clearly insane Archives - Page 3 of 9

Mar 7, 2011

Losing My Mind (And Finding It Again), Part 3

(Continued from part 1 and part 2)

I’d like to say everything was sunshine and rainbows after that first pill, but that’s not the way it happened. I continued taking the pills as instructed, although I quickly found there were some side effects I didn’t like. My muscles tensed up sometimes. Occasionally my heart pounded hard and my head felt like it was in a vice. I wasn’t so sure the clear thoughts were worth the physical trade-offs. But it was easier to fall asleep without all of that noise in my head.

At my next check-up, I told everything to my doctor. First, she was amazed that I could sleep while taking the medication, saying many aren’t able to sleep and she often has to prescribe a sleeping pill as well. For the other symptoms, we agreed to try cutting the dose in half to see if it helped. She also suggested trying a different medication, but due to health insurance not covering any of these drugs, I needed to stick to the cheapest option.

Cutting the dose in half did help, and after a year and a half most of the physical symptoms have vanished. What I like the most about this medication is that it’s short-acting, so I only take it when I need it. This goes a long way in helping me feel like I’m not chained for life to a drug. If I know I’m going to need focus for a task, I take it. If it’s the weekend and we’ve got nothing planned, I skip it. My doctor encouraged me to take vacations from the medication, too, so that I don’t build up a tolerance and need a higher dose later. So far it seems to be working.

Even though the first time I took the medication I experienced complete silence in my head, it hasn’t remained that way. I still have to struggle for focus every single day. Some days are worse than others, but give my brain a chance to spin off in some random direction and it’ll quickly jump on it. The medication just makes my efforts for focus a little easier, and it provides a temporary defense so I can build up greater mental discipline against the waves of sensory onslaught that threaten to drown me on a daily basis.

At the end of last year, with my doctor’s guidance, I tried to stand alone without any pharmaceutical help. It had been over a year and I thought maybe I was ready. I wasn’t ready. By the end of a week I was a disorganized mess.

The hardest part of all of this has been the mixed reactions I get when I do tell people I have ADD. Some have been genuinely supportive and wonderful. Others have nodded and listened, but I could tell they didn’t quite believe me.

And some have been outright mean, stating that there’s nothing wrong with me and I’m just looking for an easy way to cope with a mind and life like any other. These people don’t believe in attention-deficit disorder, especially not for adults. I’m just lazy, weak in mind and discipline, and either I don’t have enough to do in life to sit around and think I have ADD, or I’m too busy and would be fine if I just cut out all of this “online” stuff and stuck to work and mothering.

(As you might guess, some of these people also don’t believe much in autism and think Cordy just needs more discipline.)

I can function now. I can carry a thought from the beginning to the end without losing it halfway through. I can do my job without struggling to push past random thoughts to retrieve the knowledge I need. I can focus on a conversation with a friend. It’s awesome.

I’m also still me, just more anchored in the moment than I was before. I can still recall obscure facts rapidly, I can still think several steps ahead of what I’m currently working on, and I have yet to be told that my personality has changed in any way other than being happier with my life.

This is all a journey, and I’m continuing to find my way through it. My focus still isn’t perfect. I may not need the medication in the future, or I may try a different medication when we have health insurance again. I don’t know how it will all play out. But I’m thrilled with the progress of the past year and a half, and I’m so thankful to feel like I’m in control of my mind again.

I’ve learned that mental disorders and illnesses are simply conditions and not something to be ashamed of. Seeking out help isn’t weakness, it’s taking care of yourself, just as you would diabetes or heart disease or an infection.

It’s good to be comfortable in my own head again.

Filed Under: clearly insane, me me me ·

Mar 4, 2011

Losing My Mind (And Finding It Again), Part 2

By Christina ·

*continued from part 1*

Attention-deficit disorder? No, I’d never really considered that possibility for myself. Sure, I’ve jokingly claimed that I have ADD at conferences from so much going on, but actually having ADD? That condition had never crossed my mind.

My older daughter has autism, and there have been plenty of times when I’ve thought that maybe her autism came from me. I certainly have several of the traits, but don’t quite fit the overall profile for it. However, ADD is a diagnosis for hyper kids, right? Like, someone who bounces off walls and can’t sit still and is too loud and too talkative? I have never, ever, ever been what someone might call hyperactive. The couch and I have always been good friends.

I gave my doctor a puzzled look. “ADD? But I don’t have any energy at all.”

She explained the difference between the hyperactive type of ADD and the inattentive type of ADD. It made sense, but hearing that I might have ADD – something I thought was primarily limited to kids – frightened me.

I told my doctor I was honestly unsure if that was the problem. She suggested a one month trial of medication to find out.

Having taken antidepressants before, I was unsure if a month would be enough time. Antidepressants usually take 4-8 weeks to begin working, so wouldn’t ADD medications work the same way?

