Thursday, October 11, 2012

My First Post - An Introduction

For a few years now I've always wanted to have a blog. I have even attempted to make one before with no real success. I've felt like I want to share my experiences with people because I don't really have many friends...
WAIT DON'T LEAVE NOW!
I am not a freak, I don't hate people, it's just life has given me some tough issues to face that kind of left me without friends.
Let me try to explain.
When I was 12 I had my first panic attack. If you don't know what a panic attack is, for me at least, it is like feeling you can't breathe, that your heart is going to stop, that you're going to die. Sounds illogical, and irrational huh? Well it is and it scared the *beep* out of me. After it happened again and again I broke down and told my mother what was happening to me. She calmed me down and told me what I was experiencing was a panic attack and that it was perfectly normal, I was not a freak. I remember calming down and not having another one for years.
Sometimes in school I would act out, get very upset over small things, or even just do bizarre things, it took years to find out why I did those things.
When I was in grade 8 (in Canada this is the last year before High School) I started liking boys and went boy crazy with a girl in my class who wasn't my best friend at the time, and spend lots of time with her. My best friend got jealous and dumped me, she never spoke to me again. At the time I didn't know that I'd lose all of my friends, friends I'd been with for 5 years.
High School, fresh start and new uniforms, now I had four teachers instead of one, and four classes I had to run to after the bell. My high school was so much bigger than my elementary school, instead of 32 kids in my grade, I had over 400. With so many other students and classes divided between academic (for the students more confident in their grades) and applied (for the students not-so confident in their grades) it was inevitable that I'd be separated from my elementary school friends. But I was confident that I'd make new friends and I'd keep the old ones. 
Then one day I got a call from my friend telling me she and my other friend were not going to continue Pathfinders, (A level in Girl Guides/Scouts) I was devastated. I had been in guiding for 9 years, and we only had one year of Pathfinders left and then we could stop, I had said. I couldn't get there myself, I'm from a poor family and I'd have to take a cab to the meeting place and back every week because no buses went by. Looking back I could've made it work; however, without my friends there, I didn't want to go either. I should have taken that as a hint that my friends wanted to make their high school début alone but I didn't and soon they stopped calling, stopped talking to me, even stopped acknowledging my existence. But that was OK! This was High School and it was full of other kids my age, I just needed to make new friends too!
And I did. Trouble was the first new friend I made had a jealous best friend too, knowing how much it hurt to lose a best friend I distanced myself from her, I caused myself pain instead of her having the chance of pain. So I made other friends, but this time found out I was unknowingly making all the same friends as my ex-best friend did and she was telling them the something horrible I did to her and she would never tell me what it was nor would anybody else. To this day I have no idea what I supposedly did to her. So I felt sad and confused and I steadily lost the ability to maintain friendships. 
I started skipping school and staying at home, this started when I was 16 and in the second half of my grade 10 year. I wanted to go! I wanted to learn I loved school! I was an honour roll student (maintains an 80 percent or above (or A) average in all of their classes) I wanted to learn, I wanted to have friends, I wanted to get a boyfriend, have my first kiss, and eventually lose my virginity! I wanted to have a normal high school life! I guess it was never in the cards.
My mother took me to a therapist, a dude with a thick accent that I had trouble understanding, (I can't understand anyone unless they have my accent and speak clearly) I started taking meds that were said to only start taking effect after 6 weeks. I got side-effects, dry mouth, low blood pressure, insomnia, sleepliness, weight gain (I had always been skinny around 114 pounds) and, the least pleasant, sweatiness, even going up the stairs had me sweating when I very rarely sweat at all. 
I had a few sessions with thick-accent guy, at my last session with him he said (not in these exact words) "You have many problems, you are a tough case so I will not be able to treat you properly without more sessions together" in my 16-year-old ears he said "You are really, really, really screwed up. You are not normal," to me this signalled social death, and I ran away and never had another session with him or anyone else for 2 years.
I slowly stopped going to school and before you go blaming my mother (who raised me as a single parent) know that she tried absolutely everything humanly possible to make me go to school. I managed to complete grade 10 and started grade 11 with hopes of starting fresh. I struggled, my grades suffered and I forced myself to do my homework. It was so so hard for me to do my school work. My depression hung around me like a black cloud, so people avoided me for the most part. I lost my remaining friends. And eventually I stopped going at all. 
