Adventures in ADHD

A few months ago, a couple of articles on ADHD crossed my Facebook feed. One of them was this one, and it changed my life.

The odd thing is, I already had a diagnosis. I'd just never considered that it might still be relevant.

I was diagnosed with ADD (they made a distinction in those days) when I was about 10, I don't remember the year precisely. It was only picked up because my younger brother was your classic hyperactive white boy, and the diagnosing psychiatrist figured he might as well take a look at the daydreamy big sister as well.

I took ritalin for four years, but as I grew into teenagehood I began to resent it as one of the many things - strong working mum, gyprock kit home, avant garde childrearing, not using the titles Mum and Dad and, as I entered my mid-teens, now-divorced parents - that made me not normal. I wanted to be normal, and I didn't want to see the psychiatrist any more, so I stopped taking ritalin. I can remember that my Dad kind of shrugged; I don't even remember a conversation about it with my Mum.

When my grades collapsed throughout year 10, people blamed my parents' divorce and the disruption of changing homes and schools.

When I had to repeat year 12, people blamed me for not studying, with slight concession to the fact that I was being frequently woken by my baby sister.

When I moved out at 18 and almost immediately descended into housekeeping chaos, people couldn't understand why I was such a slob.

When I pulled high distinction essays out of my hat at 3am on the day before they were due, people asked me again and again why I didn't do things in advance, and it was like they were speaking Klingon.

When I entered the professional workforce and just could not cope with staying on task, I hid what was going on so carefully that everyone except my one archaeology boss and colleagues thought I'd genuinely had a change of heart about my career path, rather than having destroyed my dream career through misuse of work time, disorganisation, and the inability to deal with workplace behaviour.

When I racked up debt in my mid-20s people shook their heads and adjured me to be more careful.

When my housekeeping never got any better, people were embarrassed for me.

When I couldn't stay on top of things as a teacher, I covered it up again and again and loathed my disorganisation and laziness.

When I blurted things out or spoke too loud or babbled too much I thought I was socially awkward, and blamed myself for not being more restrained.

When I dropped and trod on and walked into and wrong-footed and couldn't organise my body in order to get things done, I thought I was clumsy, careless and hasty, and hated my body.

When I couldn't stop the endless desire to eat, I thought I was a glutton and despised my weakness.

That was the litany of who I was: careless, lazy, gauche, greedy, clumsy, hasty, incompetent, slob.

Not once, in all this time, did I ever ask, "Is this ADHD?"

Not once, in all this time, did anyone who knew I'd had the diagnosis ever ask, "Is this ADHD?"

I am angry occasionally, but mostly what I feel is bewilderment. Looking back, it's so obvious; I have no idea why I didn't figure it out. I just can't fathom it. I'm smart. I'm educated. I have access to a world of research at my fingertips and have done for nearly two decades. I knew I'd had the diagnosis as a kid. Why did it never occur to me to ask whether my complete failure to "adult" was simply a logical extension of the 10-year-old daydreamer with the messy desk tray and habit of staring through her classmates?

When I read the article I linked above, something finally clicked.

Then came a ten minute consultation with my GP.

An hour with a mental health nurse in which I sobbed over wounds whose pain I hadn't ever acknowledged.

Half an hour with a sweet, gentle mental health doctor, and a screening test in which my 'impairments' were laid bare in dozens of tick-boxes.

Two ECGs (the first one wasn't plugged in properly).

One blood test.

And then I was in the pharmacy holding a small green piece of paper with my sweet mental health doctor's instructions laid out in neat capital letters.

Methylphenidate.



I've been on it for just over two weeks now. At first, I was taking a dose in the morning and a dose at midday, necessitating the carrying of it in a miniature combi-lock safe during my work day. Now I'm taking the full dose in the morning, and in two weeks the dose will go up again. So far, concentration is a little better at work, housework has become astonishingly trivial, I've actually been to the gym, and I just don't care that much about food. Suddenly I'm cooking dinner every night (or organising one of the others to cook it) and taking lunch every day. Chocolate has sat uneaten in the cupboard and I don't even care. I can cook a whole meal without getting bored and wandering off.