“How long will it take to know?” I asked.

“I think you’ll have a good idea after one pill,” she responded.

One pill? Really? What the hell was in this stuff?

I left my doctor’s office with my prescription, went to the pharmacy, and took my little bottle of pills home. I still remember it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon in October – not too warm, not too cold. Aaron wasn’t home, the girls were in school. It was just me and that little bottle.

Sitting on the couch, I took one pill out of the bottle and studied it in my hand. How could I know if this was the right diagnosis with just one small, round pill? Had my doctor lost her mind, too?

And then I wondered what would happen if it worked. Would I be chained for life to a pill? Would it change who I am? Would people treat me differently if they knew I had ADD?

I took a sip of water and swallowed the pill.

And then I waited.

My doctor said it would take 30 minutes or so for the medication to take effect. I counted the minutes on the clock as I sat in my quiet living room, mind racing with anxiety over what I had just done. All of my worried thoughts slammed into each other in a chaotic jumble that left me desperate to get out of my own head.

Unable to stand it anymore, I went upstairs and did some laundry to distract myself from my internal drama. After sorting clothing and starting the washer, I went back downstairs and resumed my wait on the couch.

I looked at the clock and realized it had been over 30 minutes. I didn’t really feel any different. Huh, I thought, maybe I don’t have ADD? I decided to stretch out on the couch and take a nap, disgusted that I got myself so worked up over nothing.

And that’s when I noticed it.

Silence.

No eight televisions all blaring thought fragments in my head. No songs competing for my attention. Just…quiet, along with intense focus and awareness.

My current thought about wondering if the med didn’t work was bouncing around in my head without any interference. It was crystal clear, like someone had taken a squeegee to my brain and removed all of the grime fogging it up.

I smiled. It felt great. I called Aaron and told him everything that had happened.

And I did take that nap, falling asleep more easily than normal.

Before I drifted to sleep, I remember saying out loud, with no one else to hear, “Apparently I do have ADD.”

—-
*Must break here. I didn’t intend for this to be so long, but it’s harder to write than I thought! The final part on Monday, and I swear it’ll be the final part.*

(Edited to add: Part 3 is now available.)

Filed Under: clearly insane, me me me ·

Mar 3, 2011

Losing My Mind (And Finding It Again), Part 1

By Christina ·

Different ways I considered to start this post:

“I’ve been called scatterbrained. Funny thing is, they were right.”

“Do I owe you an e-mail or a call? Sorry, that happens a lot with me.”

“I’m on a drug, it’s called Charlie Sheen…”

—-

There’s no easy way to start talking about losing your mind. I’ve already deleted and started over several times, scared what people will think of me for sharing this. But it’s felt like a big dark secret holding me back, and it’s possible others are going through the same struggle, so I’m going to tell my story.

*deep breath & imagining all of you in your underwear to reduce my anxiety*

—-

I love to sleep. When I sleep, everything is quiet. Getting to sleep, however, is always more of a struggle. Because even if the room is completely quiet, it sounds like a busy New York street in my head.

When I was younger, thoughts in my head were rapid and clear. I was bored in school because I picked up the subject quickly and was ready to move on long before everyone else. When working on a project, my mind was always focused one or two steps ahead of what I was doing.

High school and college were periods of time when I both loved and hated my brain. I was proud of being smart, of being able to pull answers to obscure questions from my grey matter in split seconds. It also didn’t make me popular – when a question was asked in class, it was nearly impossible for me to not raise my hand, as my brain was screaming at me I KNOW THE ANSWER! SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY IT!

But I also started to notice that it never stopped. My thoughts raced from dawn to well into the night, and if I went to sleep exhausted, it was mental exhaustion, not physical. I hated working on long projects or reading long books, because I was distracted long before it was finished. I was also a champion procrastinator, preferring the rush of cramming it all in at the last minute. I never thought it was a problem, just a side effect of having a good brain. I had youth on my side and used that youthful energy to battle the negative aspects and keep my brain in line.

As I’ve grown older, the speed at which I think is still the same, but I’ve slowly grown more and more unable to deal with it. After all, it never stops. Never.

The best way to describe it is to imagine being in a room with 8 televisions and 2 radios on. They’re all loud, and all feature things you are thinking about. The songs compete for your attention, and as soon as you’re interested in something on one television, another one becomes even louder and drowns it out.

I hate having a brilliant thought for a post in my head, and just as I start to ponder how to develop it, another thought cuts in and suddenly I can’t remember the first one at all. Gone, just like that. Sure, it happens to all of us at some point, but I’m grasping at stray thoughts all day long, trying desperately to give my attention to the thoughts that are important, thoughts I can’t risk forgetting.

