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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Eric and The Career Choice



If I was truly committed to this writing thing I would stop watching television, stop playing stupid waste of time nonsense video games (anything that ends with the suffix –ville) and focus on reading and writing and exercising my brain (and it probably wouldn’t hurt me to exercise my body as well), but I can’t.  Television is so easy and awesome and I don’t want to miss anything (plus it is probably the only thing my wife and I have in common).  Reading is hard (everything distracts me).  Writing is hard (much harder than I thought it would be).  I’m never inspired at convenient times either.  I’ve discovered about myself that just getting the basic ideas down isn’t always enough for me later because I’m not in that same mood when I actually sit down to write.  How does anyone with a job, family, Xbox, and television addiction ever become a writer?  These are all things that I should have gotten around to after I became successful enough to have a quiet place to spend my day writing and not being pestered by employees (at home on my cell phone), coworkers (also, at home on my cell phone), wife, kids, other family members, TV, and pretty much life in general. It’s too late for all of that now, though.
Sometimes I look at my kids and they say (the big one) or do (the little one) amazing things and all I can think is that they are leaching my talent away from me.  That’s probably not how it works though, it is?  They’re just young and they have that thing that I used to have, what’s it called? Oh yeah, imagination.  I guess you just lose that over time as you “grow up” to become an “adult” or whatever.  I don’t want to be an adult; I don’t want to be mature and responsible.  I want to have those sparks of weird creativity that I used to have without overanalyzing everything.  I don’t want to think about whether it’s been done before, if it makes sense, or even if it’s entertaining to anyone besides me.  I feel like my psyche is slipping away from me.  I feel like every day I’m fighting my way back from the precipice of full on depression.
I need to make a change in my life, in my way of thinking, I need to either pursue this thing full on, whether it be good or bad, do it or just give it up and be happy with my lot in life.  I watch these people come to work and they are excited. They’re excited to have a job, excited to be a valued member of this place and society in general, excited to see their coworkers, and excited to just talk about their weekends and whatever’s going on with them outside of here.  I want that.  I want to just be happy and be the best whatever I do here possible, but there’s this idea that’s holding me back.  This tiny flicker in the back of my brain that says that I’m better than this, that I’m better than this place, that I absolutely should not settle on this, but that tiny flicker hasn’t gotten me anything but a deep depression so I need to shut it up.
This was not something I intended to write when I woke up this morning and I don’t have a conclusion at this point. Sorry

Eric Anderson

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Eric and The ADD (or Eric and his Damaged Brain Part III or II)



