ADDiva (for ADD and ADD-ish women)

Help for midlife women with ADHD... The ADDiva Network sponsors retreat for midlife women with AD/HD October 2-7, 2011 - ADHD,ADHD women,ADHD midlife

2011-09-16T12:42:00.000-04:00

Help for midlife women with ADHD... The ADDiva Network sponsors retreat for midlife women with AD/HD October 2-7, 2011 - ADHD,ADHD women,ADHD midlife

Visit the ADD women's website- ADDiva.net

2009-06-02T17:42:00.003-04:00

The new ADDiva blog is located at
http://www.addiva.net/posts

Come visit, then subscribe to ADDiva RSS feed for updated posts!

The ADDiva Network is now more than 1500 women strong. Join us for retreats, ADD coaching, monthly calls, ADDiva products for ADD women and MORE (much more...)

Hugs

Wellbutrin XL generics - bad news?

2007-10-31T09:18:00.000-04:00

I've always worried that generic drugs aren't quite as good as the brand name version and now there's mounting evidence to prove it.

Wellbutrin XL 300 (Budeprion XL) works just fine for depression and many ADHD symptoms. But when some patients are switched to the generic formulation, they reported frightening symptoms: fast onset of severe depression and serious suicidal thoughts.

In a recent article published by the People's Pharmacy a woman reported no problems with the original Wellbutrin XL 300 but said that she had "the worst case of depression" she could remember when her pharmacy substituted the generic equivalent. It should be noted that the difference has not been reported in the 150 XL formulation at this point.

Apparently the generic version releases the medication at a different rate than the original, thus creating quite different response rates and effectiveness.

This news scares me - because a lot of ADDivas take Wellbutrin, including me - and there is the potential for serious repercussions. Suicide is not to be taken lightly, especially when antidepressants are supposed to ward off those thoughts and actions.

Equally important, however, is that many ADD women and men have already experienced differences in generic medications vs. brand name drugs that treat ADHD. I cannot take generic Adderall, for instance. Other people cannot take the brand name version. Ditto for any of the other drugs on the market today.

There are two ways to look at this issue, in my opinion.

1) We need to make SURE that we are receiving the exact drugs prescribed for us with NO substitutions by the pharmacy or insurance company (this may take some lobbying by you or your doctor).

2) If generics really do release their active ingredients at different rates than the original drug, it gives us even MORE options to play with to treat our ADHD symptoms.

After all, drug companies are making a fortune by adjusting the release time of ordinary drugs like old fashioned Ritalin, slapping their brand on the bottle and charging 10 times the price of generics. I know folks who can't take the brand name drug but have good results with the generic. It works both ways. But the bottom line is the same: we all react differently to medication release schedules, to the type of drug prescribed, to the interval we take the drug, etc.

OK, now the disclaimer: this is NOT something to play with on your own. Obviously there can be serious consequences. Drugs are not a smorgasbord from which we can pick and choose. Work with your doctor to find the best combination for you.

But if you are switched to a generic and suddenly notice your symptoms change, call the pharmacy AND the doctor immediately. You deserve to take the meds that work best for you,
brand name OR generic.

Read the full report at Consumer Lab.

Travelin' ADD-style Part 2

2007-10-29T19:40:00.000-04:00

More travel tips from ADDiva One:

7) Use travel-tight screw lid bottles to pack only a week's worth of shampoo, conditioner and other products. I refill them when I get back home so they are travel-ready again.

8) Anything that can spill inside my suitcase goes in plastic. My cosmetic bag is plastic-lined and I have several smaller plastic-lined bags for hair products, medication, hair dryer and brushes.

9) Buy a duplicate set of cosmetics and hair products just for travel. It's less expensive to buy your favorites at home then to try to replace them in a strange city (where you have to first FIND the right store and then GET there and back).

10) Carry 2-3 days worth of meds in your carry-on just in case your luggage gets lost in transit. In my experience, medications do not need to be in their original bottles or labeled (for the security folks) as long as you pack a reasonable quantity for your trip.

11) Pack some lightweight snacks in your carryone: pretzels, energy bars, nuts, dried fruit. And buy a bottle of water after you get through security. You never know when you might end up sitting on the tarmac for hours because of weather or other delays. And yes, those airport gift shops are a complete rip-off...and we can't do anything about it.

12) Take a lightweight bag for dirty undies and socks. Mine is a Tyvek bag designed as a super light bag to bring home souvenirs. Find them at travel stores or online shops.

13) Pack only two pairs of shoes - shoes add a tremendous amount of weight to your suitcase which must weight under 50 pounds or you'll pay big bucks in penalties.

14) Wear slip-on shoes that are comfortable - you will have to remove them in the security line so make it easy to get them on and off. I prefer to wear socks so I am not barefoot on those dirty airport floors, but hey that's just me.

15) Don't drag along heavy books. If you want something to read, try magazines that can be discarded along the way (tear out all the pages with ads only before you leave to lighten your load). And don't BUY books to bring home. Ship 'em if you must buy them.

16) Think black coordinates for clothing. Everything goes with black, even in the summer. You really don't have to be a fashionista when you travel. If a special occasion calls for something fabulous, pack a crushable black dress or dressy pants, then decide whether you're willing to sacrifice one of your "shoe slots" for shoes you may wear only once.

17) Take one super comfy outfit to hang around the hotel room. I pack a pair of cotton sweat pants and a casual T-shirt that won't be worn "in public" but lets me feel completely relaxed.

17) If you're taking your laptop, pack in an easily accessible place so you don't hold up the security line fishing for it. It must go in a "tub" by itself on the conveyor belt.

18) Buy an Eagle Creek padded bag to contain your computer charger, travel mouse, earbuds, flash drive, blank CD, USB cord, camera charger and battery, three-pronged plug expander and USB hub if you need it.

19) Eagle Creek also makes mesh bags in various sizes which are wonderful for packing underwear, socks, hose, swimsuit, etc.

20) Don't forget the charger for your digital camera. Otherwise, when the battery dies, you are stuck using disposable cameras. Ditto for the camera download wire to your computer ... to avoid using all your memory card the first day.

21) A featherweight umbrella used only for travel will seem like an extravagance...until it rains on the entire tour of the prehistoric ruins you were eager to see.

Foreign travel

22) Check the electricity voltage before you leave. No sense taking your 110v curling iron if the 220V will burn it up the first day. There are good dual-current appliances on the market at reasonable cost.

23) Check the connector type, too. New Zealand and Hong Kong both use 220v current but the plugs are vastly different. Get a converter kit before you leave home; don't expect to find them in the country you are visiting!

For long trips that require crossing several time zones (my internal clock goes beserk) allow several days to readjust. Don't plan BIG events the day after you arrive. Be gentle with yourself.

24) If you need a break from local food, try stocking your hotel room from the nearest convenience store. Sometimes a few cookies and beef jerky tastes good after spicy hot kim chi or heavy cream soups.

More later....

Perfectly imperfect - that's me with ADD!

2007-09-18T14:56:00.000-04:00

I have a beautiful new website design for ADDiva that will be unveiled any minute now.

I have a matching email newsletter template that is almost-but-not-quite-ready to go public.

And late last night, in an enthusiastic fever to send out Clutter Gutter tips, I accidentally sent the almost-but-not-quite-ready newsletter template to all the ADDivas. Including me.

When it appeared in my Inbox I was puzzled. Then horrified. Omigod - now you all will know that I'm not ... perfect.

Hey, I'm ADDiva One. I created the ADDiva Network. I am supposed to have it "all together." Not make mindless mistakes in the middle of the night.

And it hit me once again. I am STILL trying to hide my ADD-ish-ness. This time, from the very people who should know, expect and forgive me for it.

I guess I thought that you would hold me to a higher standard (higher than the absurdly high standards I've set for myself? I doubt it), expect me to have conquered my ADD-ish traits (no medication, no meditation, no organization works all the time) or at least be a model ADDiva to inspire you instead of stumbling around bumping into the furniture.

In the aftermath of the embarrassment, emailed began to trickle in: "Oh, so it happens to you too?" "I love that you are so ADD - makes me feel better about my own ADD." "I just love you - if you can do that and be successful, then maybe I can too."

Then I realized that I don't have to hide here, of all places. That's why I set up the ADDiva Network, so that we can let down our guard, be forgiven for not taking the library book back for 6 months or accidentally hitting "Send" when we (I) meant to hit "Save."

I believe strongly in professionalism. I appreciate it from other people and strive to deliver it from this office. "Strive" is exactly the correct verb. It is an intense and intentional effort for me to "keep it all together," to make it appear effortless to support ADDivas, offer classes, retreats and products that help us succeed.

It's not effortless. I work at it all the time. I live with my ADD and stumble. As I did last night, not once, but twice: I realized 30 minutes before our Network call that the access code on the website had not been updated to match the one on the conference line. And I sent out an unfinished newsletter.

