I am easily distracted under normal circumstances. I have ADHD – which is to say, I am hyperactive, imaginative, really good at lateral thinking, and it sometimes feels as if there are a family of squirrels living within my head who do various memory-and-thinking tasks for me. It can sometimes feel like herding cats; squirrels are a lot like cats in that regard. I do enjoy mixing metaphors, too. It’s fun.
One of my favourite things to do in my free time is to wander aimlessly around stores in search of…. something…. that I probably had in mind when I entered the store… but consequently, I forgot what it was. So instead of looking for aforementioned forgotten item, I’ll look for anything sparkly that I find amusing. Then, upon returning home, I will recall exactly what I was looking for and wonder how on earth I spent so much money and STILL did not get that stupid item I went to the store for in the first place! Bah…
I wish I were kidding, but I am not. Tragically, I do this very often. Note to self: make a shopping list next time and don’t forget it on the counter in the kitchen before leaving for the store. What good is a shopping list if you leave it at home??
I sometimes get so caught up thinking about various random things that I’ll get completely lost wandering around my neighborhood and have to call someone to tell me where in the wide universe I am. This has happened at least four times in the past two years. Two times, I stubbornly refused to call anyone and simply wandered aimlessly some more until I got back to the house.
Before starting on meds again (I was dx’d as a kid, and stopped treatment for it when I was 18/19), I was an adrenaline junkie. I lived in Florida. South Florida. Where all those hurricanes are always making landfall. So when a hurricane hit, I would wait until the middle of the storm, and then go wander around, or drive through the city marvelling at the danger and the destruction going on around me. One time, my cousin and I walked to a church near where my grandparents live (we were staying there through the storm) and I was nearly run over by a tree. Admittedly, the tree had the right-of-way and I should have yielded for it, but in hindsight, that tree should have applied its brakes to avoid a collision with a pedestrian. I should sue that tree! Sadly, it has been turned into kindling and I can now not get justice. =(
Not everything is easy with squirrels on the brain, though. I often forget simple stuff, miss obvious points, lack severely in the common-sense department, and just overall feel like I’m going crazy. I have a hard time doing anything that I don’t have an interest in doing already, and getting motivated to go to the DMV is a pure nightmare. I’ll put that one off for years unless someone forces me to go, at which point, I will be so bored that I will most likely get arrested for throwing peanuts at the employees or the other people standing in line. Damn squirrels show me no mercy sometimes. I plead the 1st! Throwing peanuts is my god-given right as a form of free-speech! Or something! =| I hate the DMV so much.
So that is my story about having ADHD. And 90% of it is not entirely elaborated. Only some of it probably is. Most of it is true, though. I have two cats.
14 comments
The worst part is when the rodents choose not to work as a team, rather they work as individuals and create an intense cacophony. That said, the few times where they do work in harmony, some pretty awesome stuff happens, don’t you think?
I’m loving your posts, BTW. You need to compile some sort of anthology or something.
Whenever I get in a slightly whimsical / ridiculous mood, I write stuff like this,…. I have several more where that came from, too. Most of what I write is fictional / fantasy short stories, but I love this kind of writing too much to ignore it for too long. lol
This post gives me more depth into your problems, because it makes me remember my father and his memory issues. Yeah I know we live in mess up world control by nameless faces with suits, but not counting that I wonder if you didn’t have ADHD would that be enough for you to be more hopeful about future?
I don’t like hope; every instance I’ve seen of it in my life, and in the lives of others, it’s been an anchor holding people in place. Hoping for something or someone to change; hoping for circumstances to shift; hoping for a situation to improve; hoping the bus arrives on time… well, the last one makes sense, I guess.
It’s complicated… I look at my choices, and I see I haven’t found work yet, and the work that I’m likely to find, if any, is work that will leave me unfulfilled and bored. Yet, I have no desire to work in an office (just read this post and you’ll see why, lol). I haven’t found something that works for me, and I’m fully aware that the way the system works sort of demands people stay in a steady career so they can retire, so they can enjoy the fruits of social insurance, so they can sit around doing nothing half the year and then move to the other side of the country and do nothing for the other half… and none of it sounds at all appealing to me.
If I could find a job in giving charitable aide to isolated tribes in Africa, or Indonesia or something, I’d be set. ADHD or no.
well that’s interesting job, and it made me think something I wonder how life would change for some people on this site if they did something so drastically different that cause them to be in a situation that force them to not worry about their self?
