A Splintered Mind

Sunday - Entry 23: Day 33. One positive aspect of my recent (and ongoing) bout with illness has been a renewed appreciation for the vast amount of time I actually have available to me. Another aspect has been the refining of my personal drive onto one project to spend that vast amount of time on. I wake up thinking about my current Depression book now and how much work I have left on it. This is such a difference from the usual nightly routine where I remember to work on the book when I’m suppose to be going to sleep. The shame is that I am finally starting to feel better, but I have the kids now and am having a very difficult time managing my time properly. So all I am accomplishing towards my book goal is waking up thinking about my book, but not really working on it. This is more than frustrating. Of course, I’ve only had the children for three days and I should cut myself some slack. Juggling personal projects with work and single parenthood is difficult on the best of ...

One of the lessons I learn from being sick is how precious time is. Normally I don't notice time. It races by me like it's trying to break the land speed record, dragging me bouncing along. However, after 30 days of being sick on a couch coughing my brains out, I began to notice just how much time I wasted. I didn't blame myself for being sick, but I was acutely aware of what I could be doing instead. Why wasn't I utilizing my time and getting a million amazing things done every day when I wasn't coughing out a lung? The answer was simple: I don't work focused enough. This might explain why I have a hard time finishing projects before I get bored. If ADHD introduces an aversion to boredom into my life, then when work slows down because I don't have a clear gameplan in mind or I am bored, then distractions are bound to happen. Boredom and frustration are walls to success. Compare that to the wonderful bliss of hyperfocus. When I decided on a whim last ...

Cough No.2 Tuesday - Entry 22: Today is day Day 21 of my bout with the flu and bronchitis. For a while we thought I had pnuemonia, but my doctors seem to be conflicted on that diagnosis. Certainly my lungs don't show the precense of pnuemonia now, so perhaps we caught it in time. The weekend after New Year's was a scary one indeed, full of gasping and bloody sputum. I've had bronchitis repeatedly through my life. That was not bronchitis. Being sick is all I've managed to do well these past three weeks. Today I showered for the first time in a few days, then had to sit down. I watched an episode of Downton Abbey, then got up to eat afterwards. I'm afraid I only managed to set out some fish to thaw before I had to sit down again. I have had better days with more energy, but it seems one of the distinguishing characteristics of this blasted flu is intermittant wellness. Still, I honestly feel that I am getting worse, not better. Twenty one days of this is a...

I have heard it said that one hallmark of ADHD in adults is insecurity. Then I thought, what's the point of writing about it? What would I have to offer on the subject? Sure, I'm insecure, but who likes what I write anyway? Does anybody even care? And do I really want to expose my dirty laundry in such a public way? I should pull the blog offline and delete the whole mess. I'm wasting my time here anyway. Okay. I might be exaggerating—maybe just a bit—but I am an insecure person. Oh, I can put on a good face, but when it comes down to it, Fear & Worry are the two advisors I consult with the most. Sometimes Wouldn't-It-Be-Cool-If and What-Could-Possibly-Go-Wrong get my attention first, but as far as I can remember Fear & Worry have always helped me interpret the events of my life. Obviously, I'm incapable of doing it myself so I must constantly consult the world's most depressing duo of defeatists. The question I ask myself now is this: Are we trai...

Tuesday - Entry 21: I came home with the bestest ever Christmas present two weeks ago. Wrapped in holiday cheer, and doused in the eggnoggy spirit of the warmth & happiness of the season, somebody gave me the flu. It was just what I always wanted. The irony is that I fought to be there at Nana's to receive this gift. The Elf had been in the hospital with a virus-like illness, or complications from her gallbladder surgery. The doctors couldn't be quite sure. And therein laid my way into Christmas. How could my family prevent my girls and I from attending the festivities when even the doctors were not sure what had caused the Elf's discomfort? I pressed; I won. Then some hypocritical Grinch coated me in the merry slime of influenza. Both the Leprechaun and I, who had been otherwise healthy as Santa's reindeer, became sicker than Charlie Brown's Christmas tree sans makeover. My Christmas gift kept on giving well past Boxing Day, changing from the flu into bronchiti...

Wednesday - Entry 20: The plusses for ADHD often outweigh the minuses for me, mostly because I have trained myself to think more positively. For example, something funny happened to me the other day, but it could just as easily have been an opportunity to hate myself. I had a flu-like virus that knocked me out over the weekend. It was a nasty, evil thing, and my brain was addled on New Years Eve. Even though I had canceled our big plans to keep the illness to ourselves, my girls we're still expecting me to put on some sort of party. So, off to the stores I went. At WinCo, I saw they had a box of windshield wiper fluid at the entrance, so I grabbed a gallon, grabbed a cart, and started shopping. After about five minutes I noticed that my windshield wiper fluid was missing. Somebody had stolen it right out of my cart! The nerve! As I retraced my steps back to the front of the store, my eagle eye tried to catch the culprit, but to no avail. Eventually I made my way back to the be...