The ADD in me

Thirty one years old now. Definitely ADD, still learning to live with my chaos. Here I'll share my tips and my frustrations.

[theaddinme]

Uh...

So I’ve lost a shoe. Not a pair of shoes, but a single shoe from a pair. How is that even possible?

[theaddinme]

A weird day

I feel like the medication didn't work so well today. Wasn't feeling unrested at all yet; literally could stay still all day. Nor was I taking anything in at all :/

[theaddinme]

Sleepy

Friday night I slept about 6 hours; the following day was awful. Sat night about 7, and I feel GREAT today. What's that about?

[theaddinme]

How has your insomnia been doing?

Better. In fact it seems to have more or less gone on the provision that I have a good nighttime routine; that is to say, if I am doing something until 12 I may not sleep until 1/2. But I will sleep.

[theaddinme]

Tip 2: Write EVERYTHING down

Woah. Thanks actuallyadhd​, I now have some extra followers! To the new guys amongst you, I’d just like to add a bit of a disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert of any kind. I am just a guy with ADD who has managed to stay alive for thirty one years and has learnt a thing or two along the way. I still mess up from time to time but often I don’t. I have created this blog as much a learning tool for myself and exercise in self-exploration as a way of sharing what I have learnt to others. Also, I like to write things down.

But yeah, so tip number two is to write everything the fuck down, straight away: If I am engaged in something and it arises that I need to remember to do something else at a later stage, I have learnt to immediately stop what I am doing and make a note of it there and then. By immediately, I don’t mean once the conversation reaches a natural breaking point, I mean at that exact point in time. This is part of something broader that is a really important part of living with a disability; knowing and accepting your own limits alongside your successes. I know that if I leave something even thirty seconds, there is a significant chance that I will have forgotten to do it.

As a bit of a nerd, I use my smartphone in combination Google Calendar,  Evernote and a particularly wonderful task list app that I have been using since 2009 called Remember the Milk. I have quite taken to Siri on my iPhone, because it helps fulfil the goal of immediate record. If you are not as nerdy as me, you might not want to use a gadget. Apparently paper and pen work quite well together (for other people) maybe a little notebook or even a dictaphone.

Getting into the habit of automatically making a note of things means I don’t even have to try to remember to do things, so my brain can focus its energies on the cool stuff in my life, like spending hour upon our scrolling through the videos that people I don’t particularly care about post on Facebook my friends, family and future.

[theaddinme]

Elvanse - side effects

So far side effects have included insomnia, which appears to have abated. Occasional headaches and a tingling sensation in my skin early on in the day. Sleep last night was good and I feel very ready for the day. Going to write another 'tips' post tonight...

[theaddinme]

Oh Dear

I was positive I slept well today, but I’ve spent all day feeling unfocused in the way that I often do if I haven’t slept. Definitely not a good day; just about managed to keep it together but forgetting things ll over the place.

[theaddinme]

So far so good

Focus has been good-ish. A few forgetful moments but no major fuck ups. Seen to be listening to people most of the time and no zone outs yet. Mild headache though.

[thatadhdfeel]

that ADHD feel when you never handed in a piece of homework on time and when your teachers DO ask if something's going on, they think you're just lazy bc "I forgot" and "I couldn't pay attention" are not excuses

[theaddinme]

Hah! My teachers mostly stopped asking...

[theaddinme]

Sleepytime

Seven hours sleep again. Seems like the insomnia is properly settling down thank goodness.

[theaddinme]

The ADD in *me*

Similar to the poster that I reblogged yesterday, my ADD diagnosis means a lot to me as it allows me to give myself a break. My entire life I have known that my brain was wired differently to most people that I had ever met. I have been diagnosed with Dyslexia and Dyspraxia in the past and told that this is where my chaos comes from, but was never entirely comfortable with that assessment. 

When I discovered websites on ADD, it read like a tick-list of problems I had had all my life and I hugely identified/identify with the diagnosis. When I explain it to others, I don’t always explain it well, and often people respond by telling me about their own minor struggles as way of identifying. This is understandable because for some, the symtoms of ADD/ADHD seem perfectly normal when they happen in isolation and only ocasionally. What differentiates me and others with ADD/ADHD is that it is all the time in a way that makes just living a normal life pretty exhausting.

