Last night, I decided to switch up my schedule. This morning, I went back to taking my pills before I left home. That also meant that I had to also eat, something that I had also put off until after I got to work. I will then take my evening pills before I leave work for the day. We’ll see how things go after a week or two.
If I could learn to not say something immediately, even if, as Dr. Barkley suggests, it means that I employ repeating what was said [I do this when I am confirming that I’ve heard something, like instructions, correctly, but not in instances such as this] or even putting my hand over my mouth [ which I have on occasion done to keep from interjecting my thoughts before someone is done speaking, because I want my thought to get said before the speaker unknowingly switches to a different topic, thereby leaving my thoughts on the previous subject in the dust, because they didn’t make it past short-term memory], I would have a better chance of catching my disparaging remark. I dunno. I can’t even say if I have tried that in the past. Jim could probably answer that question and he would more than likely say no, that I did not.
If I did manage to curb my disparaging remarks to Duv before saying them, I really don’t see things getting much better. Because of the differences we have, and yes, I do disagree with the way he sees many things. The problem that I see with that is that when gives input, he wants some kind of response, often because he is bouncing ideas around and wants others input. IMHO, if you are blue-collar worker and you have spent most of your 31 years around other workers [he says that he has known many a white-collar worker, however imo, the friends and peeps he hung out with the most – and I am willing to bet that most people are probably like this – are/were very similar to himself. Ipso facto, if he was a bad-boy, his best buds were more than likely bad-boys as well, and had the same trials and tribulations in dealing with theworld.] of the same ilk, you are going to form certain opinions. I, having spent most of my working career since age 20 or so in the white-collar world, with HMOs, retirement plans, and everything, have learned different patterns and different lessons. I think that because of that, we will more often than not find it hard to agree on things.
I’ve been thinking about today’s argument almost all afternoon – that, and how I screwed I am on my yearly review because the end of fiscal is this Friday and not Monday, meaning that I lose 3 days to finish stuff up. Even if I had not taken off the 3 days last week, I still would have wound up screwed, since it was Monday’s conversation with David that did me in, about my having less output on the Easytrieve+ conversion project and because of that, I more than likely will not get any kind of brownie points for not even having gotten started on one of my listed goals. I’ll probably wind up with a marginal rating again, which means that I can’t take any courses over the next year. As I said, I’m screwed, but I digress.
Anyway, a bit ago, I pulled out Dr. Barkley’s ‘Taking Charge of Adult ADHD’ and started flipping through it. The very first rule he has in the book is about stopping the impulsive action, like stopping yourself from responding to the remark before a thought is given to what one would respond with. That is the one thing that I don’t do with those I have gotten close to, that I have let my guard down with. I learned to do it by junior high, after all of my elementary time was spent being the butt of my ‘friends’ prodding (their favorite thing was to tell me that they were not going to be friend anymore – I know that I tried really too hard to be friends with them, and others, probably because I came off as the strange one in our classes – and after they had gotten me to start crying, they would then take it all back. I learned to stop that by 5th or 6th grade, but it left me wary. After that, I usually watched most everything that I said or did, for fear that my later classmates didn’t have something else to ridicule me about. When you get called obnoxious, and then later learn what the word actually means, trust me, you learn to be wary. However, I would usually slip, and still often do, when I am comfortable around a person. To this day, I find myself having to do that, although now, I am better at stopping most of it from being said before it happens. However, if I have been drinking, like at a holiday party, then most of those bets are off. I am more cautious around what I say to my family than what I say to my boyfriend and would say to my ex-husband. As I told Duv today, I am no longer on my Ps & Qs around them, so every slight remark gets said. I believe that he thinks that I don’t care that I’m hurting him when I disagree with him so much and then voice that opinion. Yes, I disagree with him constantly, the problem is that, I don’t hold my tongue. If I disagree with his opinion, then I disagree (and that is an entirely different argument), that is my right, however I can just keep it to myself. But then, I am left with this: what do you do afterwards? I am not going to lie and say that I agree when I don’t, because I really do try not to lie (so that I have to remember them all at a later date). People tend to want responses and that leaves me at a loss, because that puts me in ‘deer in the headlights’ mode and my creative thinking, and my remembering the past, for that matter, just shuts down and I have to rely on autonomic responses, which just don’t cut it. If I’m pushed, I tend to get angry, which means … well, you get the picture.
