ADHD Life

tired of the overwhelm

I am sitting here on Monday morning, typing this newsletter to send it out probably Thursday around 4 or 5pm CST. [Update: sending this now & not on Thursday.]

And I cannot get my thoughts together at all. It’s so frustrating to have a tornado inside my brain and I can’t find something long enough to hold onto it. So I thought I would write this for my SubStack this week and I hope it will help unclog my head so I can do all the things on my 18,000 to do lists that I wrote for myself this weekend!

I have so many SubStack posts I want to write and I keep not writing them. I can’t even explain why. I mean, I can, but it’s not interesting and I am sure it would come out all convoluted just like everything else does thanks to my ADHD.

Do you have ADHD? I have heart issues and also ADHD and the two don’t play nicely together.

Folks like me would normally take something like Adderall. Whereas a normal person would have their brain sped up, someone like me, it calms me down. Same with many other stimulants. Things known as “stimulants” actually calm me down.

But I cannot take them because they are called “Stimulants,” and I can’t take stimulants because of my racing heart issues. Fun, eh? Even though stimulants slow me down and don’t speed me up. Yeah. It makes no sense to me, either.

So I sit here and just write notes I will never refer to again and if I find them, I won’t know what I was writing or how long ago it was or if it’s still relevant or if I should throw it away. Who knows.

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In other news,

I hired a declutter expert before Christmas to help me. She and I went through my garage and I cart-blanche decided to get rid of my dad’s cameras because I needed to grossly purge my stuff. I was having some mental health issues and I just needed to get my life moving in a new direction, because what was going on wasn’t working for me.

And to get it going, I needed to do a major purge and re-loading of my personal space. I have since started a new way of doing things which has led to a lot of clarity for websites I am now creating. It’s all a blur - ADHD really IS a blurring tornado that never stops. I don’t fall asleep at night; I stop and crash from exhaustion in my brain. I pass out.

Anyway, so after giving her permission to take the cameras, she took them, put them in a box and put them in the trunk of her car to save them to later give to another friend of mine who collects old cameras.

After that, I thought, “there was one in there that I would like back. I will ask for those back.”

I have been contacting her and contacting her for several weeks now and asked for the cameras back. And she wasn’t replying. At one point, I told her I’d gotten a concussion and I got no reply to that, either.

And now I finally heard back from her yesterday. And she told me my dad’s cameras were stolen from the trunk of her car.

I have inadequate words to describe my shock, horror, disbelief, feeling of being violated, fear of being robbed, so many emotions. I sat in shock for the majority of last night.

I think I am still in shock. My dad’s cameras are gone. I am trying to remember his legacy was not in his cameras. His legacy was in all the good he left behind in this world. His legacy was in his writings, which I am releasing to the world as I am able to.

It still hurts, though. I am hurting.

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Speaking of my dad’s writings, I need an editor and a book agent. Please send help!

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I feel deep grief and sadness over Dad’s cameras being stolen. And I don’t know how to cope. And that’s where I am on this Monday morning.

Meanwhile, another friend wanted to talk with me today. I had a zoom call today that turned out to be completely worthless, honestly. It took up an hour of my overwhelmed day, but I attended on the off chance that I would get something out of it and also answers.

And this friend didn’t answer when I called. So now it’s writing time then time to get ready for orchestra and to go to orchestra.

Today is so overwhelming. I just want to go hide in a corner and cry.

I have so much I want to do and I just wish I had help and financial help.

I don’t know how to ask for a business loan. My brain is in mega-tornado mode.

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Rhapsody in Blue

Also, tonight I have orchestra practice and I still haven’t practiced ONCE. I have to leave in an hour for practice.

We’re playing Rhapsody in Blue (which I can play, because it’s mostly a piano concerto) and another musical piece that is an organ piece that I honestly can’t stand. Who keeps picking these awful songs? If I can’t stand the song, I’m not going to practice.

My body is in so much pain and it’s just getting worse and worse. Rhapsody in Blue is probably my all time favorite song, so I want to do this concert. It’s a major bucket list item for me to play this piece on stage. We’re playing it after I suggested it at the end of the season last year! I don’t know if I am the only one who suggested it, but I know I did suggest it and now we’re playing it.

“Funny” thing - I got an email from the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and they are also playing Rhapsody in Blue - this coming Sunday (or maybe it’s the following Sunday?)

Wow.

I am thinking of dropping out of this orchestra after our Rhapsody in Blue concert due to my own overwhelm and body pain. I just don’t know that I can do this anymore, and it’s another thing I have mixed emotions about. Life is hard.

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The Olympics

And - the Olympics. Ilia Melanin from Vienna, Virginia (my home town!) is amazing! I was awe-struck that he did a standing back flip during his routine. I remember Brian Boitano doing the same trick back in the 1980s when I was watching the Olympics from my home in Vienna, Virginia. And then Surya Bonaly did it, too, but it was considered illegal when she did it - so she had points deducted from her score!

And now it’s legal again. Ice skating is crazy. And I’m so stinking happy for the US ice skating team. I love the Olympics. I love the world coming together for reasons to do things working towards peace for all of us.

So, that’s today’s newsletter. Now to try to see if I can cobble together another one now that I have emptied out a lot of the clogging ADHD stuff from my brain.