The "Hard" Stuff

Talked to my NP and he and I agreed that I should be getting way more bang for my buck if I'm going to keep seeing "Mr. Strattera". And so, I broke up with the crazy Italian today. I have a new prescription AND a second diagnosis...anxiety. Ha...didn't really need to make that official to know it was true. But I wanted to wait to remove some of the external stressors from my life before making the decision to treat it with medication. Stressors reduced and I'm still my pleasantly anxious self...

So tonight, I had a dinner of Chinese cashew chicken, potstickers, and 10 mg of Citalopram for the anxiety. Tomorrow I get the "hard" stuff, Vyvanse. A stimulant...will be interesting to see where THAT goes...

In the meantime, the Celexa doesn't seem to be steamrolling me like the Strattera did at first...it really is like starting a new relationship...the anticipation of good things to come...the excitement and anxiety of the unknown...fear of failure...and feeling things you've never felt before! Oh sigh...

Trials and Errors

Today was a day of triumphs and frustrations. Triumph because I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my insights on arts event planning with a community mental health peer support group here in town.

Frustrating because in a moment of clarity at the office, I snapped back to the present moment and found myself mid-pace...realized I'd been pacing around the office like a feral cat for a good several minutes while my mind darted from one insistent topic to another. I manually shifted and steered myself back to my desk to reflect and realized that for over a week my mind has been flitting nakedly about, as though medication were simply water. I did the only thing I could do...spent a few minutes making a list of the things that had been bothering me for the past week-ish.

Then I left a message for the NP...time to check in. Right before the bouncing had set back in, I'd visited him and we'd both been pleased with how calm I was seeming, my constant fidgeting non-existent, my mind clicking along at a respectable but manageable pace, and my stomach settled. Things were going so well that my next appointment was set for two months from now. And I'm able to be patient about medication. I know it isn't always perfect and you have to take things like hormones and simple "bad days" into account, which is why I hadn't called him before...but a whole week or so of this...a little exhausting. A little discouraging, although what good does it really do to dwell on that. I'll talk to the NP when he calls back tomorrow and figure out what to do. I'm pretty well informed and comfortable about making decisions for myself, but am also grateful to have a decent guide along for the ride.

The hardest part of this, I think...is that before I took medication I was used to feeling this way. I'm not used to it anymore, so when it happens, I really don't enjoy it. Those racing thoughts...ugh. Honestly, on medication I still get enough fun, wild ideas, I'm not one of those people who feels freer off the meds, I feel freer ON them. When they're working, of course.

At least tomorrow my biggest plan is going to the beach. My mind can do whatever it wants.

Peer Support: Preparing

I am preparing to meet with a mental health peer support group tomorrow, mid-day. This is an exciting opportunity. Speaking to people about art/creativity and its interrelation with mental health issues is a very relevant subject for me personally, but helping others with information to set up resources that will help heal other people...priceless stuff.

I will have to edit my thoughts, but first, am letting myself go wild and write down everything relevant. It's an informal meeting but I always prefer to be over, rather than under-prepared...and hey, brainstorming is the most ADHD friendly part of the planning process, right? Hog wild, here I come!

I really believe that creative pursuits are one of the best tools for helping people make sense of the world around them. Certainly is for me :)

I need to keep working on my brainstorming though...so...

Myth, my ass...

I am an eager consumer of information, and an extremely eager consumer of information about ADHD and other mental health issues.

One of the driving forces is accumulating knowledge for better understanding of my own mental health journey. But the other driving force is that I will graduate from grad school soon and when that happens my free access to scholarly articles will be terminated! Ack! So I am always looking up the latest studies on ADHD, ADHD in women, ADHD in highly intelligent people, ADHD in outer space...unfortunately the devil makes me also indulge in articles in lay publications, and even more unfortunately this usually means that someone who clearly has no idea what they are talking about has posted a comment below the article to the effect of "ADHD doesn't really exist" or "ADHD is just an excuse for bad parenting" or "you're gonna murder your babies with all the Ritalin you're giving them". Great stuff. Makes me wanna reach into the computer screen and slap 'em right upside the ignorance gene they must have inherited...I'm sorry, that wasn't very nice...is my Strattera working?

Anyway...I'd just like to share a few points based on my personal experience, AND my rabid perusal of these articles both scholarly and otherwise:

1) No, they don't know exactly what causes ADHD.

2) That doesn't mean "it" doesn't exist. Ahem...if it didn't...I would be TOTALLY normal or there would be some other explanation for whatever it is that makes my mind racy and pleasantly impulsive, makes me exist in constant motion, and makes me a bit moody, makes me hyperfocus at both convenient and inconvenient times...and hate overhead lights...and too much noise...and...yeah...

