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I’m about 30 lbs overweight, and as for myself, I’m aware of probably why I don’t eat right yet never feel motivated to fix things. Perhaps it’s the ADD and how ADD’ers often like things “now” instead of later. That means no, I don’t take the time to cook right. I’d rather grab something fast that I can eat right away and be done with than take the time to fuss over a “healthy” yet tasty meal. I don’t follow directions well anyway…so the few times I tried to do meals right, I lost patience and wanted my reward “now” not later. Some how I have trouble remembering that an Apricot is about as fast a “grab and go” item like a cookie. I don’t have anyone around me to remind me or support me in a healthier diet, and I’m left to discipline myself to eat better. I’ve been told to keep a food journal…that’ll help me lose weight. Again…ADD. I try but then I forget, or I say I’ll log my meals later, or I misplace the notebook, etc. But I’m trying.
REPORT ABUSEI’m grateful that my boss doesn’t mind that I spent half the day talking the trainee’s ear off about every topic under the sun (probably at a rate of 5 topics a minute) instead of doing any real work. That, and everyone’s still asking me about my vacation. And I can also be grateful for my successful container-gardening which every day or two yields a handful of beans that I eat right off the bush. Yum!
REPORT ABUSEI’ve been doing cross-stitch for years. It amazingly holds my attention while other things do not. I guess because although “repetitive”, it does take brain power to plan a path out and back, or try to reach another X by dragging as little string as possible, so each cluster is a game. And I ALWAYS listen to music or have the TV on when I work on it…but nothing I have to pay excessive attention to.
It’s funny because it’s the non-ADD people who look at my work and tell me they would have no patience or attention span to do such projects. (Wait, which of us has ADD here!?!?) Alas, I do have 2 or 3 lying around which I started in the past couple years and never finished, but hmm, that coincides with how long ago I adopted some cats.
REPORT ABUSEI’ve left my wallet on the seat overnight with the windows open. Lucky it was there as I’d left it come morning…nothing missing. Left the car window open in a parking garage in the bad part of town…no one bothered it thankfully. Then, over the winter I parked my doesn’t-go-in-the-snow car at a friend’s house, and left the window open on a day it snowed. Hadn’t left the keys with him, so I rushed to his place from work to close them. The power windows still work, so I guess I got away with that one. I’m very protective of my cars, so luckily I don’t have too many ADD misadventures with them.
REPORT ABUSEEAP can be good or bad…and the therapists they connect people with are sometimes just not a good fit. You’d expect therapists to home in on how a person can best process stuff, but they miss the mark sometimes and don’t have it in them to treat the case differently. If there’s one thing that drives me crazy, it’s the “one size fits all” approach. It takes me 2 to 3 visits to detect it, but once it shows up, it’s time to find a new therapist, coach, etc.
REPORT ABUSEI don’t have fear of noises as much as distraction from them and annoyance at the fact that I can’t adjust my attention and focus on what I choose rather than the noise that is chosen for me.
Fear of loud and sudden noises is built into our instincts, but if it is a problem or occurs even while we know what the noise is and that it’s a “safe” noise, it could be due to PTSD.
REPORT ABUSEApril 7, 2013 at 10:17 pm in reply to: Stressing out during chaotic situations…advice please! #120053@phoenixmagicgirl Can you listen to an MP3 player at all? I wish I could send you intuitive piano tracks that my friend and I make, and he sells on the side…but it’s non-lyrical and is music often meant to use during meditation but can be listened to at any time. Or, can you get non-lyrical music tuned to 528 hz? Or does music work for you at all? It’s just a suggestion I have because when I get into hyper-focus / hyper-drive mode at work, I need something to bring me down before I get in the car to drive home (or just to simmer down so I don’t seem like such a wired work-a-holic).
I don’t know off hand of any, but what about accupressure? Something to look into maybe because you can often find and hold the points on your own since it’s not the needles one.
I wish I could induce hyper-drive more often in myself. When it happens, it happens all by itself. Great as it is to have super-focus when so much of my life is spent being under-stimulated, it can get annoying and it certainly portrays an awkward appearance before “normal” co-workers, especially if they don’t understand and empathize with the reason for it.
REPORT ABUSE@ashockley55 – ah, the “intake”… Well, part of the “longer story” I spared my first post, the deal with going through the EAP is that at first, they only approved me for 2 sessions. It wasn’t until between the 2nd and 3rd sessions that the therapist had called the EAP and requested an extension for more sessions. I didn’t know until the day before the 3rd session if additional ones were approved.
