Monday, February 11, 2013

Back to blogging + the possiblity of ADHD

So it turns out that NaBloWriMo maybe wasn't the best idea for me. It burned me out... again. It wasn't the only reason I abandoned poppyrocket, but it was definitely a factor. I'm ready to give it another go!

I don't have any projects to share right now, and it'll take me a bit of time to get into the swing of things, but I'm itching to get going! I've been in kind of a post-Christmas creative slump lately. My craft space is an appalling mess. While I am not a neat person and it will never be ever be even halfway to Martha, it has become bad enough to deter me from even thinking about starting to try to organize it.

Another thing going on in my life right now is the discovery that I might have inattentive ADHD a lot worse than I previously thought. I have not been officially diagnosed by a licensed professional, and I know there is generally a lot of danger in self-diagnoses, but bear with me! I found an article via Pinterest about women who "don't let ADHD get in the way." It linked to the website for ADDitude, a magazine for and about ADHD folks. I found several articles specifically about ADHD and women, and so much of it rang true: easily distracted, forgetfulness, difficulty focusing on a specific task, anxiety, et cetera- with increased symptoms around menstruation. The past year or so I've REALLY been absent minded, and it's affected my performance at work. And often I find myself unable to start a single task when I have many to do because I can't settle on one- I just bounce around between them until I'm out of time and nothing is accomplished.

 I had been chalking all of this up to a few factors- losing my dad a few years ago, belonging to the multi-tasking generation, and thinking I had some mild ADD symptoms. But reading the ADDitude articles really clicked. I felt such a sense of relief- that there was a reason behind my behavior, and I wasn't just crazy and detrimentally forgetful- I started crying (and heck, I'm teary now thinking about it again!). I think it's really gotten worse in the past year or two because my schedule is all over the place, all the time. When I was in school and in AmeriCorps my schedule was the same every week, and that structure helped me manage my symptoms unknowingly.

Again, I am diagnosing myself. I really want to go see a doctor, my health insurance right now is essentially catastrophic, and I can't really afford just a trip to the doctor at the moment. But when Wes and I get married I'll jump on his much better insurance and make an appointment post haste.

Whew! I forgot how cathartic writing can be. I feel refreshed and ready to tackle something! I think I'll start with some laundry.

EEK

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