some days, some days, some days ---- i just loathe it. loathe it. loathe it.
most of the time i am a PRO-ADDer! yay for Adders etc. etc. etc. and all the positives/creativity etc. that comes with it. but today i HATE it. i can't seem to "up" my dopamine levels no matter what trick/coping mechanism/WILL i try.
exercise might be the key --- perhaps a yoga class if i can.
i wish i could be more in control of my brain chemicals (without externally controlling them through stimulants).
right now i am completely devoid of anything - i am depleted of dopamine depleted of everything else aswell it seems (motivation/care/structure/routine/exercise). i need to GET OVER it, i guess. well, here goes..... i am going to tidy the house (right now). right after another game of solitaire i mean....
right after going back to bed. right after another internet
session. oh hoh! no, i'll do it
now. with a little reward in twenty minutes of a nice cup of
tea. why does life HAVE TO BE so ridiculous just because i am
ADD. ah well. i am exhausted - from nothing. still energy begets energy? i'll get that little sergeant-major in my head to be the stick and a reward of some sort to be the carrot and my intellect to remind me that i will feel more dopamine injected with the great feeling of accomplishment that comes when i have done it, right?
it's so STUPID. my ADD hasn't been this bad in AGES. why now? if i could work out the triggers it would really help but it just seems to have no rhyme or reason to it, at all. some days i am almost bowling along on this steady, organised routine and coping (well that's a bit of an exaggeration but i am BETTER)... then suddenly am completely the other end of the dopamine spectrum.
i feel exactly like those people with eating problems - Oprah or whoever - months go when she is feeling completely in control, got some excellent diet going, is in her size 10 jeans and eating healthily and energized, confident, competent and that's all adding to the up-levels and suddenly relapse and back to size 20 again!
it's like those dopamine levels simply refuse to stay up there - regardless of what you do, how you try, the structures and routines you impose, the coping mechanisms, the discipline, self-will it all amounts to straw! it's nothing - a house of cards...
enough with the self-piteous whingeing i guess. it's all good. gonna go clean the house --- whoo-hooo!
F*** ADD!
I was just checking in to say exactly the same thing!
I'm in loathe, i feel sleepy, foggy, down, frustrated but things have been going well lately. I think its because of a new job, but its getting me down again now. ADHD is making me not bothered about anything and it makes me look like i have an attitude problem.
I'm also not on meds and prone to panic attacks, though since my diagnosis in the summer, i have't had one. I can feel my muscles starting to ache with restlessness though and on my way to work, i know one will happen soon.
thanks guys for the responses! i am feeling a whole load better now - the house is tidy, the washing is on etc. etc. my suitcase is put away and also i have started some of my work... which is connected with refugees and education and it sounds almost selfish to say it but reading their AMAZING levels of triumph over adversity always helps me! it never gets me down thinking "look how well they do with nothing - what about you with all your advantages" funnily enough. it is always just extremely uplifting for me ----until i then remember that i haven't managed to do half the work i was supposed to and... BUT i won't think about that now!!
so that's good.
as you say - focus on the small victories (sometimes i simply think there are NONE tho).
i wonder why we stay unmedicated - suckers for punishment, or what??????? but you're right there is NO cure. success/failure - it makes no difference either... look at Tolstoy or similar such a great figure of literature in his lifetime aswell and yet still tried to run away from home aged 80ish! still searching, still buggered, still addled. Dostoevsky too - name and fame and yet still completely flawed, gambling and the rest. all of them - we will ALWAYS be ADD - it just doesn't matter poet, painter, inventor, writer, down-and-out, failure, whatever --- we're stuck with it. and many times i am glad. and other times i want to smash my head into the nearest wall until there is nothing left of the wall or me!
i like your sig eatmytry --- always trying, that's me!??!! (in more ways than one)
i wonder whether it is your new job too eatmytry - i can't work out my triggers but if your job is causing anxiety then i reckon the ADD gets worse at the same time... but right now, i blame the weather! and i don't know what to suggest to help tho.
