Tag Archives: ADHD

Journalish Entry

27 Saturday Jan 2018

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inky hand

Who’s procrastinating? I am! I am!

My still foggy brain figured out how to add the photo and still have text next to it; faithful readers with sharp memories will notice this as a new skill. Yay me!

I’ve been depressed for most of the past two months–Christmas cheered me up, which makes me feel shallow and trite, but there it is. (Can a person be trite? Sure they can. We’ve all been trapped at that business dinner.) It’s not that I spend hours gloomily musing on Being and Nothingness, it’s more that I don’t know what to do. (As in, read a book or play a game. As far as Being and Nothingness goes . . . ) Worse, once I figure it out (if I do), I spend seemingly hours getting it done because I am far more easily distracted than usual. This is a common symptom of depression, but I have ADHD, so who can tell?

I am open to suggestions. I can’t take meds, because I either have a weird reaction to them, or they might make me manic. (Trust me–or trust those who’ve been close to me–you don’t want to see me manic. I don’t do anything amusing like start new religious movements, but I do end up in the hospital. Pity. Being manic feels great! Which is why it’s so hard to treat.) I am working my WRAP plan. But here’s the hell of it: If I am trying my best, if I am doing something borderline productive (like blogging), it means I’m having a good day. If I’m having a bad day, I can’t even focus on a video game. Arrghh.

In other news: Although I have been faithful to my protein shake breakfast, to the point where it now feels normal, I’ve only lost about five pounds. I had it pushed a little lower, but the holidays snuck two pounds back on. Sigh. (This matters because I am due for bariatric surgery this spring, and I must lose 16 pounds so they can maneuver around my massive fatty liver, cuddled around my stomach like a protective bloat of tick.) However, I have dropped my application off at the Y, and the guy who Does That will come back from vacation any day now. Sigh. Seeing as I don’t get a surgery date until I see their shrink (March) I have some time. It’s only 11 pounds, right?

Tribe of Tiger (this year’s NaNo and the third in the kitty series–Eureka, published here, is in the same world but is not strictly canon) is SO close to being finished it’s a bit scary. I’m at the point where the next two or three paragraphs will wrap up the main action. There must be a name for this feeling that I should kill somebody off for it to be good art!

I’ve been doing more visual art lately–got involved with an art journal challenge. Seeing as I wimped out on Inktober, I would have been more reluctant, but, golly mo, my daughter makes those blank books! So I begged one that had some invisible flaw, and have been having a great time. Sure, I’m behind, but it’s an improvement over Inktober’s 12-day performance. (To be fair, what slowed me down then was lack of scanner access; I learned from this mistake and have been doing just fine snapping pix from my phone.)

OKCupid (deliberately not linked because drive-bys) used to do this thing where they made you pick three words to describe yourself. So I guess right now they’re fat, depressed, and creative. I could do worse.

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Colossal Lack of Insight! Film at 11!

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

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For the past couple of months, I’ve been getting the looming feeling that Something Big was about to happen. I was going to (moan) Grow. I’m not given to premonitions–historically, I’ve made most of the decisions in my life in the split second before they came out of my mouth, surprising myself well over half the time. (Work in progress, folks. Medication helps.) So I started to worry that something weird and horrible was going to happen.  Didn’t think it was the upcoming surgery. Then the thing just did, and I didn’t even realize it until a few minutes ago.

Yesterday I went to my shrink of the past seven years, and she told me she’d gotten a well-deserved promotion and was stepping away from clinical practice. Translation: I’m getting the boot. I have a couple more sessions; she suggested enthusiastically that she be the one to talk to the bariatric people; and then I take a two-month hiatus. I’m going to need all the support I get post-surgery, and I know that, even if I’m not anticipating the psychotic break some previously-blogged-about hospitals did. So I will be starting off with somebody new.

I said something about my premonition, and said in all seriousness that I would want to continue talk therapy when it hit. I said this with absolutely no self-awareness that THIS was it; that it already had hit. I mean, duh? This thought just wandered into my brain 22 hours later.

I owe a lot to this woman. Speaking broadly and with political incorrectness, I was still crazy when I got to her, and now I’m not crazy anymore. When you’re starting off with more than one major psychiatric disorder, that is huge. The process wasn’t as emotional as my previous therapy had been–you know the sort, where I ended up a small child coloring while sitting on the floor, therapist down there with me–but little by bit, she helped me tease out about a million little things, and my life became less chaotic. We did a lot of good work, and I am a happier and much more productive person for it.

In the novel of my life, a chapter (or a story arc) is ending. Something Big, indeed.

(But what was up with the premonition? Are they going to keep happening now? Noooo!)

The Scariest Thing to Ever Happen to Me

20 Friday Nov 2015

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Sitting here at the computer, having just posted a catch-up blog for the first time since July. I’ve been depressed for that long. Sheep. No job is worth living like that; what was the point to work really hard to become mentally well if it was only to become mentally ill again?

The idea of quitting a PAYING JOB terrifies me; appalls me with its stupidity. It was only a part-time job–I knew that I couldn’t handle anything more, at least until my recovery got stronger, so luckily I didn’t lose my disability. I won’t starve, and there is a roof over my head. What amazing luck! How glorious a miracle! For reals, that sentence always makes me feel like I’ve won the lottery. I guess skipping some meals so your kid gets to eat and becoming homeless–twice–changes your perspective.

Anyway. The scary thing. I’ve just realized that–I have to write. And possibly do other art. It would be swell if I find a way to monetize that, but if I don’t, I am choosing to give up the luxuries of clothes shopping and always being able to eat out (somewhere cheap). If I don’t, I’ll get sicker; I might die. And I don’t want to die.

I have a strange little life, being mentally ill. My plans just changed at the last minute this morning, and for a few minutes my ADHD had a tantrum while it rebooted. Hate that. I would love to be spontaneous, but my brain chemistry has different ideas. I have to work around that every day. It’s a challenge to just be me, let alone living life on life’s terms. Why make it even worse?

If you’re not an artist, you may not understand this; if you are an artist, then you will: We are wired differently. If we don’t create, we wither and die. Our growth stops. Our joy vanishes. And then we start looking at knives and pills with a certain longing, as we calculate the odds: How much longer can I stay alive just for Them? Because staying alive for US is about as appetizing as the freezer-burned bargain-brand burrito you forgot about last June: A hard thing to swallow; we chew each day, trying to overlook its taste of cardboard.

I was definitely in the burrito stage, realizing at the end of each weekend that I had to go back to that place. At last the tears broke through my concrete facade and I told my boss (who has been the main thing keeping me in the job; I stay because I love her) that I wasn’t coming in this week. We have next week off anyway; by its end I will have exercised (and exorcised) my rusty, weeping brain by finishing my NaNoWriMo project, and I’ll see if I’ve built up enough residual joy to garner a few more small paychecks.

Very small paychecks: All they buy are the depression force-feeding me the bargain-brand burritos, pre-wrapped in neglect; only in my field they all smell faintly of unwashed bodies and of urine.