Zander's Inside Voice

This morning I chose to wear my Holderness Family “ADHD is awesome” shirt. I regret this decision as I had a crazy, scattered day. I’m not saying the shirt caused it, but maybe it did.

Most of the time I am super upbeat and positive about having ADHD. It was awesome to finally get the diagnosis last year. It was a painful process to get to the diagnosis with an ass of psychologist. (He does have a PhD, which he made sure to tell me repeatedly.) Thankfully I only had to see him that one time and he did actually do the testing after telling me first that ADHD is an over-diagnosed scam hellbent on medicating perfectly normal little boys who don’t want to sit still and THEN announcing that he was 100% sure I have it when I told him that I can drink a 16 ounce Redbull and fall asleep immediately. The look on his face was priceless. He told me that one 8 oz Redbull sent him into heart palpitations and he was up the entire night. Cool story, bro, can we do the testing now?

I digress…yes, I am upbeat and positive because most of the time it seems to be a good thing having ADHD. I can bounce between multiple things, multi-task like a machine, and get things done quickly with this huge flurry of activity. But, and yes there is always a but…BUT sometimes I can’t make my brain lock into work mode when I really need it to be there. I needed it to be there today. We are having the downstairs bathroom remodeled soon and the guy was supposed to pick up the check for half the cost on Monday. He forgot, which is fine. Life is hard and I forget all the time. But he texted this morning and said he could come by at 10. I wasn’t sure I would be home so I said 10:30. I got home a few minutes before 10 and sat myself on the stairs to watch the driveway. I cannot be surprised by a doorbell when I know someone is coming. I have to make sure I see them drive up. I don’t know why, but it’s an anxious thing. I also hate to be interrupted if I had to work to get my brain focused. So I didn’t want to get focused and then lose it.

At 10:15 the lawn people pulled up. This is a very nice group of individuals with some developmentally disabled people learning job skills from two coaches. It’s very affordable and I love the opportunity it provides. But we haven’t seen them in a few weeks because the grass was dying from no rain. I love watching them do the work. One of the coaches drives the big mower around. The people learning the skills get to use push mowers, edgers, and the leaf blower. The first few times they come by in the spring, you can watch the coaches teaching them how to use the equipment. And by this part of the summer, they are proficient and work hard. The whole process takes these 4-5 people less than 10 minutes. It distracts me every time they come. I have to watch because I like to see the progress they make on these skills and I’m impressed with the speed!

At 10:48, he finally messages me that he’s on the way and his GPS says he will be here in about 20 minutes. I’ve now lost over an hour just waiting for him. I try to justify that I would’ve lost the time watching the lawn crew anyway, but I am annoyed. I’ve already been gracious enough about the fact that I specifically got up early on Monday to meet him with the check and now he’s wasted more of my time. I can feel my morning dose of Adderall wearing off and the afternoon dose doesn’t always work. And damn it, I really wanted to get this project done TODAY.

By the time he came and went, it was lunch time. I also had to feed the cat. I took out the half of my delicious meatball sandwich from dinner last night and set it on the counter. Then I noticed the cat staring at me expectantly. Right, right, you need lunch too. I remember. So I fed her. Then I sat down at my computer for a minute remembering that I really needed to print something for this project I am working on. That requires me to go upstairs to turn on the printer. At this point I also remember that I need to heat up my sandwich. My brain locks up with what is most important. Am I more hungry or wanting to get the printing done? The printer requires several steps but the sandwich does too. I need to get a plate out, figure out how long to reheat it, reheat it, get a drink, and do I want the chips I had with it last night?

Overwhelmed by the 10 steps that these two things combined required, I put on a podcast and played Candy Crush until I used up my 5 lives. I decided at that point that I was more hungry that anxious about the project, so I heated up my sandwich. The centers of the meatballs were still cold but I could not handle any more so I just ate it. It was much better yesterday. I guess when I put it in the container yesterday at the restaurant, there was a potato chip underneath it that I ended up reheating as well. I bit into the sandwich and the chip was warm and it felt like I bit through thick paper. I immediately turned it over and found the nasty chip. It was awful. I had to pull the pieces of soggy chip out of my mouth before I could continue eating. If I wasn’t so hungry, I would’ve stopped eating right then.

Then I finally printed what I needed and did some work on my project. I didn’t get as much time as I wanted to work on it because I had to go pick up my wife at work. Even with the second dose of medicine, I disappointed myself today in how much I got done. Oh, and I also worked on a cabinet that I’ve been meaning to work on for awhile now. The door is crooked and I needed to fix the area where the hinge attaches. I managed to do that instead of working on the project. It felt good to get it done but not what I was supposed to be doing today.

The plus side is that I also remembered to buy the lightbulbs for the front light post at the store because I took a picture of the bulb wattage and type and the grocery store actually had the correct bulbs in stock. I can’t handle the lightbulb section at the big home improvement stores. Way too many choices. In a stunning show of mental prowess, I also managed to CHANGE OUT those lightbulbs TODAY! Remembering to do that on the same day I bought them is huge for me. I also didn’t forget that the leopard gecko needed crickets today.

I guess you could say that everything I got done is equal to what I didn’t get done. I guess today’s score is Zander-1, ADHD-1!