ADD and Adulthood DO NOT mix well with each other!

I know the frustrations with the cleaning house and having too much on your plate to really deal with it all. You bite off more than you can chew, but you don’t realize it until you are actually chewing for 10 days straight. It just seems that this year has flown by and there is no time to do anything other than tend to your obligatory items that you've set up.

Laundry is my biggest thing now. If I could just get my laundry done, without staying up till all hours of the night finishing it... I'd be good.. I also know all too well about the forgetting of things... Forgetful is my middle name. I forget where I put my keys down, I forget about things I have to do for work, I forget to call people back (which is NOT a good thing when it comes to work stuff). I forget to write things down so that I won't forget them, and I forget to keep remembering not to forget things.

I am so disorganized with everything I do, that it is amazing that I can actually get up every day and make it to work without forgetting to change out of my pjs. I am beginning to wonder if all of the organizing genes just magically went to my sister, and skipped me completely, and the genes were able to get to my brother although, not as heavily as they did my sister. All I know is that I was blessed with the creativity gene, NOT, the organizing gene. *note to self: don’t forget to google this and see if there are any actual studies on genes that single out organization. Hmmm… Now what was it that I was supposed to remember?

Yes, my medicine does help and I remember what it was like without, and I couldn't even focus long enough to complete a sentence, much less understand one that I was reading or hearing someone speak. Medicine can only help focus on certain things... Small tasks.... But, it doesn't cure it, it doesn't magically take my ADD away and all of a sudden, I'm an average adult without a disability. That couldn't be further from the truth!

I am able to concentrate now, which is WHY I still have my job, and I can focus long enough to get the necessary things done (regarding work, etc...) but I have so many unfinished projects at home, and so many ideas that I want to do something with. I start projects, and then get frustrated, because I want so bad to finish them, but other ideas keep coming to my mind, and I never get anything completed. I know it frustrates the hell out of my parents, because I keep saying.. I'll do that, I’ll get it, I’ll take care of it.. and COMPLETELY forget to do the task that I told them I would get done.

ADD is definitely not conducive to being an adult!!! It's not something that anyone really discusses, and that's the hard part. It’s not like I can go to a coffee shop and overhear a group of people talking about how crazy having ADD as an adult makes you feel. ADD is unspoken about as an adult. Everyone focuses on what it is like for a child to have ADD, but how often to you hear about adults with the Disorder? It’s not like once you hit 18, ADD just disappears and you grow out of it. You have this Disorder for the rest of your life.

I feel like if I mention how my brain feels, people will tell me to just "get it done" and "focus on one thing at a time.." Ummm... HELLO!!!!!! FOCUS ON ONE THING AT A TIME???? That's what people without ADD do... That's what they can do with ease.... They can just "get it done" and not think anything of it.

The way my doctor described Adult ADD to me... Adults with ADD are perfectionists, and when we start something, we try to finish it, and when it isn't finished in the perfect time frame, our brains go on to something different, and the cycle keeps going. He said that it gets to the point that when you want so bad for a room to be clean, so you start cleaning, and of course it looks worse when you first start because you start pulling stuff out of drawers etc... but your mind gets bored, and that task of cleaning that room, turns into an overload, and we never complete that task because it's too overwhelming.

The funny thing is, I can completely organize someone else. I can completely keep all of Bella's records/foods/schedules etc... I can keep those completely in line. When it comes to myself... I can't keep myself organized to save my life. It's so easy for me to organize other people, because I don't have a bond with their stuff. Sit me down in my room, and I'm apt to picking up a sock and go on a search for the other one because it would make a good pair of socks for me to wear to work one day, but during that search, I come across my photo albums, and go through them thinking about old friends etc, so I’ll go email them or call them etc… ......... and the saga continues... side note: I never find the other socks.. Also.. by the time I finish all of the things for work, dinner, dog stuff, I'm too exhausted to care about the other stuff.

People that don't have ADD don't understand what it's like to live in a life where you forget things so easily. Getting Side-tracked doesn't even come remotely close to defining what goes on in the brain when you have ADD. It’s more of a “Detour” that takes you through the mountains and lands you back in a spot that isn’t exactly where you were trying to get to. My life has always been detours, I’ve never taken the straight route to get from point A to point B. More like start at C and maybe go to A, but if B has something cool going on.. I may stop there and forget to go to A.

Point of the matter being....I DO get frustrated so easily with myself. It's so hard to ask for help too. That's my BIGGEST problem, is knowing when to ask for help, because I just don't ask. (I forget). It’s not that I’m trying to avoid asking, I just don’t remember to ask.. I know that for my family, it is incredibly frustrating to live with me. I appear to have all of my ducks in a row, and I often think I do, until someone tells me that one of my middle ducks has gotten out of line. So I do get called out if I missed something.

If you meet me for the first time, no one would ever suspect that I have Attention Deficit Disorder. However, do you ever meet an adult and go up to them and think automatically…. “I bet they have ADD” or “I bet they have OCD”..etc…

I’ll end this here, because I can see that I’m rambling. Adults who have ADD are out there, even though the focus is on children with the disorder. We do struggle, and sometimes feel like we are just kinda hanging out there with no real support, other than a monthly visit for a prescription refill. I know there will never be a 100% cure for this. I do hope for better support systems for adults though.

