ADHD is…

Last week, I’ve wrote about what goes on in my head when I’m depressed. Depression is also one of the comorbidities with ADHD, just one more thing to make mental health even more complicated. The mind is just a wonderful and immensely messy medium.

In some ways mental health is both a good and bad topic. It’s not just identifying disorders and disabilities but to really give someone closure and inclusion to their problems. It gives everyone the “now I know what to do” strength and the “I am not alone” peace. Rest in peace my doctor who gave me 5+ years of service, he helped me identify who I am mentally. I came in as a sad young adult and over time I’ve came to accept it. A lot has come in terms of researching mental health ever since I self-identified. However there is much more to do to find cures rather than fix symptoms.

Like in my last post, I want to those who identify as “normal” and without any mental illness to really understand the world I live in. Also give context for others to really relate back to how I am or what I feel.

So what does having ADHD feel like? ADHD is…

  1. Going out always involves doing something random. The Big Bang Theory has a neat sketch to illustrate this. Take a dice and put all the options on each side and roll it for every decision (no matter how menial).
  2. Fidgeting. Uncontrollably.  Try not tapping your bouncing a part of your body.
  3. When you get to your favourite place and not be hungry.
  4. When you get to the tacos place, “I want dim sum.” A Chinese restaurant later, “I want a burger.”
  5. Anything shiny or colourful off the corner of your eye will result in turning of a head.
  6. My brain persuades me to sleep.
  7. Going to kid stores. As an adult. And you don’t have a child.
  8. The girl across from you is gorgeous and should go say hi but your burger is delicious.
  9. Reading a novel. After 1 hour, you find yourself finishing the first paragraph and spent the last hour on YouTube.
  10. Hopping on YouTube at 9 PM and going to bed at 5 AM.
  11. 4PM is your morning.
  12. “You come off as strong” is a universal phrase when dating.
  13. Being sick of taking your medication but you can’t risk having any “negative” symptoms. Can’t be sad or impulsive or anything that may be seen as abnormal.

I might have put this lightly but this is my insight to what I have, I’ve seen others demonstrate the same symptoms and are definitely ADHD but choose not to do anything. Even then, these people can sometimes point the finger right back and call you crazy. Mental health as a whole is a large pool of undiscovered solutions. In a way, mental health is like a frozen lake. Staring past the ice sheet you see the darkness. For me, I’m the darkness staring up to the beautiful sky.

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Caught My Malaise

Well after a week and the heat has settled off. According to the news, I expected to see hot days ahead. Yet here I am trying fight away this feeling. I’m not thinking about anything yet and I hope I don’t. Let’s rewind to Saturday.

So Saturday is when I noticed I was really feeling worse than the day before. I still had the energy to go out and do stuff. Waking up late didn’t help, I still had a bit done. Then Sunday morning rolled in and I just had trouble sleeping. Turning in my bed, then seeking refuge in the basement for a few hours. I managed to sleep. Only to expend another weekend and a beautiful day. In the weekend I did nothing but take a few photos and saw the moon and Mars in the same city sky.

Sunday afternoon, waking at 8 in the afternoon. I’m rested in the sunset bleeding through the window. I hate every time I wake up, I feel I lost one more day in my life. Trying to claim to something that’s waning away. Sitting here on the backside of a heat wave and to be in the wake of another, I don’t think I can survive another day.

I just need to sleep away all this. Yes, maybe sleep it off.

Mental Health

This is one thing I have to be mindful of when I live my life. I take pills, apply therapy techniques and do my best to live my life. With the recent going-on’s in Toronto, I feel like underlying issue is left ignored.

During times like this when an incident on this scale happens, people get immediately angry and resentful. Myself included when I first heard the news, I was shocked and wanted nothing more for the suspect to serve his life behind bars. It is unfortunate knowing I walk the same streets and at any time, someone like this person would get behind the wheel and commit murder on this scale. Knowing one of those pedestrians can be anyone regardless of age, race and gender, it disturbs me to think I could be one of those unnamed and soon forgotten by the public.

