ADHD

Un-niche-able – the Next Day

/ Robin

tday_across_honey_streetI have an announcement to make. I’m going to be 56 for a few more months…. or is it 55? Well anyway, I have ADHD and am a manic bipolar individual so let me think on it for a bit okay? Sigh. It’s late and I’m tired and the dog wants to know why in the world I haven’t taken her out yet! Sorry baby. That’s the dog baby. Um, her name is actually Bailey. Uhh. Slow down! That’s the manic bit – obsessing on one thing and going on and on.

[And this would be a big change in the conversation.]  You know sometimes things become clear, oh so clear… and then their bellies bust right out of those tight pants and they know how convoluted they are. [What??] I mean honestly… I spent almost two hours tonight preparing some documents everso carefully. I was so sure that anyone who could use a crayon could follow it… or I thought so.

I was supposed to be studying. I really want to finish this course! I’m learning so much. But, nope. It’s been hours and I still haven’t started. It very much annoys me. Oh and the documents I’ve been making so “clear” were for my Mom. No pressure. No expectations that I can’t possibly meet. Actually, I’m not sure she has any expectations of me other than the negative ones. The expectations that all end in failure.

I’m un-niche-able. I’m sorry. No one’s going to suffocate me in expectations of failure anymore. This is my un-niche and I’m keeping it!

I spent all this time getting it set up for her so that we wouldn’t have any conflict, as we always do when it comes to going over this stuff. I thought I’d made it so clear this time. She could just print it all and follow along with the notes that were even colorfully numbered. I even put the name of each file right in the text of the email so she could see where everything came from.

It was all very clear. Just read the email first, as requested, print it, then open and print all the pdfs that were attached. Simple? Not on your life.

I’m sorry if I sound rather like a petulant child, but I kind of feel like one. Huh. There has to be another way.

And this brings me to what I’m ruminating on tonight.

Why are people so uninterested in learning about each other?

At T-Day, I tried to explain to a family member (who will have a psych degree this summer) about how I was diagnosed with ADHD about two years ago, but besides giving me medication they haven’t taught me anything about the illness or how it might interplay with Bipolar Disorder. It seems to me that the ADHD mixed with my ever-present manic-ness would be kind of interesting.

Fascinating stuff. Right? For a psych major? UUUUUuuuummmmmmMMMM NOPE! Not on your bloody life. Talk about a snub and a dismissal. OMG! I totally forgot she’s royalty. EEeerrrttt! Stop right now! I guess I shouldn’t go down that road. Insults from childhood are coming to mind. Ick.

So what’s the deal? As I am finally embracing my un-niche-able-ness I’m getting pretty excited. When I’m excited, as you might guess, I want to “share the good news” with at least someone… if it can’t be with everyone. I was brave and I settled on just one someone. I hoped it was a safe someone. I miss judged. Next time, I’ll think longer on who I trust with my soft underbelly. Get my drift?

You already spotted the Un-Niche all over my face right? Yep. It was the royalty.

Dang. How do I slow this bus down a bit?

Frankenstein – Bipolar & ADHD

/ Robin

Frankenstein-tumblr_ovgh5egVdd1wzx3t8o1_1280 I’m aware, that when given the chance, I will, without question, talk until the air has been sucked out of the general area and everyone has passed out. So normal.

Anxiety – After I graduated, and a few weeks had passed I could tell I was under stress from that. My anxiety has gone down. It did get better, for a while. I got to the point where I didn’t quite feel like my brain has been stuffed full of raging bees. Awesome!

ADHD – I was under the assumption that I was taking Ritalin to help me focus my attention so I could do well in my classes. I was always confused when my med provider asked me if I felt the Ritalin she was prescribing was helping me to focus better. I always said, and continue to say, “Um… I guess so.” I’m manic! What does she want me to say? I work very hard when I meet with her to sit, shut up, and answer her questions honestly. She terrifies me. What if I answer wrong and she changes my meds again? I’ll say something than think, “Crap! Why did I say that?” I always say that I guess it was working well. I suppose. Now I think that I was wrong.

More ADHD – I accepted the diagnosis of having ADHD because it was about not being able to focus on one thing at a time and I knew I couldn’t do that. But, being Bipolar was always the main objective of both my counseling sessions and appointment with the med woman.

Bipolar 1 – I assumed that my Bipolar was worse (or more dangerous to me) than ADHD could be. Wasn’t it?

