Seriously?
Anyway, let’s just rattle off some personal observations that argue for the accuracy of my ADD diagnosis – which, dear-Jesus-son-of-God, I STILL need to defend to myself, regularly reminding myself that yes, I really have ADD, and it’s not just a handy excuse embraced by some corner of my brain – the evil side, the one that takes the last cookie and hoards all the charging cords – perpetuating a lifelong fraud upon not only the rest of my brain but also The People In My Life, using my ADD to both explain and continue a life filled with a complete lack of diligence, discipline, follow-through, maturity, responsibility, reliability, promptness, attentiveness and helpfulness.
HOW I KNOW I HAVE ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER
1) The opening paragraph of this entry, which is all one sentence.
2) “Blog Post 2016” followed by “Blog Post 2019.”
3) Currently in pajamas despite getting up two and a half hours ago.
4) I wrote an awesome song parody about ADD that I would love to make into a video except I have no freaking clue which of the many of my kids’ old school notebooks contain the lyrics I jotted down.
5) Should I decide I should take a few minutes to see if I can find them, it will morph into an all-day project in which I clean two rooms that no one ever sees, and organize several boxes containing stuff that most reasonable people would simply throw away or donate into labeled boxes each containing newly-defined-and-sorted categories of stuff that most reasonable people would simply throw away or donate.
6) Should I then go on to make the video on a future day (having taken the necessary rest period after the day of room-detailing and item-sorting), I will lavish several hours upon the recording stage (including creating a homemade karaoke track when I decide the available ready-made ones are all too imperfect to use); several more upon the creating-the-visuals stage, more still upon the editing phase, all in the name of convincing eleven strangers around the world that I am talented and funny.
7) I still secretly rejoice when I wait until the last minute to do something and then still manage to pull it off. I showed THEM, boy howdy.
8) I have abandoned all pretense with family members: My go-to phrase in conversations at home has become “I’m sorry; start that story again because I wasn’t really listening.” If I’m feeling polite I will substitute “listening” with “focused.”
9) I hate making appointments because even with a calendar right in front of me, I manage to inadvertently create scheduling conflicts requiring additional calls to change the appointment I just made.
10) Cold half-mugs of coffee populate my home.
11) My attitude on any given day will be either “why bother?” or “I’m on a roll.” Those are the only states of being.
12) Acquiring insight into my ADD simply means that now I need to take one or two more steps in order to outwit my new insight. “Yes, I could end this feeling of overwhelm by simply picking one simple task and doing it, but I know what will happen: I will turn that simple task into a hyperfocus festival that consumes the entire day! And now I am overwhelmed anew!”
13) I am probably avoiding something right now by typing this blog post. Getting dressed, perhaps. But this blog post started because I was watching a video about tornadoes. I’d connect all the dots for you about how I went from watching the tornado video to this exact moment – because, believe me, I still can – but something tells me it probably wouldn’t add entertainment value.
But if you are a fan of tornado videos, I highly recommend Pecos Hank. Let’s see if I can add a link without getting sidetracked….
https://www.youtube.com/user/honkytonkblood
Cool.
I’m going to get dressed now.
(After I add a couple of illustrations. That should only take an hour and a half or so.)
The Brain Fog Blog 