Wife Mother Runner anxiety Archives

My ADHD Journey Day 1

January 26, 2021

My ADHD journey has been a bumpy one. Especially in the past several years. I have always been a little messy, always busy, unable to sit still for a long period of time, and someone who needs to make a list or two. But this has intensified over the last few years. The pandemic didn’t help make it any easier either.

Monday was the day I finally got to meet with a doctor who is going to help me get control of my brain back!

What is ADHD

When I hear of ADHD, I immediately think of a child in school who can’t sit still, scooches around in their seat and is a disruption to the other kids in class. Several things are wrong with this generalized assumption. It’s not just in kids, they aren’t always a disruption to others, and sometimes they can sit still.

There’s also adult onset ADHD; but many times the hyperactive element isn’t there. I don’t necessarily have that issue; but I do have ADD. Like I said earlier, I’ve always had some element of it where I will start things and not complete them 100%. For me that usually involved crafting projects, reading books, laundry, the dishes, my closet redesign… so many things.

One of the questions I asked the doctor was if my brain will ever relax? The answer was hopeful. He said that medication can help to eliminate some of the anxiety that is going on, which will take me out of fight or flight mode so then I can eventually have more clarity.

How ADHD Affects Me

Have you ever walked into a room and forgot why you walked in there in the first place? My short term memory has been affected the most with my ADD. If I don’t write something down that is important, I will lose the thought and sometimes not get it back. In meetings, I need to take good notes so I can remember what was discussed.

If I am at the grocery store and you call me to tell me to pick something up, I will ask you to text it to me because as soon as we hang up the phone, I’ll see something else and the distraction will cause me to forget why I was at the store in the first place.

I wish I had the ability to sit in a chair on the deck, with and adult beverage in my hand and not move for at least 30 minutes. That is very, very hard for me to do. I always need to jump up and “take care of something real quick”, or just start something so it can run in the background while I sit and “relax”. It’s not easy for me to relax.

My mind is racing 100 miles per minute. I constantly have things that I want or need to get done nagging at me. Thank God we can open multiple tabs in our browser windows! I will typically had a thought to order something on amazon, open a new tab, think of something else as I was about to type in amazon.com and end up with 3-4 other tabs open to address the other thoughts popping into my head as well.

What My ADHD Journey Will Look Like

Medication

I will be medicated – yay! This comes as a relief to me because I knew I couldn’t do this alone without medication. I’ve tried for too long and was suffering. We discussed a few options; but for now the decision was to start a daily medication call Wellbutrin. We discussed the use of a common drug used for ADD called Adderall; but my doctor feels this approach will work best for me.

There are certain criteria that need to be taken into consideration when selecting a medication to manage ADHD. In my case, I have a lot of night terrors, so if he were to prescribe Adderall to me, it may make those night terrors worse. It’s important for your doctor to get to know you and ask you specific questions related to your health and medical history to know the best medication approach to take with you.

As always, I like to research what I will be taking before taking something so I spent some time reading up on Wellbutrin. It is primarily used to manage major depression and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). The science behind the medication is how the medication works with the brain’s neurons. If your brain’s neurons can keep norepinephrine and dopamine available to the neurons longer, it helps improve concentration, focus, and other ADHD symptoms.

Medical History

It’s important that your doctor get a thorough medical history about you, prior to prescribing you a medication. With my anxiety, he also didn’t want to make the anxiety ramp up more by being on a stimulant like Adderall. When you have ADHD, you typically have anxiety. The two go hand in hand. When the anxiety level is increased, your cognitive functions decrease.

The way it was explained to me is, if you were being chased by a lion, your brain turns off all unnecessary functions at the time, to tell your body to start running, increase your heart rate and send energy to the areas of your body to allow you to run fast so you can save your life from the lion chasing you. If you have an anxiety disorder, your symptoms may be so severe that they affect your ability to work, concentrate, enjoy life, or get motivated to go about your daily activities.

This happens to me and it makes me very frustrated. My biggest struggle is not about staying on task; but working up to doing a task. Once I am engaged in a project, I tend to be hyper focused on it and will sometimes work straight through until I am at a point where I can safely stop and won’t be confused where I left off.

Do You Have ADHD?

I think many of us live with some level of ADHD or ADD thanks to cell phones, social media, emails and texts that can find their way to us at any hour of the day via notifications. However, you may need to try things that will work for you such as turning those notifications off.

Living during a pandemic will also cause anxiety to ramp up, which can also cause ADHD to become more bothersome. That’s what was happening to me so I was just trying to live with it. But it came to a point where I just couldn’t anymore. The forgetfulness and the brain fog and disconnect were just getting to be too overwhelming.

