I am not
quite sure what I am going for here, so please bear with me.
There are a lot of things that I want to say. I may ramble and seem
like I go nowhere, but then again, that is ADD. Within these pages I hope
to inform, enlighten, and maybe humor you. Yes, ADD is and can be a good
thing. There are a lot of pitfalls that go with ADD and I will share
some of those with you as well.
"My Story"
I was just
diagnosed about six months ago, yet I have had this all my life.
I am a 30 year old wife and mother of two. I have my own business
(self-employed) and I think I do quite well. I have battled with
what others have called "Depression" all my life. I have been diagnosed
four times with depression in my lifetime. I always ignored it and
did not do anything about it. But, when my youngest child was born
I decided that I needed to do something about my mood swings, temper, "mental
impairment" in general. Well, needless to say I was diagnosed
with depression again. I took SSRI (seratonine reuptake inhibitor/
antidepressant) drugs for almost a year. They did absolutely nothing
for me. Yea sure, they helped a little bit, but not what everyone
was expecting. Well anyway, I was helping a friend of mine with her
ADD and getting diagnosed, the whole bit. About six months later
we finally figured out that I have ADD. It took a lot, but I was
finally diagnosed with ADD. I just want to tell you that it made
me FREE. The bible says the truth will set you free, and the
diagnosis of ADD set me free. I finally had a "name" for what was
"wrong" with me. I was finally able to get to the bottom of it all
and get it all figured out. YEAH!!!
Well, my
family did not take it as well as I did. I was told that I was just
going with the crowd doing the "in" thing, that I was using this as an
excuse for my "bad behavior", and the list goes on.
I was devastated.
I finally got some "good news" and no one was happy for me.
Well, needless
to say I am still struggling, but I think I am making headway. Now
that I know what it is, I can do something about it. I have to relearn
a lot of habits and behaviors that do not work for me. For those
with ADD, life is not lived like the rest of the world. We need to
manage things differently, we need to just "DO" things differently.
We need to figure out what works for us and just do that. We cannot
be expected to do things the way "normal" people do, it just will not work.
I have found
a job that works very well with my ADD. I am a self-employed medical
transcriptionist. I work from my house so I do not have to deal with
other people on a regular basis. I can work when I want and do as
much or as little as I want. I do not have to answer to anyone.
This is a faaabulous job for me.
I am still
struggling with how to manage my family life. Because of my "hyper
focus", sometimes it is hard to do the things that I need to do versus
the things that I want to do. But with time, patience, and monitoring
of my medications, I sure hope to get that fixed soon.
Housework
is one of my worst areas. I cannot seem to keep a clean house.
I used to be able to when I was single, but since adding a husband and
two children not to mention a few animals to the household, it has gotten
to the point that I cannot keep up. It is not for a lack of trying
mind you, but ADD people are not good with housework. I am still
working on how to manage this area. My husband is amazed though,
because the house can go to shambles for weeks, and then one day I can
manage to clean up the entire house top to bottom and make it look faabulous.
He still wonders why I cannot do that all the time. Boy, I wish I
could to. Managing this is going to take time and practice.
To all of
those who have ADD, congratulations. It is not easy, but just knowing
is half the battle.
Please go
to my links page (when I have it done). There are a lot of wonderful
web sites out there with hoards of information about ADD.
ADD coaching
and support is essential. I thank God that He gave me a wonderful
friend who understands and is supportive of my diagnosis of ADD.
Together she and I are tackling this. We have just recently starting
going to a support group close to where we live. Acutally, it is
about two hours drive from us, but it is sure worth it. It is nice
to hear "I understand that." It is also very nice to see a face of
understanding and to hear "yea, me to." I cannot tell you what a
relief it is to finally have someone "Validate" my ADD.
Well anyway,
I have rambled on long enough, although I doubt that I have given hardly
enough information on the subject.
Oh, do you
like my background? I picked it out special.
My friend
(lets call her Sparky) and I have an old saying. It goes like this:
"Oh, look at the pretty birdie." Sound
familiar to anyone?
Well, hopefully
soon I will have a little more "important" information for you. Please
check back again and again.
Well, that
is all for now.
Thanks for
visiting and listening (reading) my ramblings.
