Apparently there's a book that features a character suffering from extreme ADHD. She uses the above statement to describe it, or so I gather. it seems,to me, an apt description of the condition that so many human beings possess or, as the case may be, are possessed by.
Having not read the book and possessed of no overpowering urge to do so puts me in the interesting situation of having something to say, a way to say it, a starting point for the conversation... and, perhaps, no one to listen. This is going to jump around a bit, but I trust that you'll be able to keep up with me. Here I go, regardless.
In this apparently Dan Brown-esque novel, The Thousand, there is a treatment used for ADHD that has numerous negative side effects. Well, okay. Welcome to the real world. Whether you medicate via prescriptions from doctors, recreational drugs, natural vitamins, sugar, laissez-faire, or universe juice, there will be both benefits and drawbacks. When I was on Ritalin, I had very little appetite. In fact, I was around 13 before I weighed more than 80 pounds. That isn't healthy. But during that time, I could focus like nobody's business.
It's a trade-off. There are many methods, styles, combinations, words of wisdom, whatever, that you can use when it comes to dealing with ADD, ADHD, and any number of other things. I would advise neither recreational drugs nor laissez-faire—"let alone"—personally, but to each their own. When a condition manifests in as many ways as ADHD does, there is no definitive answer.
I was once told, in fewer words, that I was weak for using medication. Extremely unsettled by this accusation, I spoke to a few people about it. Through those conversations I came to a conclusion and formed a strong opinion on the matter. Speaking concisely, my opinion is this:
I disagree.
To elaborate on that... I don't think that having what society seems to see as a handicap and doing something about it is weakness. I don't think I've ever seen a truly weak person admit that they need help, because it takes strength to admit that. I believe that finding a method that helps you is strength. You aren't weak if you can gather the courage and determination to pick up the tools that are so readily available to you, and that includes everything from Ritalin to the aforementioned universe juice.
Think of it this way: there are two houses that are across the street from each other. In each house, a person is sitting down, watching TV during a rainstorm. Each person notices that water is dripping from the ceiling. In each household, there is a storage room containing miscellaneous tools and supplies. In fact, that room is only a few steps from the TV room. One of the people gets up, walks over, and takes a bucket out of the supply room. They put that bucket under the dripping water. Their neighbor, however, simply ignored the leak. The next time it rains, the first person gets the bucket again, and the second leaves the room so they don't have to deal with the dripping sound. Eventually both the roof and the floor will need to be fixed, whereas across the street, only the roof needs repair.
Which person do you think did the more practical thing?
Now assume that both individuals grabbed buckets to catch the dripping rainwater. The next day, the sun is shining and one of the two picks up the phone and calls a local roofing company to get the roof patched up before the next rain. Their neighbor puts the problem from his or her mind, instead choosing to go about their lives with no interruption, trusting that the good weather will hold. Well, a few days later it rains again. One roof is fixed, and the other is... leaking. Time for the bucket again.
That bucket doesn't get any lighter between when it is set down under the leak and when it is picked up and dumped out. Every drop of water adds up until that bucket weighs a substantial amount. Carrying it is awkward, cumbersome, and it grows ever more so as time wears on. Yes, carrying the bucket time and time again may make you stronger. But stronger for what? For the next rainstorm? The next time you have to haul that bucket from your living room to your back door? Well, at least their floor isn't rotting this time.
Now, there is obviously a metaphor there, whether or not what the metaphor is about is obvious. Let me spell it you for you: There is something that is either irritating, depressing, frustrating, embarrassing, problematic, and any other number of things. That is your situation. You can either choose to ignore it and end up with bigger problems than you started out with, or do something about it and minimize the damage your situation can do to your life. And no, the first solution may not be the right one for you.
Alternately, if the fence around your house is broken, and your neighbor's dog keep sneaking onto your property and knocking over your trash can, which of the following is more practical: A) digging through your garage until you find a hammer, nails, and wood,and fixing the fence, or B) expecting your neighbor to teach their dog to know better?
There are innumerable kinds of people in this world, any way you look at it. But they come in pairs—you are either proactive, or you are reactive. Your motivations are either intrinsic, or you are extrinsic. And as I am aware that those words are not typically used in such a fashion, I will explain. Intrinsic, in this case, means not just part of the whole, but from inside. You inspire yourself, while being being extrinsic means externally—other have to motivate you. To quote a very wise man I'm lucky enough to know, "If you're intrinsic, what's right propels you. If you're extrinsic, you think 'If only someone would have...' Most of the men and women in jail today are extrinsic."