This post is not meant as a moan. I am proud of what I have achieved despite everything and I have learnt to live with many of the issues below. I wanted to write it down so that I had somewhere to go when people are curious and I don’t want to repeat myself.  So below is a list of just some of the ways in which ADD affects me. 

In the last ten years, I have probably lost 40+ wallets. Many of the staff in my local bank know me by name, and I recently had to play the ‘disability card’ (which I don’t like doing) to avoid having my account closed.  When I replace a debit card, I frequently lose it again if I don’t immediately purchase a new wallet. My close friends are fairly used to picking up my coat/jacket/bag/wallet/phone/keys for me as I leave somewhere because I have forgotten to pick it up. My bunch of keys is enormous; a deliberate strategy to stop me losing them.

If I put things in cupboards or drawers, I often forget I own them. This results in, for example, me wearing the same pair of jeans for a month or so because I forget that I have others that fit and look decent.

I cannot follow routes I don’t know without GPS or an exhaustive written list of directions. If I have to ask somebody directions, I will usually have to ask again in about five minutes time.

If I meet people in real life, but I don’t meet them frequently, I probably won’t remember their name the next time I meet them, even if we have met six or seven times. The first few times I may not even remember that we have ever even met. I use Facebook to solve this problem by getting people to tell me who is going to be there and going through their photos in an attempt to either jog my memory or give the impression I remember who they are.

I zone out mid-conversation sometimes. This results in missing chunks of the conversation. I don’t always let on but if it is a complex topic I will often have to bluntly say ‘sorry I just missed the last 30 seconds. Can you back up a bit?’.

Sometimes I can read whole paragraphs or pages and not take in even a single word. I can watch a movie or TV show and not be able to tell you anything about it the next day. The positive side of this is that things have immense replay value.

If I have to remember to do something, I have to immediately write it down because if I don’t, I may well have forgotten about it twenty seconds later. 

I struggle with logistics; for example, I find cooking an immensely stressful process because of the logistical problem of preparing all the food and ensuring all of it reaches the point where it is cooked at the same point. 

I sometimes forget everything that is said in an entire conversation the next time I see someone. This makes it harder for me to maintain relationships with my friends, because relationships are built on shared memories and experiences. 

I become obsessively interested in particular projects (this is known as hyperfocus) but get bored of them once the novelty is worn off and almost always leave them unfinished. 

I have terrible impulse control and often act without thinking about the consequences - this month I spent all of my money in the first week and am having to rely on my parents to buy me food for the rest of the month.

I cannot manage paper. During my school days my homework diary became an embarrassingly scrappy mess of torn and crumpled paper and the occasional entry that I didn’t ever look at again. Unsuprisingly, I continually lost it. Folders and ringbinders I own invariably fall to bits after a few weeks. If I do organise them, the system gets forgotten after a while and everything gets crammed to the front.

This list is not exhaustive and it come in peaks and troughs, affected by factors such as diet and sleep etc. It’s not all negative either; all of this, despite being a pain, is now intrinsically part of me and I wouldn’t want to be any different. Ok, that is a lie, there are some changes I would make if I could. But there is positive things to. I will probably write about them in another post.

[theaddinme]

Ahem

Just to be clear, for those that don't understand Tumblr, the last post was written by someone else but reblogged by me because I strongly identified with some of the things she had written.

[trashconverters-deactivated2015]

So apparently I missed No Shame Day (April 17, which was yesterday in Australia)

Anyway I thought this was a good time to make a shout out to friends with ADHD, which isn’t really talked about much on Tumblr.

I was diagnosed with combined (inattentive/hyperactive) ADHD and Aspergers when I was about 7 years old, which I didn’t really understand at the time, but would cause me a bit of grief in the future.

I was a loud, fidgety kid with no idea of what personal space meant, and towards the end of primary school I noticed my peers had began to avoid me.

My mother had died when I was nine, and I became THAT kid, the one who disrupted class, who threw a mean punch and scared everyone bc I was prone to violence.

I was put into an Autistic school in grade 6, but it really wasn’t right. I was patronized, bullied and told not to pursue my interest in writing.