You know how a doctor will sometimes leave a small tube that goes through an incision so that the area can drain and heal properly?

Yeah, I don’t know where I was going with that—

Switch – I have some ideas that I think are pretty good. I’ve done one or two or three big projects that have come out great. The other 45 ideas that are going around in my mind appeared to be stuck in orbit. I remember the video I watched on YouTube yesterday about ADHD and I was shocked. Frankenstein!

FRANKENSTEIN – I’ve come to think of Bipolar/ADHD as a Frankenstein type of symbiotic relationship. I can’t imagine why my diagnoses has always focused upon Bipolar Disorder. In counseling I talk faster and faster and cover an impressive variety of topics.

Pressured Speech (Bipolar) – Thought very little about ADHD or how to deal successfully with it. I’ve been taking medication for it for three years. In that time no one has talked to me taught me to handle it. Why not?

FRANKENSTEIN – Why hasn’t anyone explained how the two disorders interact, and how the medications for each may also affect each other. (“Do you think that the Ritalin is making your mania worse?”)

I have been primarily a mixed state, high functioning, Bipolar type 1 for years now. I always thought that my constant mental zooming about was just my amazingly stunning mania. (While I mostly talk about my being manic lately, let me just say that depression has played a big part in my mental health too.)

My daughter went with me to my last counseling appointment. We talked about my inability to stick with one thing and see it through to completion and how it was impacting her. Basically, I’m driving her bonkers. These are some of the things that I do: TALK CONSTANTLY NO MATTER WHAT WE ARE DOING, change topics as fast as I talk, pick up a pile of laundry in the living room to put it away, stopping to talk to our beta fish (Victor and Batman) and feed them a few dried wormy things and set down the laundry, forget that I had a mission with the laundry, see that the dog/cats water bowls are empty and fill them, read 1.75 pages in a book. What was I doing? Let the dog out to do her business. Hours later I discover the laundry next to the fish… you get the idea.

My new counselor, my daughter and I decided that I need to focus on being able to focus. Yes, my Bipolar mania hops it up like jet fuel in a race car, but with knowledge and tools to help me with my ADHD and settle on one thing, even for an hour, I might just begin to get a handle on my anxiety/stress and even mania.

Maybe. This is stressing me out. Bothering my daughter this bad is building an anxiety that is part of everyday life. Sigh…

Who knew that pressured speech and mania aren’t the same thing as ADHD? I really don’t understand what the hell is going on. I feel like my brain has been sewn together with blue and green colored twine and slip knots.

One final thing: It has taken me three days and four hours to type this. Just kidding. Two days. Honestly, I have no idea. I need a time-out.

Bipolar – I Think You Should Take Fewer Pills

/ Robin

I’m going to notify my counselor that I must be rid of my med provider as soon as it can be arranged. I’ve told Arthur, my counselor, that I don’t feel that Jamie (med provider) is working in my best interest. My next appointment with her she started right off by confronting me about what I’d told Arthur. I confessed thit it was true.

It got me no where.

She says that I’m on too many pills and she doesn’t want to add anymore. Apparently, this is her rational for not giving me medication that might actually have helped me.

I’ve been practically begging for something for my anxiety that only get’ s increasingly more consuming with each passing day

This whole school year has been like a nightmare.

She doesn’t want to give me more pills? Bull!! It is not her choice to decide whether what other doctors prescribe me for illnesses she knows even less about than I do.

She has repeatedly used this as an excuse not to give me something that could prevented me from my brake down. I have high cholesterol, my thyroid is out of whack, I have chronic horrible lower back pain, I have FM, RA, OA, a facial tick (probably stress related), PTSD, and have recently been diagnosed with IBS-d. It’s a crap load of stuff, but they have all been dealt with by someone more intelligent than she is.

I’ve asked each and every visit for something to help with the burning anxiety. She refuses. She gives me fewer chill pills.

Does she think I like taking a handful of pills twice a day? Moron.

I’ve finally had a breakdown. I blame her. In December I confessed I’d been having thoughts of harming myself. I’d hidden that for years, but at that point it was too much, and I confessed it.

She did nothing.

If I can’t trust my med provider to guard my mental wellbeing, than who will? There aren’t many options here.

