Dire times require drastic measures. I am not sure if that is what I should believe, but it certainly feels that way. I feel like the people who I'd been close with have run their course, and that relationships that had once meant something have fizzled. I am not sure if it is a behavior common to adults with attention deficit disorder (ADHD/ADD), but I feel a need to discard things in black and white. Life is so much easier to manage with "Keep" and "Discard” piles.
Last night I returned home again to have dinner with family and the relatives, and what I discovered was I am not the happy person I’d thought I was. I am prone to misery and seeing the glass half empty, and when bad times hit, I am prone to being impulsive and feeling overwhelmed, spacey. (You’ll see what I mean in this checklist of symptoms most common to adult women with attention deficit disorder.)
I have the temptation to rung away, and not return. In some ways, being laid off seems like an excuse to do just that. Go do something different like be a deckhand in Alaska or work for a cruise ship. Those are merely my typical ADHD thoughts because in the end, the misery follows me, a feeling of doom and gloom.
The father thinks he can solve the problem of unemployment and ADHD and my depressed mood with money. He actually offered $1,000 to entice me to get a job within two months. The stepmother thinks she can solve it with food ("Here eat more, have more...").
There was once a time when I would wake up and think I could solve things by running away. But there is a realization now that the problems run beyond work, maybe even beyond having been diagnosed with the attention deficit. The root of the problem is within me.
I am back at the apartment today, back in the stinking city. The air is heavy with the threat of rain, and everywhere I still see couples lugging suitcases from the bowels of taxis, fresh from holiday vacation.
I have an ugly task list ahead—unemployment to file, two months of rent checks to write out, the assignment for a freelance writing gig that is long overdue. The father and I made a schedule as regimented as one in the Army. Awake at 7 a.m., job search for two hours, swim at noon.
I know my ADHD self craves a reliable routine to get back on track, and I know study after study shows the swimming, any exercise really, can battle the blues and boost brain function, but ultimately, I’m afraid because I wonder if I can do this for even a few days. It will be tough, very tough. It is trying to fit a size eight foot into a size six shoe and running a marathon.
The sister turned around before I left and asked the father what was the point of having kids. "I don't know," he said, and I think he meant it. On that note, what is the point of life. I don't know.
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