How I didn't become a professional bassoonist

Someone in my ADHD forum brought up the topic of ADHD and intelligence and/or doing well in school. My answer got pretty drawn out so I thought I might want to say some things about it here too. Because it is true, smart kids with ADHD fall under the radar of psychologists, teachers, parents. In my experience, a lot of us only get diagnosed much later in life, once we have reached the limits of our coping mechanisms.

I too did really well in school - albeit not socially - and graduated with honours from a school for gifted children. I never had to study for languages, and even in my weak subjects - that would be anything math or science or, well, boring (hello, geography!) - I got by with as little studying as possible and I got by pretty fine.

I played the piano first, then the bassoon. My teachers were tearing at their hair because there was this really talented girl who yet consistently resisted improvement by practice. I hated practicing. I just wanted to play. I'd show up at my teacher's house, grudgingly admitting the lack of practice I'd gotten in during the week past. So we'd just play for fun, duets, because he was a pretty awesome teacher who chose not to berate me for my lack of commitment. But he'd ring his hands in despair every single time because I played well and "imagine how well you'd play if you'd practice," he said. Eventually, the prospect of practicing six hours daily was what made me veer of the professional path - that and it would've meant giving up a lot of other things I loved, like writing. Unfortunately, I stopped playing the bassoon pretty much entirely once I quit school. Everything else had become so much to handle.

In retrospect I realise that graduating was a shock for me, because after school there was no system keeping me in place anymore. I spent two years in regular university, sleeping in, going out, studying whatever caught my fancy. I had a hard time concentrating during lectures and got the most miserable marks of my life. Hell, I cheated on exams I never would've dreamt of cheating on. It's not that I wasn't interested. I just couldn't concentrate either in class or on studying at home. Plus, a lot of university things come in the form of aural input which is simply a disaster for me. Does. Not. Stick.

I switched to a University of Applied Sciences which had more structure, and that eventually got me through to my diploma (a "Magister", which is comparable to something between a BA and and MA) in 4.5 years. Again, horrific marks! And quite a bit of... well... I'm not proud of it.

My therapist told me that in an ironic way my considerably high intelligence completely fucked with my chances of getting diagnosed with ADHD. And I tend to agree, I probably still wouldn't have cracked if my dad hadn't died. I'd still be muddling along at the edge of burn-out and depression, feeling like a failure most days of the week but always scraping by somehow. Usually by the skin of my teeth.

It's not that intelligent people don't have ADHD, it's just that no one notices with us. Under the radar, through the cracks. What teachers, parents, psychologists see is that these people "could do so much better" at anything they do "if they only tried harder". No one has an inkling - least of all the affected themselves - that they're already trying pretty fucking hard, harder than anyone else. It's exhausting and it leads nothing but complete and utter exhaustion, the one that makes you feel like an empty husk.

The funny thing is, had I gotten my diagnosis earlier, maybe when I was still in school, I'd probably be a musician now, sitting in an orchestra with my bassoon, blending in with the crowd. Or maybe I would've been a soloist. Either way I'm sort of happy I'm not. I'm quite content with where the drama of remaining undiagnosed has led me; to writing and telling stories. It didn't cut music out of my life, but going with music might have kept me from writing. And if I pick my bassoon up today I can still play it. I'd just have to practice a bit.

Objects in the rear view mirror....

2011.
2 0 1 1.
Asshole. Friend.
Fucked me up and built me up.
I honestly don't know what to think about this year. Maybe it's time for a pro/con list?


...


OK, I tried making a list, but apparently my life is not list-able. Instead I got this:


I got fired. From a job that could've been done by Grawp the giant.
But getting fired gave me the impetus to finally start being creative full-time.


I started running regularly and felt great about it... but my knee got fucked up and I had to stop doing sports altogether. Still can't run :(


I finally got diagnosed with ADHD and realised that a lot in my life was not my fault. But now instead of feeling crappy because I never managed to get anything done I felt crappy because of all the time I had lost.


I also learned that there are meds that could help me. But some of the meds fucked me up BAD. Like Charlie! But Charlie the elephant pales in comparison to throwing up into a trashcan at Praterstern underground station. Disgusting and humiliating - brought to you by Strattera (tm). Back to Ritalin then. I'm still not sure they're the right ones. However, when they do work, it's magical. I mean, shit is getting done! And instead of being "a person with tons of creative potential" I turn into a proper "creative person".


