So I'm back and hopefully in a better frame of mind to keep a blog.
This next post is going to be useful.
It's on ORGANISATION
The word dreaded by many with ADHD (or so I assume :) )
It's horrible, it hurts my brain, but I've managed it.

The key is be OVER organised to REMAIN organised
Yes thats it, my folders look like someone with severe OCD has been unleashed upon them, but their organised and thats the point right?
I started this year thinking I've got to work hard, ive got to be super productive or I will fail every task I've given myself. And I can't STAND failing, it me, I've never done it before. I never WILL!!
So I organised my folders into every different section possible e.g.-modules, practicals, tests, homework, and divided it into different teachers.
Then I made a folder for another project -EPQ, and another for something else im doing and so on.
I then made a timetable of work for my frees at school and for the weekends, and everyevening I spend two hours doing non-school related important stuff and give myself two hours to relax.
It's been a headache, but i've developed a routine, and this I feel will be the most important thing to say.
Establishing a routine requires hard work, but once you've got one sticking to it becomes easier and easier and eventually you find yourself doing things rather than sitting around complaining about everything you've got to do.
:)

 

DO NOT MIX CONCERTA MEDS WITH COFFEE!

Ok so after reading this article on the benefits of Coffee on this (great, don't get me wrong) ADHD blog, I tried drinking a Mocha before school, completely forgetting that I had already taken my concerta meds or maybe just acting on impulse i.e. not thinking it through..BAD IDEA.
I spent the next 7 hours more hyped than I've ever been without any medication AT ALL. I was twitchy, my hand shook uncontrollably, I literally couldn't focus on anything for more than a second (usually I can for at least a minute! >.<) and my heart was going waay too rapidly to feel comfortable. Plus I was growing ever more tense and angry because i couldn't get through to CAMS for any Bleedin advice, what a fat lot of good they are. So in the end I got home and blew a total fuse.

I guess all that therapy and medication must not have been working all so great coz all those suppressed urges to destroy stuff and get mad just came rushing up in one insane burst. I smashed a mug (it literally feels so good to do that), Hurtled my ADHD meds at the wall in their stupid circle container and broke it and sent them flying, Chucked a load of stuff around then put it back again, Burnt paper, Painted a strip of wall with gold paint, made red handprints on my white bedroom wall with paint, cut off a bit of my hair, sprayed water everywhere. Just..virtually any urge I got I just did it. It was mad. I felt so deluded...I screamed and jumped up and down and made a ton of noise (noone was home). Just BANGING ON THE FLOOR. It felt so horrible and so good. Like a massive release but at the same time like It was just a step before something worse..

anyway I'm pretty sure the trip out from the Coffee sent me over, so my piece of advice for today is bloody simple. DO NOT MIX CONCERTA AND COFFEE! EVER.

Hi all.

So I've been absent for ages which probably hasn't helped me get any more followers but i'm back now. I've mostly been absent because I haven't been following my own advice (SHOCK HORROR) but i'm really trying to change. To externalise my confidence and use the wonder that is putty to take out my desire to break stuff :D!
Anyway, it's a new day and a new hair colour and i'm hoping that from now till may i will be kicking butt with getting shit done! Not too optimistic, but miracles can happen..

In regards to my *cough-daily-cough* piece of advice, it's think stuff conciously, I know all too well that having ADHD is like having this wind turbine of thoughts and feelings constantly rushing through you, and it's literally imp--robable to turn it off, without numbing yourself entirely. Therefore I urge you to catch the thoughts, try hard to hold onto them and think about them properly.
It helps.
For me at least.
By this I mean, don't just think 'I like socks' then hold onto that, obviously :P but instead I mean, 'I will work, I will, work' and eventually that mentality should rub off, even if only a little.
Anyway I'm off now to write an essay on the wonder that is the human genome :D -_-
Have fun, stay relatively sane and be proactive (in the most uncheesy sense of the word :S)
Ok so now a creepy, and not so creepy piccy of my pink hair (yes i'm using this blog as a colour log too, sue me...or dont :D)

