"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!