…what was I saying?

Oh yeah, ADD. I’m talking about my incredibly short attention span, my “attention deficit disorder”, my inability to focus, to concentrate, to finish any one project (or even remember what I was doing ) before I start on the next project, or the next, project, or the next. Minutes slip away–sometimes an entire day can slip away before I realize I have about seventy-bazillion jobs started and nothing finished. The whole house/apartment is a mess and I realize I’ve been staring into space for a long while. How long is anyone’s guess.

I’ve always been “a day dreamer” or “a procrastinator” or “a happy-go-lucky slob” depending on if you asked my first grade teacher, my first employer, or my mother but over the years I have managed to compensate–at least in the workplace if not at home–people just think I’m a half-assed housekeeper. Lately though I have a strong inkling that it’s gotten much worse.

For example, this subject has been on my mind as a blog topic for months now. I just keep forgetting to start writing. When I did remember, on Monday, that I wanted to touch on this, I sat down at the computer but got distracted by e-mail or a news piece or something–I don’t remember which. I think the phone rang and I went off to talk for awhile. I got hungry & wandered off to the kitchen where I realized I should have loaded and run the dishwasher so I started that. It was probably 9 pm before I remembered that I had wanted to start a blog post about ADD–but the dishwasher hadn’t been run yet and I had started a couple other projects and had the whole place in a mess again.

Next day, I finally did start this post and I DID sit here for awhile–not sure what happened but a few hours later when I wandered back over to the computer, I had the first two paragraphs done. Good thing Wordpress saves on its own though, or they’d be gone. Yesterday I wasn’t home enough to even sit down at the computer for more than a few minutes so I’ll give myself a pass for Wednesday. Today is Thursday. I want to write this–get it finished and ready to post tomorrow. What are the odds? There are dishes in the kitchen. Laundry in the bedroom. It’s almost time for Oprah. I’m still in my pajamas. Oh yeah and in the back of mind I KNOW DAMN WELL I’m supposed to be looking for job.

I read somewhere recently that these hormone imbalances can cause this kind of inability to focus. I think it was one of the library books–can’t remember which. A Google search turns up a few dozen sites swearing that hormone imbalances and/or menopause will cause “brain fog” or fuzzy thinking or inability to concentrate, or whatever. Most of those sites are selling one or more “natural” products which are supposed to make everything alright again. I’m not even going to list them all–maybe they are reputable and maybe they aren’t. We have no way of telling.

Just coincidentally, the New York Times printed an article today linking a possible thyroid disorder to a very few cases of ADD. Hormone Imbalance Linked to Behavior.

CASTING a slender ray of light on a mystifying behavioral syndrome, researchers have linked an inherited defect in the body’s thyroid hormone system to attention-deficit disorder, a common psychological problem in children. The work is the first to identify a specific gene associated with attention deficit difficulties, and it suggests that a fraction of children with the problem may in fact have an undiagnosed thyroid disorder.

They make it sound pretty rare so odds are, I’m not going to fall into this category, right? But they do leave the door open to the suggestion that ADD behavior might have some hormonal root.

On the other side, here is this article What Causes Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? which states rather unequivocally that

Although hormones do influence the moods and behaviors of an individual, hormonal imbalance does not cause ADHD. Keep in mind that there has not been any substantial connection between an ADHD episode and hormone levels. Hormones may be at play while causing individuals to be out of focus or impulsive at various times but they do not cause ADHD and its many other symptoms.

Alright then. Well of course what I am calling ADD in myself has never been diagnosed as exactly ADD per see. Maybe it’s brain fog, or whatever, but in that I’ve had it since childhood, and I do mean prior to puberty, is it hormonal and if so which hormone (or deficiency) is causing the problem?

If it isn’t hormonal, what DOES cause it? How do I learn to cope? I’m supposed to be looking for work. I wonder in my present state if I am even capable of holding down a job at all. Sigh.

By the way. I sat down at 3:00ish. It’s after 7 now. I sorted the laundry in between paragraphs but haven’t gotten any further than that. I’ve wandered all over the place and I can’t even tell you what I was doing for all these hours. No clue. And I was really trying to concentrate. Imagine if I wasn’t….

….

I’ve just re-read this and now I’m not even sure quite what I was trying to say when I started out. Do I think I have ADD? I don’t know. Maybe. I read something years ago about adult ADD and found it very compelling in that I had never realized there was such a thing in adults. I’ve never had the luxury of having myself tested so I can’t say for sure. I do know I have nearly all the signs/symptoms listed on this page.

And sure, I’ve had problems at jobs in the past where no matter how hard I tried, I could not concentrate long enough to complete a task–error-free. But I’ve also had jobs where I was a star. I think the difference between the two was the pace. The faster the pace, the better off I am because I am able to concentrate keenly for very short periods–sort of a mind “sprint” rather than a “marathon.”

The trouble is, I really do feel like it’s getting worse. I can’t concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time–everything is coming at me all at once and I can’t decide which thing to pay attention to so I sit and stare into space and think about it–for a long time–until I’ve forgotten what it was all about in the first place.

All I know is I have things to do and things I would like to accomplish in my life and right now I can’t even seem to be capable of getting a few loads of laundry done in one day.