Are you going to let the floor rot under you or will you minimize the damage? Will you try one thing and hope that, eventually, it will work, or will you find an alternative solution? Will you be proactive in improving the things you are unsatisfied with, or will you leave it up to someone else, whose work may never meet your standards?
You are the only one who can make these decisions for you. And if it's your child... which person do you want them to be? The person who is willing to use a hammer and make a little noise, or the one with trash all over their lawn?
Ja na!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
"I will never stop wanting what I don't have." —Lost in Yonkers, Act II
I intend to tackle some (okay, one) of my more painful questions. This is pretty much just an exploration of my crazy brain. Of my memories. And if they've lead to something that I consider one of my 'most painful questions' it's pretty clear that these don't have happy endings. This really doesn't have anything to do with CHADD, but I don't see any reason to make a whole new blog just for my introspective emo time. Read if you want, don't if you don't. Simple, isn't it?
Also, I realize that in the previous post I begin as though in the middle of a conversation. There is one simple reason for that: I started writing this one first.
________________________________________________
When--where?--did I learn that I am replaceable? Not in the way of every human being is a small piece of the whole, but in the way of "I'll never be as good as the next model". I won't. There is always some-one or -thing that is better than me by just enough to be worth dropping me right then and there and moving on with the newer improved model.
Maybe I should start with the earliest example in my memory, the one that started it all. Yes, Julie Andrews, the beginning is a very good place to start.
When I was five years old my family moved to Oregon from Florida. We drove across the country in fourteen days. When we reached Oregon, I was tired and it was night. We were met by my uncle and led to the house where we would be staying with my mom's sister, her husband, and their six children. I didn't meet anyone during that time who hadn't known my cousins first. Not anyone. When we finally moved out, both families were relieved. A week or two, maybe more, after we settled in, I was at the front door of our house, the aptly named Haven, and saw a girl walking across the street. I asked my dad if it was okay, then walked over to her and said "Hi!". We struck up a conversation and she became my first official friend in Oregon that I met and made by myself.
I was six years old. She was ten, and I didn't care. I was just too happy. But there was one concern: now I had someone to play with and my sister didn't. So I got my sister, and I introduced them. And the three of us were friends. She introduced us to her family, her little brothers and sisters, and we would play together. It lasted like that for a long time.
But nothing lasts forever, and as the undeniable youngest of our core trio, I was eventually cut out of things, little by little. Bit by bit. Though we stuck together when the bullies on our street were around, I was the weakest and both my sister and out friend knew it. And they used it. I remember that at one point I was going to ride my bike home, but one of them got in front of me--not just blocking the way, but physically holding my bike in place. I sat there on my bike, pedaling away while she made fun of me until I cried. Then she let me go.
Fast forward: I've just turned eleven, and at the last Girl Scout camp my sister and I attended we met someone else who loved Sailor Moon. My sister had just started to draw, and I had not yet begun to write fanfiction. But the three of us got along famously, for our love of Japanese cartoons eclipsed all else. But she and I had something else in common, something that connected to two of us in a special way: she had ADD. Still does. The three of us were fast friends, with my sister being the eldest and I, once again, the youngest. In fact, we saw each other almost every day that summer, and during that time we decided we would make a film. We would write it, direct, produce, act... we each had out own trademark characters. I was Meg. I had brown hair with blue tips and I could control water and time. My boyfriend was Ryan.
Then we decided our characters needed theme songs. So we looked at anime music video after anime music video (AMV). And they each found one, and I found one. and then my sister decided that she wanted mine—Iris, by the Goo-Goo-Dolls. I could have hers, she promised. And since I had originally wanted Rose in the Wind by Anggun... but no. I liked Iris too much to give it up. Then our friend took her side, and never, ever went back to the middle ground. She got her song, all right. But the three of us kept hanging out. We still spent a lot of time together; we were a trio, after all. Little by little and bit by bit I, the youngest in the group, was pushed away and ignored.
For the next three years I was referred to as "wall".
My sister introduced her to some other friends she had made and together they began working on a marvelous story, the telling of which lasted until after they had graduated high school. The characters that they used were from our movie. I was not permitted to play. I was too young and too uncool. And then, on the weekends, when my sister and I would have played together or watched TV, she went over there and they played. I realized that she preferred their company to mine, and that she didn't love me anymore. And sometimes my sister's friend's mother, my mom's best friend, would invite both of us over, and I would go because I loved that house and that family.