I was reading at a very high level by then but I was told I wasn’t mature enough to read the Beatles biography I had brought with me on the first day, they took us to the library and I was told I could only borrow books from the kids section. They treated me as if I wasn’t capable of doing anything independently, and I had to ask permission before I brought out or used anything, even pen and paper.

I went to a Catholic secondary school where I felt even more left out. Kids would come to me and ask me questions, and then laugh at me when I answered, bc I’d ramble and my words wouldn’t come out properly. They’d confuse me on purpose, and then laugh at me. It felt as if I was perpetually being mocked, and the school or intergration aides didn’t bother telling the bullies off bc they were male and “boys will be boys”.

The integration aides followed me around like a hawk when I didn’t need help, but didn’t seem to care when I genuinely distressed. They exacerbated a panic attack by telling me I should have studied harder.

I had a breakdown halfway through year 11 and dropped out of school.

I was confused bc I knew I was different, but when I researched Aspergers in more detail it didn’t really fit me.

But ADHD did. I was hyperactive, talkative, obsessive, forgetful, distracted and moody. All of this affected me everyday, I couldn’t sit through a class without daydreaming, I forgot important dates and misplaced notes, wallets, money and anything important. I was constantly anxious about fidgeting around others, and about spacing out and getting lost, or losing something. My whole life was dictated by symptoms of my adhd.

Adhd sucks, but it comes with its benefits. I am an ideas person, my overactive brain never runs out of awesome ideas to write down or draw or turn into song. I am far from shy, and I find people that truly respect me, social situations are a hell of a time. I’m going to a government school now and completing VCE, and I’ve just been cleared to go on meds. I no longer have integration aides, but each of my teachers know I have ADHD and are willing to support me. My psych says my aspergers was misdiagnosed (makes perfect sense).

Now that I know what adhd does, I’ve been able to control my hyperactivity to an extent, and I have a group of friends that respect me.

People say ADHD is overdiagnosed, but my adhd diagnosis is so important to me. ADHD effects your life, and it’s much more than being easily distracted. I am not comic relief or a bad kid. I am inattentive, yes, and hyperactive, but I’m proud. I have NO SHAME.

Peace out!

[theaddinme]

I feel the last paragraph SO strongly...

[theaddinme]

In the zone?

Not a great day. Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure whether that is entirely because I had a bad day focus-wise or because I spent a good chunk of today dealing with inattention related screw ups from previous days. This is one of the really hard things about assessing whether these meds are actually effective; you are continually being visited by the ghost of your past self. In the morning I felt like I was keeping the thread quite well but attention wasn't perfect and certainly not as good as it was on Sunday. Definitely zoned out mid conversation a few times in the evening about 4 or 5 o'clock which I'm surprised at, considering I was told Elvanse lasts 12 to 14 hours.

[theaddinme]

So that is what sleep feels like

Actually slept last night without the help of sleeping pills. Partly helped by the eye mask lent to me by dad. May also have been because I was already exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before, but whatever!

[theaddinme]

Tip 1: Swap closed storage for open

In my life I have lost many things. I have also owned many things that I have then forgotten I owned for periods as long as six months. This is mostly because of the evils of closed storage. That is, storage where you cannot see what is inside from the outside. Generally, if I put something I own into a cupboard, I might as well be storing it in a lockup in Hackney because I am probably not going to remember I own it at the pertinent moment unless I happen to stumble upon it when I am looking for something else.

A few years ago, I lived in a nice little studio flat in Bristol which was divided up by a partition consisting of a large shelving unit containing cubes much like the one pictured above, but bigger. I cannot stress to you how amazingly useful this was for me. I could actually find things! 

Essentially the moral of the story is - if you are as chaotic as I am, use shelves rather than cupboards where you can. If you must use boxes, choose transparent ones. It might look a little cluttered to some, but this way you are continually bombarded all the time with reminders of what you have and where things are kept, which makes it a lot harder to forget.

[six-foot-two-phanchild]

am i alone in having adhd and not really being able to hyperfocus??

[theaddinme]

I'm not sure it is something you can necessarily control. The point is that it just happens sometimes in a way that isn't always productive.