We paid for our kitty to have surgery and she's doing well. They removed a little foam block from the first bend of her small intestine. She's on a bland diet and she is wearing a cone around her neck to keep her from running around or biting her stitches. I'm sure she'll be much happier when it comes off but it's for her own good.
I had an epiphany today. As some of you will remember, I was once writing a story on my blog about Tragedy and Joy and for some reason, the story just dried up....I never knew why. I had a lot of stuff going on and I thought that these things were distracting me from writing the story and that once things settled down that I would go back to it. But I never did--I've got all the time to do it now and I'm just cmpletely dry.
And I was thinking about it and I remembered that when I first began the story I was taking a new medication for attention defecit disorder. I remember wondering at the time if the medicine had anything to do with me being able to write this story because I have never had any luck writing fiction before.
I was always confused in general as to whether the medicine was having much of an effect on me in any way, I thought it was but I wasn't sure....and it made me sick. I would become very nauseated after taking it and I lost about 10 or 15 pounds. It made me feel groggy too and I always took it in the evening at work, if I took it earlier I might fall asleep, but if I took it at work, I couldn't fall asleep because I was at work. I stopped taking it on my days off because I I didn't want to waste my days off sleeping.
I finally had some vacation days and stopped taking it altogether and this is when I started having trouble at my job again and one thing led to another as you all know. And well, everything worked out for the best but looking back, I now realize that the medicine was having a more positive effect on me than I realized.
It's a strange feeling to take medicine and find out about dormant talents that you have which disappear when you stop taking the medicine. Or a potential that you only have when you are medicated. It poses some interesting questions about what constitutes our thoughts or our personalities etc.... Being a person who it actually is happening to instead of just reading about it, I have to say that I don't really care as long as I feel okay but it is still unsettling. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out.
11 comments:
what's up
your daughter looks just like her father
call me an ignorant ugly bastard but what exactly is ADD, i know its psychological definition but it seems like it is something that can easily be controlled. I always wandered, can't an ADD person just concentrate on one task? PERIOD? I mean why take medications that can conceivably be fixed by oneself rather than suffer the severe side effects
Sorry just my input
Winai-There is of course a lot of debate about the existence of ADD, some people apparently don't believe in it. But it's not a religion, there is a physiological basis for it, it is not a psychological illness. If it were a psychological illness then yes, it could be cured by therapy or will-power. I don't know if I have it or not but I know that I have always had a very difficult time focusing and no, my will-power did nothing to help.
It's gotten a bad rap because it is over-diagnosed. Many people think that kids are medicated simply so schools and parents will have an easier time dealing with them when the actual problem is that the child is not getting his needs met...i.e. my son had a difficult time focusing in grade school. He got good grades almost effortlessly, he was bored, the school system wasn't equipped to deal with that. If they had been, I'm sure that his characteristics wouldn't have been so problematic.
As for myself, I don't need medicine for ADD now, but when I was at my job, it helped me. I actually got fired/quit after I stopped taking it. If I had kept taking it, would all this had happened? I'll never know. Could I get by without ever taking it again? Yes, I could but only if I don't get myself into a situation that involves me having to concentrate on lots of meaningless details.
Is my lack of ability to do a job that I am not suited for a symptom of a disease? Or is it just my personality? It's all a matter of perspective. Does it really matter? It depends. The way I see it is all that really matters is that I don't try to do something that I am not suited for again. And that makes me no different than anyone else, philisophical questions won't change that. Does that answer your question? And I'm not being a smart-ass.
Being ADD requires an enormous amount of energy to compensate for the lack of concentration. A normal person leaving the house for work in the morning, usually follows through on what has become a routine, and does a once over check to see if they have everything before setting off. Maybe the odd time something slips their mind.
The ADD person checks, and checks, and checks again, plus constantly reminding themselves about the extra things they may have to do/take with them for that particular day.
Each day is mapped out in the mind over and over till it becomes an associated sequence of events.
Extra activities like meeting with the teacher, collecting the dry-cleaning, collect the package at the post office, are lined up like a domino affect- driving/walking a set route- if a wrong turn is made for whatever reason, meeting a friend or,,,,,,,,, it usually means the chances of completing all the tasks are slim.
Someone might say, sure we’re all like that a bit, and what to do is keep a note book, and ….
Yes, I’ve heard it all before, and yes you can note down times, future dates, and so, (like most of us it‘s necessary) but you can’t do it for the myriad daily tasks your working day entails, and which can and usually do change from one second/minute/hour to the next.
The stress all this causes differs for person to person, but the pressure to perform, and achieve are far greater, which means a sense of inferiority due to the feeling of playing catch up all the time.
Everyone followed the movie plot, read the book in a week, (you had to read it twice, it took a month, and you still didn’t fully get it) it was so obvious to everyone else, except to them of course, and usually the combination of feeling dim, and stressed leads to depression - sometimes quite serious.
