Bad, Bad Blogger: The Excuses

Bad excuses are worse than none.
Thomas Fuller

I know, I know! It has been eons since I last posted, but life has been a bit hectic. (Though considering I have about 3 readers...) New school, new job, new class to set up. And I got hired THREE days before school started. Then my parents came to visit. Fun times had for all. Made me realize how much I missed the near constant contact I had back in California. Ah well, such is life. Then, the stupid router went out! No router, no internet access on the ole laptop. Aargh! So, no posts up til now. I have some ideas knocking about in my brain, so I will return to flesh them out in the very near future! Caio!

Tuesday's Post Today

You must look within for value, but must look beyond for perspective.
Denis Waitley

National AD/HD Day was on Tuesday. And of course, I forgot! Actually I knew, but couldn't focus enough to get my thoughts enough to write down anything meaningful. And, yes I DO have ADD. Not AD/HD. No H.

Therefore in honor of the day, which I forgot, and because I am still in an ADD addled, writer's-block minded funk, I am going to borrow, nay steal, the words of my blog friend Doug, who has put into words my mood so much more succinctly than I am capable of right now. (Forgive me Doug!)


"Perspective is important for anybody to enable them to survive, but for people with AD/HD it is imperative. Many of us also struggle with mood swings or depression. Some of the moodiness can be attributed to success or failure due to accidents (Yeah, I'm often accidentally successful. Don't you just hate that?), but sometimes our minds are simply out of whack. We need to remember that we are not our AD/HD. We are separate from it. There is a core YOU, and there is the other part of your mind that likes to hang a "Kick Me!" sign on your back when you're not looking. No? Well, look at it another way. Sometimes we who have AD/HD identify with our failures as being who we really are. I found long ago that whenever I do that I simply set myself up for further failure, and here I was doing it again. If ever there was a case in favor of rose colored glasses this would be it.

Back to today, when I saw on my calendar it was National ADD Awareness Day a part of me said "whoopie..." Give me a real holiday like Christmas or Halloween, but National ADD Awareness Day? Nobody hands me free candy for having ADD. In fact, don't they take away your candy on days like today? Or was that just second grade? Anyway, as I restructure my life and ramp up for a new onslaught of weekly bloggy goodness I thought it was worth mentioning what it was I was going through lately. Maybe like me you've forgotten to cut yourself a little slack or you know a loved one who has. Those of us with AD/HD sometimes need help stepping outside our lives to get a new perspective so we can see what is going awry.

We focus so much on failure sometimes we forget that our minds are working against us. That is what is important for me to realize today. We need to remember from time to time what we're up against so we can stop beating ourselves up. We also need to be determined enough to make changes in our lives, which can be difficult. However, epiphanies are meaningless unless we implement them. My epiphany helped me see that I needed to recommit to a schedule. That has been transforming to my productivity. AD/HD may account for what a mess things have been lately but only dedication and perspective are going to straighten me out again. That and a whole lot of elbow grease."

Personally, I need more than an epiphany right now. I think I also need to remember to take my meds.

This is a poor attempt to cover up my plagiarism. To see the post in its entirety visit The Splintered Mind.

Med-itations

The medicine increases the disease.
Virgil

I hate taking my meds. I know that there are times that they do make me feel alot better. And there are times when they make me feel more focused and sane. However, there are many times when I feel that they drain all of my essence out of me. I feel like a faded image of my former self. That all the life, all the spunk, all the creativity has disappeared and left this empty shell.

A.D.D.endum

Everyone I know has attention deficit, and they say it with great pride. It's a bad time to be right.
Joni Mitchell

So it has been three months since I was first diagnosed with A.D.D. My doctor put me on a drug called Wellbutrin that is supposed to elevate my mood and help me focus better. However, I don't think it is quite working the way that it should. When I take it (and I don't always remember to take it) my mood is definitely uplifted. I am also able to see things from a clearer perspective. And THAT is the problem. Pre-A.D.D. I knew that I was kind of scattered, kind of cluttered, but I was able to get through life in a somewhat absent minded fog. I was, some might say, the classic ditzy blonde. Now post-A.D.D. I am taking the meds and everything is definitely clearer. However, it only seems to illuminate every fault and every flaw. My blissful oblivion has become a woeful cognizance. My clutter has become chaos. My lack of focus has become an excess of distraction. I have traded in delight for distress, contentment for resentment. I can't seem to get anything under control...my chores, my schedules, my temper, even my laundry. Everything seems overwhelming and unmanagable. I almost welcome my once complaisant absentmindedness. It is better than my current self-deprecating cognizance.

No Focus

Focus is a matter of deciding what things you're not going to do.
John Carmack

I can't seem to focus on anything right now. This week I have a week off. There are all these projects lined up in my mind and this week would be a perfect time to get them done. Yet I haven't been able to finish a single one! I have started a few, but always seem to get sidetracked. Or distracted. Or discouraged. Or overwhelmed. I think my house even looks worse than it did before I started! If that could be possible. Now, it is late Thurday afternoon, and my vacation is almost over. What do I have to show for it? What have I accomplished? NOTHING!

A.D.D. and Me

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. - Mark Twain

My doctor has diagnosed me with adult A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). Funny. I had never thought of myself as being A.D.D., but when I was rereading the symptoms it was like looking into a mirror. I have always felt a sense of failure and self inadequacy because I couldn't not be organized, was always a bit scattered, terribly messy. Of course, I cannot use this as an excuse for my failings, but at least I can live with the fact that they may be biological and not pyscho-emotional in nature. Will it make things easier? Or will it just complicate my already complicated life even more? Only time will tell.