Day 13

The new washer is officially installed and going for a test run. It's nice to have that over and done with.

• Make a meal plan for the week
• Make a grocery list
• Go grocery shopping
• Wait for Lowe's guys to get here and install washer
• Post ADD blog
• Post food blog
• Start red sauce
• Build lasagna
• Work on page 5 of comic
• Watch Superman cartoon

It may seem silly for a grown man to have a cartoon on his to-do list, but I rented it and I do need to watch it because it was a one-day rental. I will always like superhero cartoons. I don't find anything juvenile about that. Comic books are written mostly for the adults that grew up with them, after all.

As a person who has a hard time finishing things, I have found that the hardest part is starting them. I feel that my ADD has also given me a complex about failure. Starting things and never getting around to finishing them has left me with low confidence in my abilities and talents. People can see a drawing I did, and tell me that it's great, but the enjoyment is robbed from me because I know it took so much will to finish it. The truth is that I know that starting is the hardest part.

So this is what I have done to change that feeling of dread that wells up when I think of an impending task that I could either start and fail to finish, or avoid that feeling altogether and refuse to start it. I change my mindset from 'must do' to 'must start'. I find that if I commit to starting something, I am more likely to build up the focus to make progress and actually finish it. People with ADD have what's called Hyperfocus. This means that once our brain finds something to work with, it's all we can actually focus on. On the down side, we do not retain any other stimuli while we are intent on that single item of focus. That's why we can play Halo for eight hours, yet not remember what you said to us five seconds ago. It's important to understand that this is a real disability. If you read the short Wikipedia article on hyperfocus, you will see the term autism spectrum disorder. This suggests that ADD, ADHD, and Hyperfocus are true developmental disabilities. It was very difficult to find in my research that my condition is considered to be a spectrum disorder, yet it was also somewhat of a relief to understand that there is a legitimate reason as to why I struggle with reading large blocks of text and can't retain what I learn.

It's been a journey and continues to be so. The more I learn, the more in control I feel. I think many people feel that ADD is kind of a cop-out. That we're just lazy or stupid. I'm sure some lazy people try to tell you they have ADD. We should all feel sorry for Michael Phelps because he struggles with ADD, right? I don't think ADD gets in the way of swimming, so I don't feel that he should it should be considered a handicap in that sense, but he probably does struggle to focus on academic endeavors. I don't want to get to far off the subject, so I'll save it for another post. Just be aware that there are people that, because of a physiological disorder, cannot, for all of their intelligence, read a chapter of a textbook and successfully apply that information to a test.

If you missed my introduction explaining the purpose of this blog, please read it here.