All the things wrong with me

I posted previously about my related complaints and how there seems to be always something wrong with me. Hmm, I'm looking at my blog, and can't find any posts like that. Maybe I posted somewhere else.
Anyway make a list:


I have asthma
I have eczema
Allergies
Balance and vertigo problems

Body dysmorphic disorder. I have had this since I was about 13. It's gotten better, I either hate looking into mirrors or stare into them too much trying to figure out exactly what I want to get fixed and berate myself for being so darn horrid looking. (My forehead, my chin, my lips, my eyes, fat sucked from my cheeks etc). I wish I could be comfortable in my body. I see a massive monstrous being every time I look in the mirror. Some people do say I'm pretty but I don't believe them though secretly I hope it's true. Being ugly is not NICE.

Eating disorders. I had low grade anorexia if that's what you call it. Anyway, it was a long period of barely eating and claiming to everyone else that my weight loss was my new diet or was nauseated from my balance problems(which had been recently diagnosed) which affected my stomach and claiming I had already eaten when I was seen not to eat. McDonalds was fantastic, not for the reasons you think. I ate there a lot. Every McD hamburger or fries I eat makes me nauseated. It must be the oil that is used over and over. Ugh. Anyway, I felt so ill that I HAD to throw up, and not digest the food. If I enjoy the food, I won’t throw up. Anorexic/bulimic like I guess. That’s when I started taking lots of supplements because I knew my nutrition wouldn’t be so good. Then since I was going through a major suicidal episode, I was given venlafaxine (Effexor in US, Dobupal in Spain)and I didn't mention to the doc that I was not eating at all and that just shot my appetite, then barely ate cause I had a constant tummy ache and nausea TOGETHER with my nausea from my vertigo and the occasional McD hamburger.
I went skiing, I was soooooo cold cause I was skinny, started eating and haven't been able to stop in spite of the occasional purging to stop it.

Anxiety disorder
Social Anxiety disorder
Hypertension
Oh yeah depression
ADHD

Anyway, it seems a lot of conditions are related (the psychological ones obviously, anxiety etc) but also the physical ones. It seems that Anxiety and Balance problems might be related. Hmm

Jasmine tea and ADHD - my experience

I don't know why but jasmine tea often makes me concentrate a bit better. I drank two cups today and managed to fold all my clothes piled up on my chair, organize papers strewn across the floor, not all of them but I didn't do my usual bit of dumping everything to be organized, get overwhelmed and walk away. I did it sensibly! I just filed my bank bills, and cellphone bills, and those are done! I still didn't do everything I had to, but instead of the 20% I will normally do, it was more like 60%.

I started noticing the effect a couple of weeks ago, and I was curious, and yes I do notice I'm more concentrated and not as scattered. It's not miraculous but it helps! I'm doing some investigation on the internet to see if I can find something on this.

I will do further experiments to see if it's all kinds of jasmine tea or whether it's the particular brand I'm drinking and whether the effect will wear off as my body gets used to it. I don't notice the same effect from drinking red tea (Pu-erh) for example or black tea. Though black tea I generally drink with milk so if there was an effect, the milk might dilute that.

The natural culprit for this effect would be the caffeine, but caffeine normally doesn't do much for me, I'm not sensitive to it, if I drink a LOT, I will notice my heart rate is up and I'm jittery but it doesn't help my concentration so I don't bother drinking coffee, coke etc and I don't like these drinks. Not fond of Red Bull, don't like chocolate, etc. The only product with caffeine I will drink is tea.

Another effect I've noticed is that it dulls my appetite. I don't know if this is because it's affecting my appetite directly or whether it has some effect on my anxiety cause I'm an anxious eater, if I get bored, slightly stressed, etc, I will eat. What I will say is not so much I forget about food but that it doesn't seem so urgent to put something in my mouth NOW!

I do know that many people with ADHD self-medicate with food

Self medicating with food
Eating puts them into a pleasant, trance-like state that is a respite from their often active and chaotic ADD brain.

Hierarchy of Ideas in the ADD mind

This is one of the best explanations I've seen for how the ADD brain works. I'll certainly use this explanation. It's so annoying when it happens to me at work. I'll be doing something, then someone comes with a request and I do that and forget about what I was doing before, then I get into shit. AAAARGH! It's LIFO. Last In, First Out. I'm proud of myself, something did stick in my accounting class long ago:-)

http://www.adhdmarriage.com/node/84

"One of the biggest differences between people with ADD and those without is that the non-ADD brain creates a hierarchy of ideas all the time. Things come into your brain and they get put into an order without your even knowing it. What the person in front of you is saying is more important than the bird chirping in the next tree or the squirrel running across the path nearby, for example. We don’t think about this as it happens – it just does. But next time you are in a conversation with someone, or reading a book, or doing just about anything, stop and think about all of the stimulus around you that your brain is very kindly blocking out for you so that you can stay focused on the task at hand.
The ADD brain doesn’t do this very naturally. I can find myself annoyed when I am in the middle of saying something to my daughter and she suddenly starts playing with the ends of her hair…or picks up a magazine to look at the pictures…or (fill in the blank). It’s not that she doesn’t want to hear what I say (I hope!) but rather that something else just caught her attention. I know enough about ADD that I am able to bring her back to the conversation with a simple (nicely stated, not mean!) “Can you look at me for a few minutes more and leave your hair?” She knows I’m not mad when I say this, just trying to finish my thought, and so she drops the hair and refocuses on me. (If she thought I were mad, her response would be very different - probably defiant - which is why how distractibility is handled by the non-ADD partner is so critical to good communication.)"