I would go into my old friend's room and sit against the wall next to her closet. I wrote, read, and drew a lot in those days. I spoke very little.
I had spent two years trying to get them to like me, and it had never worked. I had done everything they told me to do and then some. I had been funny, supportive, and obedient. Eventually I stopped spending time with the pair and the group of them. If I was forced to go visit on holidays and other such events, I avoided them. I went to room they weren't in. I sat downstairs in the family room, the art room, the TV room, the quilting room. I sat under a table in a corner, in the dark. I had been doing that for months before her mother noticed. They never made me go back.
The movie, of course, never happened.
As this was going on, I had entered middle school and made a whole new group of friends. Why a new group? Simple answer: my old friends had all bonded very closely with the people I introduced them to, because as a rule I never introduced people who I didn't think would get along. In fact, they had bonded so closely that they had begun ignoring me altogether. With my new friends and my fresh stat, I was sure to be happy.
But I wasn't, because when you make friends from six different social groups and you want to spend time with them all at once, you have to introduce them. And they all got along.
Freshman year I went to a different school. I had one friend, a girl I had been in a play with the year before. Two weeks into the school year, she had met another girl. A popular girl, one who she had classes with. Ignoring the fact that I was in all those same classes, she ignored me.
Sophomore year, I'm back to school with my middle school friends, and I learn that they're friends with my sister. My best friend was the only person who kept me sane, because he kept me with him and as such with the rest of the group. It was slow-going, but I was once again among friends. My friends. Not my sisters. I admit though, during that time I did my fair share of befriending her best friends, too. Not out of spite, but because they were such honestly nice and interesting people.
I'll say no more on my social life in high school, because it is just as chaotic and painful and traumatizing as you might imagine. Thing fell apart. And I was replaced, little by little and bit by bit. Time and time again. I can safely say that I was replaced more times than I had friends who could replace me, because I just kept forgiving them. I just wanted them to like me. But I'll never be as good as the next model.
_________________________________________________
So maybe, just maybe, that's why I think I'm replaceable. Not in the way of all humans are, but in the way of the iPod Micro. Do you remember it? No? Most people don't.
It was replaced.
Ja na.
Also, I realize that in the previous post I begin as though in the middle of a conversation. There is one simple reason for that: I started writing this one first.
________________________________________________
When--where?--did I learn that I am replaceable? Not in the way of every human being is a small piece of the whole, but in the way of "I'll never be as good as the next model". I won't. There is always some-one or -thing that is better than me by just enough to be worth dropping me right then and there and moving on with the newer improved model.
Maybe I should start with the earliest example in my memory, the one that started it all. Yes, Julie Andrews, the beginning is a very good place to start.
When I was five years old my family moved to Oregon from Florida. We drove across the country in fourteen days. When we reached Oregon, I was tired and it was night. We were met by my uncle and led to the house where we would be staying with my mom's sister, her husband, and their six children. I didn't meet anyone during that time who hadn't known my cousins first. Not anyone. When we finally moved out, both families were relieved. A week or two, maybe more, after we settled in, I was at the front door of our house, the aptly named Haven, and saw a girl walking across the street. I asked my dad if it was okay, then walked over to her and said "Hi!". We struck up a conversation and she became my first official friend in Oregon that I met and made by myself.
I was six years old. She was ten, and I didn't care. I was just too happy. But there was one concern: now I had someone to play with and my sister didn't. So I got my sister, and I introduced them. And the three of us were friends. She introduced us to her family, her little brothers and sisters, and we would play together. It lasted like that for a long time.
But nothing lasts forever, and as the undeniable youngest of our core trio, I was eventually cut out of things, little by little. Bit by bit. Though we stuck together when the bullies on our street were around, I was the weakest and both my sister and out friend knew it. And they used it. I remember that at one point I was going to ride my bike home, but one of them got in front of me--not just blocking the way, but physically holding my bike in place. I sat there on my bike, pedaling away while she made fun of me until I cried. Then she let me go.
Fast forward: I've just turned eleven, and at the last Girl Scout camp my sister and I attended we met someone else who loved Sailor Moon. My sister had just started to draw, and I had not yet begun to write fanfiction. But the three of us got along famously, for our love of Japanese cartoons eclipsed all else. But she and I had something else in common, something that connected to two of us in a special way: she had ADD. Still does. The three of us were fast friends, with my sister being the eldest and I, once again, the youngest. In fact, we saw each other almost every day that summer, and during that time we decided we would make a film. We would write it, direct, produce, act... we each had out own trademark characters. I was Meg. I had brown hair with blue tips and I could control water and time. My boyfriend was Ryan.
