How ADHD affects me.

I thought it might be useful to have this in writing, somewhere i can re-read it and gain some kind of perspective of how my head works, for during those times when i'm caught up in it, thats if i manage to get a glimpse of clarity to realise whats going on.
And also it might help someone else who's in a similar situation (because i know theres some of you out there!) to realise that it is a real condition and you're not just going mad, even though thats how it feels at the time.

It's all about FOCUS.

I have little control over what I focus on, or for how long or when and where i do it. It can happen in a small way, or it can be quite prolonged.
For example, i lose track during conversations, especially with someone i'm not that familar with. Something will catch my attention, like a bird flying past, or someone else talking nearby, or it could be something about the persons face, or clothing or even something they mentioned, and i'll not hear the rest of the conversation. So then i'll either say the wrong thing, or laugh and try and cover it up by talking about something else, sometimes if i think i can, without offending the person, i'll ask them to repeat what they said, thats usually with people who know me a bit more. I especially cant keep up in a group situation, i lose track  and just end up not talking, or completely interrupt people because i suddenly have something to say and feel i have to say it right there and then which completely disrupts the flow of things. Sometimes i can do it right, but a lot of the time, i just tend to keep my mouth shut and hopefully respond with the right expressions and laugh at the right moments.

I'm ok with people close to me, they know how odd i am and it doesn't matter!

In the longer version of this problem with focusing, is, I'll be intent on something, my latest fad, whatever i've got my claws into, like a few weeks ago i decided that i wanted my dogs to be more socialised so i got on the case and started taking them for a walk every evening (they go out for a run with my partner every morning by the way) then after a few days i realised that i hadn't taken them out for about 5 days! something had got my attention and i didn't even realise i had stopped taking the dogs out! i cant even remember what i was doing instead, but that kind of thing happens all the time and it's really annoying! I'll really get into doing something, something that i really want or need to do, and then some other tasty carrot gets dangled in my face and i unconsciously just drop everything and follow the new carrot.

It effects everything, especially my children, they have no consistency. I try and stick to routines because it makes them feel safe and they know what to expect, but i just cant do routines because i keep falling off the rails, things get chaotic and its only when i cant take it anymore, i try and sort a routine out only to realise that i'd already sorted a routine but had forgotten about it! and round and round it goes....

This problem with focus has a knock-on effect and causes a lot of things to be forgotten.
Like :
cooking-i forget i've turned the hob on, the toast pops and goes cold, things get burnt, things dont get turned on etc..
taps get left on a lot, the hot tap, when i'm waiting for some warm water, i'll get distracted and go off and do something else.
I cant concentrate on doing one task if it means i need to leave the area briefly as i'll start doing something else instead and not realise that i was doing something else first until i walk back there and see half a job.
if i'm focusing on one job i find it hard to stop doing that thing and do something else, so i end up running out of time and not be able to do other jobs.
i daydream a lot, i could quite easily just stare out of the window looking at the trees for hours on end.
i 'tune out' quite a lot into my own little world.

these are the really shit ones:
i forget plans that i made with the kids :(
i forget appointments
i forget to pay bills, take library books back
forget to keep in touch with friends and family
forget to go food shopping
forget to get dinner ready on time
forget to make kids lunch on time
forget to change nappies
forget to give the kids a bath......................

I mean, its not ALWAYS bad, some days are better than others, but basically, what it boils down to is, not a lot gets done.

Also, its only things that interest me at the time will get my attention, things that i consider boring are the things most likely to get forgotten, or avoided altogether
LIKE HOUSEWORK
its SOOOOOO boring, the same thing over and over and over again, and then it needs doing again and again, its like an eternal punishment i feel like sisyphus! and thats whats has helped to create a MASSIVE back log of things that need doing, and now i cant cope with it.

AND I HATE LIVING LIKE THIS!!!
I HATE THE MESS AND I HATE STAGNATING, IT'S DEPRESSES ME!!

it feels like my life isn't going anywhere!
I've tried so many times, made so many brilliant, detailed plans on what needs doing, priorities, made weekly schedules, used post-it notes, white boards and posters stuck everywhere all around, set alarms on my phone, but then more delicious carrots get dangled in front of me with promises of fantastic, amazing things...much more interesting than that other stuff....

I need someone to be following me around with a stick, prodding me, saying "oi, you got to do this!"
but thats not going to happen, well if i had loads of money i could hire someone to do it, but i'd probably get really annoyed at having someone constantly telling me what to do, i'd fire them after about half an hour...

There are good aspects to having ADHD.

i can have a lot of fun, because fun things grab my attention, also, when i'm interested in something, i'll learn it really well, and i CAN get a lot done when my mind is on it. I'm really determined to do what i want to do and i wont let obstacles get in my way, i'll find a way round them some how, and i can think outside the box quite well too.

but at the moment, depression has a hold of me and i'm stuck in the mud. I'm almost alone, but not quite, help is on its way, i just need to keep plodding on, keep breathing......