My memory is actually pretty good, when it makes enough of an impression for me to remember. If I’m eating lunch while distracted, though? I wouldn’t even be able to recall what I ate later that day. And at night, my thoughts keep going even when I want to stop. Moments of the day replay, random thoughts make quick drive-by passes just to perk my mind and keep it alert, and of course a song is always stuck in my head.

What I hate the most, though, is letting people down. Forgetting to send an e-mail to someone to check on them. Being unable to have a long talk with a friend who is hurting – looking them in the eyes while fighting internally to keep my thoughts on what they’re saying when my mind tries desperately to wander. (And I DO care! I want to listen! My mind is just bringing up random thoughts and there’s a bird in the tree behind you that is really pretty.)

Throughout my twenties, I visited my doctor several times for symptoms that I thought were depression: I was tired all the time, I had trouble falling asleep, I had no attention towards my work, I felt fuzzy-headed and down. Each time I was treated for depression, despite everything going well in my life at the time. The meds helped me cope, but did little to help stop my racing mind.

After becoming a mom, my coping abilities failed as my responsibilities increased. If I only had to take care of myself, I could get by, but adding kids to the mix quadrupled the number of things I had to keep track of and guaranteed that something was always forgotten. And, to add to the cacophony inside my head, I now had bone-chilling anxiety screaming what if? at me as well.

A year and a half ago, I went back to my doctor. I was exhausted, I was fuzzy-headed, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I nearly broke down in tears as I told my doctor about locking our door at night, telling myself that I locked it, going upstairs to bed, and then being completely unable to remember if I’d locked the door or not, requiring me to go check again. I explained how my mind was a jumble, and it was getting harder and harder to think through an entire thought without losing it somewhere along the way.

I was convinced I had Alzheimer’s or early onset dementia, and I was scared. My thoughts were clear and speedy when I was younger, why were they failing me now? Was this the beginning of a slow slide into forgetting everything?

That office visit went far longer than I expected. My doctor looked back through my history, and we discussed practically everything I’ve written here and so much more. Blood tests were run to check practically everything that could be checked, and they were all amazingly normal.

And then my doctor asked, “Have you ever thought you could have attention-deficit disorder?”

Really?

Part two coming very soon, I promise.

(Edited to add: Part 2 is now available.)

Filed Under: clearly insane, me me me, memories ·

Jan 25, 2011

The Pre-Conference Freak Out

By Christina ·

The past few days I’ve been in pre-conference mode, scurrying around here and there trying to get everything in place before I leave for the Blissdom Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. This involves a lot of last minute personal prep, including hair cut, eyebrow wax, and wardrobe selection (aka: OMG I have NOTHING to WEAR!) as well as laundry, grocery shopping, and last minute checks to make sure the family will get by while I’m away.

Yes – I do trust my husband to keep things running while I’m gone. But if I can make it a little easier for him, I will. Because no matter how hard he tries, I know he’ll still have to encounter resistance from Mira, who will miss her mommy with the fire of a thousand suns and give him enough attitude to fill an entire preschool classroom. She loves her daddy, but Mira is totally mommy’s girl.

Although I will be sure to leave him a reminder list a mile long, too. Not because I don’t trust him, just because he’s not as neurotic as me. He doesn’t walk the house twice each night making sure every door is locked. Or make sure the fireplace is off after going to bed when he can’t remember for certain that he did turn it off. Or peek in on the girls to make sure they didn’t come up with some fire hazard in their room before going to sleep.

What? You mean all moms don’t do that?

Truthfully, I have far greater fears over the next few days. First, I’m terrified that I’m going to look awful at Blissdom. These conferences are filled with so many beautiful women, and it’s easy for me to get intimidated because 1. I have no sense of fashion and therefore am often under dressed, and 2. have no ability to apply makeup without making myself look like a clown. You’d think that after attending so many conferences I’d have this down by now, but alas, it’s not yet the case. (Although in my defense, I’ll add that I’m getting better at it!)

I’d say I’m also afraid of the intense social interaction coming my way, but that’s really not the case. Sure, I’ll still have a lot of social anxiety, but I do a great impression of looking calm on the outside when I’m nervous on the inside. Past conferences have helped me master my social anxiety, and other than a little bit of conference-ADD, I’m usually pretty good at striking up a conversation. Just don’t ask me to remember your name – I’m lousy at names.

But my greatest fear is having to get on a plane Wednesday morning. I’m completely breaking my own rules about flying for this year’s Blissdom. My rules for flying are simple: no flying anywhere I couldn’t drive in a reasonable amount of time. Reasonable usually includes anything in a 12 hour radius, sometimes 16 depending on how long I’ll be staying while I’m away. I have never liked flying, will never like it, and will always take any steps to minimize

Nashville is only a 6 hour drive, and I had every intention to drive it. Then I realized that driving it would require me to take another day off work. (And my vacation days are unpaid – that’s expensive!) And then I realized it costs $18 a day to park at Opryland, which combined with the gas to get there is also expensive. And THEN I saw that I could fly there for $49 each way – NOT expensive!