                I found out that I had ADD when I was 17 (I know, we were a little behind on that); the reason that it took so long is because I lack the hyperactivity usually associated with the ADD.  My mom started reading a lot of books on the subject because she’s a school teacher (maybe that’s why she’s too busy to read my blog).  She started paying closer attention to me and my little brother’s behavior and decided that she should take us to a psychiatrist to get tested (I say tested, we only talked to a dude and he handed us some drugs).  For the past 14 years I’ve heard all the arguments about how ADD is bullshit and Dr.’s and pharmaceutical companies are just trying to make money and lazy parents are just trying to drug their children into being quiet.  Those people piss me off and I want to punch them in the throat (but I would never do that because I’m a nonviolent person).  I will concede that I do believe that it is an overly diagnosed disorder and maybe closer attention needs to be paid to those children to make sure they are getting what is best for them.  My argument for those people however is “do you have it?””do you know what it’s like to live in a brain where it is nearly impossible to focus on something that doesn’t interest you even if your livelihood and your family’s livelihood depend on it?” “No?” “Then shut up!” (sorry about that, I just got really angry for a moment there)  sure, doctors are liars and pharmaceutical companies are evil but when I took Ritalin all I could do was focus on the task at hand, but it affected my creativity so there was a trade off.  That didn’t really matter though because I wasn’t doing anything creative with my life and I needed to do my damn homework.
                Here are some symptoms of ADD that I displayed and continue to display; some of them are more obvious than others.  Unable to focus (let’s call that one obvious), and here’s a list I found online at http://helpguide.org/mental/adhd_add_adult_symptoms.htm (I added the notes)
1.    “zoning out” without realizing it, even in the middle of a conversation. (this happens to me a lot, but I usually realize it and just can’t help myself)
2.    extreme distractibility; wandering attention makes it hard to stay on track. (Duh!)
3.    difficulty paying attention or focusing; such as when reading or listening to others. (I’m sure everyone has this problem, right? Do you know how hard it is to read the same thing 37 times in a row and not retain any of it?  I’m sure you do. And do you know how hard it is to listen to the preacher on Sunday morning without losing track of whatever it is he’s talking about? You do, right?)
4.    struggling to complete tasks, even ones that seem simple. (If a task is boring then yes it’s really hard to complete, problem is that everything is boring to me, even things that interest me tend to lose my attention about half way through or sooner)
5.    tendency to overlook details, leading to errors or incomplete work. (Yes, it’s because I get tired of reading something about a quarter of the way through and generally just say “screw it, it’s good enough”)
6.    poor listening skills; hard time remembering conversations and following directions. (I actually have a pretty awesome long term memory, but following directions can be difficult for me)
7.    poor organizational skills (home, office, desk, or car is extremely messy and cluttered) (Holy Crap! Ask my boss, teachers, mother, wife etc… I can’t organize anything, over the past 2 years I have purchase no less than 16 organizational apps for my phone that I never use.  I buy folders, file cabinets, binders, whatever the stacking trays on my desk are called, calendars, and nothing works…at all…ever…seriously!!!!!)
8.    tendency to procrastinate (I just fell out of my chair laughing, I can’t even begin to explain how bad a problem procrastination is for me so I won’t try until later)
9.    trouble starting and finishing projects (are the people who wrote this list reading my journal)
10. chronic lateness (I am actually quite good at forcing myself to be on time for things by using external motivators [being fired is the main one], but I’m late for everything else.  I worked at Braum’s for 4 years and I was late every day for that whole time [I wonder why they fired me?] because they didn’t enforce the attendance like my current job does and I’ve never been on time to church)
11. frequently forgetting appointments, commitments, and deadlines (No, yes, and definitely)
12. constantly losing or misplacing things (keys, wallet, phone, documents, bills) (I have handled this problem by keeping all of my important items in the same place every day so that when I wake up in the morning I can just grab everything I need for work and go.  I used to just throw things places and would forget them every day)
13. underestimating the time it will take you to complete tasks (YES)
14. frequently interrupt others or talk over them (I don’t do this so much on account of the social anxiety and fear of humans)
15. have poor self-control (I’m 350 lbs. and in debt up to my eyeballs, what do you think?)
16. blurt out thoughts that are rude or inappropriate without thinking (this is the thing that gets me in more trouble than I care to admit)
17. have addictive tendencies (I’m going to have to point back at the 350lbs thing)
18. act recklessly or spontaneously without regard for consequences (That really just depends on my mood, but if I get overly excited of upset I have been known to make an ass of myself)
19. have trouble behaving in socially appropriate ways (such as sitting still during a long meeting) (I’m pretty okay with sitting still and pretending to pay attention, I’m just not paying attention at all, no matter how hard I try to focus my mind will always drift [and holy crap is it embarrassing when they ask me a question and I have no idea what they are talking about])
20. sense of underachievement (CHECK!)
21. doesn’t deal well with frustration (does anybody? Because I don’t…not at all)
22. easily flustered and stressed out (Of Course)
23. irritability or mood swings (Ask my wife, parents, coworkers, bosses, employees, teachers, and anyone else who has had the pleasure of meeting me)
24. trouble staying motivated (Are these symptoms getting repetitive?)(Motivation is the thing that I lack the most)
25. hypersensitivity to criticism (I don’t know if I can accurately explain how on the nose that is)
26. short, often explosive, temper (I think I’ve gotten better about this one, I feel like I’m more in control of my temper than I used to be, but I do relate to this one)
27. low self-esteem and sense of insecurity (my self-esteem is lower and I’m more insecure than a teenage girl)

