ADD

ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
Many people do not understand ADD, many don’t even recognise it as a condition. ADD is very real, and can be very hard to live with in your adult life. It is a neurobiological disorder, which doesn’t mean that sufferers are all fit for the loony bin… It means that it’s something that is very hard to control. Sometimes, hard as you might try, you have NO control over it whatsoever. There are very definitive symptoms of ADD, symptoms, individually, that could be characteristic of many things. But an ADD sufferer will usually exude most ALL of these symptoms and sometimes other more annoying ones. You can’t just diagnose yourself by these symptoms, diagnosis consists of having had these symptoms from childhood into adulthood followed by psychological testing. Here are the symptoms (not to be used to diagnose yourself):
-Distractibility
-Procrastination
-Anxiety
-Mood Swings
-Relationship Problems
-Interrupting Others
-Disorganisation
-Chronic Lateness
-Depression
-Employment Problems
-Substance Abuse
-Incomplete Projects
-Forgetfulness
-Chronic Boredom
-Low Self Esteem
-Restlessness
-Fidgeting
-Losing Things
Whereas I suffer from all of these things aside from chronic lateness, I have an additional symptom of mild obsessive compulsive disorder… It’s special, let me tell you!
I was put on Ritalin in my teenage years. I have never suffered from hyperactivity, which most people associate with Ritalin. In truth, the Ritalin never helped me much. I suppose it suppressed one of my many annoyances, like being anxious all the time. But, as I got older and couldn’t afford to have a regular prescription of Ritalin, I used it recreationally in a sense. That is to say, I used what pills I had sparingly so I could make them last me. When my ADD was especially bad, I would take one. Which just served to make me extremely happy for a while, then very upset afterward. Most people know you can’t take pills in this way, you have to take them regularly to keep the drug in your body so it can do it’s job. I just couldn’t afford to do that at that time.
I don’t use my ADD as an excuse. Although, when I’m having a particularly bad day and my actions are extremely erratic and I’m easily annoyed, I feel I have to explain my behaviour is due to my ADD and I’m unable to control it at that time. At which point, I’m usually given a sceptical or disbelieving look. As if to say, ‘Your ADD is just an excuse, you CAN control your actions.’ No, I can’t, not always. It is very frustrating to me, to be acting a way I don’t want to act, but I don’t have any control over it. Even more frustrating to me, is to have people regard me as a liar, or as if I’m making excuses. NO ONE, unless they have ADD, can possibly know what it is like to be in my head on a daily basis.
I watched a program on Tourettes Syndrome the other day. While ADD is nothing like Tourettes, I’d liken these people trying to control their tics in public to trying to control your ADD from interfering with your life on a daily basis. When these people with Tourettes get home, they go into a room, all alone and get all the tics out that they’ve been holding in all day. I try to hold my ADD in all the time, it’s nearly impossible. I write to get it all out. I try to write constructively, but sometimes, I write just for myself and that is more like a never ending tangent or rant! It’s how I get all of my frustrations out. I try to hide the internal crap that I endure on a daily basis from the rest of the world. Don’t get me wrong, I have ADD, that is who I am. I try not to let it define me, but it is an integral part of me, of who I am. To love me, you have to love my ADD. You have to put up with me needing constant reassurances that you still like me, that I don’t annoy you, then me interrupting you when you try to answer me because I’ve just thought of something that I HAVE to tell you. Or you trying to tell me something and me constantly thinking about other things while I am desperately trying to listen to you, not because you bore me, but because I have the hardest time concentrating on one thing and sitting still to concentrate on that one thing that I’ve soon forgotten what it even was in the first place that I WAS trying to concentrate on, because I can’t remember anything!
My mind is CONSTANTLY going! I have a million and one thoughts running through my head at any given moment. I try to grasp just one of those thoughts, hold on to it, remember it, so I can tell you about it. Then it’s gone, sometimes before I ever got it out of my mouth.. Sometimes I blurt out utterly random things, something we weren’t even talking about, but in my head, I had what I call a ‘chain of event’ thought… Where I’ve linked something we were talking about to this, then it reminded me of that, and it was related to that other thing that I thought of at some other time and by the time I blurt it out, you have no idea what I’m talking about! So, if you want to know what it’s like to have ADD, I will let you inside my head for TWO MINUTES and two minutes only. I will let down all the defences I keep up all day long so people won’t know… Here is two minutes inside my head…
The filter on the fish tank is going, that filter really annoys me, the fish are so dirty, I hate reaching my hand into the tank it’s disgusting. It’s raining, did I leave the door open, because if I did the floor will get wet. Did I lock the door? If I did, did I check it three times? If I didn’t check it three times then it’s going to annoy me all day because someone might be able to break in if I didn’t check it three times! I’m glad we’ve been getting tissues, I don’t like using paper towels on my nose and I don’t like going into the bathroom to get toilet paper, it’s so much handier to just have the tissues right here, beside the computer. I really don’t like the web cam we have! Trev wanted that thing so bad and it was expensive too and it’s a piece of crap really, I don’t like it! I have all of this spring cleaning to do! Where will I start? I’ve started already but there is so much more to do and I just want our house to be clean!!!
That was two minutes inside my head as fast as I could type it! Is anyone any more enlightened than they were when they first started reading this? This is me! Like it or lump it!