I want to be an shining example of how ADDivas can move beyond their ADD and live glorious lives. But that doesn't mean being perfect.

So, just for the record, I am imperfect. I will make mistakes. But I will make my mistakes perfectly. And I will know that here, within the ADDiva Network, I can practice being embarrassed about my perfect mistakes, I can practice receiving forgiveness and support from my sister ADDivas. Most importantly, I can practice forgiving myself. Now that's an example even I want to follow.

Declutter challenge September 2007

2007-09-17T07:19:00.000-04:00

Everywhere I go - my office, my house, my car, my computer desktop - there is evidence of a brain moving so fast that the physical world can't keep up. A jacket tossed hurriedly over a chair; mail ready to be sorted on the kitchen island; file folders in disarray on the desk, floor, conference table.

The quintessential example is a photocopy of an article I share with my clients called "50 Things to Love About ADD." There are a few copies on the floor - remnants of a neatly stacked pile that scattered when the dogs walked all over them for a few weeks; there's one on my desk peeking out from under a file folder labeled "VOCATIV" which is a learning styles assessment developed by a fellow ADD coach and the rest are living comfortably in their original nicely-labeled folder which is ... where IS that folder?

Every time I walk past those blue and white copies, they silently plead with me: I'm still here! Put me away, OK? I want to live with my fellow, matching papers in a neat little file in a neat little drawer. Please, please, please put me away!

Every time I ignore the plea (inevitable, because I have something more important to do right now), a tiny bit of unwanted guilt drills into my brain.

In recent years. I have learned to approach life with an incredibly positive attitude. Negative energy has no permanent foothold, but it's a fairly new state of mind for me. So when I am in the midst of my self-inflicted chaos, I have to continually fight my way back to a mental state of Upbeat and Enthusiastic.

This week, I wonder if I am in denial about the effects of my ADD or whether I am subconsciously using my ADD as an excuse (oh, it's hard to write those words) for the mess I have created and can't seem to correct.

Am I real Linda who is racing from one major project to another and literally too busy to declutter or am I ADDiva Linda who causes the clutter? Either way, the effect is identical: I can't find anything efficiently. I try very hard to look past the surface disorganization (the fluff) to the core of my work (the meat).

So WHY DON'T YOU JUST CLEAN IT UP? screams the linear wanna-be part of Linda. The answer is: darned if I know.

I talk to women all the time who are hopelessly mired in their household chores, their office load, their gardens. We work through a solution that involves accountability, small steps, gradual improvement.

Yet what happens when I don't have time for small steps? I want it done NOW. And there are 57 projects that are all ALL pleading for my attention and my time.

So what will I do about all this? I don't want to use ADD as an excuse. And yet, it is a big part of why the world has caved in on me once again; ADD is the reason I have so much trouble making forward progress. It's kinda like being tied to a post and then asked to get out there and climb that mountain, plow that field, move on down the highway (OK, enough cliques already!).

First things first. That means the ADD gets put back into my awareness, not as an excuse but as another 'thing' to embrace, understand and include as I set goals for myself.

The truth is that is takes me longer to do things than I realize. I am a speed demon in my brain, but when I start implementing some of the fabulous ideas that come up, I have some false starts sometimes. I blast out the door and then need to fall back a bit to recoup from my frenzied activity.

Slow and steady will never be me. I will work in short bursts. I will not allow myself to get discouraged by the enormity of sorting through the piles and the clothes and...all of it,

So, I'll start with the desk. I'll spend one hour (timer set, I promise) clearing the papers, the notebooks, the software and the Post-Its. I'll even take pictures - again.

Why don't you do it too? Send me a picture of your "before" messy desktop, then set the timer for an hour and do NOTHING ELSE except clear your desk. Then send an "after" picture. I'll post them here in the ADDiva blog. Along with mine.

Ooooh... this is scary. But I'm willing, if you are! Ready (to face the desk); Set (the timer); GO (to the bottom of that pile)!

ADHD women's weekend retreat

2007-09-07T03:55:00.000-04:00

Yep, it's finally here!
Next Friday night (September 14 to be exact), we'll welcome
a (small) cr0wd of ADDivas to the first ever ADDiva women's
retreat at GardenSpirit Guesthouse in Durham, NC.

Will you be among them?

There are still spaces left, so register today at the
ADDiva website by clicking here.

Great food from Kristin Dare of Sweet Southern Thyme,
great conversation with other ADDivas, great support
and education about women's ADHD.

Be there!

Retreat starts at 6 pm Friday night and continues through
Sunday afternoon at 2 pm. Transportation from the
airport can be arranged (or carpooled).

Viva ADDiva!

Jogging our memories

2007-08-25T07:47:00.001-04:00

Many of you know that I hosted an ADDiva Dinner
at GardenSpirit Guesthouse this week. It was an amazing experience! I hold my head high to tell you that I was actually a few minutes late to my own dinner party (so what else is new?). At least Kristin (our new ADDiva chef) was in the kitchen so my guests weren't abandoned.

Anyway, when I raced into the Guesthouse (sans makeup - that was the thing I decided to drop off my list so I could actually GET to the dinner), I could hear the chatter of enthusiastic women gathered around the kitchen table, getting acquainted, talking about their ADD-ish-ness, waving their hands (more about that in another post). It was AWESOME! Instant friendship, born of our common sparkle - ADD!

After everyone had said their goodbyes
and I was cleaning up a bit, I noticed a lime green Post-it stuck to the glass on the kitchen table. I picked it up, glanced at the writing and my heart melted with gratitude for whomever had scribbled the note.

On the Post-it were the first names of the women who attended the dinner with a notation by each name:

Susan - pink
Maggie - glasses
Cindy - short
Kristin - cook
Linda - khaki
Trish, Carrie - green
Marty - R

It was an ADDiva Memory Jogger!
One of the ADDivas at the dinner had jotted down descriptions of us so she could keep track of names! Susan did indeed wear pink, Cindy was short, I wore khaki slacks, Kristin was our cook! (note: except for Kristin and me, I have changed the names in this post to protect confidentiality).

I have done the same thing so many times when meeting a lot of new people at a time. I try to be discreet about it, casually glancing at my 'notes' when someone speaks to me so I can come up with their name on cue.

But, darn it, without a physical place to offload the trivia (yes trivia) of a formal name, I will spend my energy wracking my brain to locate a word that begins with a capital letter instead of being fully present to the conversation, the lecture, the presentation, the dinner.

Over the past few years, it is FAR more important
to really "be with" the people in my life than it is to toe the line about remembering their names. I am a visual learner; bless the folks who provide names tags! My brain also loves to seize on first impressions.

I mistakenly called Kristin "Kirstin" that night because our first communication was via email where I could SEE the spelling of her name...and Kristin and Kirstin have exactly the same letters. I'm not dyslexic that I know of, but the visual cue was more powerful than the audio cue. As a certified ADDiva, Kristin forgave me for my faux pas and served a fabulous dinner (y'all come to GardenSpirit and she'll cook gourmet Southern food for you, too).

The bottom line is that we ADDivas
(or women of that 'certain age') are allowed to take notes, let go of the embarrassment of ignoring names in favor of really connecting with other people and be gloriously present in the moment.

Thank you to whomever used my lime green PostIts and for leaving her evidence behind. And next time? I'll get to the store for name tags, I promise!

I'm just a girl who cain't say no...to life

2007-08-25T07:25:00.000-04:00

I sometimes wonder if overcommitment is cast in a far too negative light.

I've heard all the psychological explanations about folks who want to "people please" by agreeing to virtually every request. I'm sure I've been guilty of just such behavior in my life, which often led to resentment, failure to meet my obligations etc., etc., etc.

But saying "Yes" to life is something entirely different. And I find it difficult to turn down opportunities to grab a big bite of life and enjoy it. I suppose my overcommitment is a way of 'people pleasing' -- because it's pleasing ME.

Overcommitment would be no problem if I was an excellent time manager, if I had impeccable organization skills, if I allowed my 'bites' to come in an orderly succession. That's never been my strong suit. And to be candid, it's not that attractive to me - dare I say - boring?

I tend to let the interesting, exciting projects and events in my life cluster on top of each other so that I feel overwhelmed and act a bit frenzied.

What I realize these days is that I kinda like living on the edge. For a long while, I believed that I didn't fit the profile of an ADD adult in terms of being a 'risk taker" to get the old adrenaline pumping. So I don't go to the track to race stock cars. I don't jump out of airplanes with a flimsy parachute strapped to my back (yet). I don't play the slots with my hard earned dollars.

Instead, I overcommit. The adrenaline rush is similar, if not life threatening (ah, but why did I buy a hot air balloon, my friends? Hmmm. I think that was more about impulse buying..another interesting topic -- oops am I losing my train of thought here???).

So it's an ADDiva thing after all. So what? I doubt that I will ever give up my fascination with taking big bites of life. So I am committed to overcommitment...and I plan to include it in my Big Plan to be Fully Me -- great plan, eh?