I can visualise how i want my life to be, how i know it can be, the things i want aren't unobtainable, they're there, waiting for me.....

When i find something that works, i'll report back ;p

Last Night

We had a really weird night last night.

Now, before I start I just want to remind you that I like to keep an open mind, whilst at the same time, looking for the truth, which I know can sometimes be stranger than fiction....

Ghosts.

I'm  not saying I believe in ghosts and I'm sure theres many of you out there that have never had a ghostly inexplicable, unexplainable encounter and will quite easily say " there are no such thing as ghosts" but I have experienced many strange happenings in my time, quite a lot in my childhood, but also in recent years.
I have also heard very interesting stories form very intelligent, down to earth people that I would seriously doubt they made it up or were mistaken.

OK, for a bit of background, I've lived in my house for 6 years now, and I've been places before where I've felt uneasy being there, my mums house where I grew up being one of them, and other places where I've felt perfectly fine. The house I'm in at the moment seems, on the most part, completely fine, BUT, there have been a few strange things happen that I find hard to explain.

There's been a couple of times, a few years ago now, that when coming into the house after being out for a while, just as I step in through the door, I've heard voices coming from upstairs. The first time I heard it, they sounded like a childs voice, that cut off all of a sudden. The second time, it was a mans voice, and I was so convinced it's voice that I thought it was my partner back home early for some reason, I went upstairs to talk to him, and there's no-one there.

That was about 3-4 years ago. Two weeks ago, my mum was with me, we came through the front door, and I didn't hear anything but my mum said "who's that upstairs? is David home?", we had a look round, no-one there, my mum was so convinced she started to think it might've been an intruder and they might've got up into the loft or something! She was quite freaked out about it!

About 4 nights ago, my oldest daughter calls down from her room saying that she was scared and felt that there was someone in the room. remembering all the times that I used to get scared in my room when I was little, I had a proper look around, let her have the light on, told her not to worry, that we're all here, close by, she's safe, and she was ok.

2 nights ago, my oldest is saying again that she's scared, and even with the light on, she's still unhappy about being in there, so she went and slept in her brothers room, leaving her baby sister in there alone.

OK, Last night......my oldest slept in her brothers room again, she didn't even bother going into her room at all. When we had just gone to bed at around midnight, all the children where asleep,  I heard a noise which sounded just like when a child is standing up in the cot and yanking the side around, or jumping up and down in the cot, my 2 year old was asleep, i had just checked in on her before getting into bed. Then about 30 seconds after the sound stopped, she started crying. I went in to see her and she was still lying down with her arm around her favorite toy, I settled her, and she went back to sleep.
I thought it was REALLY weird, but fell asleep anyway.

THEN.....I was woken by my son, crying, calling me in, I had just been having a bad dream, when I got to him he said that he'd had a bad dream too, about the house being lifted up and shaken!!!
Trying not to get freaked out and trying to forget about all the stories about poltergeists I'd heard, I settled my son back to sleep, I went downstairs to the toilet, keeping calm, keeping calm, and went back to bed.
In the morning my partner said he was also woken by a bad dream, the house was making a weird noise in his dream, it woke him and it took a minute or two for him to realise where he was.

WEIRD OR WHAT!?!

next time I'll tell you some other strange things I've encountered........

  

Helen's theory of Intentionism ;)

I was going to reply to Keith's comments regarding my last post but it was such a long reply, I thought I'd put it as a whole new post!

Before I go on I have to mention, I haven't set this up properly yet, I haven't done the introduction for it but what it will say is that this is my blog where I just talk about MY OPINION on things, and thoughts and feelings. I'm not preaching to anyone, you don't have to read it, I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, I expect people to do their own research and make up their own mind about things. And I'm not saying that my opinions are the way it is because thats being arrogant, they are just my opinions or theories and everyone is entitled to their own opinions of course.

First I do want to reply to Keiths comment about me consuming milk when I've said I'm not eating meat because of animal cruelty - I'm not a vegan, whether I will be in the future I don't know, but for now I'm not. I would buy raw milk if I could because the small farms that produce raw milk do treat the cows with respect.
In an ideal world I dont see anything wrong, if you (like my grandad did years ago) bought a cow that had just calved (with the calf as well) and looked after both of them and milked the cow to use the milk as well....I really don't see a problem there. As it is, I try and get the best milk I can afford, I have 3 young children, and at the moment can't handle the extra stress that being a vegan will create.

I don't want to get into a vegan debate, its like a religous debate, it's pointless. OBVIOUSLY people have different beliefs and thats up to them, animal cruelty is wrong, but eating meat isn't wrong (ask any tiger) some humans choose not to consume any animal product, that doesn't mean that ALL humans shouldn't eat animal products, and I think it's wrong to force a belief on someone else. For humans it's a choice, believe me, if I was left to find my own food in a survival situation, I would catch and animal and eat it, to supplement the foraging.

OK, back to the whole evolution thing!
 
