Cripes, I don’t know anymore. I was diagnosed with ADD years ago, went off my meds, went into my doctor recently to complain about being unable to sleep and concentrate, asking about any new medications I could try, or perhaps finding a way to help me sleep and maybe that would, you know, help me focus a little better when I wake up? She whips out a little questionaire to which most of my answers were “maybe”, “sometimes”, and “I don’t know”, and decides I’m bi-polar. Sigh.
Haven’t gotten a second opinion yet, but ADD meds worked in the past, so I’m going to have to go with ADD. For now. Until I get a good night’s sleep, anyway.
But my mind does wander, I can rarely focus or concentrate (and when I do, holy shit, there’s nothing else in the whole world except what’s in front of me, and I can get a lot done), when it’s really bad I sit, inert, staring around me unable to speak because there are too many thoughts at once… and if I’m in a crowded area, I suddenly feel like I can’t see or concentrate. Oh, my eyes work just fine, I just can’t figure out what I’m looking at. There’s too much buzzing. My husband and I went to the zoo this weekend with friends, and it was a beautiful, sunny Sunday, so naturally, the place was filled to the brim with kids of all ages. The lion was out and walking around, right in front of the glass, and my husband said, “Can you see the lion, dear?” because I kept turning around in circles, feeling agitated, looking all around me at all the kids. I found myself face to face with one of our friends and I said, “I have to get out of here. I can’t see anything because it’s so damn noisy.”
Tell me that’s not ADD. I don’t want it. I want it to be something else, something that people “get”, and is easily taken care of. Tell me I just have to increase my eggplant intake and it will all go away. Anything! I hate it.
I, too, am often perceived as ditzy, flaky, or lazy. Know what my nickname in school was? “Spacey”. Everyone was shocked when I was moved from regular classes into the student enrichment classes, because, duh, everyone knew I was “Spacey”, dumb as rock and just as bright. There were a few kids who beat me up in the halls because they thought they were smarter and more deserving, and that I must have been bribing the teachers or *sleeping with them * to get into those classes. :eek:
I dropped out of those classes when the beatings became too much to handle. Also, there was this girl who sat beside me all the time, reading her hippy poetry out loud. I think that was the final straw. 
Oh, and I ramble. :smack: