I went and saw Sommi today. He's been my doctor my entire life and it's awesome to have a familiar face to spill all my problems to. After he caught up on all the important stuff ("How was your trip? How's your brother? Any boyfriends?") I told him all the stuff that's going on (read: wrong) in my brain and that I think it might be something bigger than just me being bad at being good at things.
He thinks it might be ADD/ADHD too, and was surprised at how I hadn't addressed it sooner. He was also super great about making me not feel like a creature made of broken parts (Does your doctor hug you? I bet he doesn't. Dr Sommi is awesome.), because apparently a lot of people have undiagnosed and untreated ADD/ADHD.
There are three routes to go:
1. Treat it yourself, like with a self-help book.
Two Christmases ago my mom gave me the Idiot's Guide to Organizing Your Life. For my birthday last July she gave me the Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough and Getting Out of Debt. Despite all my good intentions, and despite piling them on top of all the other books so I see them on a near daily basis, do you think I've read even a chapter of either? No, of course not. So I don't think a book full of self-motivated exercises is the way to go. Not right now, anyway.
2. Get some drugs.
Sommi wasn't opposed to giving me a trial prescription for something to try to help me with my concentration issue, and I have a feeling meds are probably going to come into play at some point, but as always I'll leave them as a last resort. I also know that some of the common ADD meds out there (e.g.: Adderall) are super highly addictive. And while I don't have a super-addictive personality (chocolate and internet and lipgloss, but not much else really) and I don't use recreational drugs, I'm still sketched out about anything that's been labeled as a narcotic in some countries.
3. Get a proper diagnosis from a psychiatrist, and go from there.
I chose this route. Even though ADD is common and it sounds like I probably have it to some degree, I don't want to start treating something until I know for sure I have it. And as Sommi mentioned, it could always be something else. Maybe I'm completely batshit crazy! I'm sure some of my exes would vouch for that.
So in the next couple of days I'll be told when my appointment with a psychiatrist is (hopefully it's days or weeks and not months), and we go from there.
I just want to be normal!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Something is Wrong With My Brain
I've long known I get easily distracted, I procrastinate too much, I rarely accomplish things on time and often don't accomplish things at all. I'm a packrat and I get overwhelmed by all the stuff and things around me.
But recently I've started to wonder if there's something more/worse going on, possibly to the tune of ADD/ADHD. While I definitely don't want to be diagnosed with a mental illness, albeit one that's common and treatable and won't make me a social outcast, I think that whatever's wrong with me has got to be more than just me being a scatterbrain and disorganized. Feeling like I can't ever accomplish anything unless it's supremely interesting has got to be more than just the result of bad habits.
So I did something horrible. I Googled the symptoms of ADD/ADHD in adults. It's like the internet wrote eighty million pages on what's happening in my brain. I got super overwhelmed reading through it because it felt like someone got in my head and looked at how fucked up it feels all the time and wrote it all down. Reading things like "inability to focus on anything repetitive or uninteresting" and "constant 'chatter' in your head" and "poor money management" and "chronic lateness" made me get all panicky and start crying. Seeing "tendency to cry easily" didn't help any.
Regular person:
-realizes responsibilities
-writes a list of things to do
-prioritizes items on list
-accomplishes items (mostly) in order
Sam
-realizes at the last second that she has things to do
-trusts her brain to remember them
-forgets 50% of things that needed to be done
-does one of the things that needed to be done
-feels supremely great about the one thing that did get done
-goes to bed with a false sense of accomplishment
-wakes up the next day panicked that nothing got accomplished and now there's even more to do than before
-goes to the gym
-decides to make a list
-has lunch
-has a nap
-makes a list
-misplaces list
-makes a new list
-leaves the house forgetting said list at home
-tries to manage without list
-fails miserably
-repeats cycle on a daily basis
As a perfect example of my dysfunctional mindset, this post (although obviously you can't see it now) was written in disjointed chunks as my brain thought of everything at once and my fingers tried to keep up.
Everything I do happens that way. I'm always forgetting laundry in the washer for days and then it smells all funky and then I have to rewash it. My oil changes are often a few thousand kilometres overdue even though I'll think of it every time I get in the car. I go to Superstore at least three times a week because I'm too impatient to wait until I have a reasonable list of things to get and I'm always forgetting some of the few things I'm specifically going for. I find it nearly impossible to sit still, and rarely finish watching movies. I miss every important play when watching sports games because I was talking or reading the menu or trying to figure out what that guy's t-shirt says, and then I'll forget to watch the instant replay. Sometimes I'm surprised that I'm even capable of driving.
If I have to be somewhere an hour away at 8 and I have to get gas and it takes me an hour to get ready, I can figure out that this means that I need to start getting ready at 5:45. At 6 I'll realize I'm already running late. At 6:15 I'll start getting ready. I'll finally leave the house at 7:30. Then I'll forget that I need gas and go the wrong direction. And because I'm cheap, I'll turn around and drive back the wrong way to where gas is cheaper. Then I'll forget which exit I need to take and have to make a detour. Then I finally show up at 9pm.
I talk too fast and I write too fast and I do things too impulsively and I lose my train of thoughts and I buy things I shouldn't and I forget to mail letters and I accidentally bought shampoo instead of conditioner and now my hair is tangly and I can't sit still and I can't turn off the radio station-like noises in my head and I forget to respond to messages and I spent an hour rolling pennies and and I have all these good intentions of getting lots of things done and I just can never seem to manage. Ever. And it's driving me crazy. And now it's driving everyone around me crazy too.
