Don't Judge Me

A Long, Painful Day in the Life of Adult ADHD

This morning I got up to feed the cats, but my house was freezing.  So, instead of feeding the cats, I got back in bed and watched hair and makeup tutorial videos on YouTube.  An hour later, I noticed a sizable weight on my midsection and looked up from my iPad to find all three cats were sitting on top of me because they still wanted food.  I got up and fed the cats and then I realized that Moe is out of cat arthritis pills.  I took the bottle upstairs with me to get my phone so I could order some more when I remembered that Cody is also out of pills.  I grabbed his empty pill bottle and sat down on the bed with my phone to order them.  This made me remember that I needed to take my own pills, so I put down the empty pill bottles and went into the bathroom to take mine before I forgot again.  Before I took them, I remembered that the glass on the bathroom counter had been sitting there for awhile and  last time I took my pills with it, it made the water taste funny.  I went downstairs to get a fresh glass. 

While I was down there, I realized that the reason the house was cold was because the heat was only set to 62 degrees so I turned it up and turned on the fireplace.  I also realized that there were dirty glasses laying all over, so I picked them all up and put them in the sink along with the clean glass I was going to take upstairs.  Halfway up the stairs, I remembered why I went downstairs in the first place and went back to get another clean glass.  Once I finally got back upstairs and took my pills, I went into the bedroom to order cat's pills and boyfriend's pills.  While I was on the phone with the automated pharmacy refill service, someone beeped me on the other line and I answered it because I didn't recognize the number.  It was the library's automated reminder service calling to tell me that my books were overdue.  I was on the phone with two computers at the same time and that is depressing.  When I clicked back over to the pharmacy, I didn't know what number to push, so I had to hang up and do it again. 

Pills finally ordered, I decided that I really wanted to go back to bed and that I had better make the bed or else the temptation would be too great.  While I was making the bed, I got a really intense craving for green bean casserole with French's crunchy onion topping.  I abandoned the bed-making to go downstairs and see if we had the ingredients for green bean casserole.  We did not.  While I was looking in the cupboard, I decided to have some breakfast and make some coffee.  Then I remembered that the only coffee we have tastes like Dimetapp and decided to write a grocery list because in addition to coffee, we also need green beans and cream of mushroom soup and French's crunchy onions. 

As I ate my raisin bran, I began to think of all the things I need to do.  I started to get anxiety because so far, my morning had been largely unproductive. I began to get that self-loathing feeling, so I finished my cereal and went upstairs to finish making the bed- a mere 45 minutes after I began.  Bed finally made, I figured it might be a good idea to take a shower, but then I remembered that I wanted to go tanning and also that my sister's dog needs a walk.  Since these are both sweaty activities, I decided to forgo the shower and go walk the dog instead.  A game of iPad solitaire, a load of laundry, and an episode of Mighty B! later, I left the house to go get the dog.  And I did go get him- except that halfway down my street, I noticed all the trash cans lining the sidewalk and remembered that it's trash day and I didn't put the trash out.  So I turned around and went back.

After I finally got the dog and got all the way down to the greenbelt and started to walk him, I realized that I didn't have the attention span for a walk but I would have felt guilty if I didn't go, so I decided to power walk the entire route and see how fast I could do it without actually running.  I was like an 85-year-old mall walker on speed.  I walked that path as fast as I usually jog it.  I had decided that while I power walked, I would make a plan for doing the rest of my errands.  By the time I got back to the car I was dragging the poor dog along, stripped down to my tank top, sweating buckets and panting.  I had also spent the entire walk thinking of ways to improve my blog instead of planning my errands.

After getting an iced tea and dropping the dog off, I felt pretty productive.  But then I did a mental tally and discovered I'd only actually done one thing I needed to.  I still had to drop off some clothes at the dry cleaner, pick up cat's pills and boyfriend's pills, return a movie and some library books, tan, go to the bank, make five phone calls, exchange my brother's ninja suit for a smaller size, and clean the cat boxes.  But before I could go out and do those things, I had to go home and get the dry cleaning, the movie, the library books, and my tanning goggles.  And I had to run back to my sister's to pick up the ninja suit that I left sitting on her counter.  And I was hungry......but to punish myself, I decided NO LUNCH FOR ME until I did my errands.  My stomach would just have to wait.

I really WAS about to leave the house to do my errands, but something reminded me that I was supposed to do something for Cody besides get his pills so I had to walk around the house until I remembered.  After all, he only asked me to do two things today and I still hadn't done either one yet.  Then I remembered that the other thing he asked me to do was order some prints of some pictures for his parents.  So I got online to do it but instead, I checked my email and my three favorite blogs.  Then I read an article on the BBC about how Colonel Gaddafi is dead.  Then I checked the weather report.  Then I ordered the pictures.

At that point, the self loathing became unbearable, so I actually went and exchanged the ninja suit, picked up cat's pills, went to the bank, tanned, picked up boyfriend's pills, dropped off the movie and the library books and the dry cleaning, and got another iced tea.  I forgot the coffee and the green bean casserole ingredients because I forgot the list at home.  I didn't pick up the photos yet either, but what am I, a freaking wizard?  When I got home, I ate some tomato soup and a grilled cheese.  By then, the self loathing had subsided.  But I still had to clean the cat boxes and make the phone calls.  Son of a...........

 I started to make the phone calls, but after about 45 minutes on the phone with social security, I lost my patience.  I did manage to hold out until someone answered, so I finally got the information I needed.  But I decided to do the other phone calls tomorrow.  Then I panicked because it was 4:30 and I still stank from power walking and tanning and I needed to clean the cat boxes and pick up the photos and I was having company over for dinner in less than two hours. 

I ran down to the Walgreens, got distracted by a buy one get one free cosmetics sale and left with new lip gloss and not the photos.  Luckily, I remembered to get them before I drove out of the parking lot.  By then, I was screwed because it was after 5:00 and I had less than one hour to shower and clean up the house and when  I got home, one of the cats had shit on the floor.

Now, I'm guessing that if you actually hung on and read that whole blog post,  you do NOT have ADHD.  Congratulations.  For me, I hope its temporary......