It's weird.

IT'S WEIRD.

Is this how normal people experience life?


It's, um, pretty cool.

101 Things To Do...

... that are better than dithering on the internet.

Evenings and weekends are hard. They're supposed to be - or rather, have to be - useful times. They're the times for getting things done around the house and in my life. Teaching is such a life-eating pursuit that these precious non-school times must be guarded carefully and used effectively.

The pressure to use them effectively is so great that I spend most of them dithering around on FB, GB and BtN, nattering to people and sharing interesting things.

Now, I'm not going to say that these are not valid ways to spend time, because I fundamentally believe that they have their place. Social interaction, when one's support network is spread far and wide, can only happen through such media, and it is as important a part of life as running into someone at the shops and having a quick catch-up. It's necessary and healthy.

However if I spend too long doing it, for all that I've enjoyed myself, I get a sense of life being eaten away. So I engaged in an act of meta-procrastination and made myself a list of things I could be doing instead. It's taken me hours, but I hope they're invested rather than frittered!

Some are useful, some are frivolous, some are impractical, but all are part of the useful, interesting life that's currently squeezed between school and "relaxing on the internet".

1.    Put a wash on
2.    Hang the washing up
3.    Fold washing and put it away
4.    Tidy a room
5.    Sweep the floor
6.    Scrub the toilet
7.    Do the dishes
8.    Deal with the rubbish/recycling
9.    Sort a drawer
10.    File papers
11.    Polish shoes
12.    Polish jewellery
13.    Clean the fridge/freezer
14.    Do a pantry audit
15.    Spot-treat the carpet/upholstery
16.    Straighten the books
17.    Clean the litter tray
18.    Write a kitchen/linen needs list
19.    Plan a meal
20.    Price a renovation/redecoration
21.    Choose clothes to donate/recycle
22.    Read the gas meter
23.    Take batteries down to be recycled

24.    Check bank balances
25.    Submit a useful form
26.    Register a warranty
27.    Send an email to someone
28.    Back up
29.    Clean up downloads/desktop/other files
30.    Tag old photographs
31.    Do a grocery order
32.    Make an album to have printed
33.    Defragment
34.    Remove useless software
35.    Book a holiday
36.    Phone a friend. Chat.
37.    Learn to use GIMP
38.    Pinterest useful parenting ideas
39.    Write & publish a blog post
40.    Read journal articles

41.    Write the book
42.    Plan another book
43.    Read a book/magazine about writing
44.    Write a short story/drabble
45.    Edit something
46.    Make a character profile
47.    Draw a map

48.    Sketch something
49.    Colour something
50.    Paint something
51.    Cross-stitch
52.    Mending
53.    Make a garb pattern/concept
54.    Embroider something
55.    Learn to cast on; practise
56.    Take photographs
57.    Teach myself knitting
58.    Make lacing cords
59.    Learn to weave

60.    Lift weights
61.    Go for a walk
62.    Go for a bike ride
63.    Do some yoga/pilates
64.    Stretch
65.    Meditate
66.    Dance around to music
67.    Plan a long walk
68.    Go geocaching

69.    Play with the cat
70.    Read a book/magazine
71.    Put photos in frames
72.    Scrapbook recipes
73.    Learn Italian/French/German/Spanish
74.    Journal/reflect

75.    Practise the flute
76.    Practise the violin
77.    Practise the recorder
78.    Compose something
79.    Arrange or transcribe something
80.    Research and save sheet music

81.    Weed the garden
82.    Mow the lawn
83.    Prune
84.    Sweep the back porch
85.    Clean the windows

86.    Transcribe names
87.    Write up name articles
88.    Write a persona piece

89.    Research a new family tree member
90.    Backtrack and add details
91.    Upload genealogy photos
92.    Catalogue family photos

93.    Have a bath/wash hair
94.    Plug in toothbrush
95.    Do facial masque
96.    Soak & scrub feet
97.    Manicure/pedicure
98.    Track food/exercise
99.    Track weight/body measurements
100.   Get/give massage
101.   Go to bed early

I'll keep you updated with my progress!