"Buckets" of projects

2007-08-18T07:49:00.000-04:00

It's a fact of my life. I always have 'too many' projects going on at once.

Juggling them can be a challenge - sometimes an absurd goal. But recently, my little ADDiva brain came up with an idea for corralling them that feels, well, organized!

I have created a series of 'buckets' that contain everything about a particular project. For instance, I have a 'bucket' for Retreats, one for Coaching, one for my Website, one for GardenSpirit, one for Finances, one for New Products. You get the picture.

Since I am trying to gain control of the paper critters in my office (they breed shamelessly when they think I'm not looking), I literally set out plastic containers ('buckets' by name if not by design) and started filing papers, software, equipment, notebooks into each one. Oh -- really important: labeled each one of them immediately. I have about 18 of them -- so it's crucial to be able to glance at them and know what's inside.

Now I have a place to look to find my retreat handouts, for instance. Granted, the retreat handouts have a home in my file cabinet and eventually they will live there again. But in the meantime, I can go to the bucket to search for an errant folder.

The challenge, of course, is to get the 'buckets' emptied one at a time. For me, that requires time set aside specifically to focus on filing, labeling and often reorganizing (am I the only ADDiva who reorganizes CONSTANTLY?).

It's not perfect. But for now, it seems to be working for me.

ADD women and spirituality

2007-08-01T01:01:00.000-04:00

It doesn't surprise me in the least. So why did it take an "expert opinion" for me to recognize that ADD women (aka ADDivas) are intensely spiritual?

Yes, Ned Hallowell, M.D. wrote about spirituality and ADD and ADHD in his 2005 book about adult ADD, Delivered from Distraction. It clarified something I had suspected for a long time: our sensitivity allows us to be closer to the energies of life.

Tonight I watched a documentary created by a young man of 24 who was searching for "happiness." He knocked on the doors of many of today's "living luminaries," as he called them; priests, rabbis, professors, popular authors (Marianne Williamson, Eckhard Tolle) to find out about happiness.

The answer, of course, lies is within each of us. Not that we each have a different recipe for happiness, but rather that happiness is not an end. Instead, it is an accidental byproduct of living in the moment, aware and awaken to the possibilities.

I believe that ADDivas - far from being simply caricatures of themselves - are in touch with the deepest pulse of life. We are open to the wisdom of the universe if we allow ourselves to listen intently to ourselves.

One of my clients is midway through a multi-week class on Mindfulness, a bringing of awareness to the present. She appreciates how the 30 minutes of meditation allows her to be more calm, be more within herself. It's a good reminder for all of us.

Allow yourself to be fully present. Ignore the blinking messages on the machine, the hundreds of emails and errands. Instead, remember Who You REALLY Are: an integral and crucial part of this amazing matrix of Life. How your brain jumps from subject to subject or whether you're taking medication or not isn't really important in the Big Picture.

You are enough, just as you are. You are PERFECT just as you are. ADD is just a functional, physical pebble in our pond that wiggles to and fro as the water washes over it. You are NOT your ADD. You are your deepest, most wonderful self and you have a purpose in this world, during this lifetime.

I'll paraphrase the wise quote: "Don't die with your music still inside you." Let yourself sing, dance, create, LIVE.... full out!

"Does not work well with others"

2007-07-18T09:01:00.000-04:00

The realization was shocking in its intensity.

I literally bolted out of bed this morning to write it down: I avoid team projects and collaborations like the plague because of my ADD.

I'm spending the week in hot-hot-hot Scottsdale, AZ at the Breakthrough to Success seminar with author Jack Canfield. We've been working with a partner or in groups of three or four since we arrived three days ago. No problem at all for me. Our work was completed in the room the very same day.

But now, there is talk of collaborations with other participants that will mean long term commitments and continued contact. I can tell that I am already beginning to shut down. I return to my room during breaks instead of "networking" with other participants. I find myself growing shy instead of being outgoing and gregarious as I was at the beginning of the week.

I hate it. I want to participate. But I have had my fill of being the person with great ideas, lots of energy, optimism...and then as my time fills up or my interest wanes, becoming the person who is undependable, "flaky" or missing in action.

I know deep in my heart (or brain) that I will get 1) bored or 2)busy and then begin to miss deadlines or appointments. Then comes that sinking feeling of drowning in Too Much To Do. Followed closely by pin pricks of resentment that I "have to" go to that meeting or "promised I would" come up with a proposal by 5 pm on the 22nd.

I feel pushed around by my own choices. And that's the weird part: I MADE the choice to join the team. Or I used to make that choice.

What I know about myself is that I am (truth time here) not a good team player. Men tend to be better than women on teams in part because of their participation on team sports. But my reluctance to commit to working with someone else is deeper than gender differences.

It's the secret heart of an ADDiva.

I don't want to disappoint my team members. I don't start out a collaboration with the intention of slowing down the project or being late to meetings. But it sure turns out that way. Ooops...in the past, it has turned out that way. I can change my future, right?

OK, so how do I make this work? How do I create this differently?

I can choose carefully the people who are my partners and teammates. I can make sure they are people who can accommodate my wonderful and important style of participation.

I can be honest about my abilities: I can tell people that I am a great idea person but sometimes stumble on execution. If they don't like that, it's probably not a good fit.

I can be realistic about my time commitments.

I can take on small bites of the project instead of gorging on gigantic pieces (my usual M.O.)

I can check in regularly with myself and with other team members to see whether we're still a good fit.

Moreover, I can look at my staggering list of commitments and decide NOT to be part of a new MasterMind team.

Whoa. I can take care of me. And be successful because of my ADD rather than in spite of it.

Guess what? You can too. Go for it!

ADHD, hormones and menopause

2007-06-29T17:45:00.000-04:00

Back in 2002, when my peri-menopausal hormones were poised to take a dive, I followed the advice of my OB-GYN and stopped taking my low dose birth control pills.

Now, mind you, I didn't need them for birth control -- I'd had that tubal ligation thing-y a long, long time ago. But as I moved into my late 40s, my migraines had gotten worse, I was a mess the day or two before my period and things just didn't feel right to me. When the doc suggested birth control pills, I was skeptical -- I didn't want to take pills every day (an ADDiva remembering to take pills EVERY DAY? OK, I missed them regularly, with breakthrough results, if you know what I mean).

I knew somehow that taking hormones wasn't so good for my body, but I put my brain on hold and followed the prescription. Happily, they worked like a charm. I was calm, only a couple of migraines a YEAR instead of a month and I didn't seem to be stressed at the EXTREMELY HIGH level I had been pre-meds.

The doctor told me that when I turned 50, we'd switch to HRT (hormone replacement therapy). I balked - Oh no! Hormone replacement is bad for women, I'd say. I don't want breast cancer or uterine problems or whatever the latest research bad news relayed. Then my doctor told me something I hadn't read in the science section of the newspaper: HRT actually had a lower dose of hormones than even my low dose birth control pills. I was shocked. Who knew?

In order to see whether I was really getting to the Big M (Menopause), we had to measure my current hormone level. So in January, I stopped taking the birth control pills for a test in February - we needed at least four weeks off artificial hormones to test my real hormone level.

I had the test - simple as I recall. And then waited to hear from her about going back on the low dose pills. She never called me, although the test results (sent by mail) showed that I wasn't in menopause yet. By March, I was beginning to flush and by
April I could hardly get out of bed in the morning, suffering through 40-50 hot flashes a day.

I finally called the doctor's office and told her what was going on. "Why didn't you go back on the birth control pills?" she asked in amazement. Because no one told me to, that's why!

So, no matter what the test showed, I was definitely menopausal with a capital M -- and there was nothing Divine about it.

I was miserable. I needed to do something. So I forced myself to read all those books on menopause I had bought but avoided for years. My reasoning was completely illogical: if I didn't educate myself on menopause, perhaps I could sneak by without going through it. Just stop having periods and become 50 with grace and ease.

Ha.

About the same time, I lost my mind.

No really. I couldn't carry on a conversation. I could barely keep my mind on doing a load of laundry. And as to coming to the table with business associates? I just kept my mouth shut most of the time - an unusual state for me.

It was awful. I realized that I had gotten by on my intelligence and wit most of my life. I had worked hard to think ahead of where conversations were going so I could be seen as brilliant and interested in the subject. I had brought a unique point of view to projects and conferences. I was seen as bright and witty.

Yet now I couldn't even rub two words together and make a sensible sentence. I was in despair. I realized, to my great sorrow, that my psychiatrist was right. I did, indeed have ADHD. And it had taken control of my brain. Or what brain I had left, anyway.

Reluctantly, I made an appointment with the psychiatrist and spilled out my torturous story. I had turned into the town idiot in a matter of months. I was stupid where I had once been intelligent. I was distracted beyond belief. I was ... doomed.

He listened for a few minutes and then said calmly, "Your brain needs estrogen. Go get some."

