Playground in paradise | International | Travel | Toronto Sun
IN 3 MONTHS THIS IS WHERE I WILL LIVE PEOPLE!!!!!
Playground in paradise | International | Travel | Toronto Sun.
Stye in my eye…pig in a poke?
This was the size Saturday evening
I struggled with this stupid stye in my eye since early Saturday evening, when it first started itching. Sunday morning it had grown and by Sunday evening I couldn’t see out of my right eye. I felt sure it was going to have burst by this morning, but no o o o o o …it’s still there and bigger than ever with an added pocket of something swelling beneath the eye as well. Hot compresses feel good while they are hot and on the eye and I have some eye antibiotic cream/gel like substance to put on it. I felt so sure I’ve never had this before only to find out by my oldest sister that I was plagued by styes as a child. I have not a single recollection of such a thing! How weird! And such a freakin’ pain in the proverbial BUTT! Yes, that’s right, my butt is now located on my face where my eye used to be. AND…I have to go to work like this!
ADD/ADHD Self Assessment Form
http://webdoc.nyumc.org/nyumc/files/psych/attachments/psych_adhd_checklist.pdf
The best way to use this is to print the form, give one to a family member (that you trust), print one out for yourself, then when you are done, compare.
If you struggle with 4 or more of Part A symptoms look to part B for additional clues. Bring both questionnaires to the doctor. Then…read up on ADD/ADHD in adults, women, anything you can get your hands on. Maybe read up BEFORE you go to the doctor.
Patient Name
Please answer the questions below, rating yourself on each of the criteria shown using the scale on the right side of the page. As you answer each question, place an X in the box that best describes how you have felt and conducted yourself over the past 6 months. Please give this completed checklist to your healthcare professional to discuss during today’s appointment.
1. How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project, once the challenging parts have been done? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
2. How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
3. How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
4. When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
5. How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
6. How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, like you were driven by a motor? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
7. How often do you make careless mistakes when you have to work on a boring or difficult project? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
8. How often do you have difficulty keeping your attention when you are doing boring or repetitive work? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
9. How often do you have difficulty concentrating on what people say to you, even when they are speaking to you directly? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
10. How often do you misplace or have difficulty finding things at home or at work? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
11. How often are you distracted by activity or noise around you? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
12. How often do you leave your seat in meetings or other situations in which you are expected to remain seated? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
13. How often do you feel restless or fidgety? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
14. How often do you have difficulty unwinding and relaxing when you have time to yourself? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
15. How often do you find yourself talking too much when you are in social situations? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
16. When you’re in a conversation, how often do you find yourself finishing the sentences of the people you are talking to, before they can finish them themselves? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
17. How often do you have difficulty waiting your turn in situations when turn taking is required? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
18. How often do you interrupt others when they are busy? Never Rarely Sometimes Often Very Often
TOP 10 signs of ADHD or 33…
TOP Ten Manifestations of Adult ADHD
Cover of Top Ten (Book 1)
- Disorganized
- Reckless Driving/Traffic Accidents
The Reckless Driver (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Marital/Relationship Problems
- Extreme Distractibility
- Poor Listening Skills
- Restlessness, Problems Relaxing
Restless_Comp1.jpg (Photo credit: remytherestless)
- Procrastination, Problems starting a Task
- Chronic Lateness
The Late, Late, Late Show (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Angry outbursts (living on Anger Street)
Straßenschild Anger - Bahnhofstraße, Erfurt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Prioritizing Issues and then there are more:
- Losing track of thoughts/ideas in the middle of tasks
- Missing details or making careless mistakes
- Inability to complete assignments work/school
- Forgetfulness
Forgetfulness helps the enemy. Don't let it happen here - NARA - 535247 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Difficulty following instructions
- Restless, constantly shifting in chair, tapping feet or pencil playing or tugging at hair or clothing and unable to stop.