So I’m ashamed to say that the almighty dollar is apparently stronger than my convictions against flying. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Anyway, to those I’ll be seeing in Nashville – take pity on me if I look like a Midwestern rodeo clown, and I look forward to us having a great time. And to those I won’t be seeing at Blissdom – know that I wish you could all be there with me!

Filed Under: Blissdom, clearly insane, me me me ·

Dec 1, 2010

Good Thing We Already Had The Backup

By Christina ·

Like many people, I love a good Black Friday sale. Last year, Aaron was the Black Friday king, making it to 5 stores (all with different opening times) and scoring everything on our list.

This year the deals weren’t as appealing to us, but there was one item we had our eyes on: a new TV. There was nothing wrong with our old TV – it was a 32″ CRT model (the ones with the big tubes in them that weren’t flat, for you young’ins out there) and worked perfectly well. Except that any movie in widescreen was exceptionally small on the screen, and even though we have a lovely Blu-Ray player, the TV didn’t display it in that crystal-clear precision it’s known for.

So Aaron and I agreed that a new TV would be our Christmas gift to each other this year. After all, I have a steady, as-secure-as-you-can-be-in-this-economy job, and Aaron is working at the moment as well. We have saved a little money, and it seemed like the perfect splurge, seeing how we’ve been drooling over those shiny, new flat panel HD TVs for some time now.

While we like the rush of the Black Friday excitement, I knew TVs were going to be the hot item this year, and I wasn’t so thrilled with the prospect of camping out all day at a store to be one of the 5 people to get one at a good price. But then my friend Jenna shared on Facebook that Sears would have an excellent TV on sale for an incredible price the Sunday before Black Friday.

We waited for Sunday. And then I searched TVs on the Sears website and found it. It was an incredible deal: 46″ Sony LED TV for nearly half the retail price. Perfect. (BTW, thank you for the tip, Jenna!)

Instead of waiting in line for hours, we simply walked into the store, explained which TV we wanted, and walked out 15 minutes later with our TV. No Black Friday sale could match that.

We planned to set it up Friday night. I carefully cleaned around the TV stand, preparing the space for the new TV and dusting off the old one. “What should we do with this old TV?” Aaron asked.

“Let’s just offer it up on Facebook,” I suggested. “I’m sure one of our friends could use a TV. We’ll just put it in a corner until someone can come get it.”

Here’s the dramatic part of the story, though. You see, unlike these beautiful new flat panel TVs, the old-style televisions with their tubes and lack of flatness aren’t exactly lightweight. Actually, they’re about as heavy as large granite boulders, and roughly as easy to carry. I knew our 32″ TV was heavy, and I was already dreading trying to lift it.

Aaron stood on one side and I stood on the other. We got our hands under it and slid it a little to the edge of the stand. I was already trying to prepare myself for the weight, telling myself it was only a few shuffle-steps to get it across the room and set it down. Aaron asked if I was ready, and I nodded, pulling up on the TV with all of my strength.

We had just cleared the TV stand when I became certain this was a bad idea.

“I can’t hold it! I’m losing it!” I cried as my fingers started to slip. I tried to get my knee under it to help prop it up, forgetting that it weighed two tons and my knee was just as incapable of supporting two tons as my hands were. At that point I pulled my knee back up and tried to just get it gently down to the ground. But then my fingers lost their grip entirely.

I then learned that TV cases aren’t made nearly as well as I had hoped.

The case shattered into about a million pieces as it hit the ground. Aaron began a long string of cursing while I held my fingers – now missing a few layers of skin – and apologized that I wasn’t strong enough to hold it.

So much for giving it away on Facebook.

But then we had a new problem. Any movement caused more of the case to crack off, and with the case half shattered, it was now impossible for anyone to lift. And with sharp plastic shards everywhere, it couldn’t stay in the living room for the kids to find.

I suggested we slide it out to the garage. Aaron found a large piece of cardboard and we carefully slid the broken TV onto it. We slid it across the carpet about 5 feet before the TV shifted and tipped over, with a loud crackle of more splintering plastic, followed by more cursing from Aaron.

It was obvious that the case was only getting in the way, so Aaron took out some frustration by ripping off the remainder of the case from around the metal and glass parts of the TV and breaking the wires and circuit board to make it easier to transport. At that point we were able to successfully drag/scoot/slide it to the garage.

Now we have a useless, broken TV in our garage. But hey, the flat panel TV was a breeze to set up!

Anyone want a TV we’ll describe as “needs work”?