I failed all my second semester classes so I signed up for summer school, I could get two credits in two months. I was taking this great medication it was supposed to help with waking up in the morning and my concentration (it's also a street drug called speed). I took the English class and had the time of my life. I got a great grade and even a new friend. But then my hair started falling out, it was one of the worst side-effects I had ever had. My hair was long and it was everywhere. I cried and cried. I stopped taking all my medications and the results showed. In my second class Chemistry, it started getting harder to go to class, harder to do my homework my grades suffered a bit but since it was only a month long I managed to get my honour roll mark and my final year of high school was starting, I was hopeful.
It was like the second half of grade 11 all over again, my memory of that time is sketchy at best, but I know I didn't finish the semester and tried again at the second semester. My favourite class (creative writing) was cancelled and I knew in my heart I was never going to finish the semester. Both times I lasted two months then ended in failure. I was devastated. Why weren't the drugs working, I loved school and I loved learning, why the heck wasn't I going to school? I was a failure, I was lazy, I was broken.
I started seeing a Psychiatrist. She was always late and her office was in a shopping mall. I got new prescriptions. She made me draw pictures, read passages from book, and strongly recommended I aim for college. I tried to learn coping skills. I gained more weight, and started to really hate my body.
After a while, with no real progress except figuring out medications don't work on me except for giving me bad side-effects, my mother decided she was a quack and signed me up for a program at the day-hospital. I was going to get a therapist and have group where we would learn about depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, mood management, loss and recovery and coping skills. I learnt so much there. I really connected with the other group members who were adults and impressed by my youth and my self awareness. I inspired the other group members, I even made them like themselves more, some of who had even attempted suicide. If only I could just inspire myself. 
I started to look into my local college. It was looking up for a while. 
One day my psychiatrist (the quack) had suggested I might has Asperger's, a kind of autism. I didn't think she was right, I had social phobia, not social difficulties. I looked it up and knew that wasn't what I had but then there was this link "often confused with ADHD" so I clicked it. ADHD was something really hyper kids had, is what I had thought, but as I scrolled down the page I learnt about type II Inattentive type. It was like reading a biography on myself. 
"Those with Inattentive type find that it is masked by high intelligence." "Left undiagnosed, especially in girls, the person can develop anxiety disorders and depression."
I balled my eyes out. Here was the answer to my most painful question, "What was wrong with me?"
The school system failed me, society failed me. ADHD is not just kids who can't sit down! Why doesn't everybody know that!
It turns out I was a living statistic, those with ADHD are more likely to drop out of high school, those with ADHD are more likely to not complete 1-2 years of high school. It's kind of funny if you like dark humour.
I had renewed hope. I got a new psychiatrist, took every med under the sun, gained more weight, lost my hair two more separate times, then learnt I am treatment resistant. Drugs do not work on me.
Knowing that I live with ADHD has helped me tremendously. I have completed the day-hospital program, though learning much I haven't managed to find the right coping skills for me. I stopped seeing my therapist because I am a god-awful patient, I only told her what I thought she wanted to hear, I was a bloody-well liar. 
I still have problems with school. I attempted a high school equivalency program where I couldn't complete the final project because I have problems with success and knew that if I finished it I could go to college which I already signed up for with the intention that I'd finish the program. And to make a long story short I couldn't start college this past September.
So now you're kind of up to date. I have no friends but I am hoping to start college in January. I'm still broken, I don't think I'll be able to finish my first year of college but I haven't given up yet. 
This is why I started a blog! To share my experiences and maybe finally being able to start school in January! 

Please follow me on this journey. I have many stories to tell, lessons to share, and information to spread. It's also very likely I will not post new things for long periods of time because I have ADHD after all.
You may not agree with my opinion, you may even dislike me, but know everything I say is from the heart with the intention to help you on your own journey through life.

Thank you for reading.   

1 comment:

  1. good luck! It's obvious you're trying and that's the best thing you can do for yourself! you will find your way. Keep your head up! xo

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