Shiny Thing: ADD T-Shirt

My husband and I have matching versions of this shirt.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh at it. :-)

The Double ADD Relationship: Why It Can Work

I have ADD, and so does my husband.

What I have found this means for us is that none of the expert advice or standard conversations about ADD and relationships apply to us. All the books, articles, forum chats, stories, rants and related tales from couple's counseling I've ever seen deal mostly with the challenges of an ADD partner and a non-ADD partner figuring out how to reconcile their differences and come to terms with the challenges of the relationship. Most commonly, it seems, the challenges of a relationship for someone with ADD come from the basic caring=instant results misunderstanding we all know too well...you know, where someone close to you assumes that if you actually CARED about their feelings and circumstances, you'd be able to keep a job/get organized/remember birthdays/focus during a conversation, etc.

Pesticide Exposure and ADHD

This is a little over a year old, but it's still interesting: Study links pesticide exposure and higher rates of ADHD.

Naturally, this is going to be one of those cases where correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation, but who knows? I don't think it's crazy to wonder if maybe a bunch of nasty poisons might just have an adverse effect on the ability of our systems to operate correctly.

Gotta love this bit:

"Environmental Protection Agency regulations have eliminated most residential uses for the pesticides (including lawn care and termite extermination), so the largest source of exposure for children is believed to be food, especially commercially grown produce."

In other words? You can't use it on your lawns, it's too toxic. Eating it, though? A-ok. *facepalms*

ADHD and Stress Repression

Lately, I find myself cursed with a variety of stress-related physical ailments. The worst of these is muscle tension, a problem that almost every person with ADHD can relate to.

I do a lot to keep it under control. Yoga, exercise, hot and cold compresses, massage, meditation...but I recently found myself spending about two weeks battling a bout of tension so severe, all my best coping skills, plus regular doses of ibuprofen, were only enough to take the edge off (and even then, only sometimes).

What's been really interesting to me about this event (albeit, also harrowing) is that it was quite clearly a physical outcropping of long-repressed emotional distress. I say this because I soon discovered how readily an honest, raw expression of emotion - of the type I've learned to avoid - would give me some relief from the pain. Sometimes it was crying, sometimes just talking through something with someone, and sometimes it required a good bout of yelling.