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Adult ADHD Blog

Emotional Striptease Blog: Tales of Me, Myself and ADD

Archives: April 2008

The Trouble with Tough Love

From the father to Uncle Sam to shrinks, no one's cutting slack on my ADD lapses.

I was invited to my first Jewish birthday party over the weekend. My friend and fellow swim buddy, Barbara, celebrated her big 6-5. It was at a hole-in-the-wall Romanian steakhouse in Chinatown.

But before that, I had breakfast with the father at a cafe across Grand Central. He tells me that Uncle Sam sent back my tax form because I forgot to fill out a line – very ADD of me :) – and he hands me all of these checks from the flexible spending account reminding me of all I have spent on the Buddhaman and on the shrink woman, who, by the way, is leaving and will be replaced by someone else. I'm sad about it. For a while, it was nice to have someone who was sympathetic, rather than drill sergeant-like, even though I know I need tough love.

The father keeps telling me that if I want to date men, I need to undergo some behavior modification, like be more understanding, do more listening, less talking. He says that sometimes I talk too much. I wonder how much of this is me versus ADD. It's the whole chicken and egg question, which came first? I said I am trying.

In some ways, I have become increasingly more empathetic with the adults who I teach swimming lessons with on Saturdays. I feel for them. One of them is a woman in her mid 40s, a mousy woman with Tammy Faye Bakker-thick mascara. She looked like she was going to cry when I said that we'd go under the water together to just get wet. Like a shower, like the rain. Blowing bubbles was like blowing out birthday candles, I told her.

She was shaking and kept saying repeatedly, "OK, OK, OK," but I knew it wasn't OK. It seemed obvious and easy to me, but not to her. In the same fashion, someone could look at me and tell me to calm down, do less, focus more, but it's easier said than done.

At the Jewish birthday party, I drank a lot of wine, munched on crackers topped with chopped liver, did shots of egg creme, and looked at the tables of friends and how happy they all seemed. We sang Happy Birthday to Barbara as she held hands with her 90-plus year-old father. Their happiness seemed genuine, too.

Afterward, I drowned my sorrows and the guilt of egg creme, macaroons, and cake by heading to the pool. At the end of the workout, I saw the ex walk in.

He's weird, because he looked at me, stayed around as I swam, and then he said, "a pleasant surprise." I'm starting to feel like it's all empty words anyway. Why should I care? I like him, but there's that old saying, "If you love someone, set them free." Very cliché, but I'm starting to like clichés. They make me feel good like chocolate.

It's Finally Over

Why do I keep looking back instead of going forward?

It's over. After completely comprehending that the ex-boyfriend does not want contact, I deleted all of his text messages with a single touch.

Ahhh, the beauty of technology. I promise myself I will not be a cyber-stalker anymore. He hasn't been answering the phone, emails, or anything. Bastard, bastard. I hate men. I keep joking with the sister that I am becoming a man-hater in Maureen Dowd fashion.

Mentally I feel shitty. I've signed up for all of the dating sites, only to get a few measly pokes from the divorced, over 44, and divorced-over-44-with-two-kids set.

"You don't want someone's leftovers," a friend tells me. Of course I don't, but even with the ex, I envy his mysterious ex-wife, who actually got him. I wish he would have told me what she was like, what she looked like. I'm so curious.

“It's not fair, life's not fair, a lot of things are a shame,” the father says. It's a shame that some babies die when they are born, that newlyweds die in a head-on collision on their honeymoon, it's a shame that all of those people died on Sept. 11—but what are you going to do about it? Why do you keep looking back, instead going forward, he asks? I am fixated and obsessed with what didn't work instead of what did.

Feeling the Sting of ADD

I've taken the meds, but it's failing me. ADD is still that two-year-old wreaking havoc on my life.

I got together with the middle-aged, sad-looking guy who I'd met through the ADHD behavior therapy group (aka guinea pigs). He's weathered, very weathered, and there is a sadness about him, which I am drawn to.

We sat at a bar, drinking beer and swapping stories of how ADD is like that two-year-old who wreaks havoc on our lives. I want to date him, but I know I shouldn't, because I am seeking someone to ease the hole that the ex-boyfriend has left in my heart.

I've become man-obsessed lately: man, marriage and baby obsessed. I had a dream a few nights ago that I was nine months pregnant, big as a barge, and gave birth to, of all things, a goldfish. I know it's strange and bizarre, but what does that say about the unconscious?

I did not show up at writing class last night. I still feel the sting of the snipe from the fellow classmate who looked at me, after I said I liked the way she bunched all of her characters together in her novel-in-progress, and responded, “You would. You have ADD." Bastard woman! I felt like the ultimate failure, again, that I should be in the corner wearing a dunce cap, and, AGAIN, apologizing for simply being me.

