Here It Is ...

What can I say about this? I took my first Adderall Sunday afternoon and it was like opening my eyes.  I saw things I’d never seen before and I wasn’t bouncing mentally all over the place.  

I’m on regular Adderall because my insurance company in it’s infinite wisdom has decided that a trial of regular Adderall is obligatory before being prescribed the long acting Adderall XR.  Regular Adderall is a pill, not a capsule like Adderall XR and the only reason I can think of for this is that you can split the pills since usually there is some jiggling around of the dosage when it’s first started.

And I don’t like regular Adderall pills. It gives you thud over the head  for the first hour or so if you take it without eating something first.(Maybe because I’m not used to it yet?) Then it tapers off rather rapidly . Adderall XR is a sustained release capsule that lasts for about 9-10 hours without the ups and downs.  I like roller coasters but not in my head.

I do notice a lot of benefits. I’m not wiggling around my desk with my feet flapping wildly underneath the desk where no one can see them.  I’m not craving the oral stimulation of gum chewing or chewing on a mint. I can actually focus on my work without intensely concentrating. I actually found quite a few mistakes in my work that I have made lately and corrected them.  i also don’t feel “spacey” and am living in my head and feeling paralyzed a lot less.   I may even write a bit later on in the week

But most of all the terrible anxiety I have felt for the last year or so has gone.  I’m able to relax and not obsess over my worries. Even doing my taxes yesterday was somewhat a breeze (they are simple anyway) and I didn’t go “woe is me” for hours before doing them. I just sat down and did them.

I guess I’m a true geek now… ADHD is almost like a badge of honor among us  and now I can winge about the pros and cons between Adderall, Strattera and Focal.

Had a revelation about 2 weeks ago…

As some of you know (or don’t know) I’ve been seeing a therapist for the past few months for panic attacks and anxiety. My heart would start pounding, I’d feel faint and an overwhelming feeling would engulf me. What most of you don’t know is that I have battled depression since I was a teenager. I’d go on crying jags for days get worse when my Dad died the Christmas break of my freshman year at UNC. I

Depression hit me again after I graduated and almost paralyzed me. I found a job, got fired and joined the military and had a great time in Monterrey, CA at Ft. Ord, met my husband, got married, left the Army and became a spouse and Mom. It hit again when my marriage broke up and went to live with my Mom and it hit again and again when she got really sick and I felt really helpless.  She passed away and I eventually got better. I did get medication for the depression about 10 years ago and it has made a world of difference but I still had problems.

As most of you know my daughter has Asparger’s Syndrome and was initially diagnosed as ADHD so I’ve had a lot of education in the matter. Two weeks ago I was talking to my therapist (after seeing her for a few months) and she suggested that I do a quick check list for ADD.  Well, I batted .1000. 

It should have been no surprise to me. I’ve had a sense of something wrong my whole life.  I never fit in at school or any where else. I was a nerd and geek even before those terms were popular. I always was so absorbed in a book that I often didn’t know what was going on around me, I’m smart but always under achieving. A solid B+ to A student with no effort and ranked 10th in my class of 250 what so ever but still felt very inadequate and socially inept. I ended up a loner.

I’ve coped myself in lots of ways, always putting my keys and  in the same place. exercising like a fiend, making mental lists and becoming super organized and responsible but I see my failures too.  Becoming “spacey” at times, having problems with work (mainly proofreading,not following through on something, doing something impulsively etc). I’ll go on a writing spree and then all of a sudden abandon writing for months. When I have to sit for a long I get fidgetty. My foot wiggles a mile a minute under my desk and I feel trapped and have the feeling I need to bolt when I’m forced to sit for hours, Gads, even my daughter’s therapist thinks I meet the criteria just from observing me over the years

. I also don’t relax very well.  Today it was raining and cold outside and the house was clean. I had a real problem sitting myself down and “doing nothing”. I have survived today, mainly because I have a bit of a cold.

I’m going to see a psychiatrist on Wednesday afternoon and see if he thinks I need medication.  It has been nice knowing finally about the “elephant” . I’ve been more a peace with myself than I have been in years.

elfgrove:

Colossal asshat Ed Kramer is in the news again, which of course, causes folk to bring up his connection to Dragon*Con. This causes some folk to demand everyone should boycott Dragon*Con (in order to punish Kramer and magically force Dragon*Con to “get rid of” Ed Kramer).

Things are not that easy or simple, and I’m going to cover why a little bit here. But the key take-away is that this is not a situation where Dragon*Con has ignored, harbored, or otherwise protected within their power structure an accused child molester for 12 years. The truth is they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to cut the last ties to him for 12 years, and he has no actual power at or presence within the con itself.

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