I know two things.
Thing One
ADD/ADHD people are not stupid, lazy, unmotivated, uninterested, or uninspired.
There was, maybe is, a prevalent opinion that children (or adults) diagnosed with ADD/ADHD were misdiagnosed, and were actually experiencing (or rather, since this is from the unaffected observer's POV, were exhibiting) unrelated, sub-disordered behavioral problems. A child with ADD is clearly just over-sugared, under-disciplined, and poorly parented. An adult with ADD is clearly maladapted to living as an adult, and is egocentric in thinking that things should fall into their laps and people should clean up after them.
With research and imaging available to us which fully debunks this idea, with the squashing of dismissive claims that doctors clearly just over diagnose, with studies and extensive personal confessions of those affected, this should be thoroughly out of date.
But for those of us that grew up in households where ADD was either not known, not understood, or even simply ignored, that thought is completely embedded in our perceptions and evaluations of ourselves.
I KNOW that ADD people fight an uphill battle every day to do the simplest of things. I KNOW that ADD people cannot simply "do it." I KNOW that ADD people are not "easily distracted," but are actually focusing on multiple things at once and have difficulty narrowing focus down to just one of those ongoing processes. I KNOW that many ADD medications come with tolerances, so most cannot stay on one dose nonstop and it still be effective; therefore I also know that many ADD people self medicate successfully with similar things like caffeine, alcohol, etc. I KNOW that ADD people typically come with a host of comorbid disorders weighing on their life and complicating their struggles.
Thing Two
I am ADD, diagnosed, imaged, confirmed multiple times, and medicated.
I am fucking impossible.
Maybe it's the voice in the back of my head, the memories from childhood to 14 or 15 when I finally was allowed to try my brother's Concerta, the voice of my mother screaming at me to just get it done. Maybe it's the time she got so frustrated that I couldn't comprehend her charades at six in the morning while trying to complete my homework, that she yanked me by the hair up from my chair, slamming my knees into the desk bottom, threw me down in the hallway and kicked me, telling me afterward never to tell anyone or I'd be taken away. Maybe it's the science fair project that wasn't laid out right after multiple sleepless nights. Maybe it's the night, after night, after night, my entire middle school experience, looking at the clock that read 3 or 4 am, looking down at my agenda that was filled with seven or eight major pieces of homework that I just couldn't get moving on. Maybe it's my first year at college, when I wrote eleven papers in two nights because I'd put them all off (judged by a peer to be a typical Freshman mistake of poor planning). Maybe it's my third year of college when I couldn't walk into the classroom or get on the bus because my panic disorder controlled my life. Maybe it's my fourth and fifth years, when I'd walk out of a classroom mid-lecture because I'd missed something they said while I was daydreaming and now my notes would be forever out of order.
Maybe it's ME, after YEARS of telling myself I was, indeed, lazy. A poor time budgeter. An unmotivated slob who had no excuses to hide behind because even the fucking hungover idiot with his daddy's Porsche could manage to complete the goddamn homework. I don't believe in excuses.
Lazy, stupid, an endless cycle of promises that will never be filled.
I have spent the entire day, the ENTIRE day, pumping up on energy drinks, ritalin, and smaller than normal doses of xanax so that I can tackle the kitchen. The kitchen filled with horrors. The kitchen with fruit fly casings, spilled cat food, trash, dirty dishes, mildew.
The kitchen that my landlord's appraiser CANNOT see in its current state.
Why push today? Why not sleep and handle it tomorrow?
Oh, because in four hours I make a 3 hour drive out of town to my old teacher's charity. I draw for three hours, then I make the same drive back so I can be at work by 2pm. Then I work until 11pm.
She gets here while I'm at work.
I ate pizza. I didn't count calories. Because who cares, right? I'm going to burn plenty cleaning up, I'm going to need all the fuel I can get.
Except I NEVER CLEANED.
Because this pattern will NEVER STOP.
I'm so angry at myself, at my husband for having an equally difficult time but blaming me and going to bed while I sit up and worry. I'm angry at this slower than a snail's pace move. I'm angry at my asinine schedule. I'm angry that people still expect me to be peppy. I'm angry that after everything I have gone through, people still have the BALLS to set their problems in my lap and expect me to fix them.
You know what?
Take your cloud of negativity the fuck AWAY from me. Take your judgments and your hatred and your bigotry to someone else's world. Stop making me feel this way. Just fucking stop.
When do I get the luxury of giving up? When do I get to say, hey, I'm going to bed, the elves can handle this?
This is a bad time.
She's dead. She's dying. He's raging. He's crying all night. She's controlling my life. He's screwing over my client and friend. She's fucking trying to rape me. Everyone, and everything, is hungry. Everyone is broke.
Let one more person remind me I'm a failure in my life. Let one more person tell me not to be happy.
She's right, though. No one would forgive me, if I wanted to have another baby.
I am alone.
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