Dear Blog Readers:

I know, I know, I’m late with this post (at least it’s still Friday, at least in my time zone!). But wait ‘til you hear why: I have a new love. Shhhhhh….I haven’t told him it’s love yet.

So I’m writing this blog post, and I’m really into it. It’s Friday night, and I’m in full-on concentration mode. I’m not expecting visitors. I’ve set aside the entire evening to write.

Doorbell drama

Suddenly, the doorbell rings, jarring me out of my altered state.

Okay. Tell the truth. Raise your hand if you believe in ADHD.

I’m going out on a limb here. Honestly, some days I’m embarrassed to tell people I have ADHD. Not because I have it. Because maybe it doesn’t even exist.

I wasn’t always a country girl, but living in the city drove me nuts (OK, that’s redundant, but you know what I mean). It was too much – the lights, the noise, the crowds, everything. It’s a wonder I could cross the street.

In my post, Best Buds for a Chick-A-D-D – Choose Wisely!, I talked about my experiences with making and keeping friends, and the challenges I had. While many, or perhaps even most, of my issues might be shared by both genders, one of my readers commented that,

“I don’t know why people insist that there is such a divergence between the sexes when it is all really an illusion.”

“But you got to have friends, friends, the feeling’s oh so strong”

I used to sing along with this lyric from a song called “Friends” on the Bette Midler album, The Divine Miss M.  Like most women I know, I run to my girlfriends when things go wrong.

From friends to fireworks

Over the years, I’ve formed deep friendships with women. I’ve also destroyed more than a few friendships along the way. The worst endings happened by sudden trainwrecks, fueled by impulsive blurting of some outlandish or hurtful comment I hadn’t meant.

A rare moment away from ADHD interference

Walking with my dog Samantha today, I found myself exceptionally peaceful, my body calm. At such times, the thought arises: I want to spend the next three days quietly observing.

Guess I’m not the only one who’s the last to know about her ADHD. Cheryl, 63, responded to my post Zoë’s Pet Peeves – Late Diagnosis of ADHD, with this comment (excerpted):

“When I told some folks I used to work with that I was testing out meds for ADD, they laughed. Because they already knew. Like you said, like running around with jeans unzipped.”

ADHD, alone, and scared

Shattered, scattered and scared …that’s how I felt when I was first diagnosed. With no local support groups around, and my one ADHD friend at large, I also felt alone.

Support groups for ADHD – doomed to fail?

But let’s face it: support groups for ADHDers wouldn’t work. Think about it – most of us would forget the meeting date. Many of us would get lost on the way to the meeting, and the rest of us would be late! If we managed to get there, we’d be so distracted we wouldn’t be able to focus on what’s going on, or we’d be so impulsive, we’d just keep interrupting each other.

On March 24, 2010, I wrote about my discovery of Google Analytics – a free program that lets ADHDers put in all kinds of procrastination time while tracking statistics from their blog site. Cool.