Exhaustion

If you've got ADHD or are around someone with it then I can pretty much say with about 99.9% certainty that you will have experienced horrid exhaustion at some point.
So how to cope with it?
Well really i'll start with stating the obvious (because obvious doesnt always mean remembered :) )
Then I'll go onto my own different (hopefully) less obvious tactics.
Sleep more!
Eat healthier!
Do more exercise 0_o I knooow, but really it releases endorphins and helps you sleep better counteracting any unhelpful sleepless nights.
And finally try and avoid electronic stuff late at night or early in the morning :)

Now my own added advice.
Baths are great but showers are better in my opinion, hot showers are so much nicer because they keep you clean, you can use tons of shower gel and stuff to make yourself feel all pretty and you dont end up stewing in heat like in a hot bath because you can step aside from a hot shower relatively easily.

Have a lazy day where you do absoloutely nothing, screw all responsibility and just chill.

And finally do something with other people, like watch a film, visit a friend, go swimming. Relax.
:D
Hope some of it helps or at least confirms you're doing the right thing.
Good luck.
believe me I know how sucky exhaustion is (am currently sitting on the sofa with a lemsip and soothers. Stupid colds. )

Recovery

Recovery:A return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength:  The action or process of regaining possession or control of something stolen or lost:

I guess you could say that we recover from something every day by those definitions, in fact you could say you recover from something every hour. Unless of course you do nothing at all for each hour (which I imagine would be quite rare).
Well right now I'm  recovering.

Recently the stresse's of my life have really gotten to me, the frustration ADHD causes me, the life I live at home and above all work. Which I imagine is probably one of the major causes's of stress for many people in today's society.
But seeing as how this is a help blog and not a 'moan about how life drags me down' blog, I suppose I'd better write about how I recovered/ing and not about my recent and painful debacle. (a good word if ever there was one :D)

So firstly I spiralled into a 'I CAN'T FUDGIN DEAL WITH ALL THIS SHIZ (Swearing edited for the purposes of keeping a relatively clean blog)
And really I guess the only thing that kept me going was a piece of advice that i've written a lot about throughout this blog.
'Go back to the beginning, find you're motivation.'
One of my major stresse's was my work and really there were/still are times that I find/found myself thinking 'I just can't see the point' 'I just can't be a**ed with this shiz' but then I'd make myself think long and hard about where I want to be in 5 years.
I suppose a little gem of advice (if you have time) is for you to take a piece of A3 paper or A4 (whatever size you want) and to write down a goal for five years time, it could be ambitious or small or pretty straightforward.

Some examples :
I want to have a good job.
I want to be earning enough money to buy the things i want
I want to be working in -----(insert job of choice here)-----
I want to have moved out
I want to be 'here' (wherever here may be)
I want to be fit

Literally anything, and when you find yourself thinking whats the point?! Look at that sheet of paper (stuck up anywhere, photocopies everywhere, whatever you wanna do) and remind yourself why you have to do what you're doing,
And a second piece of advice,
go where the mood takes you. If you wanna randomly cut up pieces of clothing to customise a top at 12.00 at night, well, you're already up, why the hell not?
And lastly. I cannot stress this enough. People around the people you love, (especially close friend's) Is so unbelievably great and it helps heaps.

And don't worry if you're like I was and haven't found those friend's yet. They'll come believe me, when you least expect it, from the strangest of places :) I used to be so envious of those groups of girls all hanging out whilst I was walking round with my dad, but now I'm one of those girls and you will be too. :D Just be yourself, coz believe me, you don't wanna be friends with people who don't like you for YOU. It sucks, take it from someone who knows :)

Adios, Oyasumi Nasai, Sweet dreams.
:)
'

Oh To Darnations Again

This simple little phrase has actually helped me quite a lot.
It is a..lemme get this right...an acrostic to remember a rhyme which is;
One at a Time, heed the Rhyme, Do it all now Avoid the how how's.
Kinda idiotic I know but when it comes to those times where all my motivation has died, I remind myself of it. Ok so my room still gets stupidly messy but at least now it doesn't quite reach the same level it used to, or stay that way for quite as long. In fact today I even put some items around the room away instead of just leaving them there to pile up with the stuff that I won't be quite so good at putting away straightaway.

