I know, I know, way to ultra-slack this week, ha ha. But between work and a lovely date with my husband and the forthcoming trip abroad and a forthcoming trip to London for a friend’s birthday, I have been pleasantly occupied. I am slightly concerned that I am going to wear myself right out, but then, that is a never-ending concern.

I’m also trying to bully myself into the next stage of trying to figure out what’s going on in my pretty little head. In this case, it’s getting together my case of evidence to see whether or not I might have ADD or ADHD. I’ve been worried about this since I was a teenager, but my parents alternated between telling me to quit making shit up, and that they were going to send me to military school or an asylum. My Air Force time was a six year wasteland as far as mental health is concerned; you can’t have mental health issues and a clearance, dontcha know (even though they want the best and the brightest… and they tend to have these sort of problems. Catch-22? Oh yeah). Between those two things and the lack of healthcare growing up in general, it’s really hard for me to be an assertive patient. I think I’m getting the knack, but that doesn’t make me feel like any less of a pest!

But then, I have to wonder — do you guys feel like pests in general when trying to be assertive on mental health concerns? Experienced patient or not, good relationship with doctor or not, do any of you feel like you could be coming off totally hypochondriac? I accept that could be me, if only for the fact that I have a lifetime of niggles that I’m slowly pushing myself into asking about. My general practitioner is a really great guy and I feel that  I can bring things to him, but I guess it’s just a matter of continued practice making perfect.

So yeah, that list. *laughs* I definitely have the dual problems of difficulty focusing and hyperfocus. My level of zoning out is getting so bad that I can’t pay attention to someone talking to me… which is sort of ridiculous. I am incredibly ‘Ooh, shiny!’, and even with mindfulness and lists I can’t stick to tasks if anything distracts me in the slightest (which means wasted time trying to remember what I was doing, and then getting back on task). I am wiggly wriggly, and unless I can get what I am saying out within 5-15 seconds of thinking of it, it’s gone and then I’m incredibly distressed and upset because that thought? It’s not coming back. Oh yes, and if we reach back to the school days? I was the classic underachiever; I had teachers whine at me all the freaking time about how my standardized test scores were 99th percentile; why was I getting Cs? That’s not forgetting my non-existent threshold for stress, short temper, irritability, and hypersensitivity to criticism. Yeah yeah, I own up to these things; it does me no good to deny them.

Now, in my favor? I don’t think anyone would realize it effects my work because I am super-effective strength of 10 men worker bee, and always have been. I’ve always worked hard to control impulsive behavior, have overcome most of my addictive problems, and have pretty decent self-esteem. I do my best to organize and streamline things I need to do, whether it’s stacking things a certain way (visual clues are good), or writing a list, or asking my husband what I said I was going to be doing.

But it boils down to the same problem I’ve had with the bipolar — a lifetime of self-management can only go so far. So hopefully the lovely folks at the NHS can help me with this too… as long as I can convince myself that I’m not being a pest, because I’m not.

<3