This is for people who don't really know about me or the way I think. For people who, specifically, don't understand the thought processes of someone with depression and anxiety disorder. I hope that having one specific account from one specific person helps clear up any question you may or may not have had.
Now, then. Tonight I'm auditioning for a role in a play at the semi-local community theater I've been volunteering at for.... Hmm, going on four years now (please note that I still mark years by when school starts). So yeah. I've read the play. I know the writer. I know the building like the back of my hand, even though, being a theater the exact layout changes fairly often. I've been in, what? Ten, thirteen actual plays and more skits than I could ever possibly count.
First, a bit of background: I’ve been involved with theater off and on—mostly on—since I was nine years old and eagerly participating in the after-school play. During the period of time from fourth grade to freshman year, I did just about everything there was to do, from acting to (admittedly rudimentary) set and costume design. I was in drama class for three years, first at my middle school and then my first high school. I was cast in both after-school productions during my time in middle school. I thoroughly enjoyed those three years in Drama, but decided not to continue studying theater after I transferred schools due to unfortunate circumstances... But oh wait. I can actually say this without having people freak out on my and send me in for evaluations!
Okay, people. I had always disliked the drama teacher at my new school, from before I entered junior high. However, I loved working in theater enough to try and put that aside. I signed up for Theater II and on the first day of school walked into the auditorium with happy anticipation curling in my gut and my head held high. Class started and within five minutes of the bell ringing he called my friend a cow. A cow. One does not call troubled sixteen year old girls with body issues COWS. But he did. And he remembered me from when I had (almost) inadvertently humiliated him in from of potential students two years before. He didn't say anything, but I could tell her remembered and he could tell I did, too. Thus began my sophomore year drama class.
I didn't last three months.
In under three months, I probably missed fourteen or fifteen of his classes. Sometimes I missed a whole day, sometimes just Drama. Now, why did I not attend class, you may want to know. Well, friend, let me tell you:
I couldn't walk into the auditorium without inevitably, instinctively
looking
for
a
way
to
kill
myself.
And there was no shortage of methods, considering the tools left scattered around by the Technical Theater class who were building the set for the upcoming play and the catwalk that I knew how to get up on and any number of other things. I remember turning in one assignment in all my time in that class: it was part of a group competition-type thing. The teacher shut me down four minutes into my presentation. "Okay, that's enough. Next, please," like it was a freaking audition. I dropped out of the class. More to the point, I attended school on a day I had that class and then sat in the waiting room of the counselor's office until I could talk to my counselor. They asked me to go to my class and told me that they would send a note to get me when he could see me. I said something along the lines of "I would, quite literally, rather die". (Not five minutes after saying that I was sitting across from my counselor. Imagine that.) By the end of the period I was all set up to go to study hall during the time I would have been in Drama, and I was happy as a clam.
The day I quit was also the day a large group presentation was due. I hadn't really known any of the people in my group. They were all older and smarter and, worse, they actually liked the teacher I was so afraid of. Regardless, the assignment was due. I didn't go to class, so I obviously did not turn anything in. As I walked across the patio to get to my friends, a girl I had known for years stood up from her table. "Ditcher," she accused. Another girl from the class looked over at me, sighed in a highly visible and dramatic fashion, then shook her head. I was frozen on the spot. It was the first time since coming to that school that anyone had drawn attention to me, that anyone had called me out, so to speak. More names were called, more accusations that I can't even remember now—something about hiding from responsibilities and being a coward who abandons people. I had no idea what to do, and I remembering being so, so, so relieved when two of my friends, one of whom was the one who had been called cow on my first day of school, seemed to see what was happening and walked over to get me, to rescue me.
Or so I thought. 'Cow' chatted happily with the drama kids who had been attacking me while the other girl took my hand and my lunch and led me over to where we were sitting. she sat me down and handed me my lunch and asked if I was okay. I told her something along the lines of "I'm sure I will be" and then 'Cow' swaggered over to us. (I didn't even know she could swagger, but she did.) She asked if I had really dropped out of class. Thinking back on it now, I can't even figure out how she knew I had been planning to drop out of class, but she did. They both did. And when I said yes and told them I would have study hall and, man, I couldn't believe that Stephenie had actually said all that. Now, both of these friends also quite liked the teacher, and knew I didn't. The one in class with me knew I was on edge when I was in class and how many days I missed, just not why. Worse yet, she has panic disorder too. And she looked at me contemptuously and sneered,
"I can. You deserve it. What were you thinking, dropping out of class like that? You can't just do that!"
