What it's like having ADHD for me

ADHD is a tricky little B1tch, it creeps into every part of your life and causes all sorts of problems. I'm not incapable of having a good life the way things are, but it isn't a complete life. You miss out on lots of things when your ADHD and you will affect the people around you on a daily basis.

I'm not an expert on the topic, I'm a bit like the driver of the car, not the mechanic, I know there are problems with the car, and I know how they affect it, but I can't fix it on my own. I can learn how to live with problems, much like you can with a car. If the car dies when it rains you don't drive it in the rain, sure it's not very convenient, but you can make due with it.

My life is affected in many ways. Here are a few things that jump out at me, some may not even be ADHD, but from what I understand they probably are.

1) When being talked to I am VERY easily distracted by ANYTHING else going on. I loose track of conversations and drift off into my own little world. THis is very frustrating for the people talking to and for myself when I realize I have no idea what my boss just told me he wants me to do because there was a flock of gese in the background which diverted my attentino and I never really got back to listening to him after that.

2) Projects, oh my god! First off I am great at starting projects, but terrible at ever completing any of them. I loose interest and drift on to the next new thing. Some days I go out to work on something in the garage, get started and have to get something from the shed, and I will get distracted by something in the yard so I go to work on that until I see something else and go off on that until I see something else, and oh I forgot about the thing in the basement that I need to work on...all this can happen in the course of a few minutes. (oh the project in the garage is still waiting for me weeks later)

3) Work, I'll start working on a budget for example and after about 10 minutes I will start to zone out and nod off. I'll click on the internet and check some things on Craigslist.org for a minute or 20 then I will go back to workingfor another 10 minutes until I begin to nod off again, repeat this about 20 times a day.

4) Highs and lows, I can be crazy and kid like one minute and a short while later quiet and tired. Turns out that I can get excited about something and act out on it, but unless something feeds the excitement it kind of fizzles out and I crash down.

5) Cleanliness is next to godliness and I'm going to hell. I can clean things, I'm just not very good at it I can do the dishes and completely overlook several things that aren't apparent unless pointed out (Thanks Clara) I also keep my personal spaces in complete dissaray. I can come up with some pretty great ideas for how to organize myself, but have zero follow through once I put it all together and it all goes to hell once again.

6) Out of sight, out of mind. If I put something "away" such as project files at work I will never ever think about them again and they will languish in my file drawers for eternity. Same thing goes for projects left in out of sight areas.

As you can imagine living with someone with ADHD can be a constant struggle and source of frustration especially if you're an organized person.