Sunday, July 31, 2011

Living with it

Despite fearing logging on and seeing nothing new, I did so tonight and found a shiny new comment and four followers where there was once only one. And I know for sure one of them isn't just commenting here for the sake of getting me to go over to their blog because, well, it's not public. So before I start, thanks for the support and I'm sorry I ditched this gig back in April.

Before I start, let me say a few things: this is me unedited. Most of what you see in this blog is filtered down, looked over, read through, and basically processed. You know, except for the massive pile of vulgarities (which will be absent from this one I assure you.) Also, before we go on, I have to say that this one isn't going to be all that funny. Yeah, this is a soap box piece and yeah, it's really vain to write one of these this early on but this is how I'm feeling and this is what I'm going to go with.

Living with ADD can lead to interesting stories (go read Hyperbole and a Half (another blog) if you want to see more of those), but it's not all fun and games. I've said it before, this stuff is serious. It may not be as serious as autism or down syndrome, but it's certainly more than just, say, a phobia. This is something that will come in and dominate and even alter the course of your life.

Symptoms range from absentmindedness to developing a bloodthirsty obsession with things which frustrate you. It gets hard to deal with at times.

My mom tells me a story of when I learned to tie my shoes. We were at it for three hours because I could not pay attention long enough. I've had one teacher believe that I was mentally challenged (to the point of referring me to special ed). It's... not always easy.

So how do you live with or better yet, how do you tell your kids how to live with it? Well, there's only one real thing that can happen: You've got to be patient. And when I say patient, you've got to learn to be even more patient than anyone else. You're going to learn to go too fast because you're afraid to lose your concentration or of going too slow, plus that's what you always do--go quickly. Unfortunately, this is just going to cause you to commit more errors. What you need to do is the opposite, you need to take it slow and make sure that you're right. Now, second guessing yourself leads to severe anxiety and you should really try and avoid that because anxiety leads to obsession which is another distraction which is, well, another part of a massive feed-back loop which comprises ADD.

So the best thing to do is to make good habits. ADD people usually do well with habits in my experience. Once you develop it, it becomes hard to get distracted and forget it because it's already something you're doing before you realize it. So habits are good. They'll help you a lot.

The second thing to do is actually to get into the habit of stopping and taking a breath when you feel flustered. If this means inconveniencing people a little, fine. Better you get your nerves under control or your mind on track than to screw up and inconvenience them more. If that's going to be a problem for these other people, alright fine. They clearly are taking for granted something you lack and that's sad but sometimes, people need a second to get it all together.

And the third thing you need to realize is that it gets better. Most people out grow their ADD, although people like me haven't and probably won't, a lot will. Even if you don't outgrow it though, it gets better because you get better. Just being diagnosed with it lets you know what you're up against. It gives you something to fight and become better at. And you know what? I've actually got a strangely crazy good memory for what does break through the ADD barrier, the reason for that being--in my belief, my memory adapted to the lack of focus by just grabbing up everything that came across. I can surprise people who think I'm not listening by listing back to them everything they just said purely for the fact that I barely caught a whiff of it and my memory went ahead and filed it away.

It gets better. You live with it long enough and it gets better. I know, I know. I stole that phrase from the gay-tolerance movement. But it's still true. Anyway, that's all I have for right now. I'm going to make an effort to write more of these but this will probably be the last serious one I'll have for a while.

Thanks again to my subscribers.