Life – a fragile thing. Not only in preservation, but in keeping all the smaller things in perspective. Things like emotion, stability and clarity. To feel without overstepping while taking a stride with meaning without being led by emotions. Which is kind of why I’m brought to write this week’s post (though it feels I do this more bi-weekly).

The real question when crimes like this occur, I ask myself “What’s really going on here?” A lot of people focus solely on a person then blame a niche outside the norm. It’s equivocal if a hipster committed genocide because carnivores are destroying the Earth and veganism is the way to go. The way I see it, crime is a social issue. The question from “What this person has done?” to “Where did we go wrong?” Channelling the proverb “it takes a village” does reflect what happened and what has changed. From the restraint for the officer ending the situation non-violently to the tolerance to not accuse the suspect for terrorism right off the bat. We’re changing but there is niche groups that are still victimized because of radicalized individuals. It is sad people died because we live in a society still dictated by a toxic masculine point of view which objectifies men as much as it does for women. In a sense the recent pro-female movement has weaponized feminism into hating men than raising an equal society. This mirrors much of the recent movements started with good intentions and lead by those radicalized by them. Dissidence is important for a democratic society but the values we pass on must be of those of tolerance and critical thinking. To be objective and to ask questions beyond what we know to get a bigger picture.

If we can at least achieve this, perhaps things like this wouldn’t necessarily happen.

Back On This Road

It’s been a month and I’ve been staving off my prescription. Rationing every pill, forcing myself out of a cycle.

I’ve been lacking proper routine. Lacking a continuous “feel good” emotion, I feel I’m the only one who just feels sad all the time. Happiness eludes me and here I am waking up in the afternoon hoping I can get one thing done. I’m starting to spend long nights watching YouTube and browsing photos. I loathe this existence, I always wanted more and in a positive manner.

I’ve been having a hard time to really kick myself into doing things. The things I like doing feel heavier to do. Why can’t I just be normal – as normal as I can be without feeling terrible.

I’m going to relax a bit before I have an anxiety attack or something. At some point, I have to talk to my doctor.

Last Post 2017

Next week’s going to be a new year; a year older, another year.

I’m just here watching the rest of the Jingle Jam. I’ve been a fan of the Yogscast but these charity streams I do find to be the best part of my year. After the year I’ve had, this is likely the best part right up to the end. However it’s been difficult to really watch these archived streams on YouTube. Not much to view but at the same time has given me an opportunity to see new indie games. At least I get to see the old and usual stuff, like a live podcast and some “live” games.

Last night I couldn’t get away from a 6 hour stream from Zoey from the Yogscast playing both The Sims 4 and a discussion on mental health. I was surprised when we began to talk about her struggle with mental health and how I’ve been over the past decade. From a person I don’t know to hear the same words, this oddly familiar connection based on an illness. After hearing from her and then playing this new game I’ve never heard about, it was like watching a simulacra of what I’ve been through for most of my adult life.

After seeing her play through it for almost an hour, I might want to pick up “Please Knock On My Door”. The hardest part was fighting my own thoughts while she and the game narrates the similar dialogue.

There is nothing easy about battling a mental illness without a cure. There is no phrase nor pill can cure it. Just keep holding on…

…even when things look bleak.

I think next year I’ll just keep fighting myself. I have to hope and keep telling myself things will get better. I just have to whether I should believe it or not.

Video games and me…(Part 2: The whole “and me” part)

Took me awhile to really sit down for this one. For one thing, I haven’t told my doctor I’ve been off my medication yet. I should call them and get them to give me the okay on it, but it’s been about a month and I’ve been feeling fine almost fine. My mind has been preoccupied with a few tasks that are incomplete, even “half ass-ness” is something incomplete at the moment (I think 5 “quarter half ass-ness” is putting it a bit too generous too). But here it goes, getting personal with stuff.