So I'm calling Dr Sommi tomorrow to get this shit figured out. It's on my list. Wish me luck.
But recently I've started to wonder if there's something more/worse going on, possibly to the tune of ADD/ADHD. While I definitely don't want to be diagnosed with a mental illness, albeit one that's common and treatable and won't make me a social outcast, I think that whatever's wrong with me has got to be more than just me being a scatterbrain and disorganized. Feeling like I can't ever accomplish anything unless it's supremely interesting has got to be more than just the result of bad habits.
So I did something horrible. I Googled the symptoms of ADD/ADHD in adults. It's like the internet wrote eighty million pages on what's happening in my brain. I got super overwhelmed reading through it because it felt like someone got in my head and looked at how fucked up it feels all the time and wrote it all down. Reading things like "inability to focus on anything repetitive or uninteresting" and "constant 'chatter' in your head" and "poor money management" and "chronic lateness" made me get all panicky and start crying. Seeing "tendency to cry easily" didn't help any.
Regular person:
-realizes responsibilities
-writes a list of things to do
-prioritizes items on list
-accomplishes items (mostly) in order
Sam
-realizes at the last second that she has things to do
-trusts her brain to remember them
-forgets 50% of things that needed to be done
-does one of the things that needed to be done
-feels supremely great about the one thing that did get done
-goes to bed with a false sense of accomplishment
-wakes up the next day panicked that nothing got accomplished and now there's even more to do than before
-goes to the gym
-decides to make a list
-has lunch
-has a nap
-makes a list
-misplaces list
-makes a new list
-leaves the house forgetting said list at home
-tries to manage without list
-fails miserably
-repeats cycle on a daily basis
As a perfect example of my dysfunctional mindset, this post (although obviously you can't see it now) was written in disjointed chunks as my brain thought of everything at once and my fingers tried to keep up.
Everything I do happens that way. I'm always forgetting laundry in the washer for days and then it smells all funky and then I have to rewash it. My oil changes are often a few thousand kilometres overdue even though I'll think of it every time I get in the car. I go to Superstore at least three times a week because I'm too impatient to wait until I have a reasonable list of things to get and I'm always forgetting some of the few things I'm specifically going for. I find it nearly impossible to sit still, and rarely finish watching movies. I miss every important play when watching sports games because I was talking or reading the menu or trying to figure out what that guy's t-shirt says, and then I'll forget to watch the instant replay. Sometimes I'm surprised that I'm even capable of driving.
If I have to be somewhere an hour away at 8 and I have to get gas and it takes me an hour to get ready, I can figure out that this means that I need to start getting ready at 5:45. At 6 I'll realize I'm already running late. At 6:15 I'll start getting ready. I'll finally leave the house at 7:30. Then I'll forget that I need gas and go the wrong direction. And because I'm cheap, I'll turn around and drive back the wrong way to where gas is cheaper. Then I'll forget which exit I need to take and have to make a detour. Then I finally show up at 9pm.
I talk too fast and I write too fast and I do things too impulsively and I lose my train of thoughts and I buy things I shouldn't and I forget to mail letters and I accidentally bought shampoo instead of conditioner and now my hair is tangly and I can't sit still and I can't turn off the radio station-like noises in my head and I forget to respond to messages and I spent an hour rolling pennies and and I have all these good intentions of getting lots of things done and I just can never seem to manage. Ever. And it's driving me crazy. And now it's driving everyone around me crazy too.
So I'm calling Dr Sommi tomorrow to get this shit figured out. It's on my list. Wish me luck.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Dad Quotes
33 years of working in mills means my dad is hard of hearing. But rather than asking "Pardon?" he just spits out whatever he thought he heard, in the form of a question.
Like just now:
Dad: "Supposed to be a nice day tomorrow, 23 degrees."
Me: "Ooooh it went up a degree!"
Dad: "You want to buy an effigy?"
Other gems include:
Me: "It's Ryan Phillippe."
Dad: "Who's that?"
Me: "He's an actor. He was married to Reese Witherspoon."
Dad: "He was made a new citizen?"
During one of our many milk debates (I like skim, he likes straight whipping cream):
Sam: "Can't you just put Creamo in your skim?"
Dad: "Don't you wanna put a staple in the tent?"
Dad was talking to Will about Will selling his truck:
Dad: "What are you going to do with $2500?"
Will: "Go to the Phillipines."
Dad: "Build a guillotine?"
Like just now:
Dad: "Supposed to be a nice day tomorrow, 23 degrees."
Me: "Ooooh it went up a degree!"
Dad: "You want to buy an effigy?"
Other gems include:
Me: "It's Ryan Phillippe."
Dad: "Who's that?"
Me: "He's an actor. He was married to Reese Witherspoon."
Dad: "He was made a new citizen?"
During one of our many milk debates (I like skim, he likes straight whipping cream):
Sam: "Can't you just put Creamo in your skim?"
Dad: "Don't you wanna put a staple in the tent?"
Dad was talking to Will about Will selling his truck:
Dad: "What are you going to do with $2500?"
Will: "Go to the Phillipines."
Dad: "Build a guillotine?"
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