I suppose so far this blog is sounding like exclusively an ADHD space. The truth is I didn’t know how I would organize it or what it would become. I only knew that I HAD to write. I have spent so much time running in circles in my head and complaining to everyone I come across about how I want to write a book, but can’t seem to get it out. My wonderful partner in crime (and love) said write a blog, and suddenly it’s like a had a motivation I wasn’t able to find before. Funny how certain things in our lives can tease around our periphery and suddenly one day even though you’ve heard it time and time again, it’s like MAGIC! A lot of things about this love are like MAGIC, you will hear more about it than you care to by a certain point.
I am sitting here at Escape in New Haven with 6 teenage boys. We are here on the eve of my son’s 16th birthday. The fact that I kept something alive this long and he is more than successful as a human being kind of blows my mind to a degree that I can only entertain that truth in small chunks and still be enshrouded with disbelief. Also when I say more than successful as a human being I mean so much more than just his excellent grades or that fact that he is utterly pleasant and charming to be around, I mean so much more. Future blog post…
I just tuned in to another group that finished and the guy controlling the game said “fresh eyes fixes all”, and I liked it. see ADHD 😉
Ok so the real point of this was to share my story with ADHD because this realization and journey is new to me. Well I could more accurately say that new knowledge has made me able to put words and thoughts to feelings that I just tried to manage on my own. It is much easier to cope with things once you understand them better. I like to make connections, recognize patterns, and crack the code on my own personal psyche. (as you can see the game lingo is absorbing into me from sitting here).
A great deal of my life I have spent analyzing myself for signs of trouble. I attribute this to having been around so much chaos and the way it impacted me left me observing with the hope that my life would not feel that way. I wanted to do things differently. My WAY of doing this initially was to closely monitor myself and others for danger. This developed a great sense of conscientiousness (probably an overactive one actually) and character, however there are some drawbacks. Hypervigilance is exhausting and it takes up a lot of energetic space.
This was a real “bear” in graduate school when I was learning Diagnosis. As anyone who has skimmed or been subject to the DSMVI can attest you can easily have a number of things wrong with you that you had never imagined before. Add to this a great imagination with the tendency to automatically go to the worst case scenario and you have a recipe for disaster for sure.
So as a therapist obviously I listen to people’s struggles on a daily basis. One day not terribly long ago a person was sharing their struggle with their bi-polar disorder and was listing some of the negative effects, one being that they hadn’t opened their mail in a month, and various other ways that their life had been effected. I couldn’t help but think well hmmm I often don’t pay attention to my billing or my mail or various other things. I was relating with a lot of other things they said, and since I am often on the look out for mental illness in myself (I was darn willing to create one I was so determined at certain points, glad that part of my life is over) I went on a research path.
As is the case with many things in my life I couldn’t have imagined that just putting a couple of ingredients together and seeking could change so much. What I mean is that being a recovered hypochondriac, now I don’t Google for the terrible. I still Google because I am a curious sort and often an initial search can lead to reputable info on the topic, and I ignore the crazy outlying terror stories that are the exception not the rule. I like to find others with similar experiences etc. So I was looking at 2 main things the possibility of bi-polar disorder and PMS. Over the past couple of years I can literally map out migraine headaches, extreme mood shifts, and various other unpleasantries by seeing where I am at in my cycle. This is something when I was younger I would have poo poo’d as I did not like limitations. I especially did not like excuses for poor behavior, and I saw women who behaved bitchy to others citing their period as an excuse as unsavory.
I ruled out bi-polar because the way I use diagnosis (rarely because I hate them, there will be a post about over-identifying and the dangers of diagnosis) in general is with much consideration. When I do use it I make sure we use it together as a tool to enhance knowledge as a way to come up with more suitable coping mechanisms.
Anyway during my search I found articles that linked things such as ADHD and PMS and their interaction and the Perfect Storm effect of the mixture. I also read similar articles to do with Depression and ADHD and how it is often misunderstood. Here is a favorite: http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/jeff-emmerson-living-with-adult-adhd/depressed-with-adhd/
So many bells rang in my head. So much of the suffering that I endure. For me one of the biggest aspects has been owning my own practice. It is easy to see my Client’s. I love that part. But learning how to create systems for the financial aspects, and how to stay on top of billing is so entirely daunting to me. I will occasionally force myself to get on top of it, but for weeks at a time I will freeze up and do nothing. Then due to this in the back of my mind I am always worried I have neglected something too far.
I actually began to write this post while out at Tyler’s birthday party and since I didn’t finish I am not at an entirely different space with things, and of course with more pieces of the story. I don’t have enough energy to finish this tonight, but I am going to continue it soon for sure. My son turned 16 today. I am so grateful for this. Other aspects of today were not so great. I will be writing about this soon.