About a few years ago on my hopeful last year of high school, I had a lot of trouble in terms of finishing stuff. Just straight on unable to complete anything, mind wandering in class, and even my attendance dropped significantly. I use to be the kid who would go to school and infect other kids just so I won’t be absent or miss a class. And too those kids who did get sick; don’t blame me, blame my parents for forcing school on me. So there I was, the oldest teenager in school sent down to the vice principal’s office on the one day out of the month I actually made it to school. He sat me down and asked what’s wrong with me. Seriously man, I was pretty freaking young and there was a lot of things wrong with me because of everything sabotaged by entities beyond my control. My life at that point was pretty much a mastery of puppetry. My answer I think was “I have no excuse or reason, sir.” Then he started the whole interrogation thing with the whys and the whats followed by the whens and the “how can we fix this?” Anyways, a long amount of time has passed as in I spent most of the period in that office just trying to get out of it since every visit I had with an authority figure in an educational institution up to that day was for a bad thing (for the record, I wasn’t a bad kid…just a kid who never had a chance for anything). Anyways about a good hour passed in this question period and the only result was a school psychologist was assigned to me. I tried making to the appointments, attended only 2 sessions with little to no success. It just made me feel a bit more miserable since I was set aside from my classes and pretty much flunking even faster than I was before since I’m at school but I’m not in class. But I was skipping so much I couldn’t make it to every appointment so after awhile I just forgotten about it.

So halfway through my last year of high school (…again), I finally cleaned up enough to talk to my physician who referred me to a psychiatrist. Ever since then, it’s a drugged filled roller coaster ride to find out what’s wrong with me and ways to cope with it. First I thought I was just depressed, but my head doc said I may have ADHD. I read and compared both and I believe I might have ADHD after all. It took a good half decade to really figure it out, but I’m glad I can identify the problem. Unfortunately, that’s the first step into getting out of the hole good ol’ life  has dug for me. No less, a good step out of it.

I read from a lot of recommended sources about ADHD and Wikipedia and I am certain of the symptoms to be more incline to ADHD symptoms. Most of these as honest I can put it, don’t bode well for me in terms of getting hired for jobs. Second to that would be according to Wikipedia, I would need more than life to sustain me. By that I mean a lot of stimulation of the brain area region where my mind is housed in a muscular tissue within the skull cavity. To break it down to 4 symptoms wouldn’t do it justice but anything that’s based on a workload, mood or behaviour changes up how you play the game, which includes according to Wikipedia on Adult ADHD:

  • Inattention
  • Difficulty in task management (initiating, completing, multitasking etc.)
  • Impulsive
  • Seeks constant activity

I have accounted a lot of people who have no clue how this must be like because they’re always showing pity on me or something. Seriously if I could describe their quizzical emotion, it would be between ignorance and misrepresented curiosity. Either case it’s a response when I tell them this fact is like this:

Oh………………-forgets about that fact and moves on-

So to those who may not know how ADHD feels like on the inside or want to know more on a personal level, here’s how you can really understand it, through some morbid random story I cooked up for your entertainment! Start by making a long list of stuff you want to do. Now go to the mall or anywhere with a lot of stuff. From what point on, do everything on the list but every time you see an item or a person or anything, describe or name it. You see a long pointy object, it’s a pencil. What else is like a pencil? a pen. What can you do with a pen? Write an awesome list. What’s on that list? Well you already have one, so why are you asking? Now when you get to each task you want to do, half ass it. I’m serious; if one of the things is “pick up milk at the grocery store” you better leave that check out lane without putting back the milk you wanted to buy. I mean it, like totally ditch that dairy and walk out to work on the next thing on the list. Keep doing it until you went down that list and did everything half ass.

  • “Babysit [insert noun]” – arrive to babysit, play video games and eat all the junk food
  • “Write a story” – first part is very detailed and then as you get up to the middle somewhere, end it in midsentence.
  • “Pay your bills at the bank” – Don’t pay for it, just withdraw $20 and buy some junk food and play video games.
  • “Take out the trash” – Take the trash out of the trash bin…you’re done with that task.
  • “Write a two part blog post” – Start with the first part, the second part will require 20 breaks to play video games and watch YouTube.