Well! This was about the time the Women's Health Initiative Study had been stopped because women who were receiving HRT were dying of heart disease because of the estrogen (at least that's what I HEARD from the hundreds of news reports that penetrated my conscious mind).

I wasn't about to put myself at risk of heart disease; my dad had almost died of a massive heart attack at age 49. I had always soothed myself that I wasn't a candidate for a heart attack because I was a woman with estrogen and I was too young to die. Now, one of those weapons was gone. And was I too young to die? Maybe not.

I found myself a supply of human identical hormones and used progesterone cream to calm the hot flashes. Note I said progesterone, not estrogen. I was too afraid of estrogen to try it. But I did find an OB-GYN who was also a psychiatrist. She headed up the PMS clinic at Duke Medical Center and I was allowed to see her for hormone consultation;

Predictably. she said "You need estrogen. Here's a prescription." I fought the idea like a crazed tiger -- the Women's Health Initiative said... I've heard of someone who... What are the data for cancer in women who have taken... I pretty much drove her crazy for months with my worries and questions. She printed out the data, sighed, and printed out more data.

I was finally convinced: the WHI study had been done with women over 60 who had never taken hormone replacement; many of them already had heart disease which was exacerbated by the addition of hormones. I was still fuzzy headed and feeling so unlike myself that I filled the prescription for the Vivelle estrogen patch - the name sounded so soothing and calm. But I was so edgy about the whole idea.

Within a couple of weeks I was doing better. And when we added my Wellbutrin back into the mix, it was like I had been asleep and Prince Charming had come along to give me a little kiss. I was ALIVE again! I could THINK. I could REASON. I could sleep through the night without alternately sweating and freezing!

I have to tell you - it's been four years now and I have tried twice to stop using the patch or reduce the dosage. And it doesn't work. I fall back into the same trap. As my doctor says "This is a quality of life issue. Do you want to live in misery or do you want to risk the estrogen possibilities?" Of course, she thinks the risks are minimal.

I can't help feeling that I am a walking, talking science experiment and one day if we find out that the estrogen patch was a bad idea, it will be too late. I am playing hormone roulette with MY LIFE here. It's an uncomfortable place to be.\

But I can tell you that this supplement to my brain has made my life bearable again. I can function, reason, think, talk intelligently. I like me again. And I supposed that IS a quality of life issue, isn't it?

NOTE: Please know that this post represents MY experience only and is not an endorsement or recommendation for you or your body. Only you and your doctor can make the choices that are right for you!

The Law of Attraction and ADD - dream come true

2007-06-28T00:01:00.001-04:00

I know the Law of Attraction works (made famous recently by the movie THE SECRET). But I don't often get a reminder as powerful as the one I received today:

An ADD client of mine - let's call her Valerie (not her real name, of course) - came to our session today in a state of anxiety. She needed to find and move into a new apartment by the beginning of August - just 33 days from now.

She and her two young daughters have been living in a tiny 500-square-foot apartment while her husband works on a big project out-of-state. When hubby commutes home on the weekends, it's close quarters. Eventually, the couple wants to buy a house - the larger apartment is a stopgap measure.

"Valerie" was discouraged; there were only a few rental vacancies in the school district she wanted for her daughter. Most of them were too expensive; after all, there are two households to support - his and hers.

"There aren't any nice places I can afford out there," she said. "So many people want to live in that area. Plus, I get so overwhelmed trying to figure out the school district from the address. I have to go back and forth from the online listing to the school map."

Lots of details, scanning, moving back and forth between data bits--it sounded like a nightmare for an ADDiva like Valerie, or anyone with ADD, for that matter.

So I asked Valerie to close her eyes, take a few deep breaths and imagine moving into a home, townhome or apartment that was just perfect for her and her daughters. We took a virtual tour of the home as she created, starting at the front door, proceeding through all the rooms - kitchen, living room, dining room, bedrooms, baths, even the closets.

When she had a clear picture of the home in her mind, I asked her to tell me about it, expecting to hear about a modest two bedroom apartment.

To my surprise, she described a brand new dream house: granite countertops, upgraded cabinets, hardwood floors, an office with a place to curl up and read, walk-in closets, two car garage.

I was doubtful; it would be a big stretch financially to buy new construction. And she had some legal issues that stood in the way of getting a loan.

But the Law of Attraction says that if you ask for what you want and know that the answer is always YES, then you will create it for yourself. Mentally, I took a deep breath, hoping I wasn't leading her astray.

"OK, you can have it that house!" I declared confidently. Valerie was stunned. "I can?" she asked with a nervous laugh.

"You bet," I said, realizing that she COULD have it....if she moved to a different area or was willing to spend most of her income on the house, cut down on restaurant expenses and vacations. Those weren't sacrifices she could make right now.

"It might not happen immediately," I said. "You can't go from zero to 60 miles per hour all at once. You might need to go from zero to 30 the first time, then hit the accelerator to reach 60."

So we did more visioning - this time about a spacious apartment that would be her "stepping stone" to that dream house.

Turns out, she had already found an apartment in the right school district that would be available August 8 -- but where would she and her daughters live for those eight long days? We brainstormed about ways to negotiate with the old or new landlords and came to the conclusion that the worst case would mean storing her belongings for a week and living in a hotel. The girls would think it was an adventure and they could move into the new place before school started.

When Valerie left GardenSpirit, I was convinced she would work out a perfect solution to the apartment situation and I promised to send her the names and numbers of some inexpensive yet dependable movers.

About two hours later, I received an email from Valerie with the words "NEW HOUSE?" in the subject line. On her way home, she had stopped into the bank just to check on mortgage loans.

Turns out, the legal issues that stood in her way were not a deterrent to applying for a mortgage. And the payments on townhomes in her area will actually cost less per month than rent!

I know this works. I KNOW it. Yet it's so reassuring to SEE the Law of Attraction in action. Even with ADDivas like Valerie.

Wow. Last time I talked to her, she was on the Multiple Listing Service site, finding lots of options for her first house. I know it will happen. I act 'as if" it's already happened. And by George, it DOES happen. Wow.

My ADD handwriting sucks

2007-06-16T22:15:00.000-04:00

It happened at the bank yesterday.

Again.

I wrote a deposit slip for $5,000 (it was for quarterly taxes, OK?).

The woman at the drive-through was quite pleasant as she processed the transaction. I thanked her and pulled forward, but before I left the parking lot, I glanced down at the receipt.

It read: $500

OMIGOD. That's $4,500 less than I expected to go into the account. I'm pretty sure the IRS would not be amused by a bounced check.

I wheeled back into a parking space, grabbed the receipt and headed for the teller counter. She had the original check in her hand.

"I knew you'd be back!" she said gleefully. "It was your handwriting. I couldn't read it," she added triumphantly. She adjusted the deposit and gave me a new receipt.

I was not triumphant. I was dejected, embarrassed and humiliated. Again.

My handwriting...um...sucks.

Always has and apparently always will.

And yes, it's an ADD thing. Darn it. It's an ADD trait I sure could live without. Excuse me for complaining about something so trivial. But perhaps it's not so trivial to have trouble communicating on paper.

I'm a big list maker - errands, groceries, To Do's. Lists are a good thing for ADD -- they capture all those creative and random thoughts in one place.

Problem is that five minutes after I write them, I can't read them. My husband (who apparently has a secret decoder ring) actually translates my own lists back to me!

Before debit cards were a fact of life, I was called on the carpet by sassy checkout clerks who insisted "The bank won't be able to read this and I'm not going to be responsible for it!" I wanted to deck her and/or melt into the floor to avoid the sneers of the 1o people in line behind me.

Remember how good old Emily Post made that stupid rule about writing thank you notes with a pen and paper? Clearly she didn't have a trace of ADD in her brain cells.

One of my friends (lovingly) says that she enjoys getting letters from me because every time she reads them, they take on new meaning (OK, so I'm interesting).

Why do I continue to write sloppily (hate that word)?

I just don't have good coordination between brain and fingers, I guess. Years ago, I was writing a check while the clerk watched me. Noticing my handwriting, she said, "Oh, you must write really fast." As I laboriously finished writing the check, she looked disapprovingly at me. "Well, I guess not..."

As if writing quickly made it acceptable for me to write illegibly, but writing slowly was no darned excuse.

I have no excuse, really. My thoughts come rapid-fire and my handwriting arrives on a slow boat to China.

I've tried printing instead of writing cursive but it's so time consuming. I tried a digital recorder, but somebody has to transcribe all those digital messages (not me...too boring). I've used extra wide lined paper, unlined paper, steno pads, legal pads. Nothing changes my style.

All I can say is: thank god for debit cards (fewer checks) online banking (even fewer checks) and email (typing is good for the soul). Technology has allowed me to communicate in a way I would never have been able to manage otherwise.

Just be thankful you aren't reading this blog in my handwriting. Victor's got the decoder ring this week.

2007-05-30T20:13:00.000-04:00

Gift from the Sea: creating a life you love
Emerald Isle, NC
June 7 - 10, 2007

You've seen "The Secret" - now live its promise!

