Thursday, June 02, 2005

...but I'm a pizzatarian so it's a frozen pizza pie

So I went to the doctor today (head doctor who looks like Dr. Laura, but she's not). They think I have a fairly strong case of adult ADHD. I know! Can you believe that?! Yes. I think I've always had it, but I'm just smooth at coping with it. Ha.

I've been on WebMD looking at stuff about it all night. Here is an article I like about women who have ADHD. They also have a little diagnostic test, but I think that if you have ADHD, you know it deep down. There was always something different about my brain. I could feel it. I used to feel like a fraud in high school because I never listened to a word in class, never studied for class, never studied lines for the school play leads until the last minute, etc.. etcs..

I looked at my bookshelf yesterday, and of all the books on there, I've started to read over 60% of them and only finished around 1% of them. I have two beading projects that were happily started and never finished. I have a cross-stitch pinup girl throw that i started and never finished. I have two scarves that were started and never finished. I always called myself lazy, but I've always really really wanted to finish those. Same with the books. I would beat myself up for not finishing books or having the "reading prowess" to sit for more than 20 minutes and read, but I couldn't stop myself from getting restless and completely losing focus. I tried study tricks and techniques (for PLEASURE READING!). I tried meditation before and during. I felt like I just couldn't finish a damned book and it drove me mad.

Then, I started law school and had to read all the time. I would freak out. I would lay on the couch, feeling paralyzed, motionless, procrastinating reading until it was so late that all I could do was skim the pages of the books. I felt like a fraud. I couldn't "handle" the reading requirements.

Then I would go to class. I couldn't sit through lectures that bored me, so I would start to browse the internet. Even on those few days where I was without internet, I was doodling on the pages of my notebook or counting the number bricks on the wall from the corner of my seat to the top corner of Room 7 (I think I got to 53 before I gave up and started making up stories about Esbeck). My attention was at 0% and I couldn't figure out how to get it. Even on the day I was up in Property, my mind couldn't stay on track. I tried and tried that day to focus on what Muth was saying, but my brain was spinning in circles. Meditation could only help me to focus so much. I would get to a point in focusing, then something would snap in my brain and floods of a million other thoughts would rush in. I felt like a loser at meditating as well as school.

I'm so excited to find out that I'm not just a lazy, lethargic, freak of nature who can analyze the Terri Shiavo case on a Crim Law final (R.I.P., girlfriend), but hasn't finished a single book in the past five years (serious. my secret shame. Not a single book!).

Goddamn. I've always felt like an imposter, someone who would be found out for having no dedication to legal scholarship or higher education in general. I think a lot of that can be attributed to my neuron fuzz. I could never get it together in classes. I couldn't sit down and write a paper until a few hours before it was due.
Please understand that I've honestly and thoroughly considered this ADHD stuff before deciding to get help for it. The above examples are just the tip of the iceberg. I've scoffed at the idea of adult ADD and shunned medication long enough. Its finally time to act because this denial was hurting my success in law school and I'm really really excited about taking this on. I feel like I have so much potential and drive, and now I can finally put it to use and see where it takes me.

Oh! I can't stop listening to this Regina Spektor album, Soviet Kitsch. I love it. Her voice hypnotizes me and sometimes makes me involuntarily well up inside. Her songs have been rolling through my head for the past two days. I can't get rid of them. I can't switch her CD out of the car stereo rotation.

I should try to sleep. It felt good to get all that ADHD stuff out. I feel a lot less bizarro than I usually feel about my place in the world.

Did you know that Columbia has a French immersion pre-school?!?! I'm totally there, dude.

-Juliattention deficit disorder-