The Forums › Forums › What is it? › How do I get diagnosed? › Irony › Re: Irony
Beignet, I loved your rant.
I can’t get through an entire book, either, so I read several books at the same time. Whatever I feel like reading at the moment. One nice thing about ADD, since I can never remember a mystery, I can read them more than once and still be surprised!
You are not stupid. You don’t even have a “disorder”. Your brain is just wired differently than the plodding masses.
Smart phones are God’s gift to ADD’ers. Alarms & reminders for everything. I have non-ADD friends help me figure out a new phone, so I don’t have to read that tedious manual.
Screw the laundry if you hate folding. Hang it over the back of a chair. Or on hangers. I don’t fold my socks or underwear. Undies get dumped in one drawer, socks in another. They’re clean, that’s good enough for me.
Passwords: I am hopeless with pieces of paper. You have to staple them to me or they disappear in an instant
Write your passwords on masking tape with a permanent marker. Stick them to the underside of your keyboard on the computer. DON’T put the one for your online banking under there. That one, you’re going to make yourself remember. ANYBODY can remember ONE password. The rest are under your keyboard. You don’t have to remember them.
There are lots of different meds. Try one. If it doesn’t help, try something else. I can’t take stimulants. Bupropion helps me focus somewhat, but I’m still a little disorganized. So, I’m not perfect. Sue me.
To make myself functional, I have lists of things to do, which are written & kept in a 3-ring binder, which is an obnoxious color, so that I see it every day. It sits on the counter where I keep my keys. I don’t do the lists from memory. I open that obnoxiously-colored book, read the lists, and do the things on them. This is hard to do. I swear it’s physically painful to follow a routine, so I’ve made mine very basic. Here’s most of the things I do:
Before I go to bed:
Make my lunch for the next day.
Wash the dishes.
Pick my clothes for the next day.
Check my smart phone for appointments, etc. Write them on a post it, and stick the post it on my bag. Since post its tend to fall off, I sometimes use wooden clothes pins, the kind with the spring, to stick the notes on my bag. A brightly colored pom pom glued on helps.
Plug my phone in to charge it.
That’s 5 things: 30 minutes, tops
When I get up:
Make my bed.
Shower & put on my clothes.
Take meds & vitamins
Eat breakfast
Check my smart phone for appointments, etc. before I put the phone in my bag.
Take my lunch out of the fridge & put it into the bag.
These are all things the majority of the people in the world can do without reminders. I have to have reminders. My phone helps, my obnoxiously-colored binder helps,.
My smart phone & computer figured out the time change for me. I didn’t have to remember.
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