Now, what if they didn’t grant an extension? Then she clearly wasted BOTH original sessions BS’ing about anything. (Or is she clever and wasted 2 so she could get paid for those PLUS an extension?) Either way, don’t toy with me! Don’t waste my time! Many years ago I’d used the EAP for a different concern, and that time I got 5 sessions. The first was intake and 4 were productive on the topic at the time.
This current go-round, I guess I’d let the first session slide figuring “intake”. Though with only 2 sessions originally approved, wasting one on intake seemed a bit much. (And approving only 2 for someone with ADD is a bit few!) I got wrapped up in the moment of the 2nd, divulging for an hour all the traits she’d asked me to list about close friends and relatives…but at the end I wrote “ADD” on my paper and addressed it as I was getting up to leave that, “When are we going to talk about my ADD?” Well, first she said she had to get the EAP to approve more sessions. Yeah…I left session 2 with a big “What the–?” running through my mind, mentally beating myself up for not forcing the issue at the start of the session.
I just got done watching my download of the TotallyADD Tips 20-minute video. I got WAY more useful stuff out of that than 3 hours with the Baby Boomer therapist who really doesn’t understand ADD…nor a Gen-X’er I guess. What it’s telling me is that the TotallyADD gang here is fully vested in helping people like us and know what works and how to present it to an ADD’er. Too bad the EAP can’t fund this stuff instead of a know-nothing therapist who wasn’t willing to listen to me or validate my testimony of how ADD affects me. (Speaking of which, I’m craving a new “Bill’s ADDventure”…I hope they got a new one or two in the works…)
REPORT ABUSE@Larynxa Hmm, the link goes to a “page not found”, but I’ll look into finding such a resource…you know, I could say “after I type this reply”, but I can’t make any promises I’ll remember or not find something else that “must be done now”. Sigh… Yeah, it seems I find new ways every week that my so-called “normal” life is actually an ADD life. Now that I’m homed in on “what’s wrong” I now find myself often saying, “You know what! That’s a ‘me’ thing and it’s common among folks with ADD!” It’s one thing to recognize and notice that it’s happening and it’s an ADD thing, but it’s another to actually have the ability to make things work the right way in the right time. Rationally you KNOW what needs to be done…but the message that is apparent in one half of the brain gets put on some indefinite “hold” by the other half of the brain until both halves simply forget.
Coaching tailored to ADD would help me. I haven’t looked into meds yet because first I’d need a coach / therapist, and I’d have to get their opinion and knowledge of what med might hook up well with how it affects me…assuming the way it affects me has one compatible. I take enough between Metoprolol and all my OTC supplements for other stuff…I’m really not looking to add another pill. But if I try it and it works…. Well, what’s the worse? If I’m given one and it doesn’t work…?? (Which reminds me, I meant to ask yesterday about taking Rx meds over the border…darn! If you have an Rx, border patrol is okay with that, no?) Anyway, it would help if ADD meds out here are on the “$4 Walmart List”.
I’m having luck today with the “patience” thing. It’s Saturday…I got other things grabbing my attention (like drawing a picture instead of doing laundry…wunderbar…) The mental effort towards searching for a coach / new therapist is “off” right now, but once it turns itself on and becomes THE thing I’m doing, I just hope I don’t make too quick of decisions or jump at the first thing without patience to consider other options.
REPORT ABUSE@Larynxa – The EAP rep was great, but they’re located in California…a good 3,000 mile drive. However, it’s nice to know that the counselors who field phone calls are actually licensed in their field and are real doctors and such who do the phone consultations as extra / volunteer work. I guess the oh-so-elusive “patience” is in order for me to find someone both affordable and worth the price. “Obamacare” is not the same as socialized medicine…and I won’t be able to afford the base-rate Obamacare plan when it becomes required next year. (Base is $8000 per year…and I only make $30,000 so more than 1/4 of my income cannot be allocated to paying off some insurance company.)
But that aside, I feel both good and bad about leaving the situation with the therapist that was not working out. I was looking at my “notes” from the 2nd session. It was all stuff about “Mom and dad fear change. My sister is controlling and jealous. Mom is passive and gives in too easily.” At the bottom of the paper in big letters I wrote “ADD” and circled it because by the end of that session, I realized we were not in the slightest addressing ME or my need to compensate for ADD. So? Mom’s passive…sister’s controlling… I mean, what’s that got to do with me and ADD!? I don’t live with any of them, and hiding in my room at age 14 while my sister and dad yelled and screamed at each other has nothing to do with why I have ADD.