I will post the story of my ADD a little later on, because I know there needs to be a little bit more background to this post, but I needed this to be on the blog.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

A year ago in August, I was scared of something that was much larger than I could even comprehend. It woke me up to a new world of fear that I had never known prior in my life’s history. I battled this battle internally before I spoke about it. I feared that I had IBC (Inflammatory Breast Cancer). For those of you who know me, I’m not one to just come forth with information about my breasts, but I tell you this, because I hope it will spark you to pay attention to your own breast health. In August of 2006, I developed a low grade fever, accompanied by an itchy rash on my right breast. I didn’t think anything of it for a while, and then the rash grew worse, and a pain developed and the skin where the rash was, changed and the rash was hot to the touch. I started doing internet research, and came across a few images that looked like what was going on with my breast. These images were of women who had Inflammatory Breast Cancer. I held my fears in, and finally, told my mother about it, and showed her, and the concern on her face, made me realize that I needed to see a doctor about it ASAP. IBC is an extremely aggressive form of Breast Cancer that usually, when you start showing signs of it, it is generally so far progressed, that it could be too late.

Fortunately for me, it turned out to be an infection of the lining of the blood vessels in the breast tissue. I kept asking the doctor if he was 100% sure! He kept stating yes, and he was proud of me for coming in to get it checked, because a lot of women our age think that they are invincible to breast issues. He said that I had every right to be concerned, and that for an untrained eye, IBC would have been the first thing to think about. He understood my fears, but calmed them by reassuring me that antibiotics should clear it up.

Unfortunately, for a lot of women; their diagnosis is far worse. A diagnosis that antibiotics couldn’t possibly clear up. Breast Cancer!

Did you know that Breast Cancer is the second leading cause of death by cancer in women today? The World Health organization estimates that 1.2 million people will be diagnosed each year with Breast cancer. Early detection is helping the death rates drop, but we all have to do our part in saving our breasts!!

My message for all of you is to DO WHAT’S BEST AND FEEL YOUR BREASTS!!! You know your body far better than anyone else on this planet. Stay in tuned to everything going on! If you have fears, don’t hold off on going to the doctor. I’d rather be known for over reacting on my health, than not. The fear of not knowing was FAR greater than the fear of knowing!!
October may be Breast Cancer Awareness month, but it’s only one month… For your self, Breast Cancer Awareness should be an every month of every year event!
Know your bodies!!!!

Say it in 5!

I have to admit, I have neglected my blog lately. I also confess that while I stroll through various other blogs on the internet, I feel guilty because that is time I could have spent creating a new blog entry of my own. Instead I live vicariously through the lives of others. It is like Reality TV, without all of the fake dramatic effects. It is real lives of real people. So Blogging is my Reality TV through the information superhighway of course.
First update…. I’m still doing Nutri System. I’m still losing….. I was getting sick of the foods for a while, but I have found that I can add certain veggies to things and it makes the meals a little easier on the palate! So I’m still a loser! :-) GO me!

I have failed to update the happenings during the birthday weekend, as well as neglected to update you on S and S’s wedding weekend in Virginia. To get it all in, and with fear of making short stories long, I have created a list of things I wanted to tell about. I’ve chosen the top 5. :-) Aren’t you proud??

Bella and I met with a dog behaviorist in regards to Bella’s being neurotic (yes, I know it’s me too). Turns out, my dog is nothing but fearful. TO be honest though, I think and feel that Bella puts on an act too. She acts like she’s afraid of things, but, the below video of my dog, would make you believe otherwise. $40 to have someone tell me that, and offer her services.. I’m keeping her name in my book, but Bella seems to have gotten better just from one visit.



After a WONDERFUL weekend out at the lake for my birthday, Mom and Dad accepted an offer on my birthday to sell the lake house. That’s right folks. No more of the Lake days. The lake days may be over, but many memories will be here to stay! We’ve got plenty of pictures and plenty of memories associated with that place. We’ll miss it.





3. My Birthday!!! My birthday was September 24th, and I turned the ripe old age of 28. I can’t say I feel any older. We celebrated my birthday out at the lake (as stated in #2) but on Friday (9/21) I was able to open the BEST gift!!! I FINALLY got a NEW Canon S5 IS camera! I’m in love with this camera! It’s the next step down from a digital SLR, but WOW does it take some AWESOME pictures!!!! I also got some other great gifts from family and friends and I love each of them!!

4. September 29th, I flew up to Washington DC for my friend Stefanie’s wedding. I must have gotten lost about 20 times in that city! I realized upon getting onto the plane in Charlotte, that I managed to remember everything I needed for the wedding…… Minus the shoes.. Those shoes were still sitting downstairs in the den so I wouldn’t forget them, and I walked out and boarded the plane without them. So a. I was lost in a city that I have only visited twice and both times I was under the age of 13. b. I needed to find a shoe store PRONTO or else my sketchers would become my foot attire for the night; and c. Gas station attendants are NO help! I purchased a map, asked the guy at the counter where I was, and got no where! I resulted to sitting in a parking lot of a grocery store and asked the first decent looking lady how to get to where I was going. That lady saved me from an ultimate panic attack! I managed to make it to a huge mall and got a pair of shoes that cost less than $20 (I LOVE payless!!), meet my old roomy Erin and her boyfriend Ernie for lunch and chit chatting. I haven’t seen them in soooo long, that I forgot how much I miss them, and last but not least, I FINALLY made it to my hotel to meet up with Sarah (My other ASU roomy) just in time to get a shower and get dressed to go to the wedding!

Erin and I

Sarah and I

Stef and Shayne’s wedding was BEAUTIFUL!!! It was held at the Thomas Birkby House in Leesburg, Va. Stef is such a beautiful person inside and out, and this wedding fit both of their personalities. We had a great night of dancing, celebrating, and reminiscing on the good ole days. It was wonderful!!!


So that’s my life in a nutshell over the past couple of weeks! I’m trying to remember to post a blog every now and then. Stay tuned for the next time… :-)

Love ya’ll!