In college, I had to take Eng400:Senior Sem. Each professor taught it differently- Bagby taught it the best-hers was more applicable to real life. Another prof had you write a proposal/grant and that just straight sucked. Stinson (I took it a couple of times-a little sad, I know) required you to come up with a community project and implement it.  When hearing of this, I was actually kind of excited about it. I knew just what I was going to do. I wanted to raise ADD/ADHD awareness in the area and start a CHADD (Children & Adults with ADHD) chapter. At the time, the closest chapter was in Richmond- and I thought it would be beneficial for people in the surrounding counties.  Virginia Beach didnt even have a chapter and I really wanted to be a part of CHADD- as one with ADD and a future educator. ADHD generally has a negative connotation (sp?) and I wanted adults and parents alike to know that it wasnt a bad thing and be able to help eachother out and whatnot. Since I was diagnosed with ADD not long before, was a Special Education major, and planned on staying in the area (Farmville, VA/Prince Edward County) it was right up my ballbark. I was really excited about it and acquired all of the information in order to do so right away.   I presented my AWESOME idea to my professor and she totally downed it. She did not see how it helped the community at all.  I had to come up with something else- since I was so set on my idea, my project ended up being ehh....  

                                         ~~~Fast forward 6 or 7 years~~~

I stopped taking my adderall since it was the summer, got pregnant and was breastfeeding so couldnt take it, wasnt working so decided i didnt need it. the same time i went back to work, i found out i was pregnant again so I couldnt go on it- also had it in my head that I wouldnt ever go back on it. And to make a potentially longish story short, I recently decided that I REALLY need to get in check.  When I'm at work, I feel like I'm ok- things are really busy there. But when I get home, my mind is a jumble- Im off focus and often feel like theres like a haze preventing me from staying on task, I get easily frustrated with Jake and Josh over relatively minor things, and organization? Lets not go there....  I'm realizing that I just may need to go back on my medication and I need to find dif stratgeties to help me with organization and life in general.  

I asked for advice on a mom's group that I'm a part of on facebook and looked up some stuff on CHADD and turns out they formed a chapter in the area a few years ago.  They meet once a month (I missed this months meeting), on top of that - one of the organizers has a lecture series once a month, and then people meet up for informal CHADD meetings at Panera once a month- apparently they have guest speakers and then get into groups to discuss and hang out I spose.   I went to the lecture series meeting last Tuesday- it was on relationships, the speaker breezed through that and we ended up discussing a couple of dif strategies that may help us in day to day life (like putting an alarm on my phone to remind me to switch the laundry over- its so simple, yet i never wouldve thought of it), and just talked.   Including the speaker, it was only 5 of us in that room.  I went there to try to get dif strategies, but you wouldnt believe the amount of weight I felt lifted off of my shoulders just knowing that there are other people out there with the same problems as you, that a lot of people dont really understand.  I came home feeling sooo much better....  I plan on attending the CHADD meetings, lectures, and 'meet ups' regularly.

I found attending just 1 meeting to be beneficial, I'd imagine attending more would be even more beneficial.

So this post was written to pretty much say SUCK IT STINSON! You were WRONG!    =P