I finally had the courage to submit a short story to two literary competitions. I didn't get shortlisted for either one though.


I also submitted my first film treatment ever. This time I only barely missed the shortlist and ended up joining the team in a different capacity anyway.


I lost some friends. Because, apparently, 2011 was the year of people being pissed at me but not letting me know this. (Not a mindreader, I am.) To this day I still don't know the reason for one of those people's anger at me.
I made some new friends though.
And re-established contact with some out-of-touch old ones.


I wrote more than I ever did before. I didn't write nearly enough to satisfy me. But I started work on my first film.


I started film school.


I still don't have a paying job. But I feel I'm getting to a point where I could handle one.


My mother is nice to me again. Unfortunately, I think it is because now that I have a diagnosis she thinks I'm damaged goods and that I can't be held responsible for my own actions - and not because she sees her own faults in last year's ordeal. Oh, the irony!


I LEARNED TO SAY 'NO'!


We went to New York.
I FINALLY WENT TO NEW YORK!


I saw Beirut and Tori Amos and Amanda Palmer live.


I gave Neil Gaiman my short stories and didn't get any feedback.


A friend of mine gave basically forced Lee Sheldon to read my script and short stories and I got the best, most useful feedback ever.


I don't want to jinx it but so far NO ONE DIED THIS YEAR!


I realised what exactly it is that I'm exceptionally good at.


I finished therapy.
But most of all I fulfilled the one New Year's resolution I had: I scared the shit out of being scared.






Looking up/back at this I'm drawing the conclusion that 2011 was quite an okay year, all things considered. Definitely better than 2010. And hopefully 2012 will be even better.


What I wish for besides the basic health-no-one-dying stuff:


- Getting the meds thing worked out
- Making a good movie and getting it seen
- Lots of love and great music and good friends and some travelling




edited because I saw this on twitter and found it incredibly wonderful:

taken from http://dreamripples.tumblr.com/post/14900943949

and suddenly everything makes sense

I've had a revelatory moment. The type where the lightbulb comes on over your head. Or when a choir of supposed angels sings a loud and ethereal "naaaaaaaaa!" to the image of you throwing your arms up over your head and gazing skywards with happy tears glistening in the corners of your eyes. A moment of "Eureka!" if you will.

Because two days ago someone cautiously mentioned four little letters to me and that person was a psychiatrist. My new psychiatrist. Who took a lot of time asking me a lot of questions, being generally very nice and seemingly professional. So after about an hour of asking me shit no one ever thought to ask me before he almost whispered (presumably so as not to shock me) those four little letters: ADHD. And it was like someone had finally given me the decoder sheet for my life that shifted everything into a new, much more sense-making position.

The rest of our conversation consisted mostly of me asking things like "So, the fact that I have to concentrate really hard right now to not drift, there's a reason for that?" and him smiling benignly and nodding yes. Years ago I had amateurishly considered ADHD, and even asked my parents whether they ever had me examined in that regard, especially since I was always told how fidgety I had been as a child. But they said they hadn't and not to be stupid and somehow I ended up dropping it. It didn't strike me as very serious especially since back then I mostly exhibited hyperactivity symptoms* - I still fidgeted a lot etc. - but was becoming calmer, and attributed it to the fact that I was leaving puberty behind.

But in the last couple of years other symptoms have been showing up. I grew more impatient, more erratic, more easily distracted, depression and burn out apparently bringing out the worst in me. Finn was getting really annoyed with me because she felt I didn't listen to her, when in all honesty I just felt that it took her way to long to get to the point - she wasn't to blame, I just didn't have the patience for it. And while I was really trying to listen to her my mind went off on tangent after tangent, I was trying hard not to look at anything so I wouldn't get distracted by nearby objects and the following thoughts and ideas.

I get that this is really annoying for her, but I don't actually mean to do that. I actually can't help that my mind sometimes feels like a highway with a myriad of lanes where everything seems to happen at the same time. But now I finally understand why.