Then we decided our characters needed theme songs. So we looked at anime music video after anime music video (AMV). And they each found one, and I found one. and then my sister decided that she wanted mine—Iris, by the Goo-Goo-Dolls. I could have hers, she promised. And since I had originally wanted Rose in the Wind by Anggun... but no. I liked Iris too much to give it up. Then our friend took her side, and never, ever went back to the middle ground. She got her song, all right. But the three of us kept hanging out. We still spent a lot of time together; we were a trio, after all. Little by little and bit by bit I, the youngest in the group, was pushed away and ignored.
For the next three years I was referred to as "wall".
My sister introduced her to some other friends she had made and together they began working on a marvelous story, the telling of which lasted until after they had graduated high school. The characters that they used were from our movie. I was not permitted to play. I was too young and too uncool. And then, on the weekends, when my sister and I would have played together or watched TV, she went over there and they played. I realized that she preferred their company to mine, and that she didn't love me anymore. And sometimes my sister's friend's mother, my mom's best friend, would invite both of us over, and I would go because I loved that house and that family.
I would go into my old friend's room and sit against the wall next to her closet. I wrote, read, and drew a lot in those days. I spoke very little.
I had spent two years trying to get them to like me, and it had never worked. I had done everything they told me to do and then some. I had been funny, supportive, and obedient. Eventually I stopped spending time with the pair and the group of them. If I was forced to go visit on holidays and other such events, I avoided them. I went to room they weren't in. I sat downstairs in the family room, the art room, the TV room, the quilting room. I sat under a table in a corner, in the dark. I had been doing that for months before her mother noticed. They never made me go back.
The movie, of course, never happened.
As this was going on, I had entered middle school and made a whole new group of friends. Why a new group? Simple answer: my old friends had all bonded very closely with the people I introduced them to, because as a rule I never introduced people who I didn't think would get along. In fact, they had bonded so closely that they had begun ignoring me altogether. With my new friends and my fresh stat, I was sure to be happy.
But I wasn't, because when you make friends from six different social groups and you want to spend time with them all at once, you have to introduce them. And they all got along.
Freshman year I went to a different school. I had one friend, a girl I had been in a play with the year before. Two weeks into the school year, she had met another girl. A popular girl, one who she had classes with. Ignoring the fact that I was in all those same classes, she ignored me.
Sophomore year, I'm back to school with my middle school friends, and I learn that they're friends with my sister. My best friend was the only person who kept me sane, because he kept me with him and as such with the rest of the group. It was slow-going, but I was once again among friends. My friends. Not my sisters. I admit though, during that time I did my fair share of befriending her best friends, too. Not out of spite, but because they were such honestly nice and interesting people.
I'll say no more on my social life in high school, because it is just as chaotic and painful and traumatizing as you might imagine. Thing fell apart. And I was replaced, little by little and bit by bit. Time and time again. I can safely say that I was replaced more times than I had friends who could replace me, because I just kept forgiving them. I just wanted them to like me. But I'll never be as good as the next model.
_________________________________________________
So maybe, just maybe, that's why I think I'm replaceable. Not in the way of all humans are, but in the way of the iPod Micro. Do you remember it? No? Most people don't.
It was replaced.
Ja na.
"Sometimes living on the up-and-up means being on the down-and-down." --Lost in Yonkers, Act II
As for the last CHADD meeting I went to, the one where beforehand I was nervous and tense and didn't want to go? Somehow, looking back, I feel that those feelings were justified. I don't feel that I contributed very much to the last meeting. In fact, I felt downright unwanted. Let me describe the scene for you:
Same small church room with the same small stage at the end opposite the doors. This time my dad and I sat facing it. And this time, instead of seven people, there were about, what? Fourteen? Me, dad, the woman next to me, the man next to her, his wife... One, two, three, five, six-seven, eight, nine, ten-eleven, thirteen, fourteen. (Wow I'm good. -Ish.) Anyway, all these people! And not just people. They're all legitimately grown-ups. And there I am, eighteen and two months to the day, and very obviously out of place at what was clearly a parents and grown-ups meeting.
Now, while I may be 18, and I may consider myself (mostly) an adult, that does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that I am "grown-up". Grown-ups have at least seven and a half more years of life experience than I do. Minimum. Of course, even beyond that there is a case-by-case basis.
