Meditation and Anxiety

Quite a few years ago at some kind of flea market type thing I bought a metal sign that I only just remembered now. Its a sign that while I bought it then because I loved the picture of my favourite type of car. I now realize the quote on the sign is all that much more appropriate for me. For me the Corvette really is a state of mind - my mind. Always running off so unknown conclusions usually the worst possible ones that can pop up cause me to have more and more anxiety. This makes my heart rate shoot up and sometimes makes me feel nauseous and all around panicky and icky feeling. 

My husband has been out of town on a short Men's ski retreat with approximately 40 other men from church. He is having a great time. I however hate being by myself, my mind gets all over the place and I get bored really easily. My mind jumps to all sorts of terrible conclusions about staying in a house all by myself even though I have done it several times and I know nothing crazy is really going to happen. I however have lately gotten so worked up I really haven't been sleeping well and have definitely had some anxiety attacks. It doesn't help that I am also anxious about this job hunting I am doing or having to do even though I am completely unmotivated to do it. Here is a link that explains that a bit better from a friend of mine.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/quieting-the-lizard-brain.html

Anyway my mum suggested I try meditation again to try and calm myself down. Now with a brain that is always going and barely has any breaks this seems like a completely daunting task. I have been able to meditate before but only in a led meditation when someone else is speaking as it is much easier to focus on their voice then on my own breathing. Counting my breath in and out in long slow motions doesn't seem to slow my heart rate or calm me down when my mind is still panicking about the issue it is worried about. Running surprisingly calms my brain while I am actually moving and for a little bit afterward. However I think exercise is going to end up as a topic on its own at some point in the future. 

So here are a few suggested techniques I plan on attempting. 

First making time to meditate every day. This will be difficult as I don't tend to stick to schedules I make myself as well as I should. 

Second every time an idea comes into my head according to my yoga magazine I should just tell my brain to drop it and hope that works long enough for my brain to finally understand it can't do that anymore. 

Third. Prayer/mediation/worry beads. I have a set I made out of rough opal stones I got at a bead show that I think I will restring into something smaller that I can wear as a bracelet or even make something into a necklace that I can say a short prayer or mantra to too help my body get used to a calm and focused on something harmless feeling. I just have to figure out what that saying is going to be and will most likely have it in ancient Greek or something as I find listening to chant or saying chant (still learning it/wanting to learn it - I sleep to Gregorian chant at night, I love how it sounds) helps me keep calm and the same with other languages for some reason. 

It seems I will need to call my aunt and bum a beading needle of her and get some appropriate thread for the project. I have no clue if this is going to help or not but I really hope so. I already find writing in a journal/prayer journal does help to a degree, I just need something a little more to make it last longer. 

I will report in once I have tried some of these things on how it is going. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions on meditation or ways to reduce anxiety please let me know in the comments. 

My Current Plan

So this is my current plan on learning about my ADD and things I can do to help some of the difficult things that go along with it.

Magazine:
ADDitude magazine (http://www.additudemag.com/) - Thanks to my mum for a subscription for Christmas

Books:

"You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!" by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo

"Is it You, Me, or Adult ADD? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Had Attention Deficit Disorder" by Gina Pera

"The Gift of Adult ADD. How To Transform Your Challenges &  Build On Your Strengths" By Lara Honos-Webb, Ph.D.

"The ADHD Effect on Marriage. Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps" By Melissa Orlov


Activities: 


Physical activity is known to help promote focus for up to a couple of hours after exercise is finished and can also promote the growth of new brain pathways. More on this to come as a single topic post in the future.


I am keeping track of these activities on dailymile.com so hopefully this means I will be much better at actually doing them.

Running (Barefoot/Minimalist running to be exact), trying this because I always went everywhere around my neighborhood as a kid in bare feet and read a neat book my brother gave me for Christmas called Born To Run - starting off slow to get muscles back into shape.

Swimming - every Monday I swim lengths with my aunt, my brother, my husband and my best friend.

Walking - usually with friends and family that don't want to run

Skipping indoors or on the deck  - when the weather is bad

Websites:
http://www.additudemag.com/
http://chadd.org/
http://www.add.org/
http://www.addiva.net/
http://newideas.net/adhd/different-types-adhd
http://totallyadd.com/
http://chaddcanada.org/
http://www.addvance.com/index.html
http://addmanagement.com/
http://addcoachinggroup.com/
http://www.adders.org/
http://www.addforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9


Talking with friends who also have ADD has helped a lot. It is sometimes really nice to know that are other people out there that really know exactly what is going on inside your head and has to deal with the same or similar things that you do.