I understand
- why I'm such a non sequitur person
- why I have a hard time listening to people who are talking slowly, for lengthy periods of time or saying things that don't interest me enough
- why I struggled so much with the reading I had to do for my thesis
- why I the structure of a University of Applied Sciences worked slightly better for me than regular University
- why I was a very impatient and fidgety kid that never could sit still
- why I have sleeping problems
- why I talk waaaay to much and way too fast for most people
- why I keep misplacing things and forgetting why I just walked into the kitchen or find myself walking around the flat still clutching that packet of sugar for my coffee
- why I could never get organised or grasp the basics of time management and no matter how hard I try chaos takes over soon enough after an attempt at organisation
- why I sometimes lose time doing something I enjoy
- why I almost never finish anything because something else catches my fancy, be it short term or long term things
- why I have such a hard time finishing my writing and have shitloads of half thought out ideas lying around but so few works that are actually done and edited and revised. Hell, I never even reread my exam essays in school because once written I found my own words way too boring to go over them again. I'm lucky that I'm very good at grammar and spelling so I got most of right the first time and editing wasn't necessary for getting good grades in language classes.

But all that is probably just a tiny fraction of my behaviour which has recently become obvious to me.

For example, I always wondered why people kept insisting that coffee was such an immense stimulant, and "Woah, are you sure you want to drink that coffee now? Because it's 7 p.m.!" Coffee always seemed to calm me down. In fact I've developed a habit of drinking coffee when I sit down to write but I'd assumed that was just a habit, a bad habit, a ritual. But I sleep like a baby when I drink a cup of tea in bed while reading at night. Well, it turns out I'm not alone. To ADHD people this makes impeccable sense. It raises our dopamine levels and we have an easier time focusing on one task instead of getting distracted by something shiny. I know that now.

So far, coffee is the only "medication" I'm using, at least for the ADHD. I'm still taking my antidepressants because they seem to be working well with the tiny amounts that I'm currently taking. And in October I'll be back at the doctor's and we'll do a test. Although he said he has pretty much diagnosed me but if I'm interested we can do the quiz. And then we'll talk medication. It seems like there are a ton of options - different kinds of meds, not just Ritalin, and different methods of taking them etc. What is helping me most at the moment is that I have stopped beating myself up about certain things. I still strive to be better and function as well as possible but at least I'm not dissing myself anymore when the Scatterbrain does show up. Take today, for instance:

I woke up and, still in bed, read my emails on my Galaxy tab. My fanfic had gotten a review that among other things proposed I insert more paragraph breaks to make it more readable. Driven by really wanting to do that so that many more people would be able to properly enjoy my story I managed to brush my teeth and take my meds and chinese herbs. I set out a cup for my morning tea and put the electric kettle on and then went to turn on my computer and start editing my story. At 1 pm I wondered where the hell time had gone and I realised that I was really fucking hungry. A further 20 minutes later I finally did get up and went back into the kitchen to find a rather lukewarm kettle and an empty cup. My second attempt at tea was more successful. I carried my breakfast into the living room and turned on a movie to watch while eating. After I'd put the food away I settled down on the couch, still watching the movie, but my attention drifted to the interwebs in all its glory. Merlin knows what I was doing, I can't even remember. Somehow the movie had ended and I was reading fanfiction. I remembered the fanfic I had been reading last night and went to get my Galaxy Tab from the bedroom. But the bed looked cozy so I curled up under the blanket to finish reading the fanfic. Once done I remembered I had wanted to write this blogpost but on my way to the living room I realised I was still in my pyjamas and probably should have a shower before Finn's imminent return home (by that time it was almost 6 o'clock). Post shower I finally made back it to my computer which was still sitting innocently on the couch and now I'm writing this but I have several tabs open in my browser because I had a couple of errant ideas that streaked past me. And I tweeted, and facebooked, and probably did some other stuff but I tried very hard to concentrate on this. Sure, it got done in the end but the fact is that I wanted to write this blog post this morning and it's now 8 o'clock in the evening.