Plus I'm not kicking my butt into gear to organise all my work BEFORE I start my second AS unit and not after as did for Unit 1, ok so I also have some pretty good motivation i.e. just remember that gut clenching stress not being prepared gave me before my exams and thats the little extra boost I need to get into my room and get organising. So Do it all now, that way when it comes to the end you won't be asking yourself HOW DID I LET THIS ALL HAPPEN? Coz you won't have. Simple as.

On another topic, Stress. Funnily enough I'm probably at the peak of my stress levels right now just as I start the first module in my Unit 2 of AS Psychology-Stress. Hahahaha. How appropiate. It's good though, It means my counsellor and I can have pretty indepth discussions about the subject.
So for anyone who hasen't got a counsellor, stress therapist? Or doesn't do pyschology, here's the advice I was given for if you're severely stressed out.

Deep breathing (ugh I know, painfully boring and annoyingly simple..but try it out. *shrug* it may work for you) I mean when I'm stressed if I take a deep breath it does make thing's a tiny bit better.
Secondly start Yoga, or Pilates or Tai chi or just meditate- all good counterattacks for your overpumped sympathetic system (?)-the system that controls you're fight mechanism, closely related to causing prolonged stress. If you get all sweaty and hot and have a fast heart rate you could be experiencing physical stress. (notice how the symptoms are oddly similar to the effects of exercise? Hence the 'physical' at the beginning.) If you experience that like me, then try out any of these counterattack activities.

Finally write down three good things each day, or three things you are grateful for. They can be absoloutely tiny!!! Ok so my examples for today are;
I came home early from school, I managed to write down some answers in my product design exam even if they were probably wrong and definetly incomplete aaaand, I'm currently drinking a very nice Friji milkshake. See? It can even be 'I got out of bed this morning', 'I can walk' 'I have my sight' Simple things to be grateful for, or 'I got a highscore on my game'.

Apparently I'm lucky because I'm still connected to my inner child and it's a playful type. Which means I get excited about really tiny things. Honestly I don't think adults get excited enough, it's how I've survived. Take pleasure in the little things. I mean I got stupidly excited because my game on my phone has a polar bear character (I love polar bears)
Honestly sometimes my friends ask incredulously 'how are you so excited about that?' Or tell me to 'stop getting so excited about life.'
No, No way, NO WAY. Get excited about LIFE. BELIEVE ME

It's probably the biggest thing thats kept me going. That and the belief that things will always get better...eventually. (Old picture btw :D but it's me studying. @_@  Everyones gotta do it. :( but at least do it with cool hair!!!!! -_- or so I like to think ¬_¬ :P

Exam week

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!
Is not even a fraction of how I feel, the real display would be a lot more terrifying. Some burning cities perhaps, or an exploding volcano. Exams just make me so...terrified. It's like I have to do well and the thought of getting less than an A scares the bejeezers outa me. Plus I have such a horrid long term memory, it seriously just makes me wanna break things. It's like, revise-cool yeah I know this, next day, BLANK. UGH!!!!
And I am seriously the worlds worst procrastinator, I procrastinate on everything, even the things I WANT to do, I mean what the heck?!

Anyway just wanted to update the ol' blog as it's been absent a while. Really the advice I have is just a re-itteration (Correct wording?) of some old advice I posted on here. Take a break. I mean sometimes It's good just to do something polar opposite to everything you've been doing. Nothing to drastically different. (I don't really like change, it confuses me) but say, going swimming.
I had a biology exam yesterday in the morning, then in the afternoon as I'd been revising all week, I decided to just go swimming with some friends. It was good, a nice break doing something I haven't done for what like...2 years?  (swimming with friends I mean, on our own.)

Even though I have chemistry tommorrow, so it's back on the nightmare wagon for today, and it doesn't help when you seem biologically pre-programmed to feel sick every day, every waking minute.

