I am Chelsea, and I am a Procrastinator with ADD

Merry Christmas Everyone! Do you like the title of this blog entry? I hope you do, because it is SO TRUE! I have serious ADD, otherwise known as Attention Deficit Disorder, and it severely hampers my ability to do just about anything in a reasonable manner and on time. Getting distracted is the very least of my problems, because my crazy condition goes much further than that. MUCH deeper.

Usually people with ADD or ADHD get distracted from their initial task very easily. It's not the fact that I get distracted from what I'm doing that is so crazy... it's what distracts me. Normally, people with ADD will be walking through the bedroom to go fold clothes and see a book or video game that catches their attention and distracts them and off they go to play. Not me. I'll be walking through the house to go fold clothes and see a James Patterson commercial about his new book and then randomly decide that very moment is the PERFECT opportunity to grab a stack of paper and start writing that book I've never planned to write. You know, the book that I don't have in my head that would most definitely become a best seller? Seriously? What is my deal?

In the middle of cooking dinner, I'll be measuring flour and suddenly, BAM! That seems like the perfect time to cut out some vinyl letters and label my measuring cups. Or I'll be washing clothes, and I'll start computing the cost of laundry detergent which sparks a google witch hunt for homemade laundry detergent recipes that will never get made. (Although, I must add that I DID actually make 5 gallons of homemade laundry detergent ONE time, and it was VERY wonderful and it worked like a charm! I got to trip over the 5 gallon bucket for 4 months as I hobbled over the mountain of clothes to do laundry.)
 
 

 


I've tried Adderall, and it made me extremely edgy and anxious, so that was a No-Go. Now, I'm on a similar drug called Focalin, and it does seem to work a lot better as far as keeping me awake and somewhat better with focusing. I guess lately I've actually been doing a lot better with the whole "Can't maintain focus" thing, luckily. If I hadn't wrangled some kind of control over my ADD I would have never wrapped the first Christmas gift, because I would have decided to hand make the wrapping paper or something crazy like that. It seems like I have the hidden mentality that if it's not extraordinary then it doesn't count. Is that realistic? Not hardly, although I DID make all of my gift tags!

My curse: I was given a vision. A vision of what "Could Be." The curse? I was also given the inability to channel that vision to one item and EXECUTE the "Making it Be" part of the equation.
 
 

One thing I credit for my recent gain of control over my ADD is a new book I bought about a week and a half ago. And I bought it out of desperation, because when you live like this, unorganized, it seems like you don't have control over one single aspect of your life. One thing I learned that made me feel better: A LOT of this inability to control my ADD is caused by my brain lesions affecting the executive functions in my brain, because of the location of the lesions. Whew! It's not ALL me... although some of it is laziness I have to admit.
 
 

The book is called Procrastination: Why You Do It, What To Do About It NOW! And it's an AMAZING book that I highly recommend to anyone who has issues with time management, procrastination, finishing projects, depression, ADD, or ADHD in general. It is written by Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuen. One of the best parts about the book is that the authors are habitual procrastinators as well, so they understand what the reader feels like. They use their personal experience to help you not only understand what the problem is and medical causes, but also how to remedy this loss of control over your life and gain your self-worth back. Self help book, yes. Am I thankful for it, definitely. (There were over 150,000 copies sold, so they must be doing something right.)
 
 

Below is the link to purchase the book for $10.85 if you are interested (and it is SO worth it)! It is also available at Books-A-Million.

http://www.procrastinationisfun.com/procrastination-books/
They said that they held Procrastinator's Anonymous meetings to help gain more information while writing this book, and the meetings were from 9 a.m.-11 a.m. I thought it was hilarious that they said that was a horrible time to hold the meeting, because all of the people that were attending had issues with procrastination, and they all didn't show up until 10 a.m. anyway. (I totally understand this, because I am usually late for everything!)

Since I have been reading the book, I have been through two highlighters, and I've been on time and finished more projects that I have total in the past year. It's AMAZING, and if a book can help my butt be on time... it can help you too. (Chapter 16 is called: Tips for Procrastinators with ADD and Executive Dysfunction.)


I learned that self-monitoring is very important when you are trying to be on time, and people with either of these disorders have issues with this (I have both.. yay me!) I also learned that if you are like this, every single decision point represents a potential diversion from whatever path you are on. As Ned Hallowell said, "The devil does reside in the details in the land of ADD."
 
