[Zandra]

I just got my law license the US within the past year, and I wasn’t diagnosed until I was in my second year of law school.

I found that I was not ever able to overcome my tendency to zone out during class, nor my tendency to procrastinate. I don’t recommend either of these things in law school, but I am evidence that you can be successful in law school even while that stuff is going on.

Once I started medication, it was far easier to stay at least somewhat connected during class. If you are in a position to get medical help, it’s a good start..

Even more importantly, I found ways to get information into my head even though I couldn’t strictly concentrate through a lecture. I don’t know what it is like in the UK, but in my school, it was possible to purchase outlines written by previous student who had the same professor for the same class. When I had read through the outline in advance, I found that more points from the lecture could filter into my consciousness. I think that’s because I pre-built a mental framework for the information, so I had some structure on which I could hang the pieces of information that I was able to catch.

Good luck to you.

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[Zandra]

I should think that a “spark” exists in all sorts of people, some of whom have what it takes to carry through and others who don’t. I’ll even concede that folks who have a more linear way of thinking may have an easier time executing ideas.

It seems to me that accepting that the way I view and approach things is different is an excellent start for not being miserable, but it can’t stop with that. The fact is, society is developed around the linear thinkers. I don’t have to become that, but I do have to operate within that society. There has to be a balance between self-acceptance and making certain adjustments to make it in the existing world.

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[Zandra]

Never does my house get as clean/reorganized as it does when I am avoiding a task that would theoretically not take that long to accomplish. Needless to say, this completely flummoxes my spouse. Sometimes it flummoxes me, as well!

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[Zandra]

I certainly have some co-morbidities. I’ve been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder for pretty much my entire adult life. I believe that some of the symptoms that have always been attributed to the MDD may actually stem from the ADD, and I suppose I was hoping that it might be a higher percentage than it may actually be, since I’ve only had moderate improvement from anti-depressants. The anti-depressants helped a lot with the mood aspects, but I was still losing a lot of time to random napping and inability to focus.

I suppose that some kind of therapy is in order, even though a part of me thinks that I should be able to reason through it without assistance.

Ipsofacto (great name!), I hear what you are saying about mindfulness. It’s strange, but what I now recognize as coping methods that have developed over a lifetime, seem to now be absent, or less effective. I sometimes feel like the meds make me more alert, but seriously compromise my short term memory. I suspect my spouse is ready to kill me, because I have lost checks, money, keys to things, pretty much anything important. I often lose track of what day it is, causing me to miss things. I skipped class the other night solely because I forgot. In a program with attendance requirements, that’s pretty sketchy.

I try to keep the schedule stuff under control using devices with alerts and reminders, but I sometimes miss them, and nothing’s going to help if I don’t actually enter an appointment right at the time I make it. During the conversation, I feel like that particular event, whatever it may be, is so important that I OBVIOUSLY won’t forget about it, or that I’ll enter it into my calendar later, when I have some time. Oddly, I either never get that time, or if I do, I’ve long since forgotten whatever it is that I had agreed to do. As I’m writing this, it seems to me that the devices may be an attempt to replace mindfulness, since that isn’t a skill set of mine, apparently. Maybe there’s a way to use both.

I’m not really mad anymore today, but thanks for taking on my little rant. I’m a work in progress.

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