Come to Emerald Isle for a long weekend at Pelican House with a group of women who are ready to live their dreams to the fullest!

Private room, oceanfront retreat house, all meals included, full body massage, guided retreat with Linda Roggli, ACC and lots of surprises add up to a magical weekend.

Oh, and if by chance you haven't experienced the power of The Secret - we'll watch the DVD at the beginning of the retreat.

It's your turn to shine! Come to the beach Thursday-Sunday, June 7 - 10, 2007 for a life-changing retreat!

Click here to find out more about this amazing weekend!

Shoe droppings

2007-02-23T21:03:00.000-05:00

It's a good shoe day on Heather Ridge Court

Translation: there are only four pairs of shoes sitting around the house, tossed exactly where I stepped out of them when I walked through the room, a "shoe dropping" event.

Which room? Could be any room. Prime shoe dropping locations are the kitchen, where I come in from the garage (there's a special shoe catcher there, but it's already full so I use the floor); and right in front of "my" part of the sectional sofa where I park myself after a reeaaaaallly long day to zone out with a little TV.

But there are other locations, too. Shoe droppings can happen under my desks - I have three workstations - or on the stairs where I stash shoes with the honest intention of returning them to my closet. Truthfully, my closet is a prime shoe dropping arena -- I get them into the closet, but they stay on the floor, quickly covered up by piles of clothes I am sorting for the laundry.

The net result is the same: I can never find the pair of shoes I am looking for. And I am constantly scouting the house trying to get "those shoes" -- which then makes me late leaving...ah, the old "I'll never be on time" syndrome.

I've tried all kinds of systems to capture those naughty shoes and get them back into their boxes. And to a certain extent, they work. For instance, I leave most of my "good " shoes - those that I wear only occasionally - in their original boxes. I can keep them straight most of the time by memorizing the colors of the boxes, their location on the shelf, etc.

I tend to buy a lot of Enzo shoes, though, and the boxes look the same. I hate spending time READING the labels every time I want a pair of shoes, so I started scribbling a crayon of the color of the shoes on the outside of the box. I worked with an organizer who had me take pictures of all my shoes. The goal was to print the pictures and paste them on the boxes for easy identification. I still haven't gotten around to Step Two - printing the photos.

My often-worn shoes, like tennies and my all time favorite, Merrell clogs, I throw in wire baskets above the neatly stacked boxes. And, as I mentioned, I have a plastic basket for gardening shoes just inside the back door--it's full of slip on ragged tennis shoes that can be sacrified for paint and mud and other messy activities.

With such great organizing ideas, you'd think finding my shoes would be a snap. There's only one glitch in the mix: ME.

When I am in a hurry- and when am I NOT in a hurry? - I slip off my shoes wherever I am. And because of my ADD memory (or lack thereof), I instantly forget the shoes. After all, I am on a mission of another sort..and it doesn't involve shoes. Until I need to leave the house again.

I don't think there's a cure for the Shoe Dropping Disease (SDD). Occasionally I am diligent about putting my shoes away. Then I fall back into my normal habits again. I have learned to live with it. And I doubt that I'm the only ADD Woman with SDD. Ah, another alphabet soup disorder to add to my collection. You gotta love it!

A year with less chaos

2007-02-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I hate New Year's resolutions.

I know from long experience that I have no reasonable expectation of KEEPING them. It's my ADD-ism at play.

But this year - without a lot of fanfare and hoopla - I decided I wanted my life to be calmer and less out of control. I wanted some routine (yuck) in my daily existence that would validate the admonitions I give my clients and retreat participants: take care of YOU first, so you can take care of other people/things/situations.

So...to that end, I want to:

Exercise five days a week

Eat better food that soothes and nurtures my physical body

Take time each day to sit quietly or walk the labyrinth or read inspiring passages to soothe my soulful body.

Get help: for the housework that falls behind, for the website that is never done, for the adminstrative tasks that snag me, for the errands and garden chores and bill sorting and office cleaning. I need help to FREE me from myself. This year I'm getting it.

Spend time with the people who are important to me - in turn, but all of them. Family, friends, pets, email correspondents. I love em all. This year they will know it.

Have more fun; laugh more; play more; get away from the computer more.

BE ME. Without apology or guilt. It's enough. But I forget that.

Well, OK. I guess now I am committed to this list.

I will forgive myself for falling off the intention wagon. I'm not so good at keeping promises - not because I don't want to but because I forget where I'm going.

This year, I wanna remember. A wise friend gave me a page with these words printed on it:

"Discipline is remembering what you want."

I will remember. I've made my intention public.

No pressure. Just reminders...thanks for listening.

My daugher is 27, has ADD and flunked out of college

2007-01-30T09:54:00.000-05:00

Dear ADDiva,
My daughter is 27 and has ADD. She flunked out of college - twice. She was living with us until just a few months ago when we found her an apartment. But now we're paying the rent. She's had one bad relationship after another one and the guy she's with now is not good either. Even though she's brilliant, she got fired from one job and now is working as a part time receptionist. She says she wants to go back to school but is afraid of failing again. And we're at the end of our rope financially trying to help her. But I won't give up on her. I'm looking for something - anything that will turn her life around. We are desperate.

Worried Mom

Dear Worried,
I hear how much you love your daughter and how hard it is for you to see her go through so much pain and heartache. Thank you for hanging in there with your daughter - she's lucky to have you on her team. But there is a limit to how much parents can do for their adult child with ADD.

I get calls regularly from parents who want to solve the problem for their children. In fact, I've made those calls myself - hired a coach for my ADD son, paid for the sessions, tried to stay out of the way and not pry into his progress or lack thereof. The coaching helped, but what helped more than anything was allowing HIM to step forward and find his own way.

The hardest thing to do is to watch your child stumble and fall. A parents' first instinct is to pick up their baby (and let's face it, at some level, our children are ALWAYS our babies) and comfort him or her and then make it all better. In other words, we want to FIX IT.

This is a dangerous precedent to set in your relationship - for a lot of reasons. First, it creates a false sense of security for your child -- that feeling of "whatever happens, mom and/or dad will save me." Clearly, that's not true. You might be a miracle worker, but you can't bend the law if your child breaks it. You can't go to work and do their job for him or her. You can't live in her skin. Not ever.

Which brings me to Number Two: dependency. It's OK for a seven-year-old to be dependent on her parents. She's not able to take care of her own needs in the world. At 27, however, dependency breeds one big ugly scar: Resentment with a capital R.

Adults don't like being told what to do - especially ADD adults. They like to feel that they are capable, resourceful and in charge of their own lives. When you constantly send the message to your adult child that they are making bad decisions or that they aren't living up to their potential, they tend to either 1) ignore you or 2) get angry with you. And in either case, they feel like a failure....AGAIN. And they will begin to resent you more exponentially. The harder you try, the less they want to "play," even though they know things aren't going well in their lives.

I know this is hard - almost as hard as watching the struggle - but the best thing you can do for your child is to support them no matter what.

I can hear your reaction already: "WHAT? I'm not going to just sit around and let her destroy her life. I'm supposed to tell her it's OK for her to take drugs or hang around with the wrong crowd? She's going to end up on the street, or worse, dead. I am not going to let that happen!"

Of course you don't want that to happen. You love her. She is a wonderous, amazing human being and the world would be less brilliant without her. BUT... until she wants to change her life, it simply won't change. It's literally the old "you can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink" adage. Change happens from the inside out, not from the outside in. And you, dear Worried Mom, are on the outside.

So, should you just turn your back and cross your fingers. Not at all. There are still lots of things you can do...without fixing her.

1. Acknowledge and encourage her every time you see her.
Make it the FIRST thing you say to her..and maybe the last thing, too (and make sure that the conversation in between doesn't focus on the "bad stuff). Find something positive about what she's doing or saying or wearing or researching or eating or....you get the idea. You can find it--just keep looking. And this is not a compliment -- like "I like your dress." It's about HER as a person [ e.g. "I want to acknowledge you for your great sense of style. That dress is so flattering - you really know what looks good on you!" See the difference? The compliment is about the DRESS; the acknowledgment is about HER.

2. Support her no matter what
When parents focus on what their child is NOT doing or doing wrong/poorly, the message hits home over and over: "I'm not good enough. I can never do it right." Not only does that breed resentment (refer to #1), but it increases the sense of failure most ADD-ers harbour in their deepest, most secret place. Most ADD-ers try to hide the place of failure - from parents, employers, friends, partners and most of all, parents. My son is 28 and hasn't found his place in the world yet. One day I told him that I knew he'd get there when the time was right. His voice cracked as he said, "Thanks, Mom. I'm so glad you're not giving up on me. I really need someone to believe in me." My heart broke, of course. I wanted to rush in and FIX IT. But I didn't. He's still figuring it out...and he will do it perfectly for his life.

