Blogs that affected me because they were willing to be open and share their story to see that NONE of us are really NORMAL.
There is no such thing as NORMAL.
We are all just making it through life at our own appropriate pace.
There is no such thing as NORMAL.
We are all just making it through life at our own appropriate pace.
http://sccsdecker.blogspot.com/
http://stakerzxposed.blogspot.com/
http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/
http://stakerzxposed.blogspot.com/
http://nerdyapplebottom.com/2010/11/02/my-son-is-gay/
Since you will all be able to hit REWIND to the VCR in Heaven and know what really went on in my life, I will save you the trouble and just open up myself to you here and now. I pray my story, my openness, will help someone else with something, anything. I just want to share to help.
For the past 25 years, I have known that I was hyper. Many things frustrated me, burdened me, confused me and I knew it was all in my head. My friend explained this, "I used to have no patience, everyone was moving too slow, no one did it the correct way, or even if they did, I could do it better." Yes, that is what I felt. My head felt just out of control, not normal. BUT how can you really know what is normal, normal to you, normal to someone else, normal for life? To protect myself, I became controlling and bossy. It was the only way I knew how to function. Fortunately, I had a huge desire to succeed, to check things off the list, to go the distance. I got lucky that through my years, enough people liked me and also were patient with me. I am so grateful for everyone who has ever crossed my path. I promise, I learned something just by knowing you or meeting you.
Through my 20's I know I manifested my behaviors very strongly. However, I was able to control them enough to 'get by'. I was able to complete a lot of schooling and land good employment. I now wish I had really understood what was wrong with me so I could have controlled it better, who knows where I could be now if I had received help earlier.
Surely, anyone that has ever known me has observed this from me:
I fidget, I just hate sitting still
I can't go to the movies very well or watch a full movie
I look up the ending to movies before I watch them to eliminate uncertainty
I am always on the go
I like to blurt out answers
I am impatient, intolerant
I like to show my emotions, or rather, I hate controlling them
I like to jump into other's conversations, even strangers in an elevator
Have acted without realization of consequence
Little children and places with lots of people - make me feel overstimulated. I used to hate eating at Cheesecake Factory because the menu is too busy. YIKES. I don't really like fairs, festivals, parades, large gatherings or concerts.
I am selfish
I really don't like to have 'fun' like others do, it seems careless and out of control. FUN for me was simply checking things off the list and a sense of accomplishment.
I fulfill my responsibilities
I don't like to burden others, so I hate to accept help, I hate accepting charity.
I didn't want to owe people.
I thought these weren't that bad. Infact, I actually enjoyed that I was so personable, honest, bold, and received many compliments on 'being real'. I certainly don't put on an act for people. You get the real deal with me. Why pretend?
Fortunately for me, I didn't have these problems:
I don't lose things
I don't forget things
I don't space out
I don't let others down
I am not lazy
Instead my strengths were always:
I enjoy exercising
I enjoying managing details
I am a planner, man.. I LOVE to plan...I love to plan more than I like the thing I planned for
I enjoy being out of bed before the sun comes up
I love completing tasks
I enjoy talking to people
I enjoy multi-tasking
I do know how to act appropriate most of the time
I can force myself to make good professional eye contact
I am strong, I am confident, I have opinions and can make business decisions
I love trying new things.
I love a challenge
I get very curious to see how change/events are going to affect life - like a new building built into a community, additions onto roadways, natural disasters, death, illness, work re-organizations, even a new President that I didn't vote for.
To cope - with the fleas jumping around my head - all these years:
I created great structure for myself, very rigid daily schedule
I kept lists and lists and checked them frequently
I write down everything at the moment I think of it, before I forget
This helped me to stay organized and feel in control of my life
As life took on more and more craziness, I had to keep simplifying. Ex: all the sheets and towels in the house are white now, for easy laundering. I stopped decorating my house for the holidays, it turned into too much burden. I stopped running with loud banging music. I took the color out of my house and paint and went to something that was bland. I stopped hanging stuff on the walls. I enjoyed selling off stuff that was collecting dust. Quitting alcohol was easier than I expected because I no longer had to worry about my behavior during those times, nor the calories. I didn't have to feel bad about wasteful sitting around and drinking moments, now I just had time to accomplish more, more meaninful things. I became very particular and communicated my preferences easily to others. I eliminated friendships or associations because I felt so overwhelmed at working at them. Maybe I didn't feel worthy of them. Anything to make life efficient, that is the direction I have headed. I had to do these things to protect myself, to cope, to manage daily life.
The last two months have been difficult. Coming off of summer threw us some curve balls. Things felt different. Troy started school again, Alyssa is in 6th grade and entering young womanhood, I started a new job and am now the sole income earner. WHAT? It sounds like normal life right? Well, each week just got tougher and tougher. BUT WHY? Our lives are simple. We eat healthy, we sleep regularly, we exercise 4-5x a week, we pray together, we spend tons of time together as a family, there really wasn't more we could do to simplify or live normally. BUT in my head, it was all getting too unclear and too noisy. I couldn't focus correctly. I couldn't make the fleas in my head stop bouncing around. I TRIED, I did everything I could to make my mind work the way that I should be able to control it to do. Nothing was making sense FAST. The harder I tried, the worse it got. It was so apparent that something was really feeling wrong. I know myself well, I know my body and my thoughts well. This was now uncontrollable.
