Stories of an ADD Adult

I was thinking a couple months ago of starting on either ginseng or gingko biloba. I never got around to it, though.

My parents used to buy ginseng root for my grandfather. He thought it was strange and refused to eat it. I think he sometimes did eat it, but not usually. My parents thought it would help prevent his memory from deteriorating.

Unfortunately his memory has deteriorated and he mixes up the details of his past when he tells stories. He is more than 90 years old, so it was nothing unexpected.

I used to take gingko biloba whenever I could remember when I was in college. I didn’t notice any real effect from it, but I would take it hoping that it might help.

I have no real desire to start on either ginseng or gingko right now, but it’s been on my mind so I thought I should write about it just to get it down.

I am on my last roll of toilet paper.

I have gone out three times during the past week, intending to buy toilet paper at the grocery store. Yet I forgot to buy it all three times.

Two out of the three times, I didn’t even end up going to the grocery store in the first place.

I had left a needle on top of a piece of fabric, in the middle of my living room. I was thinking that I would pick it up later.

And now it’s gone. It is lost somewhere in the fibers of my carpet. I know I will find it sometime soon by accident, walking around the house barefoot. It will hurt.

That was a dumb decision for me to make. I have realized that having ADD makes you do dumb things sometimes. I was going to pick up the needle, but I got distracted and decided I would do it later.

Distractions. They make it so easy to do regrettable things. I would never have done something like this had I taken my medication. I also might not have slept so well, on the other hand.

In another ADD moment, yesterday I bought groceries and forgot to put them in the fridge until this morning.

They were out for 12 hours straight, so some of the food probably isn’t good anymore. I was hoping to have yogurt for breakfast, but maybe I’ll have something else.

It happened because I got home and put my grocery bags on the messy table just inside the entrance to my house. There, they blended in with everything else. I then went to get something to eat and sat on the sofa, eating.

I did get to put some of the food away last night, but not much. I feel like an idiot but know it’s just one of the drawbacks of having ADD.

A lot of the time I’ll be cooking something on medium heat, and I’ll forget that it’s cooking. It is a pretty common occurrence for me, happening at least twice a week. This week it happened several times.

How could anyone forget something on the stove, if they can hear it or smell it? you might be thinking. Well, I don’t think it’s normal either, because this only happens to me. I’m sure that those of you out there with ADD or ADHD might be able to relate, though.

This is one of the many secrets of having ADD. People don’t realize how hard it is to live like this. That reminds me, I should go and check the noodles cooking on the stove.

“ADD moments” are how I refer to those times when I get up to do something and then completely forget about it.

I just had a particularly funny ADD moment. I was buying something online, and I had to get up to find my credit card. My credit card was in my purse just six feet away from where I was sitting.

Instead of going directly to my purse, I got up and walked out of the room and into the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry or anything, so I just walked aimlessly. Then I wandered into the bathroom, where I had nothing to do either. Finally, I walked into my bedroom. I looked in the mirror and thought, “That’s good, I’m not getting too fat,” and then I walked out of the bedroom and back to the living room/computer area again.

In the living room, I noticed that my plants were dying. One of the things about ADD is that you always forget to water your plants. So I went back to the kitchen to get a glass of water for the plants, and a funnel since pouring can be kind of messy.

Forgetting that I was going to water the plants with it, I took a sip from the glass of water. “Ewww, it’s warm,” I thought and immediately realized that the glass of water wasn’t intended for myself to drink. I then noticed the funnel in my hand and knew I had to water the plants. So I went over to water them and succeeded.

I brought the glass back to the kitchen, forgetting the funnel on the windowsill. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be getting my credit card from my purse!

I hurried over to my purse and found my wallet, and I returned to my computer. There, I took out my credit card and finally completed my online purchase. I was so relieved that it didn’t time out. It’s such a pain to have to start over when you’re buying something online, forget halfway through because of ADD, and then return to find the purchase timed out.

As soon as I finished the purchase, I went to blog about my ADD moment, knowing that it was genuinely good writing material. And as I was writing, I looked over and saw the funnel on the windowsill. “Should I go and put it back in the kitchen?” I thought. “No, I had better finish my blog entry first,” I said to myself, trying to avoid another one of those funny but aggravating ADD moments.

I have really been struggling with my vitamin + fish oil plan, because I keep forgetting to take my pills.

With stimulants it was much easier to remember to take them. Honestly it was because of the instant gratification. I knew that if I took my Ritalin, I would experience a noticeable improvement in my concetration within the next hour.

With vitamins and fish oil, it seems like you have to take them for a longer-term period in order to experience the improvement in concentration. Don’t take my word completely, because I’ve never been able to take the supplements long enough to experience the long-term benefits.

It’s the vicious ADD cycle. If I forget to take my meds, I can’t concentrate. If I’m distracted by lots of things, I will inevitably forget to take my meds. And without the instant feedback that stimulants have, taking vitamins and fish oil isn’t easy.

I suspect that clumsiness is an ADD/ADHD trait, even though it is not officially recognized as one. I have seen so much overlap between the people I know who have ADD or ADHD and the people I know who are clumsy.

I was one of the clumsiest children when I was young. I would spill every glass of juice, milk, water, or other drink, guaranteed. I was bad at sports because my coordination was poor. It would take much more practice for me to become good at something, than for anyone else to attain the same level of skill.

My parents were extremely clumsy too. They still are, but that’s another story.

I think my clumsiness was a mixture of forgetting what I was supposed to be doing and thinking about other things. I had too much going on inside of my head at once.

I would regularly forget to bring things that I needed to school. My mother would then tell me that I was forgetful “just like [my] father”.

I wonder if she would tell my father that he was forgetful just like his daughter. Maybe that’s what she tells him now.

ADD and ADHD tend to run in families, according to my psychologist. Looking back, my parents have shown ADD/ADHD traits all through my life. I don’t doubt this theory one bit.

The average person loses his or her personal belongings sometimes, but not as frequently as the person with ADD or ADHD.

In many cases, the person with ADD or ADHD loses items regularly throughout the day. Sometimes, despite great effort to maintain a system of organization at home or work, items get misplaced as if he or she had never made any effort to be organized.

Losing things can be a nightmare, especially when the things you lose are books from the library. This happens to me frequently, always by accident.

I try to keep my library books on a special shelf in my living room, but somehow I always end up bringing books to other places and forgetting about them.