Work is a painful place to be, simply because the new girl is rocking. She's written two feature articles, and she's so peppy, friendly, confident. She’s like this Asian female version of my former work nemesis, except she's a shitty writer. I know because I peeked at her writing in the computer queue before it was edited, and I saw how raw and simple it was, how it lacked spark and color. I smirked. I know, bad, bad, bad.

This week, I’ve fallen again into a funk of being unable to start the engine. I arrived at work and was like a hurricane, my hands flying out like octopus tentacles, one hand reaching to check voicemail, the other email, the other breakfast, and the other the newspaper (which I never really read). It sounds terrible, but I'd rather just skim the headlines than read the articles. In the end, the newspaper goes in the little round cylinder (aka the garbage can).

I had taken the ADD meds, but I believe they are failing me. I showed up at the shrink's office on the wrong day. I didn't know until I glanced at my watch, and started knocking on her door. She came out and looked confused. "Honey, I have you down for tomorrow," she said. I couldn't believe it. ONCE AGAIN, I had it wrong. I kicked myself mentally and thought, "Screw up again." I left, my head hanging like an overripe fruit, and went back to work. Stupid me.

Instead of focusing on work, I focused on stalking the ex-boyfriend, breaking the DO NOT CALL rule. I wondered why doesn't he get back to me, if he has a heart, I read somewhere that people with ADD are very passionate and have a good sense of people. I want to say goodbye to him—closure, closure—and return the $500 watch and the withered flower petals. I know this isn't very mature of me, but in some ways my sincerity and honesty took a hit with his coyness. Bastard, I think mostly to myself. I am way too naive.

Springtime Blues

When everything is one big question mark, it becomes more than just the ADD.

I got together with John yesterday. Nice guy who was part of the guinea pig group. He's in his late 40s, and has a weathered look about him. At one point, he was probably good looking, the football player kind, total jock material.

We sat at a bar, and he talked about the litany of failed jobs, the career changes, the way the mysterious beast ate into his work, relationships, friendships—it was all a mystery to him; what was wrong?

He was one big miserable question mark, his self-esteem taking another pot shot every time he went to another job, got into another relationship. I looked deep into his eyes, as blue as the waters in Bermuda. It was the skin and the gut that gave away his vintage.

His tale was so familiar, a life of failures. (Although, on the other hand, he talked about running his own business now from his apartment.) Over club soda and diet coke, we examined how much of the impulsivity and inability to listen and grasp was fear, personality, and commitment phobia, as opposed to ADD. It felt good to finally talk with someone who understood and got it—refreshing and yet it felt a bit like therapy.

He's too old for me. I'm not attracted to him. My heart is with the man who broke it and is supposedly moving away, but I'm only human in that I'd like to replace him. This is more than about being ADD, it’s about being human.

Popepalooza

I waited three hours on line to get into Yankee Stadium to see the Pope on Sunday, and then I sat through a three-hour mass, nearly driving my obsessive ADD self into a nervous breakdown.

The relationship-friendship, whatever you call it, is as dead as a doornail. The ex keeps telling me to relax, chill out. If he took a step closer, he'd understand that his behavior—the sort of silent, non-communicative attitude—does the very opposite. I am getting angry with these NATO (no action, talk only) men, and am ready to take out the stinger.

I would like to resort to the extreme—a nunnery—or write a nasty book in Maureen Dowd-style, and slam all of them. Why are they all commitment-phobes? Why don't any of them want to settle down and commit? Why do they all shy away from the "C" word, as if it were leprosy?

In hopes that I might be cured of obsessiveness, I waited three hours on line to get into Yankee Stadium to see the Pope on Sunday. The beehive of people, the shrill screaming of ambulances, and the roar of the subways almost drove my ADD self into a nervous breakdown.

I wished I'd brought my earplugs to block it all out. I waited alone, realizing that in recent months, I've become addicted to the cell phone, checking messages and text messaging in the same way I check email.

"Turn off the cell," the sister has said. "Just be alone. Can you be alone and enjoy yourself?" she asks. The answer is no. I feel like I always need to be on the go. The next project, the next writing, the next date, the next man. It is either boredom or fixation.

I scored seats right behind the home plate, and tried to be a good Catholic girl and sit through a three-hour mass, but, if anything, it felt like torture. Sometime after an hour and a half, I got up to leave, but before reaching the exit, past the army of security, something stopped me. I thought to myself, "I never sit through anything, this would the exception." I returned to my seat just in time for the mass communion, Eucharistic ministers everywhere, walking around with bowls of wafers. It was mass pandemonium.