The medication if you can find what suits is definitely a must, but not the whole of the moon; the compensation, planning, mapping out, will always be necessary, and the med. does take the stress away. You have to want to write your short story, but if helps if you can remain focused on it till you get it down on paper.
God! I’m going on. I’m on ADD medication, pure amphetamine. I better stop. I don’t know if all this writing said anything worthwhile, but I myself enjoyed writing it. Sorry if I bored everyone.
God, Blue Eyes, I beginning to sound like you; -) ;-) J
I thought I would ADD but a few of the names with ADD/ADHD
Sir Richard Branson along with ADHD has I believe Dyslexia)
Jim Carey, Whoopie Goldberg, Mariette Hartley & Robin Williams.
Ansel Adams, Anne Bancroft, Beethoven, Alexander Graham Bell, "Pappy" Boyington, Hans Christian Anderson, Lewis Carroll, Leonardo da Vinci, Walt Disney, Cher, Thomas Edison, "Magic" Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Robin Williams, Henry Winkler, and Stevie Wonder.
Sean-I completely relate to what you said. I've often thought that no-one who had to put as much energy into concentrating on their job as I did would have the stamina to do it day in day out, week in week out, month in etc...
and would be able to keep it up without lapses, regardless of what anyone else may think. And for someone with my condition, I made such an unfortunate choice in jobs. A laboratory is very detail oriented and there is no allowance for errors. An error could mean someones death. You've got samples coming in, samples that need to be centrifuged, samples than need to come out of the centrifuge, samples to go on the machines, samples to come off of the machines, results to report, stats that have to be done within a time limit, the phone is ringing, doctors calling, nurses calling....it's like working in the middle of a tornado sometimes. As you can imagine, not the ideal environment for someone who has a hard time focusing. Even non ADD people could have trouble doing it. And it does damage your self-esteem to go into work everyday being....the stupid one....the one who is always making mistakes, the one who is always in trouble, the one who is being talked about with rolled eyes. I got so tired of people looking at me like I was an idiot or seeing me as someone who did sloppy work because I just don't have a good work ethic. I used to walk in on people talking about me and making fun of me at my job before this one. One thing that I am proud of though is I am apparently likeable because once they got to know me, everyone stuck up for me. So, at least I have that going for me. :)
My husband constantly walks behind me to be sure that I turned the oven off. He doesn't want me to bring in the mail because he is afraid I will lose it. (Should I be admitting this?)
But as far as the job, that's over. I think that for me to keep doing this work is unethical. I don't want to have to worry anymore about making a mistake that someone could lose their life over. It is such a relief for that pressure to be gone.
But I loved your comment. You can comment as long as you want.
It seems to me like I'm always confused about something, this world just drives me nuts. But I don't take any drugs for it, I just deal with things.
I don't have any problem concentrating on something I'm doing so I guess I'm lucky that way, it helps when I'm making and fixing things, or inventing.
A foam block hey? Hum, there has been a rubber band on the floor for a few weeks and the cats like to play with it.
*picks up and puts away*
There's the little guy!! Glad the cat is on the mend.
Incidentally, I had my abilities vanish when I took the medication. But my meds were to keep me from concentrating too much so I would not slide into a panic attack. Maybe I should pop some of these. LOL!
I mean to refer to the car as "she." LOL! See I do need ADD drugs.
(1) I'm glad the cat's fine.
(2) People who don't take psychological medicines often have trouble understanding why people who are on them don't want to take them. You have a conflict in which they seem to have a positive effect, but they also have side effects that aren't so good.
I'm wondering if your doctor might look into changing your regimen.
BBC-I don't think that most people who take medicine ever really thought that they would. They really had to fight with me to get me to take it. I looked at it as a failure of some sort. Now, I don't think it's a big deal. Of course, I know it's over-prescribed, but that doesn't mean that everyone who is taking it doesn't need it. Yes, get the rubber bands away from your cats. The vet told me that actually, it's unusual for a cat to eat things that is more typically a dog behavior.
Ricardo-Yes, that's Hermione. She's back to her normal self. It's amazing, if you or I had abdominal surgery, it would take us a long time to recover but she's already zipping around the house like she always did. Cat's are amazing. She can jump about 9 times her height and land on a dime. Boy if they gave me medicine that stopped me from focusing I'd probably end up with amnesia or something.
X-Luckily it was the only medicine that really gave me any trouble. The other ones are almost without side-effects. I feel really sorry for people who takes lots of medicine that gives them side effects. I don't think I need to take anything for ADD as long as I'm not working, but may have to take it again once I start.
Sean-For some reason, I didn't notice the list that you had at the end the first time I read your comment. I'm in good company.,
glad to hear the good news about your kitty!
interesting insights about meds too.
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