My adventures in ADD Bipolar 2 OCD and PTSD 24 hours post diagnosis

24 hours post diagnosis.

This morning I had grand plans of waking up early and really getting into today.

I had a late start (Well, early for me. 8:30 am wake up). Not to be deterred from my original goal, I took charge and began getting ready for the day.

I am supposed to avoid a lot of caffeine. Not an easy task for a guy that drinks a LARGE iced coffee with 2 shots of espresso in it. I ordered my coffee sans the shots.

The 2 medications I have been prescribed are Lamictal (Bipolar 2) and Vyvanse (ADD). I was informed it could take a few weeks for everything to start working.

WRONG!

My resting heart rate for the last 5 years has been 66-72 bpm. An hour after taking the meds, my heart rate was at 102bmp. I am experiencing clarity in my thought process and I am very excited by this. I am also in less control of my emotions as I am very regretful for not doing this sooner. I keep getting goosebumps when I start and FINISH chores. I believe I am on a pink cloud and this will fade eventually. Although, I must admit, it feels damn good being, “normal!”

I have begun monitoring my heart rate every hour. It has kept me on task for finishing chores around the house. I think this will be one of my coping mechanisms as it seems to keep me busy enough to keep going on my list

I have also noticed I am a bit more forgetful and have a slight problem spelling (That has been the most interesting part). I am more aware of my appearance and this is something that I would not have thought would happen.

My thoughts? This is the best birthday present I could have given myself.

With the encouraging comments I received on my last ADD post, I wish to thank you all for your support. YOU have helped me immensely! My family has also stepped up and they have really helped  me. I never knew how much my family cared until I, “broke” this news too them. I am in AWE!

Filed under: Uncategorized , ADD, ADHD, adult add, Bipolar, Bipolar 2, hyperactivity, hyperative, lamictal, PTSD, ritalin, vyvanse

My experience with ADD ADHD Hyperactivity and being Bipolar

A peek inside my mind, for those that wanted it.

This will not be pretty, I assure you.

I was 5  years old (1979) when I was originally diagnosed as, “Hyperactive.”

I received many years of tests and medication for this, “medical term.” The years of Ritalin and many other drugs I was on were a time I do not look back upon with warm thoughts.

At the age of 11, my father died from a massive coronary. His heart literally exploded. He was 33.

When I was 12, I decided to stop the medication and my family agreed to let me stop. I had never second guessed that decision, until today.

I have tried explaining how I see things too people in the past. I seem to out think everyone when it comes to many subjects and I get labeled, “genius.” They are actually very wrong, you see, I have roughly 200 (?) thoughts going through my mind at any given moment. I have gotten used to it over the years. IQ tests are a breeze when you can recall information that is already going through your mind.

Because of the monumental amount of information passing through my mind, I am able to over analyze situations and  blow conversations into oblivion when a subject interests me or when I focus in on it. That is also another part of this, you see, I may not be interested in something yet I will possess enough knowledge on a subject that I will even make experts on a subject take a step back and reevaluate their stance on a subject.

I was recently talking to my wife and trying to explain exactly how my mind works. She, by the way is a genius and can put together, “logical” arguments that usually lose (unfortunately) to my circular and sideways logic (at least, that is the way I see it).

I had avoided being re-diagnosed all these years. I figured I had, “out grown” my, “hyperactivity.”

NOPE!

Now days, they have new terms for old maladies.

ADD, ADHD and Bipolar.

WHOA! You mean to tell me, I am days away from being 35 years old and my, “hyperactivity” is catching up with me once again?

“Focusing in” on something may be very easy for most people. For me, it is like having a television on, with 200 channels all going at the same time and understanding each and every one of them. When someone comes in the room and says, “What are you watching?”  I reply with, “Yes.” I think this is funny and those around me do not get the joke.

This has been a normal state of affairs for me for my entire adult life.

My wife has seen what happens when I focus on something. I am able to tackle great odds when I do. The thought that I can be focused all the time…

Scares me to no end.

