To discipline or not to discipline, that is the question

All my life I have kept myself under very strick control. I have been being good - my little 8 year old self vowed to be a good girl, and I did my very best. But it has made me tired, and angry and frustrated, and every so often the good girl resigned and let the bad girl loose, usually at the worst times.

So now I know about the ADD it's like - What the hell - I don't need to do anything I don't actually want to. I am exhausted - people exhaust me, life exhausts me, just living exhausts me. Leave me alone to paint pictures and do Killer Soduku. I'll cook dinner if I have to.

Only trouble is, not having discipline in my life leads to crazies. I'm on holiday right now and the disciplines are disappearing and the crazies are upon me. My crazies include spending money on crayons and fairy books (not so bad) and drinking quite a lot (very bad).

So a balance needs to be found. I have been reading Julia Cameron, a writer and teacher on creativity and recovering alcoholic. The book I am reading has been involved with her battling a bout of depression (know all about that, got the t-shirt, one of my crazies was forgetting my anti-depressant prescription over the Christmas holiday and having to wait four days until I could get it filled). Anyhow Cameron can only hang on to her health and her sobriety by practising disciplines, not big deal ones, ones that reorient her every day to the world and help her stay on track (especially keep her from that first drink). These include prayer, walking, writing first thing in the morning whatever is on her mind, and taking herself out for wee adventures at least once a week. Not big things but very spiritually nurturing. But DISCIPLINES. My little ADD self is in revolt against discipline.

I really need to choose the right ones and get on with it.

Well, here we are then

So, for 52 years the world has been one way, and now it's another.

What does this mean? It should be some sort of revolution in my thinking. But mostly I'm just thinking now what?

Sometimes I'm not even sure the diagnosis is correct. Everybody of my age is a bit forgetful, I'm a busy person, of course I get things muddled .... but then I read something about ADD that I have never told anyone and it applies directly to me - like the relief of being able to focus on something and not have to slam the breaks on and change to something else. Shifting focus is extremely difficult.

I'm on ritalin, and all it seems to do is give me great bursts of energy, followed by a massive come down. And my life is out of control. Before I expended a lot of energy keeping organised, now it's like - What the hey. Keeping organised is really exhausting and I'm not going to bother.

Doesn't help that my prayer minister has been laid up with a heart by pass and I'm trying to finish two theology papers. ADDers self-soothe by organising around obsessions. Theology study is probably a better obsession than most things.

I need specialist counselling and to get the drug thing sorted out. Doesn't help that some people are anti-ritalin and were horrified I was taking it. So add that to my anxieties why don't you?