I’ve started to shake, Twitter, and twitch again. I’m graduating today. My anxiety that mixes like a charm with my mania and depression making my constant mixed state even more confusing and painful. It’s too much to handle anymore.

I’m firing her. She truly doesn’t have my best interests in mind. I don’t need one of my medical professionals contributing to my madness. That’s just sick.

Bipolar – Letting Go. The Great Pause of a Moment in My Mind – Peace

/ Robin

www.youtube.com/watch {Please watch this short music video so you can get the gist of what I’m relating to you.}

Sometimes, I remember that moments of peace I experience are often when I’m outside of my head.

Perhaps you’ve never seen a video like this before. The first time through for me I just watched. Then I played it again and again. I closed my eyes and let go of all the thoughts that had been overwhelming me. I let the sounds that I heard, unfamiliar as they were, snuff out the ever present junk… that Bipolar junk.

Whether it is this video or some other, find one that you can abandon yourself in. Try something without lyrics. The words will only guide you and keep the constant brain usage, the chatter, at maximum, just like I always do.

I went outside without my phone, tablet, book, or laptop today. There was no human to talk to. It was just Bailey and I and a few flies. No one mowed, destroyed weeds with a buzz saw or played their bloody music at all.

It was amazing. Stunning. I stopped. Peace. This must be real peace.

Twice today I experienced genuine peace in my Bipolar, ADHD, PTSD, anxiety riddled mind and I fell in love with it.

No drugs or talk therapy. Simply stopping. Simply unplugging. Simply letting go.

Give it a try and see if you can touch your bit of peace. Try for it. As full of bananas as my brain is, I found it. I bet you can too. Now, stop everything from bugging you for five tiny minutes, and let the peace break in on the reliable back, of music.

Bipolar: It Is Very Difficult to Know

/ Robin / 2 Comments

A lot of the time I hesitate to post because I don’t know what you, my reader, expects to read. I struggle with this every day. I could tell you about my day, but that’s so boring – dull! I could stick to only write about myself and what I’ve learned about Bipolar, but I really feel strongly that this kind of important thing deserves a website of its own so that people in pain or who are looking for answers can go to that site and find answers and acceptance right away. So, I’m developing a website to do just that.

I have Bipolar Disorder Type 1 with mixed states. I also entertain much of the rest of the alphabet. I could drone on and on and try to… well, I think you know where that was going.

Basically I’m a normal 55 year single mom of three who is interesting and has a good sense of humor. I have some compelling stuff following me around that makes me complicated, but who doesn’t? Surely everyone has experienced the strange things accompanying Bipolar, anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD, FM, OA, etc.

I have a Japanese Fighting fish like all your neighbors do and speaking of neighbors, also just like you, I politely file noise complaints regarding one nice household whenever my TV starts to loudly rattle. Seriously.

I’m so normal I could bore you silly. Although… did I mention my eldest daughter will be moving in with me in a few months? (Honestly, it’s for the best. I need the support and we can both use help with housing expenses.)

In fact things are sooo boring that I’m going to need to graduate from college with another bachelors degree and I’m going to have two sons and a daughter instead of what has been the standard at my house with two daughters and a son.

See? Boring.

I am first and foremost a woman who deals with an incurable illness and will continue to do so until I die. Well, and perhaps afterward too. I mean, who really knows?

If you don’t mind too much, I’m going to write about all of these things. I might even add in the bits where one of my family members believes that God has them on this earth for only one reason and that is to save his children and to draw them back to Him because they are lost.

Maybe I’ll recount some of my experiences growing upon a ranch as a teen who presented with Bipolar at a very young age and how well that went over with my undiagnosed Bipolar father. Maybe I’ll include fun times at the church I was attending that was into casting out demons. Yeah. Fun times.

Have I mentioned I went to Bible College searching for God? I wanted so desperately for Him to take away the pain I felt that was crushing me from within every day. No? Bipolar, prayer, and demonic possession… seems like there’s a story in there, somewhere.

What’s on your mind? Should I throw caution to the wind and open up a bit more? It all, and I do mean all, ties directly back into this sickness, this life long illness I struggle with. It is all infused with, you know it, Bipolar.

I don’t believe it is a disorder. I believe it’s a disease, an illness and should be treated with the respect it deserves… that we deserve.

Talk to me my Readers. Tell me what you think. Do you have questions? I can’t guarantee I’ll answer, but I’ll read all of them. 🤔

Be well.

Robin