Rock and a Hard Place

As you're probably aware, teaching in the UK is getting worse and worse. Shifting goalposts, enormous workloads, constant negative feedback, absurd performance pay, and so on. I'm going crazy with stress and can't keep up with everything I'm supposed to be doing unless I have absolutely no life. I could work 12 hour days 7 days a week and still never get on top of it all.

I keep reaching breaking point, then finding I can go that little bit further, then reaching breaking point again. I almost resigned for Christmas, but I was too scared of the money issues. Now I'm invested in these kids and want to see out the year, but the fight-or-flight response is on constantly and I'm living through a rollercoaster of adrenaline. This has to be my last year of this. Come summer, I am done with classroom teaching.

I'm going to try to get a job back in the heritage sector, with supply teaching as my stopgap until something in that field comes through.

But this comes with a price. I was hoping to have a baby in the next year or so, but we can't really afford one if I'm not in a full-time, decently-paid job in which I am entitled to paid maternity leave. Statutory maternity pay isn't really enough for very long, and I'd be wary of not having a job to go back to anyway. So if I take the plunge, and get out of teaching and into something else, I have to put off having a baby until I'm in whatever that something else turns out to be. At nearly 33, that's not a decision to be taken lightly.

And yet, it's simply not safe, mental health wise, for me to suck it up long enough to have the baby.

I can't balance it, and I don't know what to do.

Sharing My Workout...

I started off two weeks ago with a workout 20 minutes long and using 680g weights. I've crept it up to 30 minutes now and 1.13kg weights, and I plan to keep creeping... an hour is my length goal, and once I've conquered the 2.27kg dumbells lurking in the back of the cupboard I'll look at investing in something heavier. It's baby steps, but they feel awesome. I'm getting in a session on Mondays, Wednesdays and either Friday or Saturday each week depending on energy & privacy levels on those days. It's working!

One of the things I set out to counter with this particular exercise routine was my peculiar hatred of counting repetitions. Ask me to do twenty situps and I'll get annoyed with the counting by about 5. My brain does a lot of drifting when I exercise, and I think I need that to keep going, so counting brings me back to the physical activity in a way that actually makes the activity harder. To deal with this, I've used songs with distinct patterns, and I use those patterns instead of counting: e.g. I do star jumps for the whole of this verse, then switch to weight curls for the chorus, then situps for the next verse, etc. I'm cramming in a lot of different exercises targeting different muscle groups, and I can already feel it making a difference. I have more energy, stamina and strength, and I no longer ache post-workout or feel like I can't walk the next day. I've not exercised this frequently since I was a teenager, and it's really quite a remarkable feeling. I might even be becoming someone who craves exercise. Fancy that!!

I thought I'd share the 8 songs that currently make up my 30-minute workout. They're all songs in which I find the tune uplifting and moving; a couple of them have lyrics that also lift my spirit. The last one always leaves me with its eponymous emotion, even at the end of a hard workout, and the buzz I get from finishing on that high note always leaves me feeling I could go that little bit further.

1. Celtic Woman: Granuaile's Dance

2. Voices of Ireland: Star of the County Down

3. Enya: The River Sings

4. Celtic Woman: Mo Ghile Mear

5. Mediaeval Baebes: Return of the Birds

6. John Parr: St Elmo's Fire

7. Celtic Woman: The Sky and the Dawn and the Sun

8. Loreen: Euphoria

Enjoy!

PS: In story news, I am currently sitting on 12,957 words, with today's writing session yet to come. Pretty much double my expected total for this point. Oh, yes.

