Saturday 13 August 2011

High School Transcript Brings Palpitations

If you always did well in school, what I describe will seem like a foreign language to you. I just picked up my high school transcript, and it was worse than I thought. I was secretly hoping time had changed my marks through homeopathic logic. Only 8 of my marks were over 70 percent over the span of 4 years, all of those in the first 2 years.

If you ask what makes doing well in school such a challenge when you have ADD, you are likely to hear about distractions, lack of focus, difficulty settling in to do the work. There is something much more to it than that, though, the invisible force field guarding success.

I want to isolate what that "other" factor is, and I had hoped it would make its presence known as I delve into my high school level Calculus course. Well, this morning, it popped up, and in an attempt to name it, embarrass it and kill it so it doesn't slow me down anymore in my life, here is what "it" is:

I have taken weeks getting through the first lesson, doing the calculations, then typing, drawing, then graphs, making tables, finding and correcting plenty of mistakes. And it was no picnic. Focusing makes me extremely sleepy, and taxes my brain, makes me irritable and edgy, brings headaches. But now, it's ready to hand in  (you upload it to the site for marking). There is nothing stopping me now from handing it in save a last look and re-naming of the file. Yet there is a HUGE, strong force, like an invisible hand, pushing me back from actually doing it. Here is the process, in real time:

time to hand it in
but it's not ready yet
ok, have one last look at it and get it ready (doing that now)
daughter climbs on my lap, wants my attention. I continue to do my work
finally make all the finishing touches, daughter is wanting to play on the computer.
I have to entertain my daughter. Maybe she'll watch a movie? Go put one on.
ok, I am back.
my heart is pounding. Go to the Distance Learning website, prepare to upload first lesson. My heart pounds more. I see it there, my lesson, "Rates of Change and Derivatives"
my daughter comes back in, she is scared of the movie and needs it changed.
I'm back again. What am I feeling?
It's more about my cognitive process: There must be something I overlooked, I don't think I got the questions right, teacher is not going to like the format, oh just upload it. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, I'll never get through the course, I'll drop it like the others, If I had this much difficulty doing the first part, how can I get through the whole thing? now that I sent the first one in, there will be an expectation on me to do more. Great, now I have even told people I'm doing it, I'm going to look like a loser when I drop it and start something else.
Oh look, there's a part here for "reflections" that I am supposed to write in and upload too.Done.
After one more interruption from the girl, and writing up my reflections, It is done.
I hit "send", it's gone, nothing I can do now.
I feel great....a little exhilarated even. And the whole process of handing it in only took 1.5 hours, that is with me forcing myself to do it. Under usual circumstances I would have cleaned, gone outside, checked Facebook, probably delayed submitting it for another week at least, if at all. Hey that wasn't all that painful.

But the exhilaration is a dangerous thing, as I have learned recently. Highs are followed by low lows. Am I prepared to deal self-doubt, worry, then probably dismissal, low feelings about myself, and a strong desire to abandon the whole thing? We'll see what happens, right now it's a good feeling.

Monday 1 August 2011

Let's Go: Purgatory! Insomnia's nightly journey to nowhere.

It really is a waiting room of sorts, only there is no one to make small talk with, unless I get online, and you aren't supposed to look at stimulating flickering screens.

I currently think of myself as an unpaid shift worker. It's why I took to motherhood so easily--I actually got more sleep once I had babies; their sleep schedule mimicked mine!

The tricks that I have learned to use to help me fall asleep (math problems, memorizing geographical names or periodic table) don't seem to work when I am suddenly awake for no reason at 3:00 or 4:00 am.

My recent diagnosis of moderate-to-severe ADHD now explains it; explains the hamster wheel that is my brain so at least I needn't feel like sleep is just one more thing I'm bad at, and I don't feel bad about now designing my life around my need for sleep, taking meds when needed and flipping the bird at people who think I just need to "get up earlier so you'll feel tired."  I'm already tired, and not nearly as cranky as I have a right to be! Instead, I have learned a few tricks, but they all take incredible discipline, something the ADD makes near impossible.

So instead of just indulging self-pity, I've decided to write about my challenges and reach out to other people who feel that their lives have been blindsided by brain wiring issues, including the sleep problem.  I want to talk about my insights into parenting (which requires structure and discipline and consistency, especially for my son who has a developmental problem of his own), depression, creativity, the modern world, as well as to document my adventures in going back to school at 40, all while using a brain that is being regulated by an air traffic controller who has fallen asleep in the job. Let's hope I can keep it up.