What a Royal Pain...

When I got my diagnosis for ADD Brent asked me if it really meant anything to me. Especially since I opted not medicate. What difference did it matter that I have a name for what we have always just attributed to my personality? 

And for the most part it doesn't matter. 

Except when it does. 

Executive functioning.

That's the part where it matters. 

Your executive functioning brain is the part that tells you what is most important to do. It's the part that says, first you eat your meat, then you can have your pudding. 

But my executive function is a little miswired. It says first I eat my meat, then I...wait...who was in the video for that song? And was it a movie as well or am I just remembering wrong? Oh my gosh remember at Parkview when Shelly and I used to swing and sing "We Don't Need No Education" at the top of our lungs and really felt like we were being edgy? And then Mrs. Dominguez pointed out that if we thought "we don't need no education" was proper sentence structure then clearly we did need more education. And we would roll our eyes and sigh because clearly she was too old to get it.

And by the time I get to thinking about every last detail on the playground and wondering if kids today still played in large concrete construction tubes I've forgotten about the meat, the pudding and if I am even hungry anymore.

For a long time I wasn't sure just exactly why I did that sort of thing. Now I know. It's the ADD. I actually am wired a little differently. 

One of the other things I can't do is have those fun little phone games. Like Candy Crush. Nope. See Brent has them and plays every once in awhile when he wants to waste some time. If he's waiting for something and doesn't want to get too involved in something else. He plays for however long he needs to wait then closes it and puts it away. Me? Well...

I will log on, play and play and play and then say, one more game, but if it's not an actual game limit, like say you get five lives, I will play all day. Not exaggerating. Hours will slip past and I won't even notice. Or if I do notice I'll say to myself, one more game and then you have to go do... And when that game is over I can't possibly end on a loss. Or a win. Or with something left to do in that land. Or...

And yet I try to convince myself that this time will be different as I load a new version on my phone. 

And then a few days later when I've played so much I see the game on my eyelids when I'm trying to sleep I vow to uninstall it and never load another one again. 

After I finish this land...

Today I played Royal Match (the latest one I tried) for the entire Michigan football game. And then when the game was over I did uninstall it. Because I had said it outloud to Brent that I was going to. So then it became lying to him instead of lying to myself if I didn't. Which is why I told him I was going to. 

Because I needed that extra push. 

I don't know what it is about those little games that hits the sweet spot in my brain, but they do. More than any other more complicated video game. More than word games. More than any other type of game, but those matching games. BAM! I'm hooked in. 

But that was the last time.

I mean it.

No more. 

I cannot play like Brent does so I need to treat it differently than he does and just not put it on my phone.

Really...

And I do feel a little better that I know it's actually something that is caused by my ADD. It's not just that I have a lack of self control, or that I have a hard time deprioritizing something that has triggered that sweet spot of matching in my head, it's that I have ADD and that makes it hard to do those things. Which I know is a distinction without a difference, but it makes me feel a little better. 

Instead of wondering what is wrong with me, I know what is wrong with me. And I know that it's okay to need to do things differently. Like I'm never going to be able to play those little games like Brent does. So I need to never load them on my phone. Or at least understand that if I do, I'm going to lose a week playing that game. It's not a personality trait that I can work on and overcome. I'm just not wired that way. I will always fall into the black hole and play way too much and then regret that I wasted an entire day doing that. Over and over until I finally take it off my phone. 

So I have to treat it differently. Find a solution that works for me.

The same as my goals.
The same as my lists.
The same as my calendar reminders. 

It's okay. It's just the ADD. 

The same ADD that in 6 months or a year or however long I go this time will convince me that THIS time I will be able to play a reasonable amount and load the newest matching game on my phone. Really, this time it will be different, but maybe you should eat something and go pee before you start...