Been a while again...

It's been a while since posting here... haven't meant for it to be that way but that's how it has worked out.

I'm working on getting a few things together for a couple more posts and should have them up shortly. I just didn't want anyone to think we fizzled out. :)

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers and support! God bless!

Finding answers to my life

My life has been a mishmash of impulsivity and instant gratification. I have, for as long as I can remember, struggled with procrastination, poor decision making, lack of organization, and an avoidance of difficult things and situations. I did ok in school, but often found myself bored and didn't work nearly as hard as I was capable. I can't tell you when the last time I finished a novel was. Long ago, I had resolved these flaws, among others, to be just how I was and I would have to just deal with it.

Unfortunately, these bad traits continued on into my adult life. I often work on several different projects at once, with many of them not ever reaching completion. I avoid conflict with others. I lied to cover up my scatter-brained forgetfulness of even the most simple and repetitive tasks. I mismanaged my finances (which is obvious if you have read this blog for any length of time). Daily life for me consisted of a scatterbrained and stressful rush to get as much done as possible and finding at the end of each day that there was often more that didn't get done than did. I missed deadlines on a consistent basis, misplaced items left and right, and would often forget instructions given to me about 30 seconds after receiving them.

I think you get the idea.

Tired of living my life in such a chaotic manner, I went to the doctor this past Friday. After speaking with the doctor, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and prescribed some medication. This is something that I have had my whole life that has gone undiagnosed until now. The doctor gave me a generic Ritalin prescription (10mg tablets to be taken every day in the AM and at noon). He told me that I would most likely notice a difference right away. I left the doctor with the prescription and a series of thoughts on the matter. Do I really have ADD? If I don't really have it, am I just a loser or do I have something worse? These meds probably won't work... etc.

So I receive my prescription from the pharmacist and take my first pill. I decided that I was not going to try to see when it started working and hoped that something would happen that I would be able to identify. Approximately an hour and a half later I was in a conversation with two other people at the office, and then it hit me. My mind was... well... CLEAR! I could listen to the conversation from both individuals, take in all of the information, and was able to add valued discussion on the topic at hand without trying to throw my two cents in before everyone else was done. I actually listened to everything that was said before formulating my response. That has never happened in my life. Also, not once in the conversation did I tune either of them out (a task which is difficult for me when speaking even to ONE person, let along two).

The rest of the day, I finished everything that needed to get done for the day, stayed on-task with each to-do and completed them in an organized and efficient manner. One co-worker gave me something to update on a particular website. I was inbetween tasks and decided to just take care of it right then (this, by the way, never would have happened in the past--I would have set it aside for later, forgetting about it). So I finished the task and informed her that I finished it. She was surprised that I had finished it so quickly, got a funny look on her face, and scribbled something out on a notepad at her desk. I asked her what she just did--she then informed me that it was the reminder task she had written down for later in the day so that she could come remind me of what I said I would do for her.

How sad is that? People were scheduling to remind me of crap!

ADD - A Deeper Look

Signs and Symptoms

• Activation – Problems with organization, prioritizing, and starting tasks.
• Focus – Problems with sustaining focus and resisting distraction, especially with reading.
• Effort – Problems with motivation, sustained effort, and persistence.
• Emotion – Difficulty regulating emotions and managing stress.
• Memory – Problems with short-term memory and memory retrieval.
• Action – Problems with self-control and self-regulation.

And let's break down each category above a little more specifically. I will analyze and comment on each.

Activation

• Procrastination; difficulty getting started on projects
• Excessive disorganization and messiness
• Inability to prioritize tasks
• Underestimating the time needed to finish a task

I have always been a professional procrastinator. If there was a way to make money by putting things off, I would be a gazillionaire.

Disorganization and messiness? Yeah... you should see my desk/office/room/etc. I tend to put things down with the intention of returning to take care of it but never actually doing it.

Prioritizing tasks was always a problem... I would often find (often too late) that the order in which I placed tasks was completely wrong and deadlines would be missed, clients were not contacted, etc.

I also constantly underestimated the time needed to finish a task. Rather than tell people that I did not have the time to do something, I would say yes and then lie and come up with an excuse as to why it didn't get done.

Focus

• Inability to screen out distractions
• "Zoning out" when others are talking
• Randomly skipping from topic to topic in conversation

I am like a ferret--shiny things distract me, no matter how important the current task is at hand.

If I am in a conversation with someone that goes for more than 30 seconds, my mind will wander on to other thoughts or daydreams that have no bearing on the current conversation. This often resulted in embarassing situations where I didn't know what a person had said just a few seconds before. Imagine how fun that was for my wife, too.

