Monday, July 20, 2009

OCD and ADHD: I Don't Need to Know

I always say that my thoughts don't run in a straight line. I imagine that some people do have linear thought processes, and when they want to write something, deduce something, or do something they start at the beginning and follow a pre-determined set of steps to the end. It seems to me the rest of the world is made up of people who don't mind reading the directions when playing a board game for the first time.

But for me, arriving at a conclusion, solving a problem, or making a decision is more like a game of pick-up-sticks. Seems easy enough--just throw down the sticks and start playing from the middle.

If I'm really driven to find the conclusion, squash the problem, or exact the decision, that process works well. It's what makes me a creative, curious person. But sometimes my mind gets carried off in too many directions. Soon I'm finding sticks in every corner of the room.

Is there something more to this? Could this sometimes frustrating mental disorganization be the latent prints of ADD or ADHD?

A Question without an Answer
A few of my OCD friends have ADD. The therapist who leads my support group specializes in treating OCD and ADD. There are countless ocd bloggers out there who have both disorders, suggesting that they're sometimes comorbid. Do I have ADD, too? It might be a good question, but I don't need to know the answer. Whether or not I have ADD is one uncertainty I'm actually comfortable with.

Problems can be sticky. Calculated analysis doesn't always produce a conclusion. Decisions can go any which way. It helps to be the one person who does things a little differently.

And pick-up-sticks is no fun without the mess.

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