 

Another tip I've learned is,"Don't try to be good at what you're bad at. Get better at what you're good at." (by Ned Hallowell and coauthor John Ratey) To boost your attitude and inspiration, find what you're good at, and do it more! (Sounds good to me... even if it is funky dancing... haha)


FINAL POINT: You have a choice. You can delay, or you can act!
 
 

I choose to act. And to all you readers, if you are a procrastinator like me, BUY THIS BOOK. If you are an organizational wonder-person, please give me your ideas, tips, and strategies. All of them will not work for me, but some of them definitely will. And just knowing you care will mean the world and inspire me as well.
 
 

FYI: This is NOT my brain... Ironically, I can't figure out how to save my own brain scans from the disc, because of the system they used to download them. As soon as I can learn how to do it, you can bet that I'm going to share my BIG beautiful brain with you. It's proof... I have one! haha. Seriously, this picture shows you what a brain with MS looks like with lesions (the white spots). I have four lesions... this person has more than I do. And... because of my lesions, I have more color in my brain than just that dull gray color.. I have white polka dots! How cool is that... which means.. my brain is prettier than yours! haha... Gotta have humor in it!
 
 

Well, enough procrastinating! Off to finish my daily goals!

Tardy Thank You Note Tuesday

Hello to all of my readers... (like all 6 of you...:)

What is today? Well, at MY house, today is... (drumroll please)... "Tardy Thank You Note Tuesday".  (How lucky am I that the "T" in Tuesday just goes with the flow?") Yes, I have the "T" pattern going on, and I'm OCD like that, so there.)

You see, I got married in March (ahem.. LATE March, if that helps my cause). Nonetheless, I got married in March of this year, and I still have not sent out my "Thank You" notes. Have I written any of them? Yes. Are they still "sendable"? No. Why? Because, like a procrastinating goober, I wrote the date on them. So now, I can't send you a late "Thank You Note" with May 6, 2011 on it. Why did I include the date on the ones I wrote? Because my "Thank You Etiquette Book" said that was necessary. Polite? Yes. Necessarily REQUIRED? No.  I realize that now. I would like to give a BIG "Thank You" to Books a Million.

I'm from Alabama, born and raised, so I know that, as in most cases, there are two ways of doing things. There is the "Overall United States" thank you note etiquette, and there is the "Southern" thank you note etiquette. According to the etiquette that I should be abiding by, I should have sent out the notes before the wrapping paper ever made it's way into my cheap Dollar General trash bags. I'm admitting that I didn't, meaning obviously that I still haven't, sent out our Thank You notes, so let's get that out in the open right away.

I am a little obsessive when it comes to anything "stationery oriented," and I have indeed mailed out cards, meaning "Regular Themed Cards." Over the past few months, I just couldn't seem to get it right when it came to our wedding thank you cards. I did indeed write quite a few of the"thank you's" but then I made the ultimate mistake... AFTER I was married, I visited the "Wedding/Bridal" section of Books A Million. Why I would even set foot in that section of ANY store is beyond me. So, are you wondering what I found there? Unfortunately, I found the book titled "The Bride's Thank-You Note Handbook: The Classic Guide for Today's Bride" by Marilyn Werner.  Why didn't I just leave it on the shelf? (*Sigh*)

See? Don't the cute little "swirly" letters and creative drawings make you want to go ahead and say "Thank You so much" to everyone you pass on your way out of the store? No? Well, it did that for me! So, I bought it. Of course I did.

I realized before I even made it to my car that the "Thank You" notes I had already written were clearly on a second grade style level... This particular new book was going to teach me how to write "Thank You" notes that would make Nicholas Sparks drool... right? No. Not even close.

Let me add that I wasn't going to "copy" the examples from the book word for word, even though each example seemed to have a really great "Thank You Themed Description" for every single thing we received, every bride in town received, and probably every item William and Kate received. It definitely covered all of the bases.  For example, the thank you cards I had already written seemed to go a little something like this (and I'm going to add an item in this mock "virtual thank you note example" that we did NOT receive and address it to a fake person, just to make sure that I don't use an item  as an example that someone actually gave us and then the giving person thinks we don't care or that we are being rude or whatever.) You get the picture.

 Anyway, BEFORE I read the book, my thank you notes seemed to sound like this.:

Aunt Oprah, (she's really not my aunt, just in case you were wondering...)