Patience and “waiting for the pay out” is not something I’m good at…and I’m not alone. But the one good thing that came out of it is that it’s made me double my efforts in places like this. This weekend, I’m going to rewatch the 3 videos I got from Totally ADD. I may have to combine “going it alone” with my books, videos, and this forum, but a bad therapist experience helped push me a little bit. (It’s just too bad no book, video, online resource, etc. can help with how barking, music, hammering, and the like hijacks my brain.)
It’s hard to sustain special effort I put forth when I do have moments of brilliance and control to push myself to finish a task…or even start one. I can do it, but it takes double the effort and is not something that challenges most people. Even when I do succeed in pushing myself, my mind disengages on its own, gets distracted, decides that doing something else is suddenly more important or desirable. I mean…you know the drill. It’s not just motivation, or an easy kick-start, or just buckling down.
Last weekend I super-cleaned my kitchen and reorganized stuff. Today I got computer tasks done and shredded my junk mail. Easy for others…monumental for me. High-five! Life’s not impossible. It just takes me extra work, and the ordinary for others is sometimes extraordinary for me. Oh well!
REPORT ABUSE@Filmbuff1984 – I know that feeling! People often tell me things like “Just ignore it.” Well, if I could, I would! I can’t…literally can’t! Noises hijack my brain sometimes. Snoring is the worst offender…and sometimes comes in the form of the person in the adjacent room at a hotel. Worse…the person in the adjoining bed, which is why I can’t vacation with my sister any more. Even just breathing in an otherwise quiet room annoys me. Hammering… Fingers clicking the buttons of a cell phone… Kids mumbling to themselves… The barely-audible scritching of someone’s earbuds… It’s all maddening because I can’t choose to not listen to it and have my brain affix itself to the noise. I used to go to group meditations, and I can’t any more. This one’s sneaking a text message…that one’s breathing too loud…the one over there is scribbling thoughts down on paper while the rest of us are trying to have absolute silence and stillness.
In fact, this was a main point I wanted to bring up with my therapist and perhaps explore if medication can prevent my brain from attaching to those subtle annoying sounds. Sadly, she’s spent the past 2 sessions psycho-analyzing my relations to my parents and sister, then my homework for tomorrow is to write down strategies I used as a kid to deal with the bullies who harrassed me in school. What does any of that have to do with the fact that distractions and unregulated attention spans are hijacking my brain and making it hard to function currently in the workplace? This includes the extremely maddening sounds like people tapping pens on desks, having iPods turned too loud, etc. Asking me how I dealt with the fights between my dad and my sister has nothing to do with my ADD nor my problems with those pesky noises that prevent me from thinking what I’m supposed to be thinking.
– littleblueyugo
REPORT ABUSE@kc5jck …yeah, the “habit” I heard about the 21 days was from Dr. Phil regarding getting used to exercising. Definitely a “good” habit. Good habits take effort…why don’t bad ones?
Ironically, someone at work gave me a book today on ‘technical writing’, part of which discusses keeping business emails & writing brief and to the point. Well, sometimes we just have to talk a lot on this forum I guess…and we write / talk casually. Oh well.
REPORT ABUSE…Because my log-in is not the same as the name that appears under my icon. Go figure.
REPORT ABUSEI’m talkative…both verbally and typographically. “Less” can be More, though, and it’s not something an ADD’er probably does naturally. It’s funny how short the posts are in this topic. We can do it if we try. I sometimes hesitate to read long posts (unless it’s Rick’s…I can listen to him all day!) I recently heard it takes 21 days to make a new habit…maybe I’ll give it a try.
REPORT ABUSESchnitzel! Sehr gut!! And the plant manager told me about Port Dover. Although I won’t be there for a Friday the 13th, it is on my list of stuff to do. There’s supposedly a restored trestle bridge that’s now part of a park/walking path.
It’s actually a lot of the nature, hiking, and such that drew me to that area for my get-away (that, and somewhere that I could drive to in less than 1 day). Forgive me for avoiding Quebec, but my sister went there for an F1 race and said they shunned her at places because she doesn’t speak French. Hamilton seems a lot like Bethlehem, PA which is famed for its steel mill, now closed and the new heart of urban renovation in my area. Historic mixes with contemporary, and preserved land and expanded public parks are booming. I’ll probably only do one day in Hamilton, the rest at lakes and nature trails. The fact that all elements have come together to make this a desirable destination while still giving me the empowerment of independence is the icing on the cake!
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