Anyhoo.
Break up the routine! :D
Adios 

Sometimes hurricanes knock you down, but they'll always pass

Sometimes all it takes is going back to the start.
Ok I lie
It's not all it takes
It takes a whole lot of self disclipline, self motivation and....mushed in pillows.

So recently all i've been feeling to do is scream with absoloute frustration about how easily I forget things. I mean I have a good short term memory, like pretty good, slightly photographic (luckily) but my long term memory bites ass. I can't seem to retain stuff for longer than a week, if I don't go back over it constantly week in week out-Poof, it's gone. :( FRIGGIN SCHOOl.

I'm very seriously considering taking AS only, then going to college and doing illustration (maybe finishing A2 afterwards) because I'm a all or nothing kind ah gal, and giving my all (and my all knows no limits believe me @_@ ) is so terribly draining for 4 subjects, none of which include my absoloute overall passion (art) so one subject suits me much better.
But this isn't about me, it's about all of you, anyone who happens to venture across this blog whose in a similar situation, so here it is, my advice if you're at that stage where you wanna give up, where you're screaming internally coz you're so damn afraid of failing, where you can't seem to stop thinking doomsday thoughts on an internal loop of hell.

I can't tell you how to feel happier
Or how to get rid of the stress
Or even how to stop feeling so overwhelmed
But I can tell you One little gem of knowledge that's gotten me through( note the word through, not through happily, or away from, just through, which is often the best thing to have as it means you appreciate good stuff all the more once you're through the bad.) Anyway here it is
Nothing in life is permanent
Ok make sense? Sounds a bit random right?
Think of it this way, NOTHING STAYS THE SAME, not you're age (sadly) or a hurricane, or the longest snowstorm ever, not the shape of a mountain, or the pain of death.
So it stands to reason that bad times can't stay the same as well (or good ones)
It  might hurt like hell now, it might be years of suffering, it might take months of stress and anxiety, but eventually that will pass, and it will be replaced with something new, and that something new may not be much better, hell it may even be worse, but that will be replaced to and the worse it gets the more likely it is to end up better. Take a storm, it gets worse and worse and worse but that just means it's likely reaching it's peak and eventually cannot get any worse, in which case it may blow on for a while. But that storm will have to stop, yes leaving behind destruction but also a new foundation to build upon. A town was destroyed but now a better town can be rebuilt. Loved ones lost, but with their loss new life will come.

What I'm trying to say is, the reason I have never considered suicide as a serious option, is because I know that things will change. it's the inevitable course of life, not optimism. Science.
When I'm drowning in sadness I look ahead and remind myself that there will be a moment, even if it's a small one where I feel better, and it's those moments I should cling to as my safety raft.

Think about it, when you're walking a mountain, or slogging it out in a lesson that feels like it's never gonna end, you're having the worst day of your life or you're feeling like you can't walk any further but walking is you're only option, either walk or stay where you are. Suddenly you find yourself at home again, wherever that may be, looking back on the day thinking thank god thats over now. it ends as if waking from a dream. Because there is no possible way that that day would never end, no way you would not end up back home.

It's so rare for someone to never experience not even the slightest moment of happiness in their life. I know my past was difficult, I know compared to some I had it easy and to others I've had it hard, but I can't say I had a bad childhood, In rare cases yes childhood's are bad, but for me mine never felt that way because it was just my life. In that moment and time I didn't know anything else, I didn't know what I was missing, only what I had. I had good moments inevitably and I had horrible ones, but I still had those good times, those great memories. It shaped me into who I am, if I could go back and change anything at all, change my sisters illness, change my awkward younger teen self, stop bad decisions and embarassing moments, I wouldn't at all. Not even for a moment because then I wouldn't be me. I wouldn't be wise to other people's problems because of my own, or as certain of who I am, or have the motivation to change myself further. :)
So I guess to sum up.
Nothing is permanent, treat life that way, that way you'll be impermanently happy and impermanently sad.

My main causes for stress

So I thought this may be useful to anyone who lives with ADHD rather than for someone with ADHD themselves (my apologies to any potential ADHD victims/lucky people who may follow this blog..in the future).