How I got to be on this Journey and writing this blog

After I graduated from my Animal Health Technology Program and wrote my board exam I felt really burned out already. The program was two years long and 5 courses a semesters (the most I had ever done at this point was 3 a semester so 5 was pushing it).

I took the summer off while waiting for my board exam results and did one very long day of work at a horse vet clinic I had volunteered at the summer before. They weren't hiring as they are a small clinic but needed extra help for the 4 surgeries a specialist was coming in from New York to do that day. It was long and tiring (an 18hr day) but it was with horses so it was fun.

I then still felt not sure if this was what I wanted to do and ended up missing out on another horse vet opportunity at a race track. There are not many horse clinics around here and most are not hiring.  I decided to upgrade and practice my small animal skills and volunteered at a small animal clinic where a teacher of mine from the vet assistant program worked as a tech. I volunteered there for about half a month before they hired me because they needed another tech.

This is where everything turned into a nightmare with lots of stress and anxiety. This job was pulling out all of the ADD things in my life that I guess I never either learned to cope with or had to cope with before or was triggering these things in different ways because the job wasn't really that structured. I also believe that since I never told anyone about the ADD that that didn't help either because some of those traits were pet peeves of my boss and some coworkers.

Stress and anxiety caused my learning to slow down and it just spiraled from there. I almost quit twice and was about to start looking for a new job when many changes started happening around the clinic with people coming and going and even with the building having some changes being done. In the middle of these changes and restructuring of the clinic I ended up getting laid off and am currently looking for a Job again. This time something less stressful preferably.

While I was going through all of this I thought the world was ending and everything was a complete disaster. It turns out that being laid off was the best thing that happened to me. I have been able to reflect back on things that happened at work and pick out bits and pieces of what went wrong for me with my ADD here and there and am trying to learn from it. I am also currently trying to learn more about ADD in general as well myself.

Things I know I did that I need to work on.

• Dealing with change and transition - in general and in high stress and emergency situations where I tend to just blank
• When people tell me I am making excuses and I don't believe I am (I believe I am giving a reason for why something happened) I must realize there was something possibly in there that might have or have not done that I could have fixed.
• Trying even harder then I already am to not interrupt people
• Lists and writing everything said to me down definitely helped a lot - must remember this
• Get better at dealing with people in general especially difficult people
• Try not to be overly emotionally sensitive to criticism (this has always been hard for me and often affects my whole day and mood)
• Try not to always talk so much all the time
• try not to always be so shy right off the bat
• believe in myself

I want to in someways help other people with ADD but first I decided the best way I could help them is to educate other people about it first. That being friends and family to start.

A bit of background information

Here is a bit about me and clues that led to my diagnoses with ADD and the journey that follows as far as I can remember it.

I was a very active baby, had colic and cows milk protein sensitivity for awhile. I had a few other allergies and sensitive skin. I did not sleep through the night until I was about 18 months old. My mum tells me I talked early in pretty close to full adult type sentences and words and have never stopped since. I was had childhood migrains but later outgrew it for awhile (I get them occasionally now as an adult though).

I was reading through my old elementary school report cards and comments from my teachers. I have reports from K-Gr6. The things they noticed were some of the following. 

• Trouble with focus and attention span. 
• Difficulty with  certain math concepts in the earlier grades, seemed to get better for awhile later.
• Needed more time and encouragement for consistent neatness in work
• Would hand in assignments late.
• Sloppy work when not totally focused on it.
• Often found the neatest tasks overwhelming and often slows down to a complete stop before attempting some assignments
• Time management issues on completing work even though I was capable of completing it
• French Grammar and punctuation
• trouble with expository writing in english
• trouble with reading in ‘meaning as a whole’ and ‘words in context’ or synonyms
• patience in research?
• Trouble working with some groups of people but worked well independently
• did not like to participate orally in group activities.
• needed to study more on certain occasions
• had some trouble with French vocab and conjugations
• work habits coincided with my mood at the time.