So what was I doing there? These people (almost?) all had children with ADHD. I still am a child with ADHD. Sort of. Yes, I'm a babysitter. Yes, I'm a Girl Scout. Yes, I'm just as comfortable talking to people older than me as I am with those my own age (sometimes, I think, even more so). These were the thoughts racing through my mind, and there was nothing for me to do, nothing for me to contribute. And then, every time there was that little glimmer of realization that I have something worthwhile to say, I would feel like I was catching sight of someone who was staring at me, as though asking the same questions I already had earlier: what's a child doing here? I was unwanted I was a burden, I was superfluous.
I left the room. I went outside and walked around the parking lot trying not to cry because I hate being unwanted. [More on that in the next post.] Then I started noticing things; there was wind and people walking their dogs, and what on earth breed was that strange little fuzzy thing on a leash across the street? I let my mind wander, embraced the careless, distracted part of me that I had gone there to talk about.
And I did it silently, so no one noticed. I went back inside and listened to every word, piping in every now and then, usually when people were discussing something I had a strong opinion on. Beyond that though, I sat there, half-fuming, half-despairing, all wondering what I could do to feel more involved without feeling like I was interrupting a conversation between teachers/parents/camp counselors/doctors/other miscellaneous authority figures.
If it had been a smaller group, I would have just spoken up and told them that I was feeling awkward. I can be blunt like that, when I'm not feeling like I'm crashing a party with masks and ballgowns and no princes to be seen.
Ja na!
Same small church room with the same small stage at the end opposite the doors. This time my dad and I sat facing it. And this time, instead of seven people, there were about, what? Fourteen? Me, dad, the woman next to me, the man next to her, his wife... One, two, three, five, six-seven, eight, nine, ten-eleven, thirteen, fourteen. (Wow I'm good. -Ish.) Anyway, all these people! And not just people. They're all legitimately grown-ups. And there I am, eighteen and two months to the day, and very obviously out of place at what was clearly a parents and grown-ups meeting.
Now, while I may be 18, and I may consider myself (mostly) an adult, that does not by any stretch of the imagination mean that I am "grown-up". Grown-ups have at least seven and a half more years of life experience than I do. Minimum. Of course, even beyond that there is a case-by-case basis.
So what was I doing there? These people (almost?) all had children with ADHD. I still am a child with ADHD. Sort of. Yes, I'm a babysitter. Yes, I'm a Girl Scout. Yes, I'm just as comfortable talking to people older than me as I am with those my own age (sometimes, I think, even more so). These were the thoughts racing through my mind, and there was nothing for me to do, nothing for me to contribute. And then, every time there was that little glimmer of realization that I have something worthwhile to say, I would feel like I was catching sight of someone who was staring at me, as though asking the same questions I already had earlier: what's a child doing here? I was unwanted I was a burden, I was superfluous.
I left the room. I went outside and walked around the parking lot trying not to cry because I hate being unwanted. [More on that in the next post.] Then I started noticing things; there was wind and people walking their dogs, and what on earth breed was that strange little fuzzy thing on a leash across the street? I let my mind wander, embraced the careless, distracted part of me that I had gone there to talk about.
And I did it silently, so no one noticed. I went back inside and listened to every word, piping in every now and then, usually when people were discussing something I had a strong opinion on. Beyond that though, I sat there, half-fuming, half-despairing, all wondering what I could do to feel more involved without feeling like I was interrupting a conversation between teachers/parents/camp counselors/doctors/other miscellaneous authority figures.
If it had been a smaller group, I would have just spoken up and told them that I was feeling awkward. I can be blunt like that, when I'm not feeling like I'm crashing a party with masks and ballgowns and no princes to be seen.
Ja na!
Thursday, September 09, 2010
"Step back; up in this town, I'm number one..."—Free, Yu Yamada
So I'm a little nervous about the upcoming (read: within three hours) CHADD meeting, which is ridiculous since I was so enthusiastic about the last one... after I got home. And dang it, I was planning on writing a new post all day, and I'm only getting around to it three seconds before I have to leave.
Prime example of the reason I'm going to the meeting, eh? XD
Prime example of the reason I'm going to the meeting, eh? XD
Thursday, September 02, 2010
"Let's get down to business..."—Mulan
The effect my first ADHD support group meeting had on my was profound. When I attended the meeting, I was, for the first time in my life, really and truly validated. For the first time, I was not different from the people around me. I wasn't on a wavelength that was utterly foreign to them, or talking too fast, or picking topics that were too vaguely connected for my words to be followed. I was in a room full of people on exactly the same wavelength I operate on. I was able to glance to my left, see a man messing around with a miniature rubber chicken, catch his eye, and know that he basically knew what my thought process was—because he was able to catch up. In the seconds between when I caught his eye and when I started laughing, he figured out what I thought was so funny! (And it certainly seemed to amuse him, too.)
