Day 1

No - not day 1 of a cycle. Those days are over. But I'll get to the meaning of the title in a bit.

So much for my intentions of writing all about our adventures with ADHD and how I felt about it. Though that might change, only time will tell. We have had a few appointments with a psychologist to discuss how we can help Lucy and on Friday we meet with her teacher. Fortunately, right now we don't really see much in the way of a negative impact. In general, she's an active, happy girl who does well in school. But of course we did notice some challenges - hence the assessment and diagnosis. Right now our biggest challenge is to teach her some skills now so that when school or other activities get more demanding she'll be able to handle it. Clearly this will be a work in progress. And, because things are going well right now, we had her stop taking the medication. We realized after a few weeks that it was a gross overreaction given where she is right now.

In other news, I AM taking a new medication. Today was the first day and I'm finding it hard not to feel disappointed that I don't feel suddenly different. Stupid, but true. Anyway, so for some time now, even before we started thinking of having Lucy tested, I wondered if I might not have ADD myself. Once we started looking into having Lucy tested and I started doing more reading on it I became more and more convinced that I should have myself assessed as well. So I called around and searched on the internet and it's hard to find someone who deals with this in adults AND takes any insurance. Given all the other stuff on my plate and the potential cost I just let it drop. But it remained in the back of my mind because I feared it would be incredibly difficult for me to help Lucy if I didn't get this stuff figured out for myself.

Two weeks ago I attended a 3-day leadership training course which included a one-on-one session with a personal coach, who happened to be a psychologist. The course and the session were fantastic and one of the things that came out of my session with the coach was a referral to a psychiatrist and a strong suggestion to deal with this, since she seemed to think I was probably right about having ADD myself. So, money be damned I made an appointment. I've had two appointments with the psychiatrist -- whom I really like -- and left the last one with a prescription for Wellbutrin. I started it today. Taking that pill seemed so momentous this morning. So far all I feel is mildly foggy, which may or may not have anything to do with the medication. Had I actually thought about it, I probably would have realized that things wouldn't turn around immediately, but I didn't really think about it in those terms.

Even though I tend to tell everyone everything, I figured this might be something I should not announce to just anyone. This seems to me to be a pretty good place to get out my thoughts and feelings about all this safely. And to document whether or not it actually helps.