I left the stadium at dusk thinking that rather than being cured, I was more desperate than ever to be connected with someone. There, I had sat amongst 60,000 people and even the Pope—and I felt lonelier than ever. It convinced me that even if I found a true love now, nothing would ever be good enough, because I'd continue to toil with the ADD self, and feel the shame, guilt, anger and the storm within. Not even the Pope and his blessing seemed to calm the storm, I thought, slipping into the sardine-packed subway.

Pondering Career Options

Take the plunge (and lose the job perks) or stay in an ADD funk?

Last night, I had the sweetest sleep, a long marathon of a snooze, where I slipped in and out of dreams. I dreamt that I was late for swimming, slipping and sliding on the asphalt, that I was in the middle of the ocean drifting in and out of waves, the white caps swallowing me.

When I awoke, it was 10 a.m., and I'd overslept swim practice, overslept the promises of going to bed early and awaking at the crack of dawn. I'd overslept the alarm, too.

I was back in an ADD funk.

I spent all day Friday running around, playing hooky and going on an interview. Wanted: writer to come in, four days a week. No benefits, no health care, contract, writing whore.

The idea of taking the freelance plunge was depressing as I pondered the whole chicken and egg thing. On one hand, if I left behind the albatross of a job, I'd lose the perks like the shrink and my ADHD medication.

But, if I stayed, I'd sink into misery, knowing very well that this isn't me and always kicking myself for making mistakes that I simply shouldn't make. I’m still dreaming of running my own show, of no longer living under a bell jar where I am subject to criticism and complaints at work that I could do better.

I told the father that I went to see the Pope yesterday at Yankee Stadium. “Good,” he smiled, “maybe your luck will change.”

Not.

Catatonic in the Cubicle

As spring approaches, I'm trying hard to focus at work, but my mind is drifting to other things...

The more I talk with the father and reflect, the less attracted I am to the idea of having kids. Those cute Gerber-faced babies eventually turn into adults who, even at the age of 32, call home constantly to whine about life’s woes.

The poor father must be tired of hearing the same old record, being spun by yours truly. “Oh what should I do about the pseudo-boyfriend? I like him so much. He was so perfect for me. Why didn’t he call or text message?” I am sick, sad and obsessed... and calling the ex-boyfriend from a pay phone, because if I call from my cell, he won’t pick up.

Despite signs that spring is here full throttle, I sit catatonic in the cubicle trying hard to focus on interviewing wheelers and dealers, and yet my mind drifts back to the cell phone. I think of the blazing fire and the log cabin, of sipping red wine along with ice.

But, he was never mine. The thought of spending the rest of my life in a predictable and passionless marriage frightens me. I would rather die.

I spoke with the father about it tonight, who said I'm fortunate that a person's needs and desires change with age. At the age of 32 I say this, but at 35 or 39, who knows? He added, "You are not a stationary biological specimen. You are a constantly evolving dynamic biological species."

I erupted into a fit of laughter. He’s funny, he really is. I have to be more forgiving of myself, I think.

Someone comes into your life and then leaves; some people are there just for a season. Why didn't I see this train coming? I did. I saw it coming, and at some point it had to stop. Even if I could have dragged it out, it'd only be for so much longer. A misfit is a misfit—just like this job, in the end, it doesn’t matter.

The ex-boyfriend is actually leaving; he told me that his company is sending him overseas. Tomorrow night, we're having a drink at the bar of some fancy hotel, and I'm going to give him a goodbye. Spring will soon shift into summer, and it's time I find someone new.

Too Many Pieces

My father tells me that old habits die slowly, if ever. He may be right.

I recently took the ferry to New Jersey to swim with another pseudo-boyfriend, the doctor who I've been having breakfast with for the past three months. (Once again, he insisted on paying for the meal.)

Afterward, we hung out at his apartment with a panoramic view of Manhattan. But, as we leaned over the balcony, watching the barges go by and the clouds roll in, he barely looked at me or made a move. I'm starting to think that maybe he's a closet gay. Or maybe he's a commitment phobe—but aren't they all?

His apartment is so neat, so clean. The bills sorted, the magazines piled by size, not a speck of dust, and somehow I can't imagine a life as such. I am envious of its simplicity, and yet, it seems so sterile, so blah—too perfect.

The father says that old habits die slowly, if ever. The other night, we chatted about my frustrations over the stupid, idiotic mistakes I've been making. I've been once again packing the schedule with too much stuff, overloading the plate, and watching the pieces fall off, one by one.