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An aside: I also again read in the book about his brother’s driving accident that brought about his death. One thing he mentioned, along with other things such as a variance in their steering (Oh, look at the billboard, then my car starts veering in that direction, guilty!) are ‘less like to wear a seat belt [this I do, ever since my 26YO sister was three and refused to wear hers; after the child safety belt law passed, I would put mine on to get her to, and it has been a habit of mine ever since, but it’s probably the only consistently correct thing that I do.] or to keep their attention on the road instead of twiddling on the stereo controls or radio stations [getting a car stereo with a remote and presetting my favorite stations cut this down immensely], text messaging or talking on the cell phone while driving [having a headset helps with this, and I rarely text while the car is in motion, however I have been known to do it on occasion. I have to think twice about it now since we had to sign something at work about it.], or [and here is the klinker] just socializing too much with other in the vehicle.’ That last one gets me frequently. In the past, when I have driven for work-related stuff when others are in the car, I have had to pretty much keep quiet, else I become too animated and make a driving mistake, like clipping a curb. The problem with that is that is trying to explain to others why I have to keep quiet, else it come off like I’m being cold or snobbish or something. I have had that on-going problem with Duv for ages, most especially when we make our bi-weekly trip to Whole Foods. Duv will attempt to correct me whenever I make a driving mistake, like when I forget to use a turn signal. Believe it or not, I’m actually pretty good about using my signals, when I am by myself. When I am speaking to someone, either in the car or on the phone, it’s often forgotten. I have tried explaining that I need to not get into such animated conversations, but I don’t think that he really gets it. When we try that, I am of course much better, but we are then left sitting in the car not saying anything, which seems to be a problem for him. When he tries to correct me, I get pissed, because whether or not I make a mistake, I do not believe it’s anybody’s place to correct the driver while he/she/me is driving. Afterwards, maybe. He counters with saying that he would do that to anyone, even his brother, and I consider that rude. He has a strange history in that although he has been in trouble with the law quite a few times, he has always made a point of driving by the letter, the better to avoid the law with. So, he spends time correcting me so that the law don’t pick up on the fact that I’ve done something wrong. (I personally think that a couple of his worries might be misplaced, since I think that many of his previous altercations may have had a lot to do with bad-guy ‘profiling’. He and his friends once drove my Focus and they got stopped because of a turn signal was out. That light had been out for ages and I was never stopped for it. Four bad-boy looking guys (with Duv being the oldest at 24) get in the car and they are suddenly stopped. Yup, profiling lol! The cop even called me to make sure that I had indeed let them drive the car. If that doesn’t tell you something … The arguments come about because of nervousness about driving on the highway (that Sensory Integration Sysfunction/sensitivity disorder, which I figured out he has and Pangtay did confirm was a possibility) and his correcting my every driving mistake, and my then becoming pissed about his correcting my driving. By the time we get to Whole Foods, we often are not speaking. However, on occasion, we do manage to make it there sans arguments. I try to keep his mind off of the actual driving trip and to, as kindly as I can muster, remind him that he has agreed not to correct me.
Duv had left me a voice mail, asking that I go out to theraphycounseling.com and ask if it is ok for me to forego my boyfriend’s feelings and give my opinion all of the time? Whatever answer they give would dictate how we handled these situations in the future. As I was listening to the message, something occurred to me. Duv thinks that whenever I spout my opinions, good or bad, about something, I’m thinking something like ‘I know that this will not be taken in the right way, or it might hurt his feelings because I am not on board with what he is saying, but I am going to say it anyway.’ I realized that’s it’s not that at all. Just about every single time, I don’t have those thoughts at all. What I mean is, it never occurs to me to stop and think if what I am about to say is going to hurt someone’s feelings. I don’t have that wall within me that says ‘stop and check what you are wanting to say before you actually say it’, like the verbal equivalent of a mirror. I also think that when it seems that I am showing that kind of concern around people that I don’t know all that well, I am not watching out for their feelings, because I don’t have those thoughts even then. My only concern is whether what I am about to say will make me look stupid, or if what I will say will make that person think badly of me. In other words, during those situations, I am only thinking about myself, not about them. And when it comes to those people that are closer, like my boyfriend, or my ex-husband, I feel safer, so I am not worried as much about being made to feel stupid or bad, so that one little barrier is not there to stop me. So, the real question is how do I develop caring feelings towards those that I am close to, so that I actually take the time to hold my impulses and stop an action, whether it’s saying something that might hurt another’s feelings, or doing something that might hurt that dynamic, such as taking an action that would somehow slight that person (such as spending when I know the other person would be disappointed, etc)? That’s what I really need to be asking.
