I have ADHD like the Dickens. (Do I capitalize Dickens in that phrase? I associate it with legendary goth and author Charles Dickens.)
I don’t take medication for it, because I take medication for OCD/anxiety. I feel like that’s enough side effects. Yes, I’m laying it all out on the line. Apparently, this is my coming-out party.
I arguably self-medicate, because I drink coffee throughout the day, which is, of course, a stimulant. And sometimes I think it’s not that big of a deal.
The truth, though, is it shows itself in many ways. I have to wrestle with emotional impulsivity, with procrastination and avoidance and my mornings are often chaos. Where are my glasses? Where’s my purse? Where are my keys? Where are my shoes?
I might as well just go straight to the refrain of one of my favorite Pixies songs and ask, “Where is My Mind?”
I’m a Pixies super-fan and can proudly boast seeing them in concert three times. After one of these gigs, where they played at the Glass House in Pomona, California, I managed to shake the hands of band member and guitar god Joey Santiago.
This last piece of information will likely impress about .0000001 one my subscribers, and I haven’t even hit 300 yet. Still, it’s a source of personal satisfaction.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. That’s another ADHD characteristic. Going off on tangents when speaking or writing. Needless to say, parenthesis are my friends and I use the em-dash to the point of abuse. I like to think it makes me sound like Virginia Woolf, but that might just be grandiosity on my part, brought on by my fourth cup of coffee today.
Anyhow, back to my starting point. ADHD is something I live with, While I like to think I triumph over this disorder–marked by problems with executive function, focus, paperwork and authority figures–it obviously permeates my existence.
How do I know this? I was just about to put up a poem about riding on the, ADHD struggle-bus, aptly called “ADHD.” I decided first to search my WordPress posts on my Battlestar Eclectica blog to see if I already posted it
I had not. As it turns out, however, I have already posted another poem about living with ADHD, aptly titled, you guessed it, “ADHD.”
I’ll leave it up to you, dear reader, to determine which is better.
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