*beep*
I’m struggling with the publicity level of this post… I’ve been sitting on it now for about two and half weeks… but I’m learning this is nothing more to be ashamed of than one’s own hair color or shoe-size.
I inferred months back that something was wrong… and it was getting worse… a lot worse… It started about a year ago when the noise of nicotine withdrawal started releasing it’s talons from my head…
What were once what I figured personality quirks due to my dad dropping acid in college, (or whatever), started evolving.
I started spacing out *completely* and as hard as I tried to pay attention….. to anything: A movie… A conversation…. Entire weekends.. I just couldn’t.
I’d just “check out” – off elsewhere thinking about this, that and the other. I’d tell myself that I just had a lot on my mind…
I’d been reading up to that point about “mindfulness” – figuring I had a problem with “presence”… (piecemeal of course because I’d never been able to finish a book… but I’ve read half of a LOT of great books).
/digress
This all came to a head a couple of months ago when I attended a Nikon DSLR seminar a local retailer was having.
Interesting subject material… The speaker was engaging, (not to mention woofy),… the program wasn’t late at night either – only 6PM.
Twenty-five minutes in, I started dozing off… it was all I could do to stay awake…. and at that moment I was rushed with memories of college…. and high school… and earlier…. I *never* could stay awake for any kind of lecture…
A few weeks later I’d find myself sitting in a sparsely decorated psychiatrists office wanting badly to fiddle with the wooden toys on the table before me – but paranoid that might make me look crazy…
Doctor Bhuyan, (a round and rosy featured Indian woman of 5 decades and some change) – sat and watched me while I filled out tests… asked me questions… and scribbled in a manila folder labeled “Jim Corbett”.
I’d discover later a lot of un and/or miss-diagnosed children with ADHD who make it to functional adulthood have extraordinary coping and adaptive abilities…. (The ones who don’t tend to be the ones you find in prisons)….
They also tend to self medicate…. like with nicotine….. caffeine….. alcohol…. marijuana….
Bhuyan was noncommittal about my smoking cessation leading to this profound emergence of latent symptoms. My father’s doctor, (the one *he* sees for AADD) – is quite certain it’s related.
Yes… my dad’s doc… and if you’ve done any reading on the subject – you know that this flavor of brain-wiring is genetically influenced.
duh jim… all the hints have been there all along… It just took a while to put it all together… wrap it with a bow and give it a name.
I can’t explain the liberation that comes through diagnosis.
*It* has a face now… a name… no longer this mysterious source of frustration.
Yeah – it sounds like cop-out… Some would say that – including myself prior to beginning this journey.
I don’t think I should clutter up the public, or friends-only feed of my journal with blow by blow ruminations along the road to successful AADD management… If you *do* want to ride along – drop a comment and I’ll create a filter group… ESPECIALLY if you’re also living with this… because it’d be really wonderful to have (identify) friends who’s brains are of the same flavor.
Shrinky-dink and body-doc are comparing notes before any medications are prescribed… Meanwhile – I’m reading what I can… This book is proving to be really helpful… It’s written in touch-n-go “ADD-friendly” style – and also stresses that the condition shouldn’t be seen as pathology – but rather as a series of traits… some bad… but also good ones too like creativity, the ability to cut straight to and grasp the core meaning / essence of things, zany personalities, unusual senses of humor, oh look… a chicken!