Back last year, I was diagnosed with A.D.D. It was a breath of fresh air to learn about the disorder because in return, I learned about me. I had never felt great through out life. I've always felt like an outsider trapped in a world where distractions are apart of every breath I take. I've always had co-existing conditions that go along with my ADD such as depression and anxiety and never really understood WHY my antidepressants never really worked.
Back in May, I started taking Concerta. When Concerta wore off to quickly, my psychiatrist prescribed me Ritalin two times a day. Before taking Ritalin I never really understood what it was like to live in a normal mind. I never was able to walk out the door without going on tangents of what I saw in my path way to the door. Simple tasks to leave the house for example would send me on a map of distraction. I would see a sock on the floor on the way out, pick the sock up, put it in the laundry room upstairs and while upstairs, I'd notice that the wash needed to be put in the drier. I'd put the wash in the drier and realize that we were out of drier sheets. I'd go back downstairs to write "Drier Sheets" on the grocery list and wouldn't know where my pen was. I'd start looking for my pen when I'd come across a magazine in the drawer and start flipping through the pages. "GOD DAMN IT" I scream out in my head, "just leave, just walk out the door..where are your keys, where'd the damn keys go now..the laundry room?"..and it would start all over again. When the ADD would go on their "tangents" it would leave me miserable following the tasks that I didn't want to do. I don't want to be distracted like that. I want to be able to look at my goal and get there without the constant feel of clutter and impulsions that I feel on a daily basis.
When I started Concerta, it was like someone had cleaned my clutter up. I could aim twards the door walking right past the sock on the floor and not think a thing about it. I never knew that this was how normal people function. I never knew how easy life was when I wasn't constantly distracted by every single thing that was in my path. I can understand why people wouldn't get why these distractions would be so bothersome to want to take medication to stop it, but the point is, without the medication I CAN'T stop. I want to be able to hold conversations with people and LISTEN to them. I want to be able to hear what people are saying and not looking over their shoulder while they're talking to me wanting to know what's going on behind and around them. I don't want to be in the middle of a sentance and either forget what I have to say or start another conversation in the middle of a sentance. I just want it to stop and function like anyone else would.
On Thursday, I went back to the psychiatrist and she wanted to know how the Ritalin was working. I told her it was wonderful and that it really opened my eyes to the problems I was having. I said to her that the only problem was that I was having a hard time taking my second dosage of Ritalin in time so that it wouldn't affect my sleeping at night. She asked me to try one more drug before commiting to Ritalin and I was alright with that. She prescribed me Vyvanse at 50mgs a day. Today was my first day taking it, and it was the first day in almost 2 months that I've gone off on my "Tangents". It was all day long. I wanted to make Luke lunch, so I went to the cabinet, got him a gerber meal and plopped it in the microwave. I waited for a minute, went on the internet and had 5 browsers open. I went back to the microwave pulled out his meal, went to cut it up and cool it off and I saw a commercial for the "Obama Campaigne". I saw a picture of Obama as a child and thought to myself "Wow, that picture doesn't look all that old, I wonder what his age is"..and so I put down the knife and went to the computer to investigate his age and instead pulled up the other browsers and started looking around. It wasn't for another few minutes that I realized that I had been cutting up Luke's food that I needed to go back.
All while this is going on, there's a small little voice inside my head saying "stop, think, and then act, you need to finish what you were doing." The downfall to that voice is how quiet it is, because with all the other thoughts going on dancing around in this brain of mine, they control that little voice and I never listen to it..and that's sad. Needless to say, I don't think that 50mgs of Vyvanse is going to cut it for me. I don't like going back to the old Jill. The Jill who runs around as if she's a chicken with her head cut off.