I know this is an irrational fear. I even know that I will benefit vastly from being able to focus. I am most afraid of losing, “ME.” As I am right now, I am able to be freely creative in my thoughts. I am worried that if I follow the medical advice I will likely get today, that I will lose that edge.

Today, I will be going to an appointment to find out if I indeed still suffer from, “Hyperactivity” and finding out if I should consider doing anything about it.

Tomorrow… I will be 35.

This will be an ongoing topic as I detail what happens from my perspective…

Unless I scrap the advice I get from the, “Medical professionals.”

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

UPDATE:

Being that I finished this post only hours before my appointment, I thought it only fair to update my progress…

Diagnosis: ADD/Bipolar 2/OCD*/PTSD*.

I was prescribed medication for these maladies. I must admit… I could have guessed at the OCD, but the PTSD took me totally off guard. That term in many usages relates mainly to combat veterans, of which, I am not.

*These were only acute forms, potentially, not worth mentioning but it was part of the diagnosis.

I guess I did indeed out grow my Hyperactivity! Now I get to take a long look at whether or not to treat the illness, or, ignore it.

UPDATE:

Post Diagnosis;

http://fredwgarrettiii.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/my-adventures-in-add-bipolar-2-ocd-and-ptsd-24-hours-post-diagnosis/

Filed under: MY LIFE , ADD, ADD and me, ADHD, adult add, adult adhd, Bipolar, Bipolar 2, hyperactivity, hyperative, mental health, OCD, PTSD, ritalin

Depeche Mode – Wrong

Depeche Mode – Wrong

I embraced this song when I first heard it on the radio simply because it had a, “catchy beat.”

Once I found out it was from one of the bands I listened to in high school, I was enamored. It has joined the ranks of favorites on my iPod.

Now that I have seen the actual lyrics, I am even more impressed with the song.

I watched the video today, and was a little confused by it. Reading the lyrics, it seemed as though the song is about someone that is Bipolar or has ADD/ADHD. Watching the video it looks more like someone that is trapped in a Saw like situation.

What are your thoughts?

Here is a link to a version of the video with the lyrics on the right side of the panel.

Filed under: Review , depeche mode, music, rock band, rock bands, wrong

(UPDATED!) @PerezHilton vs. @iamtherealwill twitter flame war

OK, I was prompted to blog, again, by something I saw on Twitter…

@PerezHilton vs. @iamtherealwill

The following is a good summary of what happened;

B-Side Blog

Violence stemming from written word.

I do not want to be the bearer of bad news too, “Perez Hilton” but, what did you think was going to happen?

SERIOUSLY!

When my son called me, one day a few years back, very upset with the death of his favorite television personality (Steve Irwin)  in a, “freak” accident. I offered my condolences and then proceeded to look the guy up on-line.

What did I find?

THE CROCODILE HUNTER. This guy grabs WILD animals and pulls them from their natural habitat to, “teach” people about them. Animals able to kill him, should he break his concentration for even a moment.

I had to call my son that very day and explain to him that, while I was sorry he had lost his favorite television personality, this guy obviously knew what he was getting into. MOST people do not walk around grabbing poisonous snakes and then proceed to walk around with them. Let alone grabbing WILD creatures and acting like they are docile.

Think about what happens when a bee flies around you. Do you grab it, and take it to a flower and let it go? Or try and shoo it away or run in a crazy fashion to escape it?

Written words and reactions…

Anyone ever hear of a document titled the Declaration of Independence?

How many people have DIED because of that particular document?

How many people die due to religious reasons, and most of those reasons are detailed in… WRITTEN WORD.

Writing is one of the MOST powerful forms of expression there is. It can and does wage WAR against nations. Relationships are gained, lost and saved through written word. Massive companies can lose or gain money and power based on written word… Just ask Steve Jobs.

If my point is not clear as of yet…

The pen IS mightier than the sword although a CCW is always a good thing for any writer too look into.

The world is not all rainbows and unicorns my friends.