A habit that has always driven him up the wall is when I leave half-drunken cans of Diet Coke in the fridge. He has repeatedly asked me to drink what I pour, to buy the short, stocky, midget-sized cans, even if it means paying more for them.

"It's like telling a fat person to eat less. It's so obvious, so fixable. Personal habits die slowly. It's possible, but it's like turning around a jumbo jet," the father said. "You need to do it slowly."

But the habit remains like a scar. If I am in a funk, it is because I've come to believe that my ADD self will always be such.

Hoarding... My New ADHD Habit

To fight boredom, I'm filling my life with new purchases, friends, projects—and acquiring a mess in the middle of it all.

I am prone to hoarding, with a close friend recently describing me as a nervous squirrel scurrying for acorns—always worried that winter is around the corner.

I fill my purse and bags with acquisitions from the fruit stand, the supermarket, and the newspaper vendors. The space under my work desk is a graveyard of magazines, clothes, newspapers, half-eaten bags of pretzels, half-filled notebooks, clothes that I was supposed to donate.

I acquire new friends, new men, new projects, and fight boredom with these new acquisitions. I acquire "things" with the speed and frenziness of buyout moguls—except the only thing I'm getting from this is a grand mess.

The List, The List

As I get started on finding a new job, I wonder: Is my lack of ambition caused by ADD or just me?

“Where is the list?” the friend asks me.

The friend of course is the pseudo-boyfriend who has demoted me to "friend" status, to which I’ve agreed, even though I remain as attracted to him as ever. I’m still sad over what could have been, but what can I do but focus on the list.

A month ago, the friend said that the easiest way to combat fears of being pink-slipped is by making a list of places to work and by sending out resumes. So I called a career-coaching service, and opened up the CV and pecked away at fatty phrases. But more than a month later, the list sits somewhere in the computer, collecting cyber-mold.

I’m in a rut, ever more forgetful and absent-minded—and wondering how much of this lack of ambition or fear of execution is ADD versus personality.

I remain impatient and impulsive, and continue to get through life by the skin of my teeth. I shop, pay bills, eat, and cook, but only when it comes to my mind. It is never according to a schedule or a time line.

I know I’m being hard on myself. We’re human, imperfections and all. In the world of ADD vs. non-ADD, the non-ADDers seem so perfect, so easily able to manage time and daily responsibilities—and yet who knows what other problems they have? It is the deep thought for the day.

Now, onto the list.

Making My Case for a Virtual Secretary

I genuinely forgot I had scheduled an appointment. Now my screw-up could cost me my client—and my job.

I screwed up. I completely forgot that I had scheduled a swimming lesson with a student at 6:30. When I slipped out of the urban furnace, a.k.a. the NYC subway, I got a message from a lifeguard at the pool. "There's a client waiting for you, where are you? WHERE ARE YOU?"

I speed-dialed the pool, hoping that the student hadn't left, but it rang and rang. The worst sound in the world.

By the time I arrived, I was a mess: headphones tangled into a bird's-nest ball; my winter scarf drenched in sweat; huffing and puffing while carrying two oversized, overstuffed handbags. I raced toward the pool deck like a mad woman, and, once there, the lifeguard eyed me icily.

“She’s gone,” she states, matter-of-factly. It's like the period at the end of a very long, torturous sentence.

Since this happened (yesterday), the student hasn’t returned my calls, nor have the pool people, who will likely fire me, or write me up.

I wish I had a virtual secretary who would call me and remind me about appointments. I genuinely forgot.

Today I swam, alone and angry in the crowded lane, not wanting to chit-chat with the human mermaids. I wish I didn't "f" up so much. I stewed in the silence of the chlorine world, and kicked myself again and again.

Who Am I Anyway?

I need to fill every waking moment with something, anything, calling, texting, emailing, to stave off the endless winter.

I went to see the shrink woman today and told her that I needed to change so many things about myself.

"I'm not so sure you know what your personality is," she said. Indeed, who was I? If I could be comfortable in my own skin, just be myself, who would I be?

Why do I need to apologize for almost everything in my life as if I were going to the church confessional everyday. Why do I need to consistently make lists as if everyday were New Year's eve?

As I told the shrink woman I need to fill most every waking moment with something whether it be calling, texting, emailing, I was that nervous squirrel scampering for acorns, expecting that I'd be met with an endless winter. That was me, always frenetic like some Mexican jumping bean.

Do you like yourself? she asked, because you're so critical of yourself. It takes courage to tell the truth. No, I don't like myself, I am unsure of where I stand, who I am.

