustrate...well...I mean I can't really write about some of the douchebags in question...hmmmm. Okay...let's pick one that I'm not sentimental about. And I'll generalize a little. But I think you'll see what I mean.

Let's talk about "I'm the only one that's allowed to ask questions here" guy. AKA "I'm insecure and can't handle women pointing out potential shortcomings in my perfect logic guy". AKA "I scream at people in meetings and talk to other adults like they are children" guy.

My reaction to said "winner" was to slam both hands down on the table and yell back "REALLY?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! REALLY?!". I then dismissed myself and as I was doing so, told him that his address of me was a COMPLETELY INSANE way to address fellow volunteers. I have since politely stepped down from that project. I was not asked to, and the committee chair's response was "well, he was pretty out of line". But when I am no longer able to engage in "the work" in a productive manner, I don't think I'd be doing anyone favors to insist upon my further presence. When you commit to working with a group you have to accept a certain amount of quirk. In this case, I am very aware that I am not willing to "work with" an asshole that is wasting my time.

Now then, while I am an "ADHD American" I generally have pretty good skills of diplomacy. If anything, my ability to think quickly on my feet in certain kinds of situations has allowed me to skewer and deflate douchebags with verbal wit on many an occasion. I can't say I've never told a motherf***er where to shove it. It's just that recently, I seem to get to that point more quickly - but only in certain situations. You see my point of wondering: it doesn't MATTER really, but I do wonder sometimes where that line between ADHD and personality lies.

I have a theory: I used to feel obligated to endure a certain amount of crap. I am so used to questioning my own reactivity that for a long time, I didn't trust it. While I can't go around telling people where to shove it all the time, perhaps I've gotten to a point where I am trusting what my gut is telling me now.

I think that's healthy. I think that's a good thing. And I think it's actually going to help me pare down my obligations as I more honestly assess how I want to be spending my time.

That, my friends, is a gift in a crap package. And who gives a flying monkey about the package, you just tear that off and throw it away anyway....

A drowning nomad...

Utterly lacking in inspiration of any kind, I reach for a beer and here I sit, writing. I'm not a big drinker, but the other day, to do some writing, I had to have a glass of wine first. I have never had to seek inspiration. It has always found me. Exuberant inspiration has always been my close companion. It's a little lonely without it. I'm not depressed really, I'm just not happy. There are things and people in my life that I love, but something is missing.

I know that if I continue to have to drink to access the free-flow of the universe that it won't be a good thing, so I will make sure not to latch onto that crutch.

I also know that I am not alone in this experience. As winter has thawed in Northern New England and humans reconnect everyone talks about how hard the winter was this year, and how life just doesn't feel quite right. I feel like I need a connection to something larger that the geographic place I happen to be living, but I don't know what it is yet.

This much I know...the other night I dreamt that I was begging someone to take me away from New Hampshire. Begging as if begging for my life to be spared. Begging through a web of grief. I pleaded with them that I had to leave, because I was so sad here. But I don't think sad is the right word.

I lived 35 years as a nomad and now my limbs are bound to more permanent tent stakes.

The first time I moved, I was almost 4 years old. We left New Hampshire and traveled on an airplane, the first of many bicoastal yearly trips that we would make. I wore a red dress that my Grammy bought for me. We left our family behind. Our sprawling, intricate network of family, branches that stretched across the years and geography of the Northeast. We tore up our roots and we left. One uncle lived near Seattle and we were going to his house. I thought that the plane would land in his yard; the airport surprised me.

We had one layover, during which my mother had to take our cat, in her carrier, into the bathroom to clean her up because she had pooped on herself. My father had our tickets and accidentally got back on the plane without us. We almost could not get back on the plane. You cannot live a day with ADHD and not experience it in a palpable way.

For years after this, I dreamed that I drowned in my red dress. That I fell into a deep lake, surrounded by cartoon seaweed. I gently landed at the bottom of the lake and could see above me a circle of people watching me die. Sometimes the lights of an ambulance would appear, wavy through the water above. No panic, no sound, just placid recognition of my separation from the world of the living.

After moving out of my uncle's house - we didn't stay there long - we lived in one house for a few years, and then we moved into an apartment in the same city, I think so my parents could save up for a house. After about 5 years in that city, we moved to another, when my parents finally purchase that house. And we were there for 7 years-ish until I left for college. Where I lived for 4 years and then left...and then went to California for 6 years and then left...and now I have been here in New Hampshire for 6 years.

And here I am.

What is home? My sister says that home is where the heart is - she's quite literal in her interpretation, she means your heart that is beating in your body and any ethereal qualities and feelings it may contain. That scroll is tattoed right on her body; a reminder. Or an insistence that belies uncertainty...?