- Impulsive, childish i.e. Can’t stand waiting in line, constant interrupting, blurt out inappropriate comments, trouble anticipating consequences of their actions, change jobs frequently or have trouble keeping one, one task done well, the other done poorly, late, or incomplete, breezes through some things but can’t others,
The Madman's Return (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Self-medicates with caffeine, cigarettes even street drugs
- Trouble staying in the present
- Hypersensitive…lights too bright, sounds too loud, touches irritating/annoying, smells too strong
Pressure Sensitive (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Social strangeness, ie. Life of the party or avoids social interactions, seems callous and insensitive to others often
Cover of Life of the Party
- Short tempered, easily frustrated,
- No sense of time…overestimates or underestimates the amount of time it takes to complete any task, plans are vague or nonexistent
- Often extremely intelligent person that does “stupid” things
- Trouble focusing, spaces out often if not interested and can hyper focus if they are interested
Spaced Out Bunny (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Often have developed strange seemingly complex strategies to compensate their inabilities
- Agitated
- Laugh themselves silly…then cry
Cry Now, Laugh Later (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Easily overwhelmed
- Impulsive and Compulsive
Careless "Borrowing" is Sabotage - NARA - 514033 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Barely aware of how their behaviour affects others
- Insomniac or excessive sleeper
Insomnia smiley (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- No boundaries, often invades other’s personal space and last but certainly not least…. FORGETFULNESS. HOW MANY OF THESE SIGNS APPLY TO YOU???
Coping with Executive Function Impairment
Yesterday I wrote about the challenges of ADD/ADHD Executive Function Impairment and promised some coping techniques to try.
Purple People Eater (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So here they are:
- Activation - organizing, prioritizing & getting started -Find ways that work for you. If it makes sense to you, it does not matter what others say, it does not matter whether they can make sense of it either. What matters is IT WORKS FOR YOU. If it makes perfect, natural sense to you when you file your INsurance papers under Protection instead of the name of the insurance companyor even under I for insurance, then name the file Protection or file it under P and be done with it. The more natural it feels to you and your brain, the more success you will have. If you can’t figure out what is more important, ask someone. Bottom line, people like to pontificate, hear themselves talk and overexplain. Ask what the most important point is and move on. Use a timer, time yourself when doing something and then use that timer when you start something. Struggles to start a task usually relates to something you are not interested in. Trust me when I say eventually, that necessary task will become a priority, distract you from something else and you will get to it eventually. Most of the time, it is not a matter of life or death, and that dreaded task will not go away on it’s own, so however long it takes to get to it matters not one whit!
Storex metal 2-drawer filing cabinet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- FOCUS -focusing, maintaining and shifting attention- When a song gets stuck in my head, I play the song over and over, sing along, as many times as it takes. Eventually, it’ll bore you, and once it becomes boring, it disappears. The iPodwith headphones is very useful for this. I also use writing to empty my thoughts at night. Like pouring water out of the glass, once it’s on paper my mind becomes empty. Then I can sleep. If you don’t like writing, you can always just say the thoughts out loud or into a recorder. Personally, that just makes me feel foolish, so I stick to the quieter methods.
Diary of a Madman (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- EFFORT- regulating alertness, sustaining effort and processing speed-get up and walk around, stand up, chew up, use a stress ball or quietly tap your pen on your thigh. Any physical activity creates alertness. If you tend to process incoming information slowly, repeat out loud what you think you understand. Process too fast? Write it down, take notes. Again, physically doing something helps immensely.
A Siberan tiger at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- EMOTION- managing frustration & regulating emotions-Pretending you are not feeling hurt does not work. Biting your tongue does work. Pinch yourself. Squeeze one hand with another. It’s just giving yourself a signal, a big cue, that you are over-reacting. Once you realize that, it’s a lot easier to keep a lid on the blow ups. I still haven’t found a way to prevent my eyes from filling with tears, but I will always look down and swallow…this has been effective in preventing the full-blown sobfest.
P Volcano (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Memory -using working memory & accessing recall- I love cheat sheets. I use them all the time at work. For everything. I request all instructions in point form, in writing. If it is not provided to me, I create it myself. I use spellcheck on my computer religiously!!! Love it. Also, when I create a cheat sheetmyself, the very act of writing it down helps my memory. In school, for a boring subject, I would practically re-write the whole textbook. It worked for me and I did very well.