I blinked at her, astounded and very, very confused. I looked to my other friend.
She shook her head; I was getting no help from her, apparently. "You should have gone to class," she told me. "You should have stuck it out. All you did was run away. You're supposed to face your problems, otherwise you'll never grow as a person."
Well, thank you, T., for deciding the future of my mental/emotional/social state for the rest of my life. I really appreciate it. NOT.
I stammered a few things, something like, "But, you don't understand..."
"No, you don't understand. What you did was wrong. You shouldn't have quit class..."
On and on it went. For a week those two and a few others pestered me about dropping out of class. They accused my of cowardice, laziness, disparaged my integrity, and otherwise alienated me until I finally sent one of them an IM saying something along the lines of "You want to know why I @$#@$ dropped out of Drama!? Because I couldn't walking into the %^&* auditorium without !%&$# WANTING TO KILL MYSELF.
"THAT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON FOR YOU????" 'Cept I didn't use symbols then. I used words. And let me tell you one thing: It was supremely satisfying after a week of putting up with their crap.
They got off my back after that, all of them, so I can only assume that she sent the IM around our group of friends despite her promise not to breathe a word of what I told her to anyone. I know for sure that she told her entire family, because her little sister came up to me and asked me if I was feeling okay just a few days later.
Fast forward a month or two. That other Drama friend, the one not in in class, asked me to be the sound technician for a play at a local community theater. I worked sound for two plays that year, and have since continued volunteering there, working primarily as an usher and, when called upon, a stand-in sound technician. I love doing that. It's nice. Nicer when I was the only one in my family who worked there because it was something all of my own that gave me a nice, golden-warm feeling in the vicinity of my heart, but there's nothing I can do about that now. And hey, at least now I don't have to feel bad for having them drive me there all the time, because now it's not just for me. I guess.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
"Someday, I'll be living in the big old city and all you're ever gonna be is mean"—Mean, Taylor Swift
I'm learning that support groups are called 'support groups' because they are full of people who, well, are willing to support you. Not that I assume everyone at every meeting would help me when I needed it—sure, they'd call nine-one-one if I was coughing up blood or something. No, I wouldn't expect these perfect strangers—aside from one night a month—to support me. And, for the most part, I haven't needed it.
Last month's meeting was the exception.
I had woken inanely early that morning after going to sleep stupidly late (I can't recall whether the fault was my own or that of good old-fashioned insomnia) and was just generally very... off. I'd had an appointment with my psychiatist that same day, first time seeing her in months, and that had gone really well. (This was something of a surprise considering the weight of dealing with my falling-to-pieces relationship remaining firmly in the same place it had occupied for the previous month, but not so much because I've been seeing this woman for six years and she has always had the answers. Tangent, MOVING ON: )But the issues had started before I left the house. Namely, I didn't want to leave the house, didn't want to go to the appointment I had asked for. No particular reason, I just... didn't want to.
Okay, I REALLY didn't want to. But that's not the point! The point is that I had a tenusous hold on my emptions already and just when I had decided not to go after all my dad told me that we were running so late that there wasn't time for him to drop me off before the meeting. You can probably imagine how I reacted, but for those of you who can't, here's a pretty good imitation:
-__-
That's right, people. I was Not Amused. The fact that we were late because we were at the comic book store getting my latest Power Girl graphic novel didn't mean anything. That didn't make it better. We pulled into the church and saw, what, one other car there? Right by the doors, too, not in a parking spot. But I recognized the car. My dad pulled into its usual parking spot, and I flipped. By flipped I mean I had a Grade-A 'What-the-heck-do-you-think-you're-doing-this-is-so-freakin'-wrong-Park-somewhere-else-NOW-please' OCD moment. I almost started crying. Or maybe I did start. Tears didn't actually fall, so I leave whether I was crying or not to the readers' discretion. Needless to say, my dad moved the car—he probably decided that it just wasn't worth fighting about.