My new household is much different from the one I grew up in. And though parts of New Hampshire are imprinted on my soul like that scroll on my sister's leg, it does not feel like home. What IS home? WHERE is home?

To frame this as ADHD is to trivialize the purgatory of my tethered heartstrings. To frame it as the product of my parents' likely ADHD is irrelevant. I am here now and we will not move for at least 15 years because our children are still in school and their mother lives here too. Even if we buy a house (sometime in 2065 at the rate we're going) it's going to be right near here somewhere.

Every frontier has an end, a horizon where you see the dots of civilization and remember what it feels like. I have spent my life reassured by its existence but avoiding capture. And I've found new frontiers through stepmotherhood. But this is no consolation for a loss of freedom of movement.

I don't know how to get home. Maybe I've never known. My life has forced me to a definition. And I'm resisting, oh I'm resisting.

Mothers' Day

I started this post on Mothers' Day. The title was not Happy Mothers' Day, but not because I'm not happy. Life is pretty good. It's just that I wrote it more as an unfinished thought than as an exclamation of certainty. Mothers' Day is far more complex where stepmothers are concerned.

I got my first Mothers' Day gift that week. Last year, the children were not sure if they were supposed to, or not, and that was just fine. I've never had two "mothers" before and as such, I respect that they have an experience of our family that I will never have. That experience is theirs to interpret.

This year, they interpreted that I should certainly receive gifts, and they really worried about getting me the right "thing". For the record, I was not worried about it. They could have given me a dead bug (not out of the realm of possibilities with this crew) and I would have graciously accepted the offering.

The littlest, for whom, I think, it's less odd to have had a new mother-type addition to his family (he was 3 when I met him, after all) brought me a little plant that he grew at school, and a card that he made. He'd apparently gotten distracted while writing his name in it because he forgot the last letter.

The middle told me, in distress, that he could not make me a Mothers' Day present in class because his teacher told him he couldn't make one for me. It was a time issue, they just didn't have time to make two in class. I reassured him, of course, that this was not a problem and I completely understood and was not worried about it. I just wish his teacher had known how much distress this had caused him. It's got to be so hard for kids to get used to a new family and to him, this was clearly a VERY big deal. He would also not have time to make something for me at his mother's house because...that would just be awkward. In the end, he picked me a nice flower in the yard: perfect.

The oldest was also very intense about the gift issue and was worried about what I might want. I told her that whatever she would like to give me would be perfect. She made me a big BIG card that was very pretty and clearly very thoughtfully made.

Best gift: the kids have clearly officially decided that I'm part of the family. Cool.

Bacon...it's REAL BACON

If you ever wondered what the frig I'm doing in that photo on the right hand side of the page, I'm eating bacon. Real bacon.

Good news! Adults don't have ADHD!

No seriously everyone, this is so great! I just got new insurance coverage and when I took my new card to the pharmacy, the pharmacy was told that they can't refill my prescription for 18mg Concerta because a) I'm over 19 so I can't have ADHD and b) because I don't exist, because you know, adults don't have ADHD and I haven't been taking this drug for quite some time now, I have to get prior authorization from my prescriber. You know...the one that wrote the prescription? The prescription that says "hey, my patient is 35 and has ADHD and needs this medication".

I am SO not joking right now. This really just happened.

The pharmacy sent a fax to my "doctor's office"...but I don't know if that means the mental health center (aka my REAL doctor's office for the past two years, who actually deal with me on a regular basis) that prescribes all of my medications and who clearly are aware that they have "authorized" me to take Concerta, or the PCP office that doesn't prescribe it, that, if contacted is going to go "Yeah, I guess so, I mean we've never treated this person for ADHD because they go to a MENTAL HEALTH CENTER FOR THAT but the patient did self-report that they take it and showed us the bottle...so does this count as pre-authorization? And can we get extra cheese with that?".

Hey insurance company--no wait, let me get more specific, hey ANTHEM BLUE CROSS HMO BLUE NEW ENGLAND--FUCK YOU.

FUCK. YOU.

FUCKYOU!

Sheesh.

At least there's good news in there somewhere: there's no such thing as ADHD if you're over 35! Which must be why I feel bitchy, volatile, and probably disproportionately reactive about the whole thing. Because I don't have ADHD, and didn't just about cry in the middle of the pharmacy.

Because people pretending to have ADHD over the age of 19 are what's wrong with America's healthcare system. MAN, I'm so glad they just called me out like that and refused me my medication, I mean people like me are really taking advantage of the system. It's not the unhealthy lifestyle choices of the majority of Americans that are screwing insurance companies out of their bottom line, and making insurance coverage suck for everyone else, it's people like me, in generally good health, PRETENDING TO HAVE ADHD.

FUCK YOU ANTHEM!

Update to the ADHD diagnosis criteria

I'd like to add:

Does subject's life feel like a broken record?