You can go through online checklists to determine if you have ADHD; but it’s important to see a doctor to be evaluated for it. I used to joke that I had it; but I really think my dad has it and I’m a clone of my father! Little piles everywhere. I need to visually see my items around me. If I have important things to do they need to be front and center.

What’s Next For My ADHD Journey?

It’s my first day of medicine so far and I was able to finish a blog post within one day. In my opinion, that’s huge. My doctor told me that if the medicine is right for me, I’ll notice it within the first 72 hours of taking it that it is NOT right for me. Wellbutrin is also a drug with the least amount of side effects. It will not cause weight gain or weight loss, so that’s also a relief to me. I don’t want to work so hard at my fitness and weight goals, only to come up against a side effect that will make it hard to lose weight.

I’m documenting my journey with ADHD on my Facebook and Instagram pages via stories and reels, so come on over and check out my progress! I hope to also keep a log of it on my blog so I can also have it written out as a diary of my experience to look back on one day.

How To Handle Coronavirus As A Family

March 12, 2020

As this week’s news ramped up about the Coronavirus, so did tensions around the world. Schools are closing and extending spring break, some to clean, and some to manage the outbreak. I have some suggestions for how to handle coronavirus as a family.

Be Open To Learn

I got a lot of backlash on social media on Wednesday because of a comment I made on my Facebook page that “if my kids schools are closed, I’d love to rent an RV and take them across the country”. The comment I made was just a hypothetical situation. I was just talking out loud about how I would want to make a positive situation out of a negative situation. How I would want to give my kids an education via an outdoor environment.

I was called ignorant and considered irresponsible for making such a statement. At first my feelings were a little hurt. But then I realized that people are reacting out of emotion. One of the people who made a statement lives in Italy. She has been quarantined for several weeks. Her children are school age; but they didn’t have a plan in place for their schooling needs. I think they are just now doing some online classes.

During stressful times, people deal with stress in several ways, some make jokes, some lash out, some stay quiet. I’d like to just ask people to be kind to one another during this hard time. Everyone handles stress differently; but I still believe in the golden rule, “treat others how you would like to be treated yourself.”

On Wednesday night the President of the United States addressed the country and what will be done to protect the US citizens. I felt that it was important for my children to watch the address so we could talk about it as a family. I wanted to know what was being said at school and then compare that to what we learned from the Presidential address.

Basic Hygiene

As I write this, our schools are still currently open. Two big points we are telling our children who are 11 and 12 is

Wash their hands frequently with soap and hot water
DO NOT TOUCH their face
Sleep. Believe it or not it’s still important to get your sleep so you can remain healthy.
Eat healthy. Yes, it’s important to eat your green things every day. I don’t know what the future holds in terms of having access to groceries and fresh produce; but if you can, please be sure to get some. Make some soups ahead of time and freeze them.

Other basic common sense tips are to cover their mouth and nose with their sleeve if they cough or sneeze and then wash their hands again. It’s the beginning of allergy season where we live so there may be coughing and sneezing related to that as well. So it’s important to use soap and water in addition to any hand sanitizers.

We are also recommending they clean and disinfect their phones often. They don’t bring their phones outside the home; when they come home they are touching them along with their other electronics. So we are being diligent about cleaning our phones.

Handling Anxiety

As I said, tensions are high right now. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to make sure we talked about this as a family at dinner last night. Then we watched the speech from the President.

If your family is feeling anxiety from the latest news or what they are hearing from schools, get the information for them to help answer their questions. You can visit the CDC and World Health Organization web sites for the most current and up-to-date information.

When something big happens, we are overloaded with information, some good, some bad. Yesterday was one of those days. I was at a client site and there were cancellations of trade shows and events left and right. It’s very disruptive to an every day schedule. Therefore, causing additional stress on top of a normal workload.

Some ways you can manage your own anxiety could be by following my suggestions below:

Get outside and take a walk. Get some fresh air and help reset yourself. Remove yourself from your desk and the emails for a little bit.
If you normally work out, continue to do so. You may not feel the motivation to work out. Sometimes the hardest part is changing into your workout clothes. Once you do, you are one step closer to reaching your goal. The workout will release endorphins and help lift your mood.
If you feel like you have nervous energy, use that to your benefit. Do you have a pile of papers on your desk you have been ignoring to clean up? Tackle that pile now. You’ll feel productive and see your progress from doing something with your hands.

Boredom Busters

If your school or work is closing and you are asked to stay home, I have some ideas to help you manage the boredom. Where we live, the weather is getting nicer out, so despite being at home, I’d like to use this opportunity to do some things outside as a family.