Bladdee-blah, some stuff happened that I don't remember. I do remember my dad getting just a tad exasperated and walking away, conversation done. I started crying before he'd walked three feet, but that hardly matters, does it, when someone's back is turned. No. So he didn't see and I just kept crying, quietly at first, then not so quietly. (If you think I cry a lot, you are absolutely... right. Maybe.)
Luckily for me and my dignity (what little was left at that point) I noticed the approaching person before they got within three feet of the car I was huddled up in. I had just enough time to suck it up like a big girl before she kocked on the window or whatever it was she did. I opened the door and we talked. We talked about my blog; she told me she had read an commented on it and thought that it was good. I put aside my comic book and wound up the cord to my earbuds. She told me that she was very sorry I had had such a negative experience the month before and that that many people in one meeting was veritably unprecedented and they had a plan for what to do if it happened again. I unbuckled my seatbelt. She told me that she really valyued my input at the meetings and pointed out something I knew but wasn't sure anyone else had noticed: that as someone who had very recently lived through (and kind of still am, being the age I am) the trials and tribunals of school life with ADHD I had a totally different kind of advice to offer people. I turned in my seat to face her more. She told me about an awesome option available at the school I'm going to attend where I can do some volunteer work, help her out for x number of hours and actually get school credit for it or something. (Which is pretty darn awesome.) And she (unknowingly, I think) did something that my parents have been trying to figure out how to do for four years with an if-not-quite-then-very-nearly 100% rate of failure.
She talked me out of the car.
Now, I have missed many a school day simply because I was so afraid of the boig, bad world that I couldn't leave the car. (Yes people, 'paralyzed with fear' is a literal phrase, not an exaggeration. DO NOT argue with me on this. Just a friendly warning.) Getting to leave a car I have decided, even subsubsubsubsubconsciously, to stay in is next to impossible. I'm not actually sure myself what it was in all the layers of reassurance that actually got me to stand up. At some point towards the end of our conversation my dad came back outside and very, very studiously ignored the conversation (mostly).
Anyway, I went inside, chatted a little, and became very invovled with a best undisclosed number of Red Vines, a few of which I used as straws for my root beer (a surprisingly good mix) much to the amusement of those who actually registered what I was doing. More people came; people I knew! We talked. There were jokes. More people. We got down to business.
I'm learning that I really dislike the introductions. It's the same people, so I don't want to recite teh same lines and bore them, but my story is fairly simple. Each time I insert some random little factoid or tic to keep it interesting. I've been to three meetings and I'm running out of ideas. This doesn't say much for my acclaimed imagination, but hey. I may not be particulary creative, but I'd still rather eff things up myself. So I suppose I'l just figure something out at the next meeting. And at least we aren't playing name games for ice breakers. No, we just wait for someone to crack a joke. I'm finding myself quite inspired byone of the men who attends these meetings; he rambles on very coherently (though that may be the ADHD in me speaking) until his wife puts her hand on his knee and hushes him. He gets in about three more sentances before he stops, though. ;P
Past the introductions, everything went really well, I think. I mean, certain people seemed not to get the answers they were looking for, but this time I was able to buck up, gather my thoughts, and present them in a if-I-do-say-so-myself-and I-do orderly fashion with surprising ease. I answered question they didn't ask of me, because I was there and I deserve to be heard, dangnabit (don't ask, that's just how I spell it and I'm trying really hard not to swear on this blog)! o, anyway. Last months' meeting went, I think, really well. I hope that at the next one the have the same, amazingly delicious peppermint bark. Or whatever it's called. I swear, I don't care how early it is—and I'm one of the people who refuses to listen to X-mas music until after Thanksgiving dinner is over—those things taste like freaking Christmas. Can you say, yummy? Very good.
But yeah. Went really well, and I think that, with these people there and supporting me, even if they aren't going out of their way to do so or even realize it (unless they all read this), I'll be able to take everything in stride again. I'll be able to talk. Though admittedly, sometimes it's better I keep my mouth shut, because there are some really acidic/caustic things that come to mind at times. Not usually at the meetings though. But still. Yeah.
