Living with ADHD gives the gift of so much awkwardness every day. Learn to laugh along with your condition.
1. The feeling that you might explode if you don't let the words come out of your mouth. All of the words. Right. Now.
2. Keeping track of a conversation with Venn diagrams, because you’re only two sentences in and your brain is already flooded.
3. The blank space that appears in your mind when you’re asked a question while thinking about something else. It has a sound too: “Uhhhhhhhhh.”
4. The panic that comes when your office manager asks at the weekly meeting, "Who's been using all the Post-its?"
5. Coworkers kindly point out stray Post-its that get stuck to the side of your head.
6. The occasional realization that grownups actually do iron their clothes, but that has absolutely no effect on whether you do.
7. Obsessive adherence to a system, and the extremes you’ll go to to keep anyone from messing with it. Until you get bored and just don't care anymore.
8. Hyperventilating when you look at a calendar, especially after forgetting you even had one. And, uhhhhh … you might have missed some stuff.
9. Taking 45 minutes to pick out a pair of black socks at the store because OMG all of the socks!
10. Doing the dishes, and every other chore at the same time. (Good thing I'm vacuuming now because I found everything the kids stuffed under the sofa and … Wait a minute, did I feed the goldfish? Oh hey, I need to look up that one thing on the Internet about fish tanks … and maybe I'll just top off the fish tank with some water in the kitchen and … OMG THE DISHES! THE SINK IS OVERFLOWING! Wait, where did I put the goldfish?)
11. That one time you found your purse in the fridge.
12. An inexplicable urge to ride your bike around the neighborhood. At midnight.
13. Cleaning out your wallet and finding receipts from 1998 … the last time you cleaned out your wallet.
14. You wake up at 7 a.m., but you’re not really awake until 10, when the stimulant meds and maybe some ill-advised caffeine kick in.
15. Waking up at 6 a.m. and shooting out of bed like a pebble from a slingshot screaming “HEY GUYS! MIND IF I VACUUM?”
16. The amount of time that passes between an idea popping into your head and your need to act on that impulse is about the width of a hair.
17. You know that the easiest way to clean any room is to throw everything away.
18. Pre-diagnosis, your favorite beverage was Mountain Dew, and your favorite time of day was 3 a.m.
19. The best pet for you is one that reminds you when it needs to be fed.
20. Your high school career can be summed up by: “class clown,” last minute miracles (and disasters) passing for homework, and lots of detention for being late to school.
21. Parties make for sensory overload, because there’s a thing over there. And a person over there. And a stuffed mushroom over there!
22. You keep 26 windows open on your computer.
23. The future is now. No, not later, now. Right now!
24. In sight, in mind. But out of sight, out of mind. If the pants drawer is closed, those pants don’t exist. Therefore, I shall not wear pants.
25. The song “Let’s Do The Time Warp” from Rocky Horror Picture Show has special meaning for you.
26. The only reason you’re not super good at playing the piano is because you’re dedicated to the trombone first. But before that comes the ukulele.
27. You have to rewash your last load of laundry because you forgot it was in the washer.
28. Paying your kids to do household chores would be a great idea, except they have ADHD too. (So next thing you know, the living room is riddled with Nerf bullets and you’re realizing you’re out of ammo, but the kids are still packing some Nerf heat! And nobody’s cleaning.)
29. When your mental filter kicks in two seconds too late, and you’ve just complimented a confused stranger in the grocery store line on his cabbage.
No comments:
Post a Comment