This week, it all came to a head for me (ha... pun). I needed to take action, I just couldn't go on the way I was. My head really bogged down. I couldn't complete a thought and even while speaking I would lose my train of thought. I was irritated by EVERYONE and EVERYTHING. Noises, people's voices, people's quirks, other's absentmindedness, UM's, too much detail and MORE. It was really getting ridiculous and unmanagable in my head. I wasn't happy any minute of the day. It was spiraling down into a funnel. I then became depressed, hopeless, anxiety riden and scared. Most important, I needed to do well at work and I need to get along with my family. Alyssa has entered the challenging phase and I was so frustrated at fighting her on everything. WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO ME and WHY SO FAST?
Saturday - I ran with my girlfriend for an hour. We talked. She began planting the seeds I needed to realize that I might have a problem that could be fixed.
Sunday - had a terrible family fight because I couldn't control my emotions.
Monday - spoke to my Relief Society President for an hour and got some tips on how she handled her kids
Tuesday - had a great day, I focused intently on not reacting to anything and took Mary's advice.
Wednesday - went to Therapy and got a lot accomplished. I felt great when I left, I had some direction and things to work until I saw him again in a week. What I really gained out our talk is that my 'old software that has worked 'good enough' for the past 20 years, is no longer going to work'. It was time for an upgrade. By that, I mean, my methods of coping no longer work in mid-life when life gets crazy and there is so much to deal with. However, I got home and had another major setback in reacting.
Thursday - Alyssa attended therapy and got her own bucket of tricks to begin helping our house come together again in harmony (wait.. does family and harmony go together?) I saw my Primary Care Physician and we begin discussing what I could take to cope and 'not sweat the small stuff'. I didn't want to take medication. Medication is for people who are weak, who don't utilize the Lord for help, for people without will power to control themselves.
Friday - Saw a specialist and she gave me three tests. And then she said so calmly and matter of factly, "you have ADHD, a type of it that is normally uncommon in women." She wanted to put me on something for it and said, 'well, what did you think of medication?' I told her I was against it. She asked me if I had ever done the drug SPEED and if so, what was the effect? I said, "yes, many years ago, only a few times, but I was very controlled on it and people didn't like to do speed with me because I overmanaged the party situation and didn't have 'fun' on it." She said, "GOOD, very GOOD information for me to know. " She said also said that it is very common in adults that htere comes a time that the methods they used all along no longer work and middle of life steps in and becomes too much to handle. So, there you have it. I had reached my maximum ability to cope. AND man, my life is not hard or complicated. It is good, but I still was struggling. I still wondered why I didn't have the faith to just pray and ask Heavenly Father to help me or cure me. I decided I wasn't patient enough to wait for his timeframe, I needed help immediately. I signed my drug contract and off I went to fill my prescription.
ADHD.. shoot, what a terrible stigma. I had put so many labels on that. For years, I felt the medical field was over-diagnosing people. I thought this really was about idiots drinking too much caffeine and sugar. I really didn't want a label, I didn't want to be in this group. This is so lame. I am defective. Great, Troy married a defective person. grrrrrrr. I joked for years that I had this, but really, I thought it was a lame diagnosis and would never fall victim to that joke. BUT I am now officially diagnosed by three doctors, I accept my challenge and can now begin to work through it and with it and hopefully not struggle so much.
So here I sit - one week later - reflecting on all that I learned and had the best day today than in a really long time. (yes, the medication works instantly). I was mad the past few months, but now I am glad. Glad to have had so many wonderful people this week help me and guide me and TALK to me. THANK YOU, you know who you are. I am trying out some medication to see if I can get my head to slow down and I can concentrate again and also roll with the punches of life, real life. Being the sole income earner is stressful for me and yet I want to and need to succeed at work. So, I have no choice but to take something to focus right now. I also need to learn how to allow Alyssa to go through this difficult pre-teen phase and not get so upset while she finds her identity and independence.
I pray to the Lord that someday I will be able to 'cope' naturally again. I know there are natural safe ways to deal with this, like yoga, martial arts, & vitamins. But for now, this is what I must do. I am labeled and I am medicated - but that is ok. Hopefully, that means I will develop deeper meaningful friendships and love others more freely.
Thank you for listening and I pray it helps someone else realize that....WOW.. we all have something to work on, don't we?! If life were perfect, we would have nothing to work on. We would have had no reason to come to earth life to gain these experiences. Heavenly Father sent us to earth to grow and GROW I WILL.
Please forgive me for anything I may have done to you due to my insensitivity.
I hope to treat others better now.
Thank you for understanding.
Keep in mind, I still want to be Scheris, but I want to be a little bit better Scheris.
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