Start a garden. We like to start our vegetable and flower garden by seed. Each spring we use soil pods and our indoor greenhouse and grow our plants from seed.
Get outdoors. Just because you are at home doesn’t mean you can’t do things outdoors. We have the farm up the street from us. If the kids don’t have school, I plan on spending more time up at the farm. We will talk to our farmer friend Jeff and see what we can do for some hands-on help for him. It’s chick season now, so we can help Jeff take care of his new batch of chicks. I also want to incorporate some outdoor learning with the kids.

Cook together. Why not take this time to do some homeschooling at a different level. Teach your kids how to bake or cook. I bet everyone has a few boxes of cake mix in the house. Take some of the everyday activities you do and use the time to teach your kids how to manage a home. Do this with age appropriate tasks of course.
Binge Watch. Yes, I said it. Sometimes it’s ok to allow yourself to watch some mindless television. Streaming shows can sometimes help take your mind off the current situation and allow your brain to rest from the outside stresses. Do it as a family or allow everyone to have some downtime to hang in their own space for a bit.

Find The Positive In A Negative Environment

This is rough on everyone. When I drove my son to school today I used the time to share with him how many times, inventions and good things can come out of a bad situation. I encouraged Kevin to think about how something good can come out of something bad. I’m sure new products will come out in the future because of this outbreak of a virus.

What I plan to take from this is:

Embrace the family time. There may be some unplanned family time coming up. I still have my business to maintain; and the children will have to manage their schoolwork in a different working environment. This is something different for them. But I am going to remind myself to be patient.
Tackle projects together. Most families have projects that have been put off for a rainy day. Take this time to tackle those projects, and get the kids involved if possible.
Find a way that you can help others in your community virtually. If you can’t go out and help with your hands in public, find other ways to assist those in need. If there are elderly people who live alone at home; get their phone numbers to check on them. Ask your community center how you may be a help to them while you and they may be home-bound.

Are You Feeling Anxious About The Coronavirus?

Do you have any advice to share on how you and your family are handling all of these current changes? I’d love to hear what you are doing to help work through these stressful times. Leave a comment below.

How Essential Oils Are Helping My Family

November 27, 2016

Lately my daughter has been struggling with separation anxiety, especially after long weekends. To help her get through these times I have been applying essential oils to her prior to breakfast to ease her butterflies so she can eat.

She had separation anxiety when she was in preschool. I would drop her off in the morning and my father would pick her up. There were a lot of tears, but my dad really helped her work through this challenging time. He taught her that after sad comes happy. She outgrew this phase and went off to kindergarten and first grade with no issues. I was so excited. But then something happened this year. One morning I had to go into work earlier and I couldn’t be there to put her on the bus myself. This change set her off on a tailspin. I got a call later that day from the school psychologist. She told me Adrienne was in tears. I spoke to Adrienne on the phone and helped calm her down. But this started a new case of anxiety for her for the past few weeks any time there is a change or she needs to leave me.

However, there is good news. Now that we know how this anxiety affected her in the past and what tools I have to work with; we have a plan. I am also armed with essential oils that have also been a big help during these times for both me and her. To begin her day we start with some grounding oils and uplifting oils such as Balance and Citrus Bliss, along with a little snuggle time in bed before she has her breakfast. This puts her in a better mood which enables her to eat breakfast. When she doesn’t eat her breakfast, that sets her up for a more difficult day.

After she eats and gets dressed I help her with her hair and then I have found that giving her a scarf of mine with a little perfume on it has been helpful. This allows her to smell it during the day and helps her to relax. I also gave her a bracelet to wear so that when she looks down on her arm she is reminded of me and it can give her the peace of mind she needs.

When she is at school she knows that she has plenty of resources there to help her. Her teacher has been tremendous in keeping me in the loop and the school psychologist is also a great place for her to go should she need to talk about her feelings. When my son had trouble with this in kindergarten, the school psychologist helped us teach him how to express himself by drawing out his feelings.

For Adrienne, it’s Mondays and any days following a long break from school that she had the hardest time with. When Sunday evening rolls around and she starts to complain that the weekend is ending, I immediately try to refocus her onto another topic or begin working towards finding a positive element to the next day. We start out with choosing an outfit for the next day or maybe a new pair of earrings. It also helps her to draw pictures of what she did on the weekend to help her shift her attention from the negative and move toward the positive. We all go through the same thing as adults and I told her that I also feel the same way she does because we are a very close family and to be honest, we do lots of fun things most of the time!

One of my favorite podcasts had a great episode about essential oils If you want to learn more about them and the different types that are available check it out!

Tag: anxiety