3) Yes, it's entirely possible that in the next several years they may discover that ADHD is actually several different disorders with different causes...again, that doesn't mean ADHD doesn't exist, just that it's the most accurate term we have right now for people experiencing a certain collection of symptoms that can't be otherwise classified. (A collection of symptoms that yes, needs to be updated because it doesn't apply to adults or women very well...but that is a whole other can of worms).

4) Just because some people are misdiagnosed doesn't mean that ADHD doesn't exist. It means they have a support system that is doing a shoddy job of whatever it is that they are supposed to be doing, OR that a child simply has a set of behaviors or symptoms that their support system does not understand.

5) No matter how many times you say it, oh doubters, my brain does not fall within the spectrum of what we call normal. Maybe that means the definition of normal is effed. Maybe that means you're arrogant. Either way, I still have to figure out how to life most peaceably and productively with my fellow humans and personally I find the label helpful and reassuring. It gives me a framework for direction, and honestly, treatment has made me more creative, because it has made me more productive.

6) Have I mentioned lately that I was an honors program student, a multi-instrumentalist, and a participant in really geeky overachiever clubs in school? I completed a BA and am just about to finish a Master's Degree. And yes...I have ADHD. And no...I wasn't just bored in school...I was tortured by the overhead lights in the classroom, absorbed in whatever other kids were doing in the room, distracted by the insistence of my own thoughts, and spent way too much energy on pretending to be doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing as a result...so I wouldn't get in trouble...so I could pretend to fit in...I endured comments from teachers like "but you're so smart, why can't you focus" and "if you're late for class one more time you're going to Saturday school" even though I had no idea how to correct either of these issues on my own. I did not have bad parents, in fact I had good, attentive parents, both extremely intelligent people who helped me in the ways that they knew how but who likely have mental health issues themselves. I have fought hard to learn the organizational skills that I DO have on my own, to learn the follow through that I do have, I have suffered through OCD-like symptoms that resulted from my desperation to control my environment...and I have worked through many, many crappy nights during this graduate degree where reading one journal article would take 12 hours instead of 1 or 2...and guess what, it's not because I can't read. I was at a college reading level in the 4th grade. It's because I can't still my mental impulses...can't keep my body still, can't say no to a new idea...

I learned to cope on my own because nobody believed that I had any kind of issue, and while I felt out of place and out of synch I had no way of knowing that everyone else didn't feel that way too. I finally had to ask for help because it was all too much after all of these years and how dare you tell me...that I don't exist. How dare you.

I am the example that blows your doubt sky high. I am all of the variables removed all at once. I am not lazy, I am not willfully ignorant, I am not a seven-year old boy, I am assertively intelligent, I am successful in many areas of my life, I don't have another learning disability and I am not diagnosable with any other mental illness. I work hard to be accountable to other people, and to follow through with my commitments, to stifle my impulses and to "fit in". I work my ass off.

And I don't need your belief to make me real.

5 Year Plan

Yes, you heard that right: 5 year plan. I'm thinking of making one. ...did aliens invade my brain? This makes me have a lot of new feelings. Gonna go meditate on it (meditate on it? seriously, did aliens invade?)...

For reference, my usual method of making plans involves a BRILLIANT IDEA followed by immediate action. Hilarity AND disaster ensue, and sometimes brilliant results. If it gets far enough to leave the house, I have too much pride to let myself fail so I'll push through it to the finish at the expense of my sanity and the details of daily living. At no point does the notion of a plan beyond a to-do list occur.

What a difference an SNRI makes.

Peer Support!

I've been asked by a local mental health peer support group to come speak to them about promoting themselves as artists.

How cool is that?!

The key word here is "peer". I love it that I have been asked to speak to them as a peer and as a resource.

So many people deal with mental health issues every day, either for themselves or family members, or friends, but act like "mental health" issues and patients are something to not be discussed or acknowledged as a part of daily life. I think that's wrong. Not that we all need to go around compulsively confessing our issues (as much as the ADHD part of my brain would LOVE to) but...if we felt more free to mention them in passing, in regular conversation, it might help normalize these topics.

When you mention that you're diabetic nobody questions what kind of person you are. There is the person, and there is the illness. With mental health issues, because they are often based in the brain, and because they often affect people's behavior toward others, mental illnesses are seen to totally define the person they inhabit. If there's one thing I have learned from my ADHD journey it's that there is my personality, and then there are the impulses of ADHD. Those impulses over the years have become part of the picture people think of when they think of me...but they are not my personality. They are not who I am. I had the revelation one day when thinking about what I liked and didn't like about my medication. I decided that I liked that I still thought all the same things, but at a slower pace, which helped me to be more relaxed. Suddenly I was able to see the line between me and the medication. I was able to see that the urgency, he anxiousness and impulsivity was what had been getting in my way, where my creative ideas were actually mostly positive, and the task at hand was to take the time, now that I was able, to edit my actions, and what I did with all my creative ideas. It was like cleaning off a very cluttered tabletop. Move the clutter and you see how pretty the finish really is.