Coming up for air.

Sometimes we get a wake-up call in our life.

Since January, I have been working in a school that demands extremely high levels of planning paperwork, which undergo constant monitoring. The workload is demanding, the management style highly critical and perfection-oriented, and 100% commitment is expected.

And I've been giving it, more than I ever have before.

I've been working 9, 10, 11 hour days and more. Plus hours upon hours on weekends to do the stuff I just can't fit in during the week. I've dropped out of a sport I loved because I had no energy for it, stayed in when I needed fresh air, given up opportunities for socialising, sacrificed sleep, dropped the housework ball more times than I can count, grouched at my family, and felt like an escapee whenever I found five minutes in which to pursue my own interests. My life these past few months has been a work-induced blur.

I thought it was the right thing to do, because this job was important. It was my key to ongoing employment: getting it right, showing my commitment, being the best I could be might lead to a permanent contract, and thus stability and financial security.

So, last week it came to crunch time. I interviewed for my own position along with potentially 1-2 more positions in Key Stage One. My lesson was good. My data analysis task was rated excellent. My panel interview went as smoothly as you could hope. I know the kids, I know how the school works, I have the knowledge and experience to make this work.

But they said there was someone better. I will not be needed next year.

Oh no, feel free, I'll just stand here while you punch me in the gut.

I got the call very late at night, and my deputy head - who had said that she wanted me in the job - sounded as gutted as I was. But that's as may be. I went quickly through the stages of grief: only a little denial before anger set in, barely a moment for bargaining before I hit a huge pile of depression. But after a good night's sleep and the first few conversations in the morning, I'd made it to acceptance.

Thursday and Friday were hard. In fact, they sucked. People were either shocked, or consoling, or avoided me. I was disconnected, suffering resurgence of the cricked neck that had plagued me earlier in the week, and feeling rejected and wistful and exhausted.

On the weekend, my body asserted itself, and gave me a sore throat and lost voice: the one complaint that can truly keep me home from work. Go, body. Today (Monday) was spent largely in bed.

The upshot of all this is that it's time to take stock. I've allowed myself to be overcome by this school's demands, which are far in excess of any other school I've taught in, and do not necessarily serve the needs of the pupils any better than systems at other (often much better) schools in which I've taught. There's only so much I can do to reel it in - as long as I'm there and needing a reference when I leave, most of their demands have to be met - but I'm going to try.

I'm going to leave early enough to see full daylight every day.
I'm going to source plans where I can and quit re-inventing the wheel.
I'm going to make sure I have the energy to go to gymnastics.
I'm going to get home early enough to have some alone time every day.
I'm going to use that time to do things for me.

and...

I'm going to start working towards what I really want in life - which is not to be a slave to an education system that lets down its staff as much as its pupils. I have some dreams and some half-formed plans, and I'm going to do at least one thing every day that is a step on the road to getting there. I got out of mainstream education once, and fell back into it... time to look at getting out again.

Old and New

When I created this blog, I set my old one, "Christine's Insanity Outlet", to private. It had become too traceable and there was a lot of very heavy analysis on there, particularly about my family who, as the internet became more and more transparent, were likely to find it and might be upset by it.

However, lately I've been feeling more and more like there were things on that blog that I wished were still public (my yeast & sugar science experiment, for one!). I also felt sad that more than 3 years of my recorded history had been locked away.

So, today I spent several hours going through and painstakingly editing a duplicate of the old blog before importing the remainder (some 420 posts) into this one. I've removed things that reference family history too strongly, and also most of the posts about exes, apart from some of the most critical phases of analysis that led to my own healing. Additionally I've edited names here and there to make sure certain people don't google their way here.

So if it looks like the blog has suddenly become enormous overnight and the tags have multiplied, you're not going crazy ;) That's exactly what's happened!

Feel free to browse the newly added old posts - there's now 4 years of content on this blog, so it should keep you occupied for a while!