3. Detach with love
We are so in a hurry to "make it all better" because it eases OUR discomfort. If the kids are OK, then we can go on with our own lives. The key word here is "detachment." Let her live her own life. If you are supporting her, paying the bills, ruining your own financial stability, STOP. Say something like this: "Honey, we love you so much and we want the best for you. But paying your bills is only a short term solution. We know you want to be self sufficient. So we're going to stop paying your rent. We'll do it gradually, so you aren't left out in the cold. Over the next four months, we'll pay $100 less toward your rent. By the end of June, you'll need to be making enough money to pay it yourself."

Now if you've been rescuing her for years, she probably won't appreciate your actions. She may even accuse you of not loving her. Don't get hooked. Tell her you trust her to make good decisions about her life and that you know she will do what is necessary to take good care of herself. She'll do it when she absolutely has to do it. Not a day before.

She may find a cheaper apartment. She may move in with the boyfriend you don't like. You have to let her make her mistakes by herself!

4. Let her ASK for your help
Remember the phrase "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread"? When you rush in to "save" your precious child, you are stealing the gift of innovation, creativity and problem solving from her.

So why not do it differently? Tell her you love her and that you are always there for her. Tell her that you are sure she will find terrific solutions to the issues that come up. And that if she needs your help, she needs ask for it. Otherwise you'll stay out of her life. Then DO IT.

You'll have to do this several times before she trusts that you mean what you say. Like the two-year-old she once was, she may test you. She'll do or tell you things that will cause you to bite your tongue so hard you think it will bleed.

But don't rush in like those fools of old. When she tells you her latest problems, say, "Wow, honey things are really rough for you right now. What's your next step in dealing with that?" DON'T tell her she screwed up again; and don't say "I'll take care of it." Let HER take care of it - without extra guilt. Believe me, she feels bad enough about herself already.

If she asks for help, don't overwhelm her with choices. Just a couple of ideas will suffice. And make sure those options are presented as neutral choices -- not laden with guilt or "should," "oughta" and "have to." You are responsible only for assistance not for implementing the assistance.

For instance, if she moves into another apartment and ASKS for help, bring the truck, move the stuff to her aparment and LEAVE. Let her unpack the dishes and put away the clothes. That's what big people do, ADD or not.

Finally, be gentle with yourself. You are all doing the best you can given the circumstances. Life isn't easy, but it is fun and exciting. Hold this as part of the grand learning curve that you get to create each day. And know that whatever happens, it's all for the good of everyone concerned -- although we may not think so at the time. When ADD is present, it gives parents a chance to look at who they are in the face of their child's issues and it gives the ADD child a chance to come fully into themself using their innate talents and gifts.

ADD, the mail, identity theft

2007-01-23T10:07:00.000-05:00

Whew - talk about three absolutely incongruent topics!

Let's be candid: even the terms "ADD" and "Mail" are difficult to get out in the same breath (note I did not say "male"). Sorting is not one of our strong points. And that's what dealing with mail is all about. Heck, they even have a job description at the USPS that has the word "sorter" in it! I'm sure it is not filled by someone with ADD -- unless they have a strong dose of OCD thrown in (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder for those who have forgotten their alphabet soup definitions).

So when you throw in protecting your identity - locked mailboxes, dropping outgoing mail at the post office instead of your home mailbox, shredding anything with your name and address - well that's tantamount to treason. And a recipe for yet another ... failure.

Let's fix part of that right now, OK? Shredding 101.

I have a coaching client who lets the mail pile up - literally. Even when he manages to sort it out, there's a pile of junk mail that needs opening and shredding, but who wants to stop and shred a huge pile of mail that never should have made an appearance in your mailbox to begin with? It's like a conspiracy that sneaks in to steal our precious time...ah, I hear a tirade coming on. Better stick with shredding.

Here's a simple solution. First - buy a decent shredder, one that will chew up layers of paper without choking (even better if it eats plastic credit cards and CDs).

Second, stick it in a place that is either: right next to the recycling bin that receives the no-need-to-shred envelopes, papers, etc. OR in an easily accessible location in your office.

Third, leave the shredder plugged in and turned on ALL THE TIME. You will not waste much electricity and it will not wear out the shredder - most of the wear and tear on the electrical components comes from turning it on and off.

Then, when you sort the mail simply feed the shredder as you go. If the shredder is in another room, make a stack (aka pile) of shreddables, take it with you before you go on to another task, and you're D-O-N-E (my favorite four letter word) and protected. Ta-da!

Now...where's that shredder going to live? OK, where do you FIND that shredder? Or...do you have to BUY a shredder? Put it on the To-Do list! Now that's another topic for the ADDiva!

Why ask the ADDiva?

2007-01-22T11:12:00.000-05:00

If you take a look at my bio (which, by the way, appears on ALL my blogs, not just the ADD blogs), it's a textbook description of ADD. I bounce around from one interesting thing to another, loving them all.

I'm reading a book about ADD and relationships ("ADD and Romance" by Jonathan Scott Halverstadt) which has reminded me that pushing "too many" things into my life is all about creating the stimulation my ADD brain needs. I do a lot of things. I create a lot of blogs -- this is Number Six. I definitely have the ADD diagnosis.

The Diva part? It just sounds good with ADD. My ex-husband would tell you I AM part diva, but I disagree. I've learned to be myself without the diva-ish drama. Most of the time.

So, by combining my life and ADD coaching training with my own life experience of ADD, I came up with Ask the ADDiva. It's a collection of short answers - I'll do my best to be brief - to common issues that come up for adult ADD-ers (see how I interrupt myself even in print? Weird).

If you have a particular question related to adult ADD, send it to me via this post (you can add comments/questions at the end of any post and I'll get them via email).

If you don't send questions, I'll make them up. Hey, I believe in honesty even if it hurts. Anyway, I have lots of questions myself. But can I answer my own questions? Stay tuned to find out...

Think Once

2007-01-21T10:45:00.000-05:00

About 10 years ago, when my advertising agency was operating at full tilt, I often made decisions that had long-term implications about the efficiency of the company. How to get all the computers to sync their calendar data on the network, for instance. Or the most effective way to manage project timelines.

I would play with a variety of scenarios in my head or on paper, eventually coming up with a “best” solution. Then we’d implement the plan and it would become part of the Standard Operating Procedure for my company.

Those tortured decisions were like diving into a vat of endless possibility for me. On one hand, I loved playing with options. On the other, I needed them to work immediately and without a lot of confusion. I began to tell my employees that I wanted to “THINK ONCE really hard and then not think again.”

It’s a philosophy that I now recognize as one of my main coping mechanisms for ADD. I’ve used it to buy clothes, to change careers, to deal with my kids’ homework, to keep the house semi-organized. I think I’ve figured out why it has worked for me.

As an ADD Woman, I am constantly distracted by interesting tidbits -- and virtually everything is interesting to me except professional football and ironing. But the basics of my life, like brushing my teeth, taking a shower, or feeding the dog and cat, are done on autopilot. I don’t think about them too much. I just do them. Most of the time.

Perhaps once upon a time there was a tortured thinking session when I made the decision to brush before breakfast instead of after (as my husband does), but it’s been long forgotten. Now, I brush and go on to the next interesting thing. Brushing teeth became part of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) I’ve developed for my life.

My Standard Operating Procedure allows me to “not think” about some daily essentials so that my ADD mind can race around looking for the stimulating things that arise miraculously in each moment. All the time I’m brushing my teeth, for instance, my mind is whirling over to the retreat house wondering if I can get the garage painted in time for the next retreat and then to the grocery store to buy some more toothpaste….and on and on. I finish brushing and I’m off to the next thing. If it’s SOP, I get to keep dreaming about the interesting stuff; if it’s not, I get to DO the interesting stuff.

One variation of “Think Once” is “Shop Hard.” When I buy clothes, I am plunged into an ADD nightmare: dozens of racks of clothing in a massive space that is new and colorful and overwhelming.

Then comes the sorting out process. Do I like the style? Do I like the color/does the color look good on me/do I need anything else in this color? Is the fabric is too scratchy? Is the neckline too tight? Are the pant legs long enough? My criterion for clothing is that it doesn’t distract me while I am wearing it. That eliminates anything “fussy” like scarves or jewelry or French cuffs.

Whew! To end up in my closet, a piece of clothing has to clear a lot of hurdles. But after I ‘Think Once, really, really hard” then I can take the clothes home, and grab something from my closet without thinking, knowing that it will be OK for me to wear in public. I have already done the thinking: now I can let it go and let my brain focus on the OTHER ten million things it juggles.

Jack Canfield talks about having a finite number of “attention units” which we use each day. My “Think Once” strategy sucks up all my attention units when I’m in the “thinking phase,” but ultimately it frees me to give attention to things that are a lot more interesting than brushing teeth and shopping for clothes.

I honestly don't know how linear folks stay on track. But I've learned to "Think Once" and never look back.