Thank you so much for the beautiful Weenie Roaster that you gave us as a wedding gift.

(I have to admit that even though none of the cards included the words weenie or roaster, the first line always sounded so "awkward." I mean, Duh she already knows what she gave to us as a wedding gift, but I would get stumped here every time. I continued to write the item in there anyway, over and over..... Moving on... Thank You note continued:)

"A Weenie Roaster was such a creative wedding gift! We will definitely be using it a lot when we roast our weenies (?) on camping trips this summer. The size you bought is perfect, and I can't wait to roast several weenies at one time, which is important on camping trips. Every time we decide to roast our weenies, we will definitely think of you.

Thank you,

Scott and Chelsea Belton

P.S. Please tell Uncle Stedman that I need to borrow the lawnmower next week, but I'll give him a call before I come over. Thanks!"

(End of "Thank You" note)


Holy Cow. Second Grade Level "Thank You" note? I think that's definitely a "Yes" on that one. And I should add that it would take me about thirty minutes to decide what to write and exactly how to say it. Then you can tack on at least another twenty minutes, because I repeatedly was unsatisfied with my handwriting, so I would RE-write like every third card. Three cards could take me a whole day! 

So, as I said before, I bought "Every Bride's Guide." Standing in the store, my new book looked refreshing, and I fully expected it to save me. And it absolutely DID NOT! Then, instead of trying to decide what to write, I spent that thirty minutes leafing through the book attempting to find an item similar to the one I was writing the note for, only to read the provided example and THEN have to spend twenty more minutes trying to come up with different wording so that I wouldn't be plagarizing Thank You notes for our wedding gifts!

After I finally wrote the million dollar thank you note (three + times for absolutely perfect handwriting, or I would forget to include the title "Dear"), I would put the REQUIRED date in the upper right hand corner. After a few attempts that always seemed to go like this, the Thank You note mission started to haunt me. Each day I would tell myself that I would write a few and mail them out. And I did, write a few, but the "Mailing Them Out" part stumped me. The days passed, the written dated expired, and the months whizzed by. I am horrible at this!

In my defense, the first four months after the wedding are still a BLUR to me, because of the different medications I was experimenting with for MS, and the loss of my dear friend... I'm thankful I did write in my blog, though. If I wasn't able to read back on here, I would have no recollection of what happened except for bits and pieces for the ENTIRE months or April, May, and half of June and July. I'm not even kidding. I can't tell you one single thing that I did during that time span, and that is the wierdest feeling. A combination of the different medications I was trying and the depression that gripped me was SO strong. The ironic thing is, I do remember reading my Bible, praying a LOT, and writing in here about God. It's a miracle in itself now, because He sat with me the ENTIRE time. At the time, I knew He was here with me, but I can't remember anything else.

When you go through something like that, AT THE TIME, everything seems normal. I never realized what a haze I was in, but I really was. I am SO thankful that I was able to turn to God when I didn't even truly know how much He ws carrying me! So for all of you that have been praying for me, DON'T STOP NOW, please... It works in ways we can't control!

Back to my notes...

So, what have you learned from my mistake?

1.  DON'T procrastinate on your Thank You notes, because you will look like an idiot when you run into someone at the grocery store and they ask you if you received their gift, and you start to stammer around, mumbling something about "meaning to mail the cards out" while you turn three shades of red. (And, NO it's just not ok to get your husband to write them... I don't know why, but it's just a secret rule.)

2. It's OK if you do not include every detail that your mother did when she wrote hers 30 years ago. I think most people would just be happy to receive your card (or my card, in this case). I seriously doubt that your neighbor is going to snatch the card out of the envelope and run to her husband and say, "Ugh, just LOOK at this pitiful Thank You card!! Do you see anything missing? Something that RHYMES with LATE?... DATE! She didn't even include the DATE in her cards..."   I think the chances of that conversation ever happening are highly unlikely.

3. PERSONAL REQUEST: If you are reading this and you gave us a wedding gift, please FORGIVE my tardy Thank You notes!! I am trying to finish them now (well, technically not right NOW, because I'm writing this, but you know what I mean.) Even though they are already late as it is, I refuse to just jot down a few notes and send them out. I actually want to put thought into them, because WE really appreciated every single thing we received. SO much!

4.  And LAST BUT NOT LEAST, you're more than welcome to have my Thank You Note GUIDELINE book... I will not be using it!