Now, can you imagine what it's like in my brain?
Only two days ago a day like this would've driven me absolutely bonkers. The feeling that I'd gotten nothing done. The lack of control over my life and myself. The big fat "why" hanging over it all. Now that I actually know why I don't beat myself up over it. I can laugh about it. And I will hopefully learn to somewhat counteract it if I have something important that actually needs to get done in a time sensitive manner. I can learn to live with ADHD, take all that imagination and creativity and focus it. And it will be glorious when I finally do :)

But for the foreseeable future: If you meet me in real life and it looks like I might drift forgive me. And talk faster ;)


* I didn't know back then that my liability to inappropriate comments and unfiltered talking was also a symptom of impulsivity and thus of ADHD.

self-doubt & regrets - 2010 edition

I am beginning to feel better. To be honest, I was having a hard time believing this day would ever come. I've been less depressed lately and have figured out a way to put myself to sleep (rescue drops work wonders on me). Also this deep exhaustion seizes control of me a lot less than it used to only a couple of weeks ago. Basically it's a whole new me. I'm nowhere near my old self but then that crazy lady isn't exactly who I should be anyway. I'm beginning to see how other people (used to) perceive me. Apparently a lot of people see me as this super fast, hyper active, hyper performing, constantly on-the-move person. A stark contrast to my self-perception: underachieving mess.

Unfortunately the minus of exhaustion coupled with that lovely opinion I have of myself leads to the return of THE THINKING (= certain doom). It takes place mostly late-night. However, thanks to my friends the rescue drops I now do this half-asleep or in my dreams instead of wide awake. That's some progress, I say.

Sooooo... I've been thinking. About the things in my life that I could've done differently which, if you spell it out, basically means: self doubt and regrets chasing each other in a nice little circle... ad infinitum. What'cha call that? That's right: "Not healthy". But I've accepted it as part of my old self as well as part of my recovery - because I am getting better at this, learning to view things in a positive light et cetera et cetera, I know it's nauseatingly esoteric and I apologise in retrospect and advance.

Since I hit 22 or so I've had an even harder time accepting that my choices have kept me here in crummy Austria while others have been out conquering the world, as I see it. The worst are ex-classmates from school that have gone to New York/L.A./London/pickyourfuckingawesomecity, totally absolutely making it there. It's especially bad when they were so-called frenemies (though we didn't have that lovely label when I was in school, thank you, Gossip Girl). Then the green monster rears it fucking ugly head. I get jealous, more like envious. Is it dumb? Absofuckinglutely. But I've begun to understand that this isn't my especially bad character that's doing this but that it rings true for other people too. Maybe not for you, if you're lucky. But just think of one of your biggest dreams in life - Got it? Good. Now envision it. And now imagine reading on facebook how someone else is living that dream.... ouch. And would you like some salt with your gashing wound? Btw. yes, I do know that people brush up their lives on facebook, but that doesn't mean it'll sting less.

But since I said I was going to be positive:
So I didn't make my dream to go to New York and Be Someone come true - yet.
So I haven't actually been quite the overachiever I imagined myself to be. (My burnout would probably be a lot messier if I had.)
So I don't exactly know where I'm going or am just figuring it out at the age of 26.

But there are good sides to this, very good sides. If I'd lived my life like I thought I would when I was sixteen, I would have missed out on a shitload of awesomeness too:
Biggest of all is I met my wife! I mean, who gets to meet the love of their lives when their 21? Not many people I've known. I do not have to spend years as a serial monogamist looking for my soulmate because I can check that item off the fucking list. High Five!
I have a somewhat stable living situation, not living out of a tiny box in a shared flat or a garconniere and I usually have some money to spend at the end of the months or even the middle if it goddamn pleases me (at least when we're not both momentarily out of work).
And I've worked a variety of different jobs in completely different fields of work. I've worked as a journalist, a phone marketer, an animator at children's parties, as an usher in a musical theatre, as a floor manager in television, an editing assistant, in a PR position (in fact, the only PR position) in a small company, a social media marketer and I'm sure I forgot something. I've had the chance to test myself, to adapt, to learn new things and if that isn't awesome then I really don't know what is.

Now what I need to really get is that all this doesn't mean that I can't still go to New York or wherever the fuck I please and be someone there. It doesn't preclude that I already am someone, right here.

I'd love to hear some opinions on this, know how others deal with these bouts of self doubt. Or do you not have those moments? Please, tell me you have those moments ;)