The struggle may be far more difficult for some, to see that line...for example, if someone is suffering from a wicked psychosis, it might be harder for them to see the line between their native thoughts and the psychotic ones at times...but that line is still there. That line is the whole point of mental health treatment. The mental illness is still not the whole definition of the person.

Because I am not visibly impaired, I have the luxury of choosing not to discuss ADHD. However, I am choosing to discuss it openly when the opportunity is presented. Not every chance I get. Not so often that it gets annoying (at least not in the estimation of my ADHD-monologuing self, haha). But enough that people notice...and I find that when I mention it people usually want to discuss it, or ask questions...or talk about a family member with a mental health issue. And for me, that makes it worth bringing up. Disclosure invites disclosure, and can also promote understanding.

Nobody would ever look at me and think "mental health patient". That's why I think it speak s loudly and effectively to the value of mental health patients, to present myself to the world as a fully integrated person...as a successful, intelligent person who happens to be a mental health patient.

Mental health patient can mean a lot of different things. It can mean someone who is struggling with persistent and difficult psychosis. It can mean someone like me who really is very functional but whose mental health journey is more geared to improving my own quality of life in a private way. It can also mean families or individuals in conflict who simply need guidance to move through difficult situations. But for any of the above examples, the common thread is that mental health is important, and people are more likely to seek help that will benefit themselves and those around them if they do not feel stigmatized, like they have something to feel bad about.

A supportive community can engender mental health for all by encouraging people to seek the help they need, and by being supportive of their efforts to become healthy.

Summer, what's that?

I have been having a very challenging summer. Let me see...I have two part-time jobs. Oh and I'm a full-time grad student and was working at an internship. I coordinate a local weekly event that involved juggling a ton of details and people each week. I have a sewing studio that involves another type of "work". And I do a ton of networking in support of my various projects. OH...and I almost forgot (not bloody likely) I was just diagnosed with ADHD this summer. So I've had to figure out how to manage each of these things...while starting medication, changing my brain chemistry, and learning some new behavior patterns. Piece of cake!

The number one most obvious thing that the medication and therapy helped me realize was "oh GEEZ, I need to stop doing so much". But what to do when you've already made the commitments, right? Right. As my therapist said "YOU MUST FOLLOW THROUGH ON THESE COMMITMENTS". And despite ADHD I'm the kind of obsessive that really likes to see things through anyway, even if I have to have a miserable tug of war with myself first (perfect example of conscious overcompensating for the natural ADHD impulse to run screaming...I just scream on the inside and beat that voice down with an invisible bat...).

The biggest asskicker, aside from the sheer horror of staring that kind of overcommitment in the face...was the particular nature of some of these challenges.

Let me set the stage...two of these projects, and I shall not name them, required me, an adult with ADHD, to sit still, in silence, for hours at a time, several days a week, quietly completing valuable yet repetitive tasks. Uhhhhhhhh. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm sure you can imagine how pleasant that was for me. Oh, I've developed the ability to pretend that I am conforming to the situation. On the inside, for these few months, my mind has been silently screaming like a caged animal. Even with the aid of medication this was simply too much to bear at times. It's like having a really bad itch and you cannot scratch it, you cannot reach it, you cannot do a thing about it. Except sit there...and try to focus, but it's one thing to hold your body still...and quite another to hold your mind still. And unfortunately, when stretched to this kind of extreme, it makes it that much harder to keep my mind still. I understand that it is my obligation as a person with ADHD to work as hard as I can to "take care of business" and conform as much as possible if that's what the situation commands. I've been doing it for most of my life. But like I said...just because I look like everything's okay doesn't mean it is...and some situations put you SO far past your limit that it's just unfair.

It has actually impaired my ability to effectively assess how well my medication is working compared to where I started out. I started out with a hyperactive mind...and then threw myself into a situation that is the absolute perfect hell for a hyperactive mind...gave myself a mild medication that under normal circumstances would calm me just enough that it's a little easier to think things through...but under these extremes might as well be water. Very frustrating. And I know the medication IS helping because under other circumstances it's been very calming and helpful. This type of extreme situation wouldn't be good for me ever. You could give me a ton of stimulants and it wouldn't have helped, you could probably put a gun to my head and it would be more comfortable.

I hope that all makes clear sense...I think it does. I write about this now because some of the summer projects are coming to a close right now and I feel like I've survived a major battle of some kind. I feel spent but relieved. I certainly reinforced for myself what kinds of situations I need to seek out for myself in order to thrive. And now that these projects are done...my biggest project will be to turn down new projects. Because I don't want my life to be one big chain of overcommitment and stress. It's one of the major reasons I sought treatment, because my life felt like a runaway train.

Now, I struggle to make sense of all of this, and to narrow my focus in a positive way...I need to make choices that let my strengths thrive and serve me well, instead of ones that only remind me of my shortcomings.