have you read that book One, Unknown by an Aussie who was in the Tube when it got blown up by that suicide bomber, it was very inspirational for me when i read it and was feeling unmotivated and generally just STUCK with a brain that i hated and seemingly the feeling was mutual... maybe that could help until the weather changes?
if the weather changes - it will probably make a HUGE difference, a little dopamine booster free of charge.
sun......... aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.I'm a TOTAL sun girl! I live for the sun, its the only time when I feel 100% gloriously happy!
i get an iced cream some sun cream, sunnies, bikini top on and I dance in my garden to G love and Special sauce who make rhymes for the summertime and I don't care who sees me!
I don't read books, I try book tapes, but I forget to read them! oops!
SUMMERSUMMERSUMMER!! Me and Primrose hill park, and the forests of suffolk fall deeply in love when the sun is out!
--- i often wonder whether whilst in the process of evolution a little reptile blood got left behind in me???if it is cold and miserable i am like a lizard, sluggishly struggling along until the sun finally can bring my blood temperature up to a level where i can function properly!
part-human part-reptile - what happened to my super-powers then???? went AWOL. i wonder if they can find a pill to fix that??
have a good one!
We must have taken the exact same path in evolution!
Have your scales started growing yet? heh!
You mentioned that you liked my sig, your's stuck out for me too, 'Blessed are the cracked for it is they who let in the light..' i'm going to use it as a mantra from now on!
you've turned my day around! Have a better one!x
I really think it about having good days and bad days. Everyone has them we just have more bad days, and our bad days are defined differently, for example: locked myself out of the house for the third time, Set off my own car alarm, Took three hrs to feel alive in the morning.... Had panick attacks all night no sleep and had to call in thsick the next morning. As opposed to a "normal" persons bad day, the dog ate my newspaper kinda day.I feel the same... absolutely catatonic and unable to accomplish much even though there is so very much to do. Solitaire usually becomes a motivator for me... after half a game my body wants to move. Now I just stare at the screen, mouth half open, nearly drooling, accomplishing nothing.
I am closing my kennel boarding business in 40 days, and I have 12,000 feet of disorganized crap to do something with... and I just want to sleep. Avoid. Procrastinate. Force myself to do nothing til the last moment when it will be a panic and I get tons done. We have snow days right now, and I can just lock the doors and do nothing. Nothing. It becomes a vicious cycle of worse than nothingness. Be mad at myself for -yet again- wasting precious time. How many years have I done the same thing? What does it take to break this cycle of paralysis? Strat doesn't touch it anymore. Stims make me crazy during the crash. I should have stock in Monster drink company by now. Caffeine just sends me to the bathroom. And that is not the kind of kick I was going for.
Thanks for letting me vent in your thread!
--- vent away! the more, the merrier (well, that doesn't sound quite right but ya know...)i couldn't agree more with the "how many years have I done the same thing?" and how many more will i continue to do the same.... ugh.
i can only blame myself because i remain unmedicated (hahahaha - sucker for punishment, it has to be!) but i hope you find the med that whisks you away from all this addledness and fog-bound drear into the bright, shiny world of the "norms".
The coolest part of being here is not feeling alone. Not feeling lazy. Being reminded, as you have done for us, that we all have good and bad days of focus, and we will continue to have good and bad days... despite our best intentions or our unhealthy self sabotage moments.
The empathy between members is just wonderful here. Sometimes, it is just what I need.
I don't wanna be a "normal". maybe I just thrive on crisis I think that i do, and I don't know meds were always presented to me so negativley. I started Ritalin when I was nine, being young I thought that i had to take the meds to make me someone I wasn't so that people would like me because they didn't like me, and though I know at some level this is untrue, I can't get over it and I will NEVER go back to meds, I want people around me and myself to except me as I am.yo-
i just want to say I am thoroughly enjoying this thread and can relate to you all- great to read about what other ADDers are thinking/feeling.
stay positive everyone and try to accomplish and experience great things.