Random thought of the day: I'm incredibly amused (and to be honest, a bit intrigued) by the fact that I can read a 300+ page novel in two sittings, but it takes 17 hours, three locations, and no less than twelve transitions from sitting to laying down and back again to finish a single publication of Cosmo. And I don't read all of it (some so-called articles are just too mind-numbing)! I guess it's that whole selective focus thing?
Ja na!
Last month's meeting was the exception.
I had woken inanely early that morning after going to sleep stupidly late (I can't recall whether the fault was my own or that of good old-fashioned insomnia) and was just generally very... off. I'd had an appointment with my psychiatist that same day, first time seeing her in months, and that had gone really well. (This was something of a surprise considering the weight of dealing with my falling-to-pieces relationship remaining firmly in the same place it had occupied for the previous month, but not so much because I've been seeing this woman for six years and she has always had the answers. Tangent, MOVING ON: )But the issues had started before I left the house. Namely, I didn't want to leave the house, didn't want to go to the appointment I had asked for. No particular reason, I just... didn't want to.
Okay, I REALLY didn't want to. But that's not the point! The point is that I had a tenusous hold on my emptions already and just when I had decided not to go after all my dad told me that we were running so late that there wasn't time for him to drop me off before the meeting. You can probably imagine how I reacted, but for those of you who can't, here's a pretty good imitation:
-__-
That's right, people. I was Not Amused. The fact that we were late because we were at the comic book store getting my latest Power Girl graphic novel didn't mean anything. That didn't make it better. We pulled into the church and saw, what, one other car there? Right by the doors, too, not in a parking spot. But I recognized the car. My dad pulled into its usual parking spot, and I flipped. By flipped I mean I had a Grade-A 'What-the-heck-do-you-think-you're-doing-this-is-so-freakin'-wrong-Park-somewhere-else-NOW-please' OCD moment. I almost started crying. Or maybe I did start. Tears didn't actually fall, so I leave whether I was crying or not to the readers' discretion. Needless to say, my dad moved the car—he probably decided that it just wasn't worth fighting about.
Bladdee-blah, some stuff happened that I don't remember. I do remember my dad getting just a tad exasperated and walking away, conversation done. I started crying before he'd walked three feet, but that hardly matters, does it, when someone's back is turned. No. So he didn't see and I just kept crying, quietly at first, then not so quietly. (If you think I cry a lot, you are absolutely... right. Maybe.)
Luckily for me and my dignity (what little was left at that point) I noticed the approaching person before they got within three feet of the car I was huddled up in. I had just enough time to suck it up like a big girl before she kocked on the window or whatever it was she did. I opened the door and we talked. We talked about my blog; she told me she had read an commented on it and thought that it was good. I put aside my comic book and wound up the cord to my earbuds. She told me that she was very sorry I had had such a negative experience the month before and that that many people in one meeting was veritably unprecedented and they had a plan for what to do if it happened again. I unbuckled my seatbelt. She told me that she really valyued my input at the meetings and pointed out something I knew but wasn't sure anyone else had noticed: that as someone who had very recently lived through (and kind of still am, being the age I am) the trials and tribunals of school life with ADHD I had a totally different kind of advice to offer people. I turned in my seat to face her more. She told me about an awesome option available at the school I'm going to attend where I can do some volunteer work, help her out for x number of hours and actually get school credit for it or something. (Which is pretty darn awesome.) And she (unknowingly, I think) did something that my parents have been trying to figure out how to do for four years with an if-not-quite-then-very-nearly 100% rate of failure.
She talked me out of the car.
Now, I have missed many a school day simply because I was so afraid of the boig, bad world that I couldn't leave the car. (Yes people, 'paralyzed with fear' is a literal phrase, not an exaggeration. DO NOT argue with me on this. Just a friendly warning.) Getting to leave a car I have decided, even subsubsubsubsubconsciously, to stay in is next to impossible. I'm not actually sure myself what it was in all the layers of reassurance that actually got me to stand up. At some point towards the end of our conversation my dad came back outside and very, very studiously ignored the conversation (mostly).
Anyway, I went inside, chatted a little, and became very invovled with a best undisclosed number of Red Vines, a few of which I used as straws for my root beer (a surprisingly good mix) much to the amusement of those who actually registered what I was doing. More people came; people I knew! We talked. There were jokes. More people. We got down to business.