                Okay, that exercise might have seemed kind of pointless and a little too repetitive but I needed to explain what it’s like in my brain (also, I should mention and I don’t know why but I added the numbers so if you going looking for the list on the hyperlink I provided it will look differently but the info is all there plus some that helps explain some myths about adult ADD…which is a real thing).  I understand that everyone reading this will probably relate to some of these symptoms some of the time, but I feel most of them the majority of the time and it sucks…or does it.  I mentioned that I’ve been on drugs for this and they helped me immensely to fit into society the way that I am supposed to fit, but they also killed my daydreaming and creativity.  My creativity seems to me to be a different than the useful kind that helps you to design building (my middle brother), or make art (also my middle brother), it just makes me see the world in a funnier way that is entertaining to me and a few other people I’ve been friends with over the years, but is almost impossible to do anything with that will help me contribute to society.  So I have to get a job and try to blend with the normies (is that how you would spell that?).  I want to do something with this writing thing but it’s hard with all of the distractions in my life (wife, kids, employees, etc…).  It is almost impossible for me to write at home without the radio blasting so that I can pretend that I’m the only one here.
                The point that I’m trying to get to, and failing miserably, is that I don’t necessarily think that this ADD is a bad thing.  I believe that maybe God made me this way on purpose and I need to find a way to make it work within this society that we live in or I don’t know screw those guys I guess, except those guys have the money that I need to survive so I take that back. I did a lot of research (by a lot I mean I half read a few articles on the internet and tried to remember what the doctors and my mom told me when I was younger) for this post, I’ve been planning it for months.  I’m not happy with how it turned out entirely but I can’t keep messing with it because I need to move on.
                One of the symptoms that I don’t think it mentioned is my inability to let anything go no matter how small or stupid it is or how little the rest of the planet cares about it.  That might be a symptom of my undiagnosed autism/ Asperger’s but I guess that’s a whole other post or not we’ll see.  During my research I read a study that said that sometimes people are diagnosed with ADD when they are actually mentally retarded so that’s something I might want to look into considering in my early years of elementary school I took an achievement test that actually said I was retarded (I’ve since taken many many more tests that disagree, but that thoughts always been in the back of my possibly retarded brain)

Eric Anderson

P.S. In case you don’t want to visit that website here’s something I found interesting for all of the haters out there
You don’t have to be hyperactive to have ADD / ADHD
Adults with ADD/ADHD are much less likely to be hyperactive than their younger counterparts. Only a small slice of adults with ADD/ADHD, in fact, suffer from prominent symptoms of hyperactivity. Remember that names can be deceiving and you may very well have ADD/ADHD if you have one or more of the symptoms above—even if you lack hyperactivity.
Myths and Facts about ADD / ADHD in Adults
MYTH: ADD/ADHD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD/ADHD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.
FACT: ADD/ADHD looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.
MYTH: Everybody has the symptoms of ADD/ADHD, and anyone with adequate intelligence can overcome these difficulties.
FACT: ADD/ADHD affects persons of all levels of intelligence. And although everyone sometimes has symptoms of ADD/ADHD, only those with chronic impairments from these symptoms warrant an ADD/ADHD diagnosis.
MYTH: Someone can’t have ADD/ADHD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.
FACT: A person with ADD/ADHD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people. ADD/ADHD usually overlaps with other disorders.
MYTH: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as a child, you can’t have it as an adult.
FACT: Many adults struggle all their lives with unrecognized ADD/ADHD impairments. They haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties, like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to usual treatment.
Source: Dr. Thomas E. Brown, Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults

P.P.S. this is the end of my damaged brain trilogy or the beginning because I don’t know what order you read them in.  I hope you have been enlightened or at least entertained and if not then what am I supposed to do about it?