She said that if I spent some time in silence, alone, just playing with my hair, sipping a cup of tea, perhaps I'd come to enjoy my own company and if I accepted myself, somehow I would learn to accept others too. People just want to be accepted, they don't want to be criticized and feel like they're not measuring up, she said. It seemed so obvious and yet perhaps as difficult as turning around the Titanic.

The week before, I had sat in the office of the Indian Buddhaman and burst into tears. I slobbered all over my sweater, prompting him to ask, "Why are you crying?"

It's hard to explain ( maybe it's hormonal), but this is what I said to him:

"I'm just realizing that there's no answers and no cure for ADD. Maybe I'm going to just accept that for the rest of my life, it will be job after job, man after man, one failed relationship and stint after the other. Maybe I'll just have to celebrate it instead of despising it."

I think he felt sorry for me.

Reverting to My 13-Year-Old Self

Instead of fixating on finding a new job, I've impulsively and obsessively thought about "the ex."

OK, so I am weak and only human. I have not been able to achieve the DNC rule (do not call) that friends have been beating over me. "Why did you call him? Do not call him!"

I am fixated and obsessed with the ex. I am back to my 13-year-old self. In the same way I obsessed over Kirk Cameron on Growing Pains, I'm now fixated on a man who doesn't love me or even like me in the same way.

I am nuts. I wish that I hadn't pushed so much, that I hadn't demanded all of these things of him. I wish I had been more coy, less impulsive. I wonder if this is my adult ADD self, acting like a dog on a steak. I can't let go, but I'm not sure why.

Rather, what I should fixate on is finding a new job. Last night I surfed on the CHADD website, wondering whether, if worst comes to worst, I should admit to the ex-lover and to the boss at work that I have attention deficit disorder. However, I'm convinced I'd be marked like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, "A for ADD." So instead, I'd rather be remembered for being lazy, a ditz and ultimately annoying. Isn't that sad?

Fortunately, the she-boss is gone this week, but I live work (and life) as if I am always on a tightrope. I wonder if I should just cut the pseudo-boyfriend, who told me he wants to be a friend, out of my life, out of the in-box. I feel like the storm inside has yet to die down, and, supposedly, it is spring.

The Why Season

Things are spinning out of control. I have no answers to ADHD, and to the mysteries of it all.

Everything has been falling apart.

I went to the Indian Buddhaman, otherwise known as the designated psychiatrist for the monthly pow wow. Maybe it was just that time of day, dusk, but he began nodding oddly as I came flooding at him with my woes. The pseudo-boyfriend dumped me and wants to be a friend, but I like him a lot. I wish we'd been on the same page. I wish I hadn't asked him for more and burst into tears—hindsight is 20/20.

I watch as the Buddhaman's head drops to his chin, his eyes bloodshot. It frustrates me even more, men—sorry shrinks, sorry men just don't listen. I told him how I've reached this date drought—there's no good men out there. I was whining about when I'd walk down the aisle, and once again, I watch as his head drops. I tell him about my ten-day window to find a new gig: What am I going to do, will I need to go out on the streets? He looks like one of those night owls perched on a branch. I burst into tears, perhaps as an subconscious last resort and way to get his attention.

His advice for the man problem is to move beyond the pseudo-boyfriend, the guy with intimacy problems. "He might be dating five other women," he says. "Yeah but I like him. I'm not going to find anyone else like him," I say. I tell him about the doctor who I've been having breakfast with for three months now; he pays each time, but he has yet to make any move. "So next time bring him up to your place, get him in bed," he says. I can't believe this Buddhaman, he's so crude. "If that doesn't work, go to your Rolodex." He is really crude.

Mostly though, lately things have been spinning out of control, I feel that the men have become islands that I hang on to. If I focus on the island, then I can lose track of the sea. It's nice that way, it's comfortable; focus on unavailable men, the Pope, the beta fish, shopping, rather than the real problems at hand: the stack of bills, papers, taxes, finding what one really wants in life and sticking with it. I am avoiding the issues. I left the Buddhaman's office with a bunched up Kleenex in hand.

There is even no respite in religion. The other day, my new friend from Catholic class and I went to mass. We jokingly call the 7:30 p.m. mass "ass mass," for the hope that we'll catch the eye of one of the young and dashing investment bankers who throw $20 bills into the offering basket.

The homily was about doubting Thomas, how there's a doubting Thomas in each of us, how we need to hang onto certainty in life, how we need to simply know when often there are no answers. ADHD and the mysteries of it all have no answers either. I thought about it for a while as I knelt down and fixated on the marble floor. Maybe I needed to not feel so bad about simply not knowing, and realizing that no one — certainly not a psychiatrist with a prescription in hand — can solve the many questions.