Well you get the point from the sample. While you walk about, don’t forget the part where you see something you will have to name it or describe it. This is to emphasize the point that, your brain is firing everything it’s got to process everything. It just doesn’t stop on a whim; it goes at 100 km/h, it will always goes 100km/h. Though medical science can coin it a disorder all they want, but in all the faults it has its moments when it comes in handy. I may be indecisive, but I can also make the most impulsive chooses at a drop of a hat. I might not be smart in terms of just picking one thing and getting a major for it, but overall I’m know a bit more about the world than a few people who have majored in university (kind of ironic). Besides the points, the Wikipedia page also says it could be hereditary of it anything it is most definitely a problem than an ability (…or is it evolution? I don’t know, throwing ideas out there).

From learning this mysterious thing I have, I learned much about myself and life itself. The lesson is life in it’s fairest ways is its unfair quality to be fairly unfair. Life does suck for one and for all, but life does many good thing for one and for all.

Talk to you guys next week!

I do believe this summer is it!

So we all know it’s summer. Balmy, humid, sunny, wind if lucky, my computer has to run on the max cooling settings to prevent it to smell like burning plastic and metal. Today was a nice opportunity and hopefully many others to get out of the house and give my rig a vacation. After all it’s been through the last half decade, a cyber-sabbatical is what it deserves. This means, I have to shape up my life. It isn’t much except a culmination of many things, just last Thursday I made it past step 1a which is secretive since it is my life. You’re the internet, no need to dull you; I dropped hints so figure it out if you are curious. But here is what step 1 looks:

  • 1a. “Job app”
  • 1b. Diet and exercise adjustment, 2.5 kcal and 2.4 km
  • 1c. Treatment withdrawal
  • 1d. Alternative treatment

So right now I have to make sure I exercise and eat well until September. I dropped my requirements since I barely needed physical activity until fairly recent. With 1a done, it’s more encouragement to go through it. I did it once as a teen, I can do it again.

The latter half is a bit more time consuming, but progress is coming. A prescription and a lower dose, just hope my mind doesn’t fall back into the hole it dug. The pharmacy is having trouble with this order for the last week or so, Tuesday I am going to check in after a week of this roller coaster. I’ve been through all my faces and it’s been kind of an odd trip. Euphoric, depressed, enraged, deterred; at least I cried once…okay, twice…maybe three. At least I don’t feel suicidal or crazy; thankfully not either or both. I think in a way it is the drugs and a bit of repetitive reinforcement. They say you need a support group to help you through, I say it’s all smack since no one came to me and helped in any way. Even at my worst I felt like no one was there to guide me through. When I broke down, no one came to fix. Thanks school for providing realistic personal management skills, sure made me a better person…NOT! No one to watch my back, it hold on to what I have left or fight for everything one inch at a time. I fought and fought it down to the blood soaked mud. I am awesome, I can do it. I can do it. Currently, I am dropped to a small dose to keep it as a safety measure in case those thoughts try to pry themselves back in. While that is happening, think happy thoughts.

Right now a lot of happy thoughts to keep me holding on. A wedding, an anniversary, a second chance. Much to be grateful here and now, seize it and remember what I have now to live for. I have to remind myself that I have bigger things in my life to achieve and win or lose, they’re going to happen. However, if all goes well. I should be drug free by fall, and a bittersweet farewell to the only reliable friend always by my bedside. My blog, I can be anthropomorphic as much as I want!

After that, I have to find alternative treatment, well have my be an exaggeration since I want to be drug free for the rest of my life. I just need my treatment to be drug free and suitable in cost and lifestyle. I am thinking in terms of therapy. Maybe ask to see if I can get a psychologist to help me out. Big part for me is to turn down video games and try to enable myself into time restrictions to entertainment and luxury amenities. Working so far in this attack on all fronts with one down.