The first volume of The Book of Lists. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- ACTION – monitoring & self-regulating action-Impulsivity goes hand in hand with EMOTION for me. When my emotions get the upper hand, any pretend filter, trick or tip I use becomes non-existent. What I do know is boredom influences the types of situations I expose myself to. Rather than go out in public when bored, I force myself to remain at home. I have strong feelings about many subjects, and all actions are definitely reactions. I tend to do better in social situations when I am withdrawn. However, most of the time I just don’t care if someone takes offense to my “tongue running away with my thoughts”. I am not a mean, nasty person so what I think is not meant in that way. When someone is brave enough to draw my attention to my insensitivity, I have no problem apologizing or taking responsibility for myself. Curbing my tendency to speak before thinkingand speaking without a filter becomes easier with age. I’d say it only took about 50 years to get something of a grip on it. The only thing I do not ever worry about putting a filter on is expressing my pleasure, delight or just plain admiration for someone/something. I have found that people in general love a compliment!:)
Impulse (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The goal is not to become just like everybody else…you just want to exercise a little bit of control over your own life so you can enjoy the next bright shiny object that catches your eye:)
Executive Function Impairment = ADD/ADHD
Executive Function is the management system of the brain which are thought to involve the frontal lobes of the brain. Research by Thomas E Brown, PhD, clinical psychologist and leading researcher on executive functions has identified six clusters of cognitive functions.
The Frontal Lobes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Activation: Organizing, Prioritizing & Getting Started on Tasks difficulty getting organized, distinguishing between relevant & irrelevant information, anticipating & planning future events, estimating time needed to complete tasks and struggles to get started on tasks.
- Focus: Focusing, Maintaining & Shifting Attention Easily distracted means missing important information, distracted not only by what’s going on around them but also by their own thoughts. Difficulty shifting attention & can get stuck on a thought, persevering only on that topic.
- Effort: Regulating Alertness, Sustaining Effort & Processing Speed may become drowsy when forced to sit still & be quiet to listen to something that isn’t very interesting. Not due to being overtired but simply cannot sustain alertness unless actively engaged. Also, some process information very slowly, while others may have trouble slowing down enough to process information accurately.
- Emotion: Managing Frustration & Regulating Emotions A low tolerance for frustration & extremely sensitive to criticism. Difficult emotions quickly become overwhelming & emotional reactions are very intense.
- Memory: Using Working Memory & Accessing Recall Working memory, known as a “Temporary Storage System” holds several facts/thoughts in the mind while solving a problem or performing a task. It holds information long enough to use it in the short-term, focus on the task & remember what to do next. Impairment in this area means trouble remembering & following directions, memorizing & recalling math facts or spelling words, computing problems in their head or retrieving information from memory when needed.
- Action: Monitoring & Self-Regulating Action This can significantly impede social relationships. Reacts impulsively without thought to context of the situation or may overfocus on others’ reactions by being too inhibited & withdrawn in interactions.
Each of these functions must work together in various combinations. When one is impaired, it affects all the others.
In a nutshell, stop thinking any of these behaviours relating to these functions you take for granted are on purpose…THEY ARE NOT DOING THESE THINGS JUST BECAUSE THEY WANT TO PUSH YOUR BUTTONS!
Next post: Strategies ADD/ADHD people can use to cope with these issues:)
A few more quotes about cats and dogs | The Life Blog
Truisms…gotta love em!!!
• “Cats are ultimate narcissists. You can tell this by all the time they spend on personal grooming. Dogs aren’t like this. A dog’s idea of personal grooming is to roll in a dead fish.” – James Gorman
Breakfast of Champions
2 Cups of freshly brewed coffee
Coffee (Photo credit: @Doug88888)
2 generous handfuls of jelly beans
These are my Jelly Belly jelly beans, and you can't have any. They're all MINE! Photographed and eaten by Brandon Dilbeck on August 30, 2006. See also Image:JellyBellyPile.JPG Image:EndlessSeaOfJellyBeans.jpg Image:RedJellyBean.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Distraction issue never goes away
FACT of life for the adult ADDer…distraction never goes away, doesn’t get better and it will never disappear from your life.
Daydreamer's Deck (Photo credit: mtl2tky)
Null Hypothesis | Cure for ADHD Found
OK, y’all. You know I jest, inappropriately quite often. This being said, when I read the article below I chuckled while I remembered getting smacked way too many times to count.
So, I have the proof that the prescription for curing ADHD described in this tongue-in-cheek article is NOT the cure…ME. I am the proof. I took this medicine daily, administered without fail a minimum of twice a day, more often than not 5 times a day, every single day until I grew up and left home.
THIS DOES NOT WORK. DO NOT try it. You will hurt your hands, break your wooden spoons and your leather belts will mysteriously disappear on a regular basis. Not only will your hands sting and burn, you will get migraines from the ongoing rage that fills your head space and your heart will harden from lack of tenderness. User beware.
reposted from ADDsherpa blog click to read full article Null Hypothesis | Cure for ADHD Found.