X: Late, always late

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Late, always late


Yesterday was unmitigated chaos coming to work the traffic just gets worse and worse. I could take the train but I’m too scared. I would have to take a bus to get to the station, then the train takes a long time as it stops at every stop for ages for unexplained reasons. Then I have to take a metro, then another. Too much chance for screwups.

I arrived at work 20 mins late. Urgh. Hopefully tomorrow being all saints eve, Halloween, and the 1st being a holiday, some people will take the day off. There are too many cars on the road. I won’t get a car cause I’m broke, broke, don’t have enough money for insurance and all the repairs involved.


The weekend was typical. I stayed at home because I wanted to tidy my room which I didn’t, I made one part of my room look less messy. And I didn’t feel like going out, I hid out in my room. I have to say ever since I’ve become fatter, I get fewer comments from nasty Spanish men; in fact I haven’t gotten any for weeks. Coupled with me looking a bit crap these days and no makeup, I’ve turned invisible. I think sometimes I actually like being fatter. I don’t get harassed.


Then my father was in his bitchy mood and asking me what I was going to do with my life seeing as I was a wasted investment. Typical weekend, although we’ve barely talked for weeks, just hello so that’s refreshing. I’ve got to get out of the house but of course I mentioned I was broke,broke. I’ll have to move country to get a decent pay.


Then at work there’s no sugar, I knew the sugar was going to run out, but I kept forgetting to make the order from the supermarket. Thank goodness a guy at work I’m friendly with saved my ass, he went and begged sugar from somewhere and brought in. Though he’s in a bit of a huff about it, but I’m grateful, why oh why do I do this?

Because we have a new coffee machine, everyone is getting coffee, even people who normally don’t drink coffee, and the bag of sugar that would last a month was wiped out. The order is coming in this morning, I ordered 3 bags of sugar At least we haven’t run out of toilet paper, I remember when that happened shudder, I had to sneak rolls from home to replenish the stock.
public 12:51 PM email edit

Blurting and Misunderstanding

Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Blurting and misunderstanding

Contrary to most ADDers, I'm not much of a blurter. That's because I've clamped my mouth shut around people. Auto-censorship, my therapist says. I did use to blurt things out a lot when I was younger and now just don't say anything except to people I know well and my sister who is used to the constant stream of mindfarts emanating from my lips.

The blurting stops but so does everything else, I don't make jokes, or witty comments out loud, (inside I'm a hoot) cause I just clamp everything in. I even find it hard to express anger cause one, I've a high-pitched voice (and it's not fun to be told aww, you are so cute when you trying to get angry grr ), and two, well I clamp everything inside.

It's not 100% effective, in spite of myself ,something 'weird' comes out and falls into the conversation like a stone on a baby's foot, a moment of dead silence and then non-acknowledgement of what I said as everyone talks about something else and me thinking, I wonder why I bother crawling out of my hole, then I hiss at everyone, yell "You're all retarded anyway" and scuttle back into my corner.

I was able to control it better before my crash and burn/depression, now I'm just really 'weird' and I can't help it. I sometimes did mock people and say they're so weird, now I'm the weird one. Though in my defense, how can you go around wearing sunglasses all the time with your eyebrows shaved and claim it's so people can't steal your soul and not be considered missing about 50 screws, a joint and a few planks of wood?

Blergh. Hiss, scuttle.

Xanga post: Scapegoat of my own destiny

*****I'm transferring my XANGA posts to blogspot. I'm sure I'm doing things wrong, and there's some way of passing them over but I don't want to spend days trying to figure it out, so here goes*****

October 22, 2007

Well, the start of a new spanking blog. I hope I can keep this up as you know us ADD/ADHD people tend to start a new project and then forget about it as we jump to the next one. This is my third blog so far ha ha ha….ha.

I used to be so excited at every new project now I just think here we go again. I would love to finish something, and I think i’m getting worse and worse as the years pass me by, and having stopped Ritalin hasn’t helped. (High BP).

Where is that excitement I used to get? I don’t feel like the mistress of my own destiny, I’m just blown about on the turbulent seas of my own mind.
Umm, like where do I start? Er, um, hmm. Okay, concentrate already.
Like I’ve mentioned in about me, when I feel like screaming, I’ll try to write it down. Hopefully, it will help someone.

Like now I’m at work, now I don’t know where I put the key for the mailbox for work, I always stick it in a box on my table and this morning it wasn’t there. Did someone pick it up? Did the cleaning lady vacuum it? Did I stick it in my jeans pocket on casual Friday? In my handbag it isn’t cause I already checked. I hope it shows up soon. I will soon be reduced to pulling out the big envelopes out of the mailbox. Arrgh! Something like this always happens to me.
Oh, I just got an idea, I stick my hand behind the table, and it’s hooked back there. It must have fallen in there instead of inside the box. Phew! One less thing to look like an idiot over.

I’m beginning to notice that because I’m so used to thinking I screwed up somewhere, anytime something happens, I think it’s my fault, get apologetic, and it’s being used against me at work. I apologize for everything. How useful, all the office sins are put on my shoulders and i’m released into the wilderness.