I have read and heard about Darwins theory of evolution, I've never just accepted a persons view as the truth. I question everything, thats just the way I am I suppose, I'm interested in the truth,`and I gather information from all sources, I keep an open mind and I like to mull things over and decide for myself.
There are some theories that I like, that probably don't have very much evidence to support them, doesn't mean I BELIEVE it, it's just that I like the idea and could see how it could be true, but without proper evidence, all it is, is a THEORY. One of the theories I like is that thousands of years ago, Aliens came to the earth and bred with primitive human type creature to create us! I know there's no real evidence to support this, but it would certainly explain a lot! I  also like the theory that there are other beings in this universe, again, there isn't much evidence (not for sure, proper evidence) for this, but it doesn't make sense that we would be the only creatures in this massive universe.

I understand Darwins theory, but I'm not going to think, "ok, yep, thats sounds about right, I'm going to believe that and ignore everything else" because that would be silly to not allow any other evidence to make me think differently. To me, Darwins theory is missing something. I think theres more to it than just randomness and chance, I think nature has it more sussed than that, I think Darwins theory is way too wasteful of resources, and it doesn't explain a whole loads of stuff.
I do believe that life evolves, people evolve, and I believe that things evolve because of the INTENT to evolve. If there was no intent, we would all still be crawling around on the floor, in fact, we would all be still little amoebas floating around in the sea. Something DRIVES the evolution, everything would stay the same if there was no intent. I truly believe that energy follows thought and the mind is a very powerful thing, the Giraffe has a long neck because it had to keep reaching higher to eat it's favorite leaves, that wasn't just random chance, it was the INTENT that created the long neck, it adapted to it's surroundings, like many many, probably all ceatures did/are doing.

Surely, theories can evolve too.....




I need to go and do stuff now, but I'll try and finish this off later.

FOOD

I know some people reading this are going to think this is silly, and it may sound silly but give me a reason why it isn't true and I'll have another think ;)

I have recently-2 months ago- become 'mostly vegetarian' I say mostly because I go at least a week or two without eating any meat and then I might have a bit of fish or something, then not eat meat at all for a week or two again.
But a few weeks ago I was in a bit of an online discussion, well, sort of a discussion, one person was being a bit ridiculous, I was being attacked by a vegan, for saying that quality raw milk was much better for you than horrible pasturised milk, and this persons view was that cow's milk was only intended to feed a calf, so therefore humans shouldn't consume it at all.

Well, I just wanted to state my opinion about food.

I believe that ALL life is equal. ALLLLL life, animal, vegetable, it doesn't matter, all life is equal. To me, being intellectually (or appearing to be) superior does not mean you have more rights than less intelliegent lifeforms.
Animals aren't BETTER than plants. Just because they move around and some of them look cute and furry, doesn't make them better.
All life is trying to survive and reproduce. ALLLLLL life.
That carrot that you ate was trying to grow some flowers that would end up spreading it's seeds, before it got pulled up out of the ground, chopped up and eaten.
Evidence shows that plants actually react in a distressed way when they get damaged, some even send a warning signal to other nearby plants when they are being attacked.
How does a Bee Orchid know what a female bee looks like in order to attract a male bee? And it must've done some kind of conscious decision making to change itself to look like a bee. The Dead Horse Arum made the decision and had the knowledge to look and smell like rotting flesh to attract flies. If you watch plants growing with time lapse photography, they are just like animlas, except they are rooted to the spot.
And of course, plants are every bit as important as animals, if not more important.
Surely that makes plants just as equal to animals, right?

Cows milk may not have been specifically designed for humans to eat it, but neither was ANYTHING!!(except fruit! - well not JUST humans)
Carrots and brocolli weren't designed to be eaten, what makes it OK to eat vegetables, but not animals??
To me there is no difference. They are both equal lifeforms.
I even feel sorry for pot plants. They're stuck in a pot with not enough room to spread their roots properly!

I also believe in Nature. Nature has designed everything perfectly and this is what happens.....

LIFE CONSUMES LIFE TO LIVE.

Whether it's an animal eating vegetable, or animal eating animal, or even vegetable eating animal (venus fly trap, pitcher plant etc..) or EVEN vegetable eating vegetable (mistletoe being just one example) ALLL life has to consume something that is alive or has been alive at some point.

Apart from fruit, NOTHING has been specifically designed to be eaten. And all life is Equal.

I've chosen to stop eating meat most of the time because of the way animals are treated in intensive farming.

Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with vegans at all, but what I do disagree with, is anyone saying that it's WRONG to eat meat. Because it ISN'T wrong. How can nature be wrong about such a massively important thing?? Some creatures are herbivores, some are carnivores, some are omnivores, it's all ok, whatever is right for you is right. Humans are omnivores, yes, we can live as vegans, if it's done properly and works for that individual, but but humans are still omnivores and that's just the way it is, it's perfectly fine for us to eat meat.  - but it's totally NOT fine to torture and neglect, or to treat animals with total and utter disrespect like they do :(