That's my STORY and I'm Sticken To It!

I told you all last week that I would tell you the story of my ADD. It has taken me some time to completely understand that having ADD has made me who I am today. I warn you ahead of time, this is long, but well worth it!

Growing up, I was never what one would consider the “Academic” type. I did very poorly and never made the grades that my friends and siblings did. I was the quiet, shy, sweet natured girl who sat in the back of the class to avoid getting called on. It was my way of trying to be inconspicuous. I have never been the “organized” neat freak, and I probably never will be. I was tested for learning disabilities at the recommendation of teachers and administrative officials at my junior high school. I just wasn’t doing well, and because I “Looked” smart, it was expected that I would be brilliant in the world of academia. The psychiatrist who tested me, while, generally sweet, put me in a small testing room; gave me a pencil and a book full of activities to complete. All of the “test” questions seemed to lean on the “creative” side. I have a very creative brain, and was able to come up with creative answers to those test questions. After the series of tests, the psychiatrist called us and wanted to meet with us. I chose not to go, because I didn’t want to know if I would be “LD”. Well, instead, my parents went, and came back with the kiss of death answer. (This is NOT in anyway my parents fault… this was the psychiatrist who didn’t go further into testing) I was completely normal with an “above average” intelligence. My brain leans towards the “creative” thought process (really.. No kidding!!). So the psychiatrist confirmed what the teachers had been telling everyone… That “Christie just didn’t want it bad enough.”, “It’s just being Lazy.”, “She’s a Daydreamer”. Those words haunt me still. The truth is, I did want it bad enough. I mean, really, who in the hell wants to fight with their parents every time a progress report comes out or a report card comes out, and there is a D or an F on there? Why would I put myself through the torture of upsetting my parents like that? I would make A’s and B’s in art classes, English classes, and electives, but only because those are my strong points, they allowed my brain to work to it’s advantage.
Well, High School brought on new challenges, none of them too devastating. My Junior year brought on an opportunity to do a group research paper. Our group selected Attention Deficit Disorder. My section of the paper was to research the symptoms of ADD. I found very little research on this, due to the fact that ADD was just starting to be recognized globally. What I did find, were definitions of what my life was like. It wasn’t just your classic text book symptoms, these symptoms defined me! After the project was completed, I took my knowledge home, and got up the courage to actually ASK my parents to be tested for this. They thought that I had been tested for ADD already, and so they declined it. I kept pushing, and upon my persistence, they agreed to get me tested in the fall of 1996.
I remember the day very clearly. September 29, 1996, it was raining, and my mother and I were called back to the doctors office and asked to sit down in two chairs that faced his desk. My folder sitting there with my name on it opened to a diagnosis sheet. I remember that he started off by talking about recommendations, and frontal lobe differences etc…. I remember specifically asking him to stop, and proceeded to ask him “So you mean, I have this?” and he nodded and said “Indeed you do!”. The moment he said that, this boulder that had been sitting on my shoulders since I entered grade school, began to lift off of me. I wasn’t lazy, I wanted it bad enough, and I wanted to prove to everyone that I was not stupid! I got a euphoric sense of relief the minute the diagnosis was handed to me.
The ride home was somewhat somber, and I looked over at my mom, and she had tears in her eyes. She kept saying she was so sorry, and kept asking the dreaded “What If” questions. “What if you would have been diagnosed earlier?”, “What if we could have changed these learned behaviors to help you?”… I looked at her, and said that this diagnosis was NOT a bad thing, and that they can’t blame themselves! They did what they could to find out what was wrong with me. They never expected the same things from one child to the next. They had individual expectations for all of us, which I think helped me in the long run. They did what they thought best at the time, with the information they had received from various different individuals. I know that was a blow to my parents, however, I’m thankful that we finally had an answer!