I'm learning that I really dislike the introductions. It's the same people, so I don't want to recite teh same lines and bore them, but my story is fairly simple. Each time I insert some random little factoid or tic to keep it interesting. I've been to three meetings and I'm running out of ideas. This doesn't say much for my acclaimed imagination, but hey. I may not be particulary creative, but I'd still rather eff things up myself. So I suppose I'l just figure something out at the next meeting. And at least we aren't playing name games for ice breakers. No, we just wait for someone to crack a joke. I'm finding myself quite inspired byone of the men who attends these meetings; he rambles on very coherently (though that may be the ADHD in me speaking) until his wife puts her hand on his knee and hushes him. He gets in about three more sentances before he stops, though. ;P
Past the introductions, everything went really well, I think. I mean, certain people seemed not to get the answers they were looking for, but this time I was able to buck up, gather my thoughts, and present them in a if-I-do-say-so-myself-and I-do orderly fashion with surprising ease. I answered question they didn't ask of me, because I was there and I deserve to be heard, dangnabit (don't ask, that's just how I spell it and I'm trying really hard not to swear on this blog)! o, anyway. Last months' meeting went, I think, really well. I hope that at the next one the have the same, amazingly delicious peppermint bark. Or whatever it's called. I swear, I don't care how early it is—and I'm one of the people who refuses to listen to X-mas music until after Thanksgiving dinner is over—those things taste like freaking Christmas. Can you say, yummy? Very good.
But yeah. Went really well, and I think that, with these people there and supporting me, even if they aren't going out of their way to do so or even realize it (unless they all read this), I'll be able to take everything in stride again. I'll be able to talk. Though admittedly, sometimes it's better I keep my mouth shut, because there are some really acidic/caustic things that come to mind at times. Not usually at the meetings though. But still. Yeah.
Random thought of the day: I'm incredibly amused (and to be honest, a bit intrigued) by the fact that I can read a 300+ page novel in two sittings, but it takes 17 hours, three locations, and no less than twelve transitions from sitting to laying down and back again to finish a single publication of Cosmo. And I don't read all of it (some so-called articles are just too mind-numbing)! I guess it's that whole selective focus thing?
Ja na!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
"It was like somebody else had the remote to my brain and they kept changing the channel before I wanted them to."—Canada Gold, 'The Thousand' by Kevin Guifoile
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!
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!
"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!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
"Okay, introduction time!"—Hikaru Shindo, MKR
I got the idea for this when I attended my first support group meeting, which, I must say, was extremely beneficial (the meeting, not the idea). By 'this' I mean, of course, a blog that relates my experiences with ADHD. Namely my own. At some point in the last two weeks, though, it occurred to me, 'Why stop there?'—because that isn't my only 'thing'.
No, I lucked into my own particular brand of alphabet soup. Right along with ADHD comes OCD and potential ODD (my parents and doctors were never quite clear on that one so I don't know for sure), and, of course, a few intimidating phrases that merrily strolled into my life after I turned twelve.
Clinical depression. Panic disorder. Anxiety attacks.
There there are my tongue-twisters: Entomophobia. Haptephobia. Amaxophobia. Kosmikophobia. Needless to say, I've had a lot of therapists in my comparatively short life. And I think they would support this venture of mine.
On another, happier note, I write. I write because I am a writer, like other people are leaders or are teachers or are historians. It's not just what I do, it's what I am, down to the very last speck of protein in my eyelashes. If you're really all that interested, I do have some of my writing posted online, at fanfiction.net—one of my favorite sites. Which does mean that I often write things based on ideas others have had first, such as my favorite show, One Piece. I write a lot of OP fiction.
I fully intend to be a published novelist, which brings me to another point: I have no issues with my given name, but It's too long and not all that catchy. The name I use on ff.net is Yumi, though that is not my full user-name. Delia Dawn in the pseudonym I intend to use once published.
I fully intend to be a published novelist, which brings me to another point: I have no issues with my given name, but It's too long and not all that catchy. The name I use on ff.net is Yumi, though that is not my full user-name. Delia Dawn in the pseudonym I intend to use once published.
I must say, I haven't decided yet if I'll tell the woman in the support group about this. I may; I may not.
Let's see how it goes from here.
Ja na!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)