Of course bearing in mind that I have many other idiosyncrisie's (sp?) and uh mental...difficulties? other than ADHD. So some of this may be relevant, and some of it not so much so.
Anyway, my stresses, what I find really difficult to cope with, what makes me mad, what makes me sad, and what makes me wanna do..bad...stuff.

Not understanding something straight away:
 Oh boy oh boy oh boy does that make me feel frustrated. I'll give an example to clarify how this works. I'm revising biology, I come across something I don't understand. I think "Oh crud I don't understand this", I think "And this, and this and this, and if I don't get this then what about this too? it's the heart right? I don't get Atrial Systole and omg what about those electro cardiogram thingy's, shiiiiz, I don't know anything, I'm gonna fail biology, I'm gonna fail my A level's, I don't know how to revise all this in time, even if I learn this there's this and this and this and DO YA SEE HOW IT WORKS?


Plus it makes me feel so so dumb
Not getting what a teacher's telling me:
I mean it's just embarassing trying to tell a teacher to repeat a simple instruction, something everyone else gets straight away, especially when their all like " Don't you know how to do THAT?!" If you do. Pssh sometime's it's just easier to ignore everything the teacher says and do it your own way. Less embarassing, but cause's more trouble..if you're obvious about it ;P

Being told to do something I don't agree with:
Ok so all kids get this, but I dunno if other kids with ADHD get the urge to blurt out every single argument against it on their mind. Call it word vomit if you will, but those words have to come out of me at some point, doesn't really matter when. But at some point. For instance if I have a thought about how much my little brother pisse's me off, I have to tell SOMEONE, even if that means just venting at my mum. I'd like someone to understand that when I argue the case when I believe an instruction to be utterly pointless, or for something to be completely unfair, IT'S BECAUSE I HAVE ALL THESE GREAT ARGUMENTS AND I CAN'T JUST LEAVE THEM STEWING IN MY BRAIN!

Forgetting things:
Oh my god what an utter pain, especially when it's stuff that you practice over and over, like how to draw hands T_T or noses, what the right way is to draw arms T_T what a xylem tube's properties are or how vacuum forming works. It's not like I don't go over them. Short term it's great but it's so bloody frustrating going over stuff again and again and NEVER REMEBERING IT! ALWAY'S HAVING TO REFER BACK.

Not being left alone by your thoughts:
Yeah so this is a big one, I have so many thoughts cluttering my mind and sometimes they just won't leave me alone. Ok screw sometimes, there'll be days where I literally have the same thing rotating on a constant spin at the back of my mind driving me insane and writing it down on a bit of paper doesn't help coz i'll just forget to look at that note. I can't not draw out that idea I just had even though I have limited revision time left. I end up with an arm full of barely legible writing and tons of scrappy notes that get lost so easily causing yup! More stress. So when I say to you: "I have to do this right now" It's because it literally feels that way or it'll drive me insane even more insane.

Feeling hyper and not being able to contain it:
Oh sweet potato, this one is bad. It's like a horrible need to do something, anything, and the more you try not to the weirder you get, and the weirder you get the more insecure you feel, so the weirder you get and then you just burst and then you stress coz now everyone thinks your just intensely weird. *sighs* It's especially hard when I wanna just RUN in the middle of like, oxford street :s...embaaaaraaassiiiing.

Organising:
Pah, what a nuisance, I do mean to stay tidy honestly, it's just trying to remember where everything's meant to go and when something doesn't fit *cries*. Ok so I don't know how many people have this, but I can see pretty much every option, so it's not so much a matter of not being able to see how to organise. it's a matter of not knowing which way is best, or how to use all of them. and if something doesn't fit somewhere the whole system's messed and then I don't know what to do. I mean where do little alien men go when you don't have toys in your room anymore (not true, just couldn't think of a better example :p ) Am I meant to take up more space by creating a whole new place for the toys to go when there's only one!!!!!???????? You tell me :(

Going out:
I get lost. Annoying. Not much else to say.



On another note: Here's me blonde. I'm gonna show you every colour I've been so far (and will be) in random posts, you lucky things :)
Blonde: (3 different lightings :D)

Nighty night bloggers :)