They also noticed these things:

• Art was my happiness and my eyes lit up for art class
• good at creative writing and music, computers, tech ed and all the other fun and creative electives
• Liked and did well in PE.
• Creative efforts in my work in general
• helpful, cheerful and always tried my best
• Speech making should be a strength in my future (hmm not sure I believe this, I hate speaking in front of people now)

My mum noted:

• Social issues with friends/classmates at various times 
• I tended to end up a bit of the outcast
• Yelled and had tantrums 
• Tried to isolate myself sometimes
• Would get upset when my desks were moved at school (hated change)
• Lots of tears about many things

I dont remember much from Gr7 and 8 or high school stuff but I know high school was a lot better though slow reading was a bit of an issue sometimes. 

In Grade 2 I think was when I started Kumon to help improve my math. I hated it but it definitely was worth it.

I was given an assessment at the grade 3 time period at UBC and have the report but dont remember much about it except getting a toy on the way home from a nearby toy store.

After I completed Grade 6 I was diagnosed with ADHD combined type. I only remember doing something on a really old laptop and dont remember anything else about this at all. I also have the report and have read it.

My parents did a lot of subtle things to help me out. I took a study skills course in summer one year. My parents structured my home life and let me run around after school and play as my brain had had enough at that point in time. I would then do homework which I remember sometimes took forever. No TV was allowed after dinner as it would wind my already tightly wound brain up and not allow me to sleep. School being school was already structured. I don't remember noticing any of these things my parents did but am glad they did them. 

So while I was often frustrated with my parents on many levels I have come to realize they did everything because they wanted what was best for me. 

I graduated in 2002 and went to University right away. I completed half of a degree in archaeology before the classes became impossible to get into. Too small a class size not offered often enough and too many people wanting to get into them. Very annoying. I did an office admin course and later a veterinary assistant course before completely a Diploma in Animal Health Technology in 2009 and writing my board exam that summer to be able to call myself an RAHT.

I love learning and will probably always be taking some kind of random course here and there. 

More on where I am now and how this journey I am on got started later. 

What is ADD or ADHD?

What is ADD or ADHD?

Attention Deficit Disorder is a neurobiological disorder of the central nervous system which is most often characterized by disturbances or difficulties in the areas of:

• attention
• hyperactivity
• impulsivity

It has had many different names over time and has been around for a long time.

Symptoms of ADD or ADHD

Inattention

This is often thought of as short attention span which is the easiest way to explain it. However it seems that this is also an issue of the components of the process of attention. Meaning they will have trouble picking what stimulus to focus on, trouble sustaining that focus over time, dividing their focus between other relevant stimuli and trouble shifting focus to another stimulus. (Basically their brains are always going to they have trouble picking which item whirring around in their mind to focus on and to pick which other ones might also be relevant, they have a hard time focusing on that for a long time because other more interesting things are distracting them and then sometimes they have the problem of shifting focus from one thing to another especially if that shift comes up suddently.) These may show up categorically as an example workaholics (they have trouble shifting focus to things other then work long after they should have changed it to other things, some people would call this over focused), single mindedness is another one that is similar, procrastination (cant selectively focus attention and doesn’t know how or where to get started, if whatever it is they are trying to focus on isn’t interesting to them then it is even harder for them to focus on it), and boredom.

Focus is easier when the person is very interested in what they are trying to focus on and believe in their success at it. It takes people with ADD a lot more effort and stimuli to focus and stay focus and motivated. It isn’t that they don’t try and it isn’t that they are unmotivated it just takes a lot more effort then people who don’t have it.

Examples of Inattentive behavior:

• Often fails to give close attention to details.
• Often makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.
• Often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities.
• Often becomes easily distracted by irrelevant sights, sounds and extraneous stimuli.
• Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace.
• Often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities.
• Often avoids tasks, such as schoolwork or homework, that require sustained mental effort.
• Often loses things necessary for tasks or activities, like school assignments, pencils, books, or tools, keys and so on.
• Often is forgetful in daily activities.
• Rarely follows instructions carefully and completely, if they don’t right it down when they hear it they wont remember it.
• Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
• Making careless errors
• Time management issues
• Difficulty completing tasks or projects in general
• Difficulty staying organized.