Declutter dilemma

2006-10-14T23:34:00.000-04:00

I thought seriously about uploading a "before" and "after" photo of my clutter cleanup. Then I thought better of it. Why revisit that humilitation again? Why not enjoy the clean, calmness of my desk, my freshly-made bed, my bathroom sink and vanity, now one smooth plane of pseudo-marble?

Well, although I adore the new look -- have worked hard (for months) to make it so -- I am finding that things look a little...dull. Lifeless even. Sterile and bland. And those are not words I use about myself. Ever.

Suddenly it feels a little creepy to be so clean and organized. Like it isn't my house any longer. Perhaps someone has crept in during the night (or more accurately, the last four months) and silently, stealthily cleaned my house and put things away. Where I will NEVER find them. Oh dastardly organizer!

Actually, it's true. I have been working with a professional organizer, much to my embarrassment. Why couldn't I do this myself? I know how. I am a terrific organizer. I love to find little boxes just perfect for the cancelled checks or cunning little drawers that hold paper clips and thumb tacks (even though I rarely use thumb tacks).

What I am not so great at is the bigger stuff: when I sort through the pile and there is still a pile left. The stuff that doesn't really have a home, but that I still want to keep. Clippings about online resources for writers that are pertinent to Macintosh users (always a rebel, eh?). A quilted wall hanging from a dear friend that hasn't been displayed in the three years since I received it for Christmas. A clay pot my son made in third grade (let's see, that was 17 years ago now) moved from its original shelf to make room for more books that needed to moved from off the floor. Stuff that I need to KEEP, right? Maybe, maybe not.

Erica the professional organizer has patiently and kindly helped me figure out what goes where. She struggled with my brain's logic for a long time before we came to an agreement that I could file things in a weird way because it worked for me. For instance, she always lumps life insurance and retirement planning together. Not me. I keep them separate; one is financial, the other belongs with wills and end of life papers. I can find them that way. Names in my Rolodex are filed mostly by first names rather than last. It's easier for me!

So now my files are sorted and (equally importantly) labeled and the desktop is clear, the kitchen island is bare and the vanity is empty. And I am feeling uneasy.

A horrible thought enters the back of my mind and drills its way to the front of my consciousness: what if I secretly LIKE my clutter? What if all these years I have been paying lip service to getting things organized...and I really wanted to hang onto it? Ouch.

A psychologist would have a field day with that insight. Sure would explain why I hung on so dearly, why I simply could not get it done all by myself. But this year, I have hired someone (it still galls me at some level that I am paying someone to help me do this--grrrr). I have met the enemy and moved the mountains...to mix several cliched metaphors.

What I notice is that my clean surfaces - which I am committed to keeping clear - show that my house could use a little interior design. I guess I was using my clutter as decoration! When the piles are gone, I can see what needs a little facelift, a plant, a nice painting.

I have a couple of options. I could allow the clutter to cave in me again. Oh boy, would that be easy to do. I am an expert at creating clutter--all I have to do is stand still, live my life and not put things away. It happens like magic. And I wouldn't have to worry about decorating my house.

OR, I could keep up the calm, clean facade. And start watching "Divine Design" or "Design on a Dime" (easier on my budget) and fluff up my house without the clutter. Yeah. That sounds better. Decorating means NEW. I LIKE new. ADD is really lovely after all...

Travelin' ADD-style

2006-05-09T23:47:00.000-04:00

For an ADD woman like me, travel is an both a thrilling prospect and a disheartening lesson in my own disorganization.

I just hate calling myself disorganized. It's so...so, unladylike. Of course, I was always a little less than ladylike, I suppose. Back to travel.

I have learned a few things about travel that help, however. They might be useful for you, too.

I have decided that the only way to travel is in comfort. So I take care of myself in extremely kind ways. To wit:

1) I always carry a small travel pillow with me. It's squishy and soft and recently laundered (in complete contrast to airline pillows). I am always running behind, staying up late to pack, etc. So I am usually tired. A pillow makes it easier to sleep on the plane.

2) I always reserve a window seat. Not as convenient for bathroom trips, but that little extra space where the plane curves outward is a Big Deal when you are trying to sleep. Plus I like to snuggle the pillow against the window - don't have to worry about falling onto someone's shoulder.

3) I have honed my packing to a science: three pieces that fit airline regulations and fit my needs:
a) my main suitcase with my clothes, shoes and makeup/toiletries - all of which can be replaced (checked through to my destination);

b) my rolling carry-on with my laptop, computer accessories, camera and manila folder containing my travel documents (and water bottles)

c) my featherweight carry-on bag that has my pillow, my purse, my book (s), iPod and headphones.

4) I downsized my big 29" suitcase (which was always too heavy to lift anyway) to a 24" that is ultra lightweight. Mine is a TravelPro Walkabout -- a decision reached after a LOT of investigation and lots of poor choices. (Hint - do NOT buy tapestry covered luggage -- it is heavy before you even put clothes in it).

5) I bought a travel purse that collapses flat and that is incredibly lightweight. My regular purse is leather -- too heavy to drag along on a trip. I also have a travel wallet that is lighter than my day-to-day version.

More travel tips in Part Two ....

Spinning the plates

2005-11-19T06:19:00.000-05:00

I am wired for multi-tasking. Life is endlessly fascinating for me: there are always new things to experience, new ideas to try on, new places to visit, new lessons to learn. Usually in clumps of four or eight at a time.

Note the extensive use of the word "new." It's a scant disguise for the word "chaos."

Yes, I love "new" but when I allow myself to indulge in new-new-new-new-new-new-new, I have so many New Things in my life that none of them mature fully into DONE. I don't get to really experience them because I am hopping off in another direction to explore more "new" things.

And often, it's only when I accidentally bump into the original "new" thing -- which has now lost its shiny veneer and is officially "used" or "old" -- that I come to one of two conclusions:

a) that I have totally lost track of how much I wanted to learn about/do/explore/finish that previously "new" thing; OR

b) that I must have been out of my mind to even consider trying on that 'new' thing and thank goodness I haven't wasted any more precious time on it.So, being passionate about life's exciting possibilities is good...up to a point.

It's very much like the guy on Ed Sullivan who would spin plates on wooden dowels (okay, I am really dating myself now). He'd get one started and then start another one and keep coming back to the first one to keep it spinning. Then he'd start another one and another one until there were a dozen plates all spinning on sticks and he would be running back and forth on the stage, tending to his little spinning plates.

This guy was a professional plate spinner (what kind of title is THAT to put on your resume? I guess he was self employed so it made little difference). He was paid to keep his plates spinning and not break them. Although, let's face it, the chances are good that he broke a lot of plates during the learning process (who teaches you that skill? who thinks up spinning and breaking plates in the first place?).

But if I put myself in that plate spinner's place, using my "new" interests as the logical analogy for the plates, then I have a lot of broken crockery lying around me.

It seems to me that I barely get one plate spinning and then when another more attractive plate comes along, I turn my back on it. Soon, I lose interest in that one, too, in favor of yet another new plate. And, to my horror, the shards pile up around me. Some of those plates weren't important to me anyway. Some of them were; I have lost some of the new things that could be melded into my being, things that truly were representative of Who I Am in the world.

There might be some substitute plates out there; I have grieved the loss of the originals. But perhaps the lesson is Big and Wise: to keep my plate spinning, I must focus on one at a time. Get it up and spinning steadily before I turn my back or even my head.

And I don't need to spend a lot of time getting ready to spin plates. I just need to focus on that single plate. I may decide to stop spinning the plate; it may bore the heck out of me. But I don't have to let it break,I can calmly grab it, set it aside and find a plate that is more palatable. More fun. More interesting.

I have a lot of plates spinning right now (so what else is ... um...new?). So I think I'll grab a few of them that are simply taking up my time and attention and spin the heck out of the shiny plates I really like. For now. Changeable at a moment's notice. Whew. What a relief.

Visual queues

2005-11-16T10:14:00.000-05:00

I am reframing the piles that I, as a true ADD woman, create around me.

In fact, I have now decided to call them my visual cues. Cues to take action: on the pile of clean laundry that adorns the family room sofa, on the ripped out seams on the two caftans draped over the bar stools at the kitchen counter, on the vacuum cleaner head by the back door that awaits a trip to the vacuum cleaner doctor's office.

I am reframing them as my three dimensional To-Do list. My Visual Queue, if you will.

At long last, I have decided to work WITH this little ADD quirk instead of against it. That was getting me nowhere anyway.

I'd drop the object of my attention in plain sight, meaning to come right back to it. But then something else demanded me RIGHT THEN and I would flit around the environment (in this case, my house) until, quite by accident, I would return to the site of the original intention and find the object once again -- still waiting for me.

Now, if the object is inanimate, it lies in wait very patiently. If it lives and breathes, it has sometimes moved and is harder to find. And it is often not patient at all. In fact, it may have given up on ever seeing me again. And left the environment, sighing and shaking its head in frustration and disappointment.