Today’s argument came about because Duv believes that the woman, the dietitian, that he originally spoke with to find out what foods he could eat lied to him. I stated that he had no knowledge of whether or not she intentionally lied to him, or merely gave him inaccurate information. We did figure out that his definition of a lie is when wrong information is given, whether intentionally or not, and that my definition is when the information is given incorrectly on purpose, as in someone is trying to deceive someone. But that was not the real crux of the fight. With people that I am on a friend level with, I have learned to hold my tongue, to curb the impulse to speak my mind. With those that I am close to or I am comfortable with, that reserve goes down and I usually speak my mind. This is a real problem between Duv and myself because I think that a lot of his views of the world are skewed, due to his spending so many years homeless and outside of the system. It seems to me that a lot of the times, he speaks in terms of the world/system/etc being against him and out to get him. And I do admit that I am very optimistic when it comes to my views of the world, that I think of people in general doing good, unless proven otherwise, so yes, I have a hard time automatically assuming that someone outright lied to a potential patient and gave information that she knew to be wrong and could cause harm. That in itself is not the major problem here. I guess it is that I feel that because I am close to someone that I should not have to hold myself to the same careful standards as I would to a mere acquaintance. Maybe it’s more a matter of impulse, that I have never trained myself to check my thoughts before I give them. The reason that it winds up hurting Duv (as it did Jim) is because when I am around people that I am not close to or don’t know, I am working to not appear the idiot, so I am watching everything I do and say. In other words, I don’t want to be judged badly, so I don’t do anything that would get me judged. When I am around boyfriends and husbands, I am not worried about being judged by them so I don’t put that barrier into place, it does not occur to me to think before I speak to them, to watch what I say. I know that I hate having to do that around others and I pretty much feel freed from the confines of living that way around those I’m close to. I guess that I’m always supposed to be confined that way, to rarely allow myself to truly speak my mind. Am I supposed to be more reserved around those that I’m closer to, just so that I don’t hurt their feelings? That, to me, is so sad. I don’t like having my feelings hurt either, however I’d rather learn from that than to think that people are just patronizing me, giving me what I want to hear. I don’t know. We will probably continue to have problems of some sort from this. I will either never remember to hold my tongue, which will continue to hurt his feelings because I didn’t automatically give Duv my 100% support on something, or I will never want to give my opinion to him on anything, for fear that it will hurt his feelings again. Which is better, and which is worse?
I need to start putting info on my arguments with Duv in here. Some have been doozies. And most start or escalate due to me, however, both of us do not like to lose.
While I was refilling some med bottles last night, I realized that I had 4 lithium tablets in a bottle, from when I had dumped the extras that I had left. So, I have some for the next few days. Goodie! Just in time for the weekend, lol.
It seems that when I am on Lithium, I am less able to multi-task. That naturally feels weird to me, since I am used to thinking/processing that way. This afternoon, I noticed that I am bouncing between a number of things and it’s been much easier to do so. I’ve also noticed that I’m typing faster – and making less typing mistakes no less – although that can have just as much to do with the fact that I am on a regular keyboard right now, instead of my ergonomic one (the flip side of that is that my wrists are starting to hurt more, since my hands are back to being bent in that awkward angle). Of course, the downside of not taking Lithium is that my legs are bouncing much, much more now.
I have read about ADDers using checklists to make sure that we do all steps in whatever procedure/process/errands/etc we are doing. Right now, I am in the middle of working a HOT Issue and a bit of a thought occurred to me. Even though I have always despised the thought of living by schedules and checklists, the process that I have set up to work is that very thing, so I shouldn’t bitch so much about them. I was setting up these types of checklists for decades, long before I knew the why and where of the benefits of utilizing them.
I like getting Tandoori Naan bread at Whole Foods. I’ll grab a lot of them so that I can have them as a snack. I’ll usually eat two pieces of the bread; each piece of bread is a serving. Probably the first or second time I ate them, I was either not quite full and figured that one more piece should satisfy me, or my brain greedily said to myself ‘get one more piece, cuz it’s that good’. Who knows. I was just now thinking over that while eating a piece of bread, subsequently eating a bit slower than usual, since I was a bit lost in thought instead of immediately going back to work, munching away while typing one-handed. While thinking all of that over, I noticed that by the end of the first piece my stomach was satisfied, since my brain probably actually got the signal from my stomach on its fullness before I had started in on the 2nd piece. Instead of setting the 2nd piece aside, saving it for this evening, I instead (and of course) ate it. And of course, by the end of it, I was definitely full. I don’t think that I even have a 50/50 average on talking myself out of stuff, food or anything else, that I don’t really need. I probably have the same average for talking myself into stuff that would be good for me.
I just spent maybe an hour and a half (maybe 2, not really sure) album shopping at one of my favorite two sites. It’s amazing what a sale does to the average sale-lover; way, way worse for me and those of like-minded, er, ‘values’.