Hyperactivity

Is difficulty inhibiting behavior. It is not necessarily what people think about when they hear the word hyper of people bouncing off the walls though it can and does occaisionally happent that way. Most of the time people with Hyperactivity in ADD talk way to much and rather fast.  These people are in constant motion. They may engage in excessive fiddling, fidgeting, leg swinging, and squirming or constantly readjusting themselves in their chair. These people are very active in general and may take on lots of hobbies and exercise or even second jobs to keep them busy. The hyperactivity depending on how it is presented can actually sometimes help get more things accomplished but this isn’t always the case.

Impulsivity

Is the difficulty controlling impulses. These people do not stop and think before they act or speak. They say and do whatever comes into their mind without thinking about the consequences. They might say something inappropriate and regret it later, blurt out a response to question before a person is done speaking to them or interrupt a conversation, or have difficulty waiting for their turn in line or in a game. They may be careless with assignments or with other things. This may also lead to some people impulse shopping. It takes a lot of effort to keep these impulses in check.

There are generally three types of ADD or ADHD:

Combined Type (hyperactive, impulsive, inattentive)

Inattentive Type

Hyperactive, Impulsive Type

* This information came from my own knowledge as well as from the book “You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!” By Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo. As well as some things from this website http://www.add-adhd-help-center.com/symptoms_add_adhd.htm

About Me

I am almost 27, a petite female, and was diagnosed with ADD combined type mild to moderate at age 12. Contrary to what people may believe this is not a condition that people outgrow. If they do outgrow it, it was likely a misdiagnosis in the first place. I currently up until this point have never been on medication for the ADD.

I have had lots of help from my parents in providing structure to my life at home and helped me keep on track with school and home work and did courses to learn to study effectively. My brother has also been a big help as he seems to understand me better then I do myself sometimes and he often surprises me with his wisdom and bringing be back into perspective.

My brain doesn’t know how to be quiet there are always constant chatter or thoughts that are going in my head and it rarely ever shuts up, it is a lot like background noise that is always there. This chatter can definitely cause me problems getting to sleep at night. I have a terrible short term memory for remembering where I put things or things that people said or things I did just moments ago unless I write things down. Hence I am a compulsive note taker and love sticky notes. I however have an amazing long term memory. I can hyperfocus on certain things I am super interested in where no one can distract me from that thing however I find I cant really control it. It just happens or it doesn’t. I often interrupt people or feel like I want to I try very hard to control this. I am a packrat and my house is usually a mess and the pain problem is papers. I can find housework extremely difficult at times because it is just so boring.

I am in general a pretty bouncy person but can get pretty shy or feel a bit awkward in certain situations and easily hurt or discouraged, I can be quite emotionally sensitive. I believe I also suffer from anxiety and possibly minor depression at some points. I am very opinionated and often end up in many debates most of which I do not ever seem to win because I am not really that good at debating. I am a very creative person. I love to draw, take pictures, work with clay and love to do bookbinding making hand made blank books. I have started journaling in my books again in the last couple of years. I love animals especially my four cats and love horses as well, though I haven’t ridden for awhile I rode and jumped horses for approximately 14 years before being the position I am currently of not having a horse to ride. I hope this wont last forever. I love ancient cultures and places and things and different languages and texts. I love to mess around in my garden growing herbs and miniature roses and hope to try some actual food plants this coming year. I also like to sew though I am still learning. I love learning new things in general. I am trying to get back into running, this time trying barefoot/minimalist running, as exercise is good for focus. I love things that are shiny or sparkly; some family members call me a magpie because of it. I am a dreamer and can sometimes move from passion to passion.

I have been married to the sweetest most wonderful, fun, encouraging and tolerant man for the last 6 years. Without him I am sure I would be in much worse of a state. He is willing to let me learn more about myself and to learn with me.

I am currently looking for work and am hoping something much less stressful that allows me to use my skills and creativity to their full potential without being overly bored and distracted. I am looking for something that will make me happy and not stressed out all the time like my last job. The question is what do I want to do job wise that I will be good at. This is a question I have never in my life had an answer to. I really honestly do not know what I would like to do. The work world is seemingly what threw my coping skills with ADD that I previously had out the window. It seems a job with lack of structure plus high anxiety plus lack of enforced structure at home and no school structure equals I have no clue how to cope with all my ADD issues and probably other issues as well that are arising. I am taking this time while looking for work to learn more things about my ADD and hope to cope with it. I am hoping this will help people understand a little bit what it is like to be me.

I will be updating with how my quest goes and some background information and other interesting bits and pieces I find along the way.