So I Married an ADDer

Clutter, busted.

I spent this past weekend at my mother's house, cleaning out all my old junk. When my parents sold the house I grew up in, I didn't have much time to pack. I threw everything in cardboard boxes marked "Misc." and left them to collect dust in my mom's garage for 7 years.

I was 19 when I last saw (or cared about) this "Misc." stuff. I am thankfully rid of my pack rat ways, having become neurotically clutter-free after college. So this trip down memory lane was especially difficult for me.

I had somewhere between 10-15 boxes full of paper: old letters from friends, notes passed in school, stories I wrote in 3rd grade, birthday cards, you name it. I kept every piece of paper I ever touched. At first I read every scrap of it, reliving the memories and laughing/cringing at what a dork I was. But after an hour of that, I just started throwing everything into big black garbage bags without even looking at it.

I filled 20 bags with trash and about 10 with stuff my mother is going to sell at flea markets. And I won't say it was easy. There were a lot of things I wanted to keep that I ultimately decided I had no use for. In the end, I kept only a handful of papers: the recommendation letters that got me into college and stories I wrote as a child. I put them in sheet protectors in a three-ring binder and brought them home to file away with my old diaries and photo albums. Everything else is gone, including my one remaining My Little Pony and my beloved ALF sleeping bag.

I'm blogging about this because almost everyone I know, ADDers and non-ADDers alike, is holding onto ancient clutter. When that stuff is around, whether it's in your mom's garage or your own dresser drawers, it's like having cobwebs on your brain. There was no reason for me to keep my ALF sleeping bag. There was no reason to hold onto a note passed to me in 7th grade algebra class, even if it was breaking news at the time. It was hard, but I got through it. And now I feel so much better. My head is clear and I feel lighter, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. My mother is happy, too. She has so much more room in her garage!

Right now, Jen is running a program called Clutter Busters, to help ADDers purge their clutter and keep it from coming back. Unfortunately, it's too late to join this time around, but clutter is a major issue that comes up in the Silver Program over and over again. Jen has some excellent solutions for managing clutter - if you're interested, consider joining us. Take my word for it: being clutter-free, especially now that the weather is getting warmer, feels amazing.

A shrubbery!

Jen has finally started gardening after many months of watching gardening shows, reading gardening magazines and coming up with ideas. I returned on Sunday evening from an exhausting weekend at my mother's, and before I even put my stuff down, I was asked, "How's your energy level? Are you up for going to Home Depot to buy plants?" It was a beautiful day and since I've been sleeping soundly, I was up for it.

Assuming Jen knew what she wanted, we hit the outdoor nursery at Home Depot. We spent over an hour putting plants in the cart and then putting them back, including an entire cart full of something called creeping phlox. In the end, we settled on two dwarf Alberta spruce (which look like mini pine trees), two rhododendron, some daisies to plant in a pot, some basil seeds to plant in another pot, and one little shrubbery whose name I can't remember.

Personally, I have no interest in gardening. While I like the idea of getting in touch with the earth and breathing fresh air, my aversion to kneeling takes precedence. Jen has been wanting to garden since before our house was even built. So she was eager to get started the next day after we brought the plants home. (I'm actually surprised she didn't go outside in the middle of the night to start digging. Normally her ADD would have prevented her from waiting for an appropriate time.)

When I pulled into the driveway on Monday night, there was Jen, covered in mud with a trowel in her hand. She had a boom box on the front porch, multiple pots, bags of soil and mulch, two hoses, and tools all over the front lawn. She looked like she'd been hit by a truck, but she was clearly pleased with herself.

She had been outside for over two hours and had potted the daisies and the basil and planted the nameless shrubbery. She ran into some trouble when she realized the potting soil she bought was actually a giant bag of plant food, so we're bracing ourselves for monster daisies. The little shrubbery, for all its cuteness, was hell to get into the ground. According to Jen, she had to change locations several times thanks to the rock farm that is our entire property. She also inhaled a large amount of dirt and nearly tumbled down the hill. Also, the shrubbery is in the path of the runoff from the gutter, so now Jen has to find a way to divert the water.

She was sore and exhausted and filthy, but she was happy. Gardening is a great pastime for ADDers, which Jen articulated very well on her blog:

"Gardening seems like the kind of hobby that an ADDer can enjoy long term. Your work produces results in the form of thriving plants, vegetables, and flowers. And when your work produces rewards, it is certainly more ADD-friendly."

I'll keep you posted on how our ADD garden grows!

"What hump?"

Today I feel better than I have in years. Many years. Like, since high school. All because I became a hunchback.

The results of my sleep study (refer to post below) showed that whenever I roll over onto my back, I wake up. I'm not aware that I'm waking up, but according to the sleep study I woke up 116 times in 6 hours. That's roughly once every 3 minutes. No wonder I'm always so tired!

The solution my doctor gave me was to fasten a tennis ball to my back while I slept. That way, if I rolled over, it would be uncomfortable and I'd automatically stay on my side. So I grabbed one of Punky's tennis balls and tucked it inside a tight-fitting tank top. It looked like a goiter, and I felt like an idiot, but I awoke refreshed and ready to face the day.

If you have noticed your partner (or they have noticed you) snoring or having an otherwise fitful sleep, try the tennis ball thing. It sounds crazy, but it works.

For additional resources and information on all things sleep, visit the National Sleep Foundation online at http://www.sleepfoundation.org.

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep. ~Fran Lebowitz

Jen wrote a blog post yesterday about sleep, which has been a problem for both of us lately. Jen has some form of insomnia, I may have sleep apnea, and we're both exhausted all day, every day.

Most ADDers have trouble falling asleep. It's difficult for them to relax and unwind at night, so when they hit the pillow their mind starts racing. For this reason, a lot of people need to fall asleep with the TV on, or not go to bed at all until it's practically morning and they're about to pass out. Then they rely on caffeine and sugar to get them through the day.

Judging by the insufferable commercials for sleep medicines (with the exception of Abe Lincoln and the beaver, which I can't get enough of), sleep is a problem for those of us without ADD, as well. I get between 6-7 hours of sleep a night, but it's "fitful" sleep and I never feel rested. So my doctor sent me for a sleep study.

I have to admit, it wasn't that bad. My room looked and felt just like a hotel, and I had satellite TV, which I enjoyed for two hours while a nice woman glued stuff to my head. (If you were wondering, that's not me in the photo. But that's the getup I had on. Could you sleep like that?) At 11:00 it was lights out and my task was to fall asleep with wires, tape, glue, straps, metal boxes and heaven knows what else stuck to my body. I did manage to sleep, but the lady had to sneak in twice and re-glue some of the wires on my head. Then she woke me up at 5:30 AM to do paperwork.

The whole time I was there, I kept thinking how Jen would never be able to do a sleep study. She's so fussy about her sleeping conditions that she wouldn't sleep a wink in a sleep study. And if a stranger woke her up at 5:30 AM to do paperwork I'm pretty sure there'd be bloodshed.