Topic shifting was HUGE for me. I would start talking about one thing, shift to something completely different in the middle, and totally lose track of where I started in order to finish the original point.

Effort

• Difficulty sustaining effort over long periods of time
• Starting multiple tasks, but never completing any of them
• Missing deadlines
• Trouble going to sleep at night and staying alert during the day.

I am a great starter... finishing was never my strong point. Slowly my effort would wane on each project or assignment until I was completely burned out and disinterested in it.

I often had several different tasks going on at a given time, and would often only finish two or three of them, leaving many behind from day to day, assuming that I remembered to pick them up the next day.

We've already talked deadlines but that was a huge one, especially professionally.

I didn't have much trouble going to sleep at night although staying alert during the day was a constant struggle--often drinking 7-10 cups of coffee per day, just to be able to focus.

Emotion

• Easily bored
• Low tolerance for frustration and stress
• Constant worrying

I am very easily bored and once I become bored with something, you can pretty much count on it not ever getting done.

When stressed or frustrated, productivity went down the tubes.

Worry wasn't much of an issue... I combatted that with apathy.

Memory

• Trouble remembering things, even for a short time
• Doesn’t recall conversations, things others said
• Forgetting appointments
• Constantly losing or misplacing things

These four bullets pretty much sum up my entire life. I don't think much else needs to be said here.

Action

• Inability to delay gratification
• Speaking without thinking
• Acting impulsively (e.g. impulsive spending, sudden change of plans) without regard for consequences
• Jumping to conclusions

Well, my spending habits and constant indulgence into pornography and masturbation fall under the lack of delay of gratification. I was always looking for the quick, cheap thrill. My wife could be asleep in the next room and rather than pursue her sexually, I would just crank up the Internet and take care of myself. This was a practice that was prevalent in my life from a young age. I suffered no abuse, sexual or otherwise, as a child and yet I was driven by the false satisfaction that is brought by these acts.

Speaking without thinking wasn't much of an issue unless I was angry about something.

Impulsive actions, especially spending, was bad. I always had to have that candy bar or that DVD or that game... and I had to have them now. Plans were changed at the last minute all of the time, which drove my wife and kids crazy.

Conclusions... wow... I was constantly jumping to conclusions on both big and small things.

This post is getting longer than I wanted it to so I think I will break up further discussion of these things for separate posts. Just know that the medication I am now on has brought so much clarity to my mind and daily life. Granted I have only been on it for two days, I can already see so much positive change. I praise God for helping me to see this problem in my life and providing me with medication to help me cope with it.

In future posts, look for information about how my medication works and how problems in my past were simply ways and means to self-medicate my lack of focus and my mental anxiety.

Also, I hope no one was put off by the mention of masturbation above. This was a very real part of my problems and I share it only to be realistic about the full gamut of my sexual sin and how it takes away so much from a person's life--it also so happened to line up with the topic at hand. I am no longer hiding my past but rather taking the shame of my sin and sharing it with the world in the hopes that others can be edified and built up. There are thousands of men (and some women) out there who have issues with sexual impurity. Sexual impurity nearly destroyed my entire life and if my story can help even one person avoid tragedy then praise God.

Thank you all for your prayers and support! God bless you all!

Extended Family

One thing that has been difficult and is easily forgotten is the effect that all of this has had on our extended family. In the past we tried to hide our problems from them. Not so much now, I felt they needed to know in order for the accountability and support structure that was needed to get through this.

I have told my parents, his parents, my sister and even my co-workers about the situation. There have not been any negative reactions, but there have been consequences.

I know for my family they are sad for me. They feel like my husband has abandoned adult responsibilities and that I am shouldering a burden. It is a strain on their relationships with my husband, and at times mine with theirs. They have to be allowed their own responses and anger, but sometimes I wish they could see how much I know God is helping us through this. I did not leave my husband, I am not sure they view our relationship as stable, but the support they have provided is so appreciated.

I pray those relationships will improve after this situation too. I think it is important for families to allow each other to fall and still be there for each other. I know we are truly blessed that ours has been that way. I know it is not always easy for them.

On the financial front we are making it on a prayer. It has been truly amazing ends meet by the grace of God.

Yesterday we actually received two credit card offers. They were awful. One was a mileage card, right that is a stable financial decision now. The other card wanted $30 to even open the account and a starting interest rate of 19.50%. Call me crazy, but I have enough debt, now sorry credit offers are going to help us now. I would like to learn more about the Christian debt principles and the bank on yourself classes if anyone has information it would be greatly appreciated.

HUD Update

I spoke with them on Monday, the information has all been entered (and was completed on the 23rd) and has been passed from the processing dept over to HUD to have a check cut and sent!

Praise God! :D

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