I agree with everything you just said. forgive my brain i went to check something but seems you delete your older post..? well you said something about installing rugs? well I was just thinking of a list of things i did, first I NEVER worked on the books, never had a job, I did something minor things for painting walls and was learning installing rugs as a helper, these things combine to not add up more than 2 months of my adult life.
okay, feels like i had a point, but then seems like i was trying to make you feel better by showing you I’m fucked in job search thing…ahhh forget it. lol
lol.. sorry ’bout that. I’ll repost the ones I have saved later. And points are something I often miss, too, so no worries… haha
Yeah, I installed carpet for a number of years, worked in a carpet warehouse, too. The warehouse was the first job I ever had, aside from washing dishes in a pizza shop. Almost met the love o’ me life in that job, too. She was an installer’s daughter and helped her dad do installs on an apartment complex I lived in (so I got to see her at work, and when I was home, if she was doing an install), and she gave me a puppy! I still have that puppy, too, although the puppy is much older now, and gnarled and has problems walking up stairs by herself…
But, um, I digress. I do think a lot of people who are depressed, are depressed for similar reasons, even if to them it feels like a low-grade anxiety they can’t quite put into words. It’s that monotony, that routine, that sameness of everything… It’s like we’re born into little boxes, and the little boxes grow up and turn into cubicles, and then the cubicles get old and turn into vacation houses, and then the vacation houses die and turn into coffins. We never escape from the box. And everyone knows it. Everyone’s aware of it. They might not realize why boxes are the problem, but they might well realize there’s something indistinctly weird about them. I might just be projecting my own view onto the world at large, though. But that kind of a situation you’re talking about – that’s probably outside the box.
Orangish.
You amuse me.
In another place and another time, I’m certain we could be friends.
Wrangle velosaraptors, ride the waves of a tsunami, fucking defy the flow of a volcano.
Let the forces of nature tremble before our might!
…or else…
….we’ll run very fast while screaming like little girls…
…but scary little girls!….
To be honest, volcanoes, and tsunamis, and velociraptors have always fascinated me. Tornadoes, and earthquakes, and wildfires… God what I wouldn’t give to see each at the peak of their awesomeness. I’ve seen hurricanes, and I have seen wildfires, but there are many, many more fascinating things to see and discover.
Just for the unkept record, I can spell velociraptor, but my phone cannot.
Damn autocorrect.
Technically, damn drunk texting and adding made up/mispelled words to the phone dictionary.
Just recently I was able to experience a wildfire up close and personally. That was a sweaty situation.
I’ve also lived in Kansas. I’m certain you can see where this is going.
I was underneath an overpass with a tornado about half a mile away.
Mother nature is wickedly beautiful.
I haven’t been around hurricanes, volcanoes, or earthquakes, yet.
I think an avalanche could be the adrenaline rush my life has been lacking.
Also, I will climb Everest before I die, or die climbing it.
I’m a big fan of white water rafting.
Beautiful disaster.
I would love going alpine skiing. God, what a rush. Especially since I can’t skii worth a damn.
But seriously. I will never forget those hurricanes… it’s mind-boggling how all this stuff works – the natural systems all coming together in perfect symmetry to produce such an incredible torrent of power, for such a sustained period of time… it’s hypnotic.
Wickedly beautiful – that’s a perfect phrase for it. 😀
I’m more of a snowboarding kinda guy.
I’m an accident waiting to happen.
My first time boarding I ended up falling/jumping off of the ski lift.
The things we do to avoid reaching the peak of ‘Devils Run.’
I may be accident prone.
My knees are proof.
I think a hurricane would be perfection.
I tried snowboarding once and I could definitely get used to it. Skiing always made me feel all wobbly and unstable or something. Still lots of fun, though.
Hurricane aftermaths are great, too. It’s that one rare moment where people remember they’re people for a while… you get neighborhoods emptied of people, just milling about in the rubble, talking, helping each other. It’s magical. Until you need to go buy gas for your generator, or need to fill up your car’s tank. Yeah… ten miles of angry, waiting folks in cars with empty fuel tanks and no A/C, in Florida heat… recipe for disaster. lol
Holy crap i do the exact same thing in the store. Kay now im here to get… that looks cool
Herding cats! I use that term all the time and pople look at me like uh… Ok? because they have no clue. I often use the squirrels on the brain to describe my son, who is much like me, plus testosterone. I miss my squirrels. I wonder where they went.