Those are the hard ones to deal with. We're not going THERE today. We're sticking with the inanimate objects that somehow arrange themselves into not-so-neat piles. And when they reach a certain critical mass, they call to me. Sing loudly. Off key, which they know drives me crazy! My perfectionism hates anything off key, out of place, not done with exquisite excellence.

Which is what drives everyone ELSE around me crazy. How can I be a perfectionist and live with these darned PILES?

We are reframing, today, thank you. Those piles are Visual Cues/Visual Queues. They are Cues in that they remind me of what I am going to do...one of these days. And they are Queues in that they are things I am bound to get around to taking with me, or act upon, in a more timely fashion. In other words, things with deadlines.

Ned Hallowell, the famous ADD psychiatrist who wrote Driven to Distraction, says that ADD folks like me only have two times: Now and Not Now. So, deadlines work only when they reach the NOW point.

But can I do it differently? It occurs to me that I might create a small space on the kitchen table (now 100% covered with mail, magazines and other Visual Cues) for a basket or a placemat, something to delineate the space, that would be my Visual Queue for errands.

For instance, I just called the pharmacy to renew a prescription (and no, it wasn't ADD meds, but it could have been...). Most people (those 'normal people') would have thrown away the empty bottle and written down (or worse, remembered without writing it down) a reminder to go by the drug store tomorrow to pick up the prescription.

Not me. I kept the bottle as a Visual Cue. I now have a three dimensional reminder of my trip to the drug store. But, how to keep track of that reminder? I took it with me into the closet to get my clothes for the day...and left the darned bottle on my dresser. Didn't remember it until I was already downstairs in the kitchen, so had to traipse back upstairs to retrieve it. (I wonder how much time I could have saved in my life by remembering things the first time?)

And now that the clear amber plastic bottle is downstairs, will I remember to take it with me on my next trip in the car? Should I put it in the car? It might get lost, fall off the seat. So I am going to create a space --basket, placemat, box -- that will be my Errand Visual Queue.

The bottle will go into that basket which will be located in my line-of-sight as I leave the house to get to my car. As will the bag of dog food that had crawly bugs inside it when I opened it up - yuck - an immediate return (but when do I find the time?). And the vacuum cleaner head (but it has to go to the next town so it will require a special trip). And the too-short clothesline that I bought at the hardware store and the write-on door hangers that I didn't use at my retreat that go back to the craft store.

And then maybe I will set aside some time to just run around and do these time-wasting errands, which will get this stuff OUT of my house and I will have fewer PILES -- excuse me, Visual Cues and Queues.

I think it's inspired. Now if I can just make it work. I'll let you know. Right now I have to sift through my piles to find a basket of some kind....

Overdoing abundance

2005-08-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

In my less enlightened days, when I found something I loved, (a well-fitting T-shirt, for instance), I'd sometimes buy five at a time (well, at least two). Just in case one wore out, got a stain or broke, I'd still have plenty to get me through. It was silly, wasteful, and fell headlong into that ugly vat labeled "conspicuous consumption," but it made me feel a-b-u-n-d-a-n-t. I had a cushion; I was protected from loss. I had MORE THAN ENOUGH.

What I came to realize is that having too much of something diminishes its value. Even when I value it highly.

My husband and I built a house together about a dozen years ago, a new foundation for our new marriage. To celebrate moving in, we bought our first (and only) bottle of $100 DomPerignon champagne.

I like champagne. The gentle bubbles tickle my nose and the first few sips bite my tongue. But I'm no expert; I couldn't tell the difference between the DomPerignon and grocery store sparkling wine. I saved the empty Dom bottle, though, a momento of our shared excitement. Even now, remembering makes me smile.

If I'd bought five bottles of Dom (assuming I could afford them), I doubt the experience would be so sweet.

I've learned that quality really does have a leg up on quantity. These days I am better at savoring my life, drinking it in small DomPerignon sips, letting the flavor linger and tantalize. Conversations with friends, hanging out the sheets in the summer heat, even cleaning up after my accident-prone Sheltie: those tiny moments point me to to inevitable conclusion: that I live in expansive abundance. Poignant abundance. Grateful abundance.

I never did need those "back-up" supplies. It was a pinprick of fear in my head that said: there might not be enough for YOU. They call that a scarcity mentality. And there are only two choices in life: to live from fear or to live from love.

I'll be drawing loving hearts on my scarcity mentality, thank you very much (do you suppose it will be scared away?). I buy one T-shirt at a time. Then I lay in a (moderate) supply of stain remover.

Pro-cras-tin-a-tion

2005-08-04T22:15:00.000-04:00

I should be finishing up the flier for my October beach retreat and emailing it to people likely to want to be attend.

Instead, I am being my finest little ADD self and writing blogs while I am making fresh dog food and checking email and getting ready for a not-so-pleasant test (medical, not serious, don't ask) and sorting green beans for snapping and working on my website and recharging my laptop and making a new To-Do list and flipping through a magazine.

Things that distract me...and allow me to procrastinate.

That is really not an accurate description of what I'm doing, though. Look at those things I AM doing, for heaven's sake! I am being incredibly productive.

Just not in the way I need to be.

OK, OK. I'll stop writing blogs and work on the flier.

But I'm still gonna finish up the dog food and green beans though...

Neurons, anyone?

2005-06-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

It's 6:15 am in California and I'm sitting at the pumpkin-colored Formica breakfast bar that separates the living room from the kitchen in my tiny retreat cottage. The cottage is actually a one-bedroom trailer anchored into the rocky north San Diego County hills.

I booked it to accommodate my return appointment at the Hallowell West Clinic. I am determined, at last, to stand toe-to-toe with my Attention Deficit Disorder.

I'd found out about Hallowell West at a conference for adults with ADD held in Tucson a month ago. Dr. Ned Hallowell, the founder of the clinic, is a psychiatrist who blasted open the doors for adult ADD treatment with his 1995 book "Driven to Distraction."

He had been a keynote speaker at the conference and mentioned that he was establishing satellite clinics around the country. The first one had just opened in southern California. I made an appointment immediately. My son lives in San Diego; I had planned to visit him anyway.

I had no shame about seeing a psychiatrist. I had consulted with several over the years, but without exception, they had missed my ADD. Trained to look for clinical psychosis or neurosis, they usually diagnosed depression. Just like my mother. It's genetic, right?

They tried hard to help me fix myself, but in retrospect, they seemed to be clenching that broad hammer that transforms everything into a nail. Sleeping too much? Take antidepressants. Not sleeping at night? Try antidepressants. Overwhelmed with work? Antidepressants.

Even when an astute psychologist noticed that I might have some ADD traits, psychiatrists dismissed it as peripheral rather than central to my struggle with procrastination, tardiness, juggling 20 projects at a time but finishing only half of them. No wonder I had "low self esteem."

I listened to therapists for a long time. After I while, I realized that I'd never be finished; there was always a new crisis, a "lot going on" in my life. I dropped out for several years. But reading "Driven to Distraction" (first with relief, then with denial, followed by sadness-could it be depression? and finally determination) was a turning point for me.

I realized that ADD, specifically ADHD, was the primary issue in my psychological/brain life. I could thank ADD for my limitless creativity, but it also impacted my friendships, marriage, parenting and work. And not always in a good way. I was ready to deal with it and move on.

When I first met with Ken Selzer, the psychiatrist heading up Hallowell West, he agreed that I seemed to have ADD characteristics, but he recommended that I undergo standard neurological testing. I had been diagnosed from a function standpoint, not a neurological one. So I came back from the East Coast to take the tests.

As it turned out, testing was not my finest hour. More accurately, it was not my finest two hours. I was nearly 30 minutes late for the appointment. How predictably ADD is that? I hate being predictable.

The reason I was late? I had forgotten the directions to the retreat center and then had to find my way to the clinic. I had forgotten both the exit name and the address. ADD. Predictable again. Rats.

By the time I battled Friday afternoon traffic and hurried through the clinic door, I was tired (three hours of sleep) anxious (late again), distracted (I had broken my toe the day before the trip) and out of sorts (my face was puffy from laser surgery). And then to be faced with a battery of tests? Near torture.

It became very clear to me that I had some challenges that couldn't be explained away by my sub-par state of mind. I did a miserable job on some parts of the test. For instance, I just hate putting together puzzles that are "brain teasers." Why tease my brain? I tend to avoid puzzles. But on the test, I was forced to endure them, play the game.

And I discovered with a shock that the reason I skip over those tasks is that I am really not very good at them It was a humbling experience for someone who is accustomed to acing tests. Heck, I got so frustrated on a couple of occasions that I didn't even attempt an answer to the question. That's just not like me.

It sure was "me" on Friday, though. I go back on Wednesday morning to hear the results of the testing. Stay tuned. Let's see if we can get this ADD monster under control.

My poor brain sure needs the encouragement right now. Ironic, considering that I am building my coaching business as an "encouragement coach" for women with ADD. Hmmm. Teach what you need to learn?