My great accomplishment for the hour is actually getting up and making the sleepytime tea I've been thinking about for many hours. With the depressed funk I seem to be in, I must try to see that as a goal met.
The more I think about all that I 'should' be doing, the more 'nothing' gets done.
that IS a goal met! well done.this is the MOST ridiculous disorder sometimes... but i think maybe you need a bit of sergeant-major so here goes: CLOSE DOWN THIS COMPUTER NOWWWWWW and GO AND DO ONE THING BEFORE YOU POST BACK!!!!
"to except me as i am" do you think that's a freudian slip????
just kidding, AmyP! i, too, stay unmedicated maybe for slightly different reasons but i am GLAD there are unmedicated ADDers in the world - more often than not, they cheer up my day. altho at other times being an ADDer can just be such a pain in the a$$!!!!!!
(like - what happened to my life? just disappeared into some monstrous addled void.)
still as the bard put it:
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
(well, happy might be a bit of an exagerration) - but we'll stick it out! unmedicated (or medicated) yet addled but still with stomach to fight the day! (.....after day, after day).
-
i took my own advice
- and shut down the darn computer and have
managed to read all the reports for Monday's meeting.
hurrah! altho generally feel completely sick at the thought of it. i am going to get such a ticking off for being useless and not having done what i ought to have done. i feel sick --- it doesn't necessarily help that it is entirely deserved.
i'll just have to
sit there with a stoic face and smile and be apologetic, as my entire
inside is lacerated and ripped to shreds yet again. i could throw
a 'sickie' but that would just be gutless. ooohhhh to be
NORMAL sometimes, just to be normal - to experience competence,
reliability, responsibility - promotion even! and the sense of a job
well done. instead of incompetence, unreliablity,
irresponsibility - and general addled crap.i should be a street-sweeper - i couldn't eff that up, could I? (maybe i could
)i am sure i could do it all with my eyes closed if i didn't have to spend 90% of my energy fighting my own self-sabotaging brain! sheesh, this body must be COVERED with thetans (or whatever it is those scientologists go on about - that reactive brain or something or other) - all leaping at the chance to sneakily sabotage!
well, such is the life of an ADDer
- i'll just have to go and suck it up. not even going to
bother with attempting to excuse myself, altho an obvious consequence of being
ADDled since early childhood is being in the world's top
two percent of brilliant excuse-makers. now that is one talent i
DO have - whether it helps or hinders as a coping mechanism in the long run, who knows????we have all been through this a million times before and i guess, you just pick y'self up and start again, no? - so it's not gonna kill me. i am just jacked off and venting, that's it. but ooooh, for that wonderful feeling of normals of competence/progress/capability ---
but i choose not to take the pills - so no-one to blame but myself!
it's all good.
it's all good.
and y'all have a good day too - man i hope the above isn't way too depressing!!! i may rant but i don't mean it so much, just a good way to blow off anxiety. it's all fine! and i still think ADDers rock! (even if they are somewhat useless??)
just don't feel like doing anything even though there are things you must
do.
It IS really annoying. Sometimes if it gets bad I'll get a redbull or
something but i don't want to rely on it.
I'm unmedicated but not by choice. If I went to the Dr and went on meds
it could cause a big commotion in my house and I just don't know if I
have the strength for that. If I had enough $ saved up to move out and
live by myself I would go for the meds but it's too hard to do that now. I
read stories about ADD people who went on meds and how things got
soooo much better for them and it just makes me angry so I avoid
reading those stories. my family are old-fashioned koreans and they have
no clue how the ADD mind works. How the heck did a disorganized,
scatter-brained fool like me end up in a family of super-organized, super
energetic, motivated people who can just wake up in the morning and
automatically be alert?
Gosh I hate my life.
|
Enter Your Email below to claim your Free Book |
Copyright© 2006 ADHDNews.com. All rights reserved