Got a little side tracked

Wow I haven't posted anything in forever, but hey thats my life story :) I start one thing get all excited about it and then i'm off to the next. I've been taking my medicine pretty regularly, but found it really wasn't enought. My doctor recently bumped me up to 20mg of Adderall XR and put me on Ambien for sleep problems. The Adderall is working much better ... i'm not liking the Ambien as much though it makes me feel confused and groggy all day.

I'm still using my Skoach planner however not as much as I should :( I'm sooooo behind on my goals for work and I only have 1 week left to complete them. I know I can do them and that it will be easy I just keep procrastinating. I really don't want to f' things up at work.

Ooo I feel like i've been really negative this post so far! So on a positive note my mom moved out! She moved to a different state with her new boyfriend. I think it's great for her and wonderful for me :) I really needed to be on my own .. since i'm almost 30 lol. I have plans to make a guest room and have already drawn plans for a meditation relaxation room (during a work meeting yay ADD. But FIRST work goals .. i'm so working on them all day today!! but food first :) off to make breakfast hehe

Eating the elephant!

Trying a bunch of stuff, so hopefully I don't end up getting overwhelmed.

First, sometime last week I went to WholeFoods and picked up some vitamins. The one I bought was called SharpThought and it's a contains a DHA complex. From what I've read DHA is suppose to help out with ADD so I'm gonna give this a try. It's definitely not cheep though at about $28 for 30 pills. I also bought some natural anxiety/stress relieve called Rescue Remedy. They had daytime and sleep versions of the spray so I got them both. This stuff really seems to help calm me down since sometimes I tend to get WAY too worked up about things.

Since I've been struggling with some things (like organization, time management, etc) my therapist recommended that I try reading Driven to Distraction. I'm not usually very fond of reading... but i figured I would give it a whirl. I also picked up 2 other books while I was at Borders since they just seemed to jump out at me (Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie and The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton). I'm going to read about 15 pages of each book a night before bed. All 3 books are pretty good so far.

Along with reading my books I'm listening to the audiobook Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Dr. Wayne Dyer. This book is Dr. Dyer's interpetations of the Tao Te Ching.

I really like that he tells you to only read one verse per day and then use it that day.

I'm one the 2nd verse which I'm enjoying very much :) So i'm going to share it:

"Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty,

only because there is ugliness.

All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Being and nonbeing produce each other.

The difficult is born in the easy.

Long is deined by short, the high by the low.

Before and after go along with each other.

So the sage lives openly with apparent duality

and paradoxical unity.

The sage can act without effort

and teach without word.

Nurturing things without possessing them,

he works, but not for rewards;

he competes, buth not for results.

When the work is done, it is forgotten.

That is why it lasts forever."

I think this is just beautiful. Here is the link for the book on google books (Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life). I'm currently listening to it via Audible.

So yeah.. i'm going to try to take little bites of my elephant and attempt to not get so overwhemed like I usually end up doing. Crossing my fingers! :)

Much Better Day :)

Woke up mostly on time...Left on time with all the things I put in front of the door.. I remembered to take my meds... and for the most part I did ok today :)

I've been finding that this website http://www.skoach.com has been helping me out a TON! It was created by Dr. Kathleen Nadeau specifically for people that have ADD. Its really easy to use and very visual. I think this is the only planner I've ever used and actually enjoy using :)

Also since I have a hard time waking up in the morning I went looking for an alarm clock. I ended up finding an alarmclock app for my Windows Mobile phone called G-Alarm http://www.ageye.de/index.php?s=galarm/about . In order to turn it off I have to do a maze and a few math problems :)

I also have multiple alarms set up so I can remind myself to pay attention to the time. They go off every 30 mins and then 10 mins before I have to leave. My time perception isn't so great so this has been working out pretty well for me.

I have to say that not having good time perception and a job that requires you to be on-time or early is really hard. I've gotten in trouble ALOT for being late throughout my life and disappointed many friends and family members. I think i'm starting to get the hang of it though ... I just need to keep using external reminders (I just started doing this about 3 weeks ago).

I can learn from my mistakes... maybe...

Today was NOT the day to forget to take my meds. I was all over the place!

I work in the server operations center for a pretty big company.. It's kinda ran like an ER for our Server enviroment.. and well we had quite few issues today. I have a hard enough time multitasking.. but with out my Adderal it's even worse.

So note to self DO NOT forget your meds.

I know that tomorrow will be better though. I've set my pills out so I can take them first thing tomorrow morning. Also I've gathered all of my items I need for work tomorrow and placed them by my door or in my purse (since I also forgot my work badge today). We will see how that goes :)

I was looking for some ways to remind myself about things before I left the house and I've found a few really cool items that I'm going to try.

First is a door hanger that has a place for keys and other items. They sell it at target.com and organize.com.

http://www.target.com/Unforgettable-Doorganizer-Collection/dp/B000F0FXRA/

http://www.organize.com/blkdoororg.html

And here is another door hanger of the paper kind that you can write messages on. This might be better than a posty note since there's no glue to unstick. Again I found this at Organize.com.

http://www.organize.com/donotfodoha.html

Doing it again...

/Sigh... I really should have gone to bed about 2 hours ago, but I got all caught up in creating my blog. I lose track of time all the time like this and trying to wind down and go to bed is the worst. I can't seem to get my mind to shut up. Well I better start trying to go to sleep I suppose.

Goodnight Moon :)

My Diagnosis

When I was about 23 years old I went to see a counselor because I was dealing with some depression. During my 2nd session my counselor looked at me funny and questioned my jumping around from one subject to other unrelated subjects very quickly. Then she started asking me questions about my childhood like 'how did you behave in grade school?'. I told her I was a good student, but I had a hard time paying attention and they had to separate me from the other children. Also, I was frequently late and almost always forgot my homework. She then pulled out an ADD test for me to take.. and well I guess I passed it :)

I had found the reason for my depression. I wasn't really depressed I just had ADD and didn't realize it. Which from what I read a lot of people have done the same thing.

After getting my shiny new diagnosis I was then put on a few different prescription meds and eventually I found that the Adderal XR worked the best for me.

Honestly finding out about the ADD was the best thing that could have happened. I have an answer for most of the silly things I just couldn't explain. Like why I would forget things half way through what I was saying or why I could focus on one thing for hours (hyperfocus) but couldn't read a book for more than about 2 mins.

I have tried not to use my ADD as an excuse, but it does make certain things a bit more difficult (ex. Time management) ... but other things are incredibly easy for me :)

btw, Since I was originally diagnosed I've been to 5 different doctors and got brainscans... and all gave me the same ADD tag :) I got many opinions because I didn't want to be taking medication for no reason or taking the wrong medication.

First Blog

I'm not even really sure how to begin this... <--suppose that will work :). This is my first blog in what I hope will be many. I suppose I'll start out with an introduction.

I'm a 29 year old single female living in Phoenix, AZ. I'm not going to use my real name because I just don't feel like doing that right now. I'm one of many people trying to manage their Attention Deficit Disorder. I created this blog to document how i'm dealing with my ADD and share it with others out there if they are interested :)

Thanks for reading!