Monday, January 9, 2012

Eric and The Company of Men


            People keep telling me that I need to spend more time with men and that I need positive male influences to teach me how to be better at being a Godly man who is the spiritual leader of his family and all that.  Here’s the thing, I don’t like men very much of all the people that piss me off in the world most of them are men.  And it’s probably because of where I live there aren’t the right kind of men around for me to hang out with but that’s just how I see things in this small horrible town that I live in.  I don’t have anything in common with men, I don’t like cars, Nascar, wrestling, sports, shooting harmless animals (not that I have a problem with that, because God know I’ll eat the hell out of a steak, it’s just not the environment I like to be in).  I don’t like racism (this is Texas so it’s everywhere), I mentioned that I don’t like sports before (shocker) but let’s talk about the biggest sport for a second.  I hate football; it is the stupidest thing that has ever been invented in the history of things.  Except for maybe war and Howard the Duck (don’t act like you don’t remember).
Do you know how dumb it is to intentionally run into another running person who is running towards you? That can’t be good for anything inside of you.  Children should not be allowed to play it, with all of the studies out there now (by now I mean that this is a fairly recent discovery, see the P.P.P.S.) that talk about the long term side effects to getting hit in the head when you’re a child playing football, the parents and school administrators and coaches should all be arrested for child abuse (okay, maybe not arrested, but at least sternly talked to).  I don’t mine full grown adults killing themselves for millions of dollars out on a nationally televised football field (they deserve what they get), but the fact that it is still legal to let our children do these things to themselves and the fact that we encourage it so much is truly horrible.  We lift these young impressionable minds up to be “heroes” and we treat them like they are “soldiers” out on a battlefield just because they can run around on a field and hurt one another while we pretty much ignore the kids who like to read, learn and be artistic in any way at all.  Not only do we ignore these children we let the football players beat them up and pick on them constantly (high school was hard for me).
Now I know that the argument will be that everything is bad for something and that is true.  There are tons and tons of extremely dangerous retarded things that we all do on a regular basis, but this one just doesn’t make any sense.  Breaking bones is one thing but our brains are crazy fragile and this is dumb.  I keep seeing things about how our body is a temple and that the good Christian thing to do is take care of it (I’m obviously the worst about this because I’ve absolutely destroyed my temple, but that doesn’t make giving yourself a concussion okay)  Why can’t they just play soccer?  You don’t even want to hear what I have to say about the funding issues.  So I’ll stay away from that as it’s not the point of this particular rant.
            Now that that’s been said, let’s talk about the things I do like: most nerdy stuff, video games, science (although I’m not that good at it), technology, music, photography, movies, TV, books, comics, comedy, etc… mostly things that most men, at least around here, don’t give a rat’s ass about.  I don’t know how to relate with other men.  Every time I see a guy I don’t really know that well they’ll ask “so where you workin’ now?” as if that’s the most important thing in my life.  I don’t want to talk about my job I want to talk about the new batman or star trek movie.  I want to talk about the newest death cab for cutie album or how the scientist over at CERN might finally find the Higgs-Boson this year (again, something that’s very hard for me to understand but fascinates me none the less).  I want to talk about the walking dead or how the series finale of lost disappointed me more than I let on but it didn’t sour me on the whole series (and after weeks of reviewing it over and over in my head I grew to appreciate it) because it was truly one of the greatest most think inducing television shows that I’ve ever seen in my entire life (nothing ever made my brain try so hard to figure out what the crap was going on like lost did). I want to talk about how portal 2 has changed the way that I look at the world of gaming and how it’s the awesomest and funniest thing that I have ever experienced in my life.   I want to talk about battlestar galactica or doctor who or the elder scrolls, but I think you’re getting the point.  There are too many references to cram into this thing.
            Basically, I don’t get men and men don’t get me and I’m totally okay with that it just makes it hard for me to have any positive role models in my life.

Eric Anderson

P.S. I’m sorry that I hate football (I’m not really sorry that I hate football)

P.P.S. I’m sorry that I lied in the P.S.

P.P.P.S. in case you think that I’m making this stuff up here’s one of a million things talking about it http://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20100830/sports-related-concussions-on-the-rise-in-kids and you can google the rest.