A page from the A.D.D. diaries

Something that has always irritated me is when people say their ADD is getting to them. That stupid overused stigma of starting a sentence and being stopped midway through because you see a squirrel. That's not ADD. As this frustrates me to much because the people that actually do suffer with ADD are overlooked. Yeah, there are those "squirrel" moments, but ADD is so much more than that. I'm constantly dealing with a personal war when it comes to my ADD. There are times when days or weeks go by that I'm not able to kick a certain thought or feeling. I process it over and over and over again. It doesn't matter if I'm in a conversation with someone, in the back of my head that thought is creeping. I try to distract myself with music or conversation, but sure enough I find myself mesmerized by this thing. Nothing is more agonizing than trying to sleep with my head racing. This inability to shut my brain off has me feeling like I'm going insane some days. There are times when I'm too overwhelmed to leave the house because I've conjured up some scenario in my head that I'm just assuming is going to happen because that's where my head takes me. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I also deal with anxiety. But the ADD is what prevents me from moving on. And talking to people? HA. I'm so deep in my head that it's almost impossible to reach me. It's like talking to a zombie sometimes. I'm not intentionally trying to avoid or ignore people...it just...happens. There's no explaining it. It's almost like in the movies when you see the screen freeze and the persons' ghost leaves the body but the body stays behind and keeps doing things. My thoughts are up with that ghost until I snap out of it and the screen unfreezes and that body "rejoins" the conversation. Some days it's like I spend the entire 24 hours in "ghost mode". Days blend together, and it feels like weeks go by before I even realize it. That's where I'm at now. It's been weeks and my friend just made it out of the ICU. You'd think I'd be really excited about that, (and don't get me wrong I'm stoked), but most of me is still terrified for her. She's in no way out of danger and there's still not a thing I can do about it. Mentally I still feel like I did since the minute I found out she entered the hospital. I've not been able to process any of my emotions. I've only been able to go over and over and over in my head all the things that can go wrong.

Work has been my saving grace in all of this. It's a forced distraction. I'm not able to just skip out on going to work because it turns out you can't do that when you're an adult. ...High school did have it's perks. So I'm forced to engage in conversation. It's turned out to be incredibly helpful to be in those conversations. I still have plenty of moments where I feel like I'm wondering around like a zombie, but those conversations have brought me to the now. I'm in the moment. And I find myself genuinely laughing and forgetting about things. I cherish these moments. They are the ones that force me out of bed in the morning when my body feels like it weighs 200 pounds. Even if I'm not completely interested in what the topic is about, it feels good to be a part of something that doesn't need to be fixed or solved. It's just a conversation. There's zero pressure to do anything. I can either laugh or participate or listen, but either way I'm just simply there...living in the moment. 

I've always had this feeling that everyone else deals with stress better than me. Bad things happen all the time, and it never seems like other people around me struggle with those times like I do. It's like they've all gotten the concept that conflict makes you stronger so they embrace it while I sit back and freak out. I don't get it. I know that comparing myself to others is going to leave me worse off, but I can't help but wonder why it feels like everyone else just "gets it". Some people are just wired differently. I'm sure I'm one of those people. I just wonder if anyone else if constantly feeling like I do when things that are out of my control come crashing down around me. Maybe it's because not everyone is as anxious as I am all the time, Maybe it's something else, but I'd like to get to a place where I feel like these things don't dominate my day. I'd like to get to a place where I set aside a few moments to deal with these things instead of allowing it to be on my head all day.