So yes. I felt validated for the first time in my life because in that room, people who think like me were the majority. You know what the kicker is? I didn't know I had any feelings of inferiority or isolation because I have ADHD until I got home, went to wash my hands, and ended up crying.
I think that's actually the first time in my life I've cried anything close to tears of joy. I felt so relieved. I finally knew that the way I think wasn't abnormal—because I never knew whether my mind was like that because of ADHD, or if I was just a freak. Events in the last three years had caused me to lean unconsciously towards the 'freak' answer.
But guess what? I'm not a freak. I'm not the only person in the world—I'm not the only person in my neighborhood!—that will stand up to go do something, get to where I was going (or not even that far) and have no clue why I got up beyond the fact that I was going to do something. To be so clueless, in fact, that I have to go back, sit or stand exactly where I was and look at exactly what I was looking at and try to think exactly what I was thinking before I remember what I had intended to do!! I'm not.
I'm also not the only one who tends to eat sugar before bed just for the sugar crash. I'm definitely not the only one who wakes up in the middle of the night because, as I was indirectly told at the meeting, the sugar crash that made me sleep had come to an end. One of the great mysteries of my life (literally. No, really, I'm not joking) solved just by listening to three people talking about self-medicating with candy bars.
I'm not the only one who will think of something and get so obsessive over it that nothing else (not even, really, eating or sleeping) is anywhere near as important.
I'm not the only one who has a hard time remembering to call people when I don't have anything in particular to say to them. Not the only one to realize that when said people show up at my door asking if I'm mad at them because I didn't call/text/e-mail/tweet/facebook/what-freaking-ever them that the friendship is probably not such a good idea.
So you know what? If you're reading this and ADHD, or depressed, or god forbid both, like I am, then I in all sincerity urge you to find a support group for whatever your 'problem' or 'condition' is. Joining one doesn't mean you're weak, or screwed up in the head, or a freak. It just means that you can recognize the fact that support would be beneficial.
On another note, this is probably much more like what the rest of my posts will be like for the next few weeks, until I really get a good idea of what I want to say/do.
Ja na!
So yes. I felt validated for the first time in my life because in that room, people who think like me were the majority. You know what the kicker is? I didn't know I had any feelings of inferiority or isolation because I have ADHD until I got home, went to wash my hands, and ended up crying.
I think that's actually the first time in my life I've cried anything close to tears of joy. I felt so relieved. I finally knew that the way I think wasn't abnormal—because I never knew whether my mind was like that because of ADHD, or if I was just a freak. Events in the last three years had caused me to lean unconsciously towards the 'freak' answer.
But guess what? I'm not a freak. I'm not the only person in the world—I'm not the only person in my neighborhood!—that will stand up to go do something, get to where I was going (or not even that far) and have no clue why I got up beyond the fact that I was going to do something. To be so clueless, in fact, that I have to go back, sit or stand exactly where I was and look at exactly what I was looking at and try to think exactly what I was thinking before I remember what I had intended to do!! I'm not.
I'm also not the only one who tends to eat sugar before bed just for the sugar crash. I'm definitely not the only one who wakes up in the middle of the night because, as I was indirectly told at the meeting, the sugar crash that made me sleep had come to an end. One of the great mysteries of my life (literally. No, really, I'm not joking) solved just by listening to three people talking about self-medicating with candy bars.
I'm not the only one who will think of something and get so obsessive over it that nothing else (not even, really, eating or sleeping) is anywhere near as important.
I'm not the only one who has a hard time remembering to call people when I don't have anything in particular to say to them. Not the only one to realize that when said people show up at my door asking if I'm mad at them because I didn't call/text/e-mail/tweet/facebook/what-freaking-ever them that the friendship is probably not such a good idea.
So you know what? If you're reading this and ADHD, or depressed, or god forbid both, like I am, then I in all sincerity urge you to find a support group for whatever your 'problem' or 'condition' is. Joining one doesn't mean you're weak, or screwed up in the head, or a freak. It just means that you can recognize the fact that support would be beneficial.
On another note, this is probably much more like what the rest of my posts will be like for the next few weeks, until I really get a good idea of what I want to say/do.
Ja na!
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