I was put on Adderall (this was prior to the XR), and life seemed to fall into place. My senior year in High School was one of my best. I got a main roll in a play, I did very well on my Senior Exit Project, I wrote my own play, and I developed friendships that have lasted me into adulthood, and I scored pretty well on my SAT. Graduation Day, I got my diploma, and when I went to meet my parents after the ceremony, I cried.. I cried hard. No one really understood what that diploma meant to myself and my parents. No one really knew the struggles that I had encountered along the way. That diploma stood for every teacher that told me that I did not want it bad enough! It stood for every teacher that believed in me, and encouraged me along the way.
I decided to go to Community College and do a transfer program. This allowed me to stay on track with things, and allowed me to transition easier into a mainstream college atmosphere. After two years of community college. I was accepted into my dream school. Really, one of the only schools that I really applied to! I was to become a student of Appalachian State University. My first semester there, I did great! I was on a roll, and second semester, I did okay, still not 100%, but better than most! I lived in the dorms, and had a great roommate. The atmosphere of ASU was amazing! I loved it up there! My second year there, I moved into an apartment with three other roommates. I don’t know what caused my downward spiral, but I hit a wall. All of the euphoria of the diagnosis had worn off, and I remember sitting in my room in my apartment, crying. I used to hide away in my room, and just not come out. Everyone wondered why, but I couldn’t tell them, because I didn’t even know why.
That summer, I decided to attend summer school, but even that didn’t do anything for me. I decided to come home and go to community college again, and figure my life out. I failed miserably. The depression hovered over me, and I was MISERABLE! 9/11 occurred, and I felt guilty for being so down, because all of these people had just lost loved ones, and the country had lost so much, and here I was just sitting there feeling sorry for myself. I stopped taking Adderall because I stopped getting the results I saw when I first started taking the meds. January of 2002, I decided to change doctors, and seek out a counselor. I saw the counselor first, and the minute I sat down on the couch, she asked me how I was doing, and the tears just came from somewhere deep inside of me. I allowed myself to be vulnerable in order to heal. That was the best decision I have ever made. I was diagnosed with Depression, and turns out, the original dose of medicine given to me, was far below what I should have had. My new doctor put me on 40 mgs daily of Adderall XR.
I ended up getting a great job at a daycare, and when life felt like it was getting better, I decided to go back to school at ASU. The summer of 2003, I went back to Boone, NC and started taking classes. I did great with my summer classes, which geared me up for the Fall semester. That when it all hit me again… School was not my strong point, and I was too old for the “College” lifestyle, that just about everyone in Boone lives. Somewhere in those 2.5 years I had been gone, I grew up. I learned lessons, and I knew what I wanted and what I didn’t want. So Fall of 2003 was my last semester in Boone, NC. I came home, and found an EXCELLENT job that I am still at, and I love it. I don’t regret not finishing up school. I have so many different classes under my belt, that one of these days, I can go back for 2 years and I could have three degrees. I don’t think I’m to that point yet though.
My story is never ending. For the people who told me that I was lazy, and who told me I didn’t want it bad enough, and that I just wasn’t made for it…. Guess what… I’m thanking you in this post! If it weren’t for you… I don’t know if I would have tried so hard to prove you wrong. I use your words for ammunition whenever I come across something that myself or others think that I can’t do…. I do it! My failures in life have equaled one great Success.. and that, is ME! :-)

The following is a poem that someone sent to me and I thought it compliments this post quite well!

In Trying Times Don’t Quit Trying

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But with a chuckle he replied,
That “maybe it couldn’t” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t do so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with a trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried, he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done. And he did it.

Somebody scoffed: “Oh you’ll never do that,
At least no one ever has done it.”

But he took off his coat and took off his hat
And the first thing he knew he’d begun it.
With the lift of his chin and a bit of a a grin,
If any doubt rose he forbid it;

He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t’ be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you,

But just buckle right in with a bit of a grin,
Then take off your coat and go to it.
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That cannot be done, and you’ll do it!

-Unknown

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.