UPDATE:

A strange social networking/blogging nightmare happened to @perezhilton last night. He hurriedly wrote a blog about the heart attack of Michael Jackson being potentially faked.

See; http://twitpic.com/8et2f.

OOPS… He did die.

Now, as if making a mistake isn’t bad enough. Remember that thing I said about written word?

@perezhilton went and picked up a new fan. A very vulgar one at that. Posting his address phone number acting like a schoolyard bully.The amount of obscenities frothing from his account alone will likely get his account banned.

I will not be posting his tweets, But you are welcome to view them @ http://twitter.com/FoxxFiles, I highly doubt this account will be active for too long as the amount of violations I have seen occur. What is interesting about this person(s) is they attack the very people they need to help further their cause.

Filed under: Internet , #fuckfred, black eyed peas, celebrity gossip, celebrity news, foxxfiles, iamtherealwill, perez hilton, perezhilton, twitter flame war, twitter twouble, twitter-celebs, updated, web 2.0

@trent_reznor vs @fredgarrett custom t-shirts

I joked about it online with a few folks.

#fuckfred

Then someone approached me with a VERY serious offer and a great looking website for something JUST like this.

The shirts are VERY good quality and the customer service is AMAZING!

I am thinking of buying Trent Reznors name on www.leapfish.com to advertise these. (Thoughts?)

Check out the site;

http://bit.ly/RABMv

Please feel free too tweet or promote this into oblivion!

It can also be viewed here;

http://fredwgarrettiii.slightlysick.com/home

Their homepage is hilarious as well…

UPDATE:

I was going to buy Trent Reznors name on leapfish.com to advertise the blog, then I did some research and found that his name was not searched nearly as much as the term I ended up buying;

http://bit.ly/15Oft4

I own that term FOR LIFE!

Filed under: Internet, censorship , #eric, #fuckfred, @mariqueen, celebrity gossip, celebrity news, creative, custom tshirts, innovative, leapfish, leapfish.com, nin, NIN FANS, nine inch nails, online advertising, Trent Reznor, trent reznor attacks, trent_reznor, twitter, twitter twouble, twitter-celebs, twitter.com, web 2.0, www.leapfish.com

Addiction, good or bad, is still an addiction.

Addiction, good or bad, is still an addiction.

I am officially 5 years sober as of writing this.

Alcohol for me is death in a glass. If I drink, I become a monster, very literally Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One minute I am fine, just enjoying what I am doing and then suddenly, I am ready to fight anyone and everyone around me and they never see it coming!

This is an odd phenomenon to those that know me. I am always the guy that stands up to bullies. I see someone getting bullied and I jump right in, full force and never backing down. But when I drank, I became that which I loathe.

What showed me the light to quit drinking?

One night, while highly intoxicated, I wrote myself an email (I do not remember writing that email, but I sure remember reading it!). That email detailed what I would do to myself if I ever drank again. I believe me and it scared me senseless.

THAT was the very last night I drank. 3-29-04.

I smoke, yes. I began smoking around the age of 17. I never picked up smoking cigarettes though (here comes my justification)…

I smoke cloves, NOT cigarettes!

I also smoke a pipe (tobacco) and cigars now and again.

OK, so those are just as bad as cigarettes. I had grand plans of quitting them at my 5 year mark of sobriety. That plan failed.  I will continue to cut back, significantly.

I am an addict too many things. Some addictions are OK. Many are not, and her is the kicker folks. ONLY you can tell if an addiction is bad for you.

I began cycling a few years back. I enjoyed riding long distances. I would ride for hours on end. I would ride as far as I could push myself to ride, and then go a little farther. Then, one day I noticed I was looking at a 12k dollar bicycle and thinking, “That bike would be great for longer rides!” I noticed I was becoming obsessed and backed down. I still ride, but not nearly as much or as far.

I read books. Lots and lots of books. I read about a book every 2 days, give or take. This addiction is okay in my eyes as I am actually bettering myself while doing it. If Lee Child, J. A. Jance, Clive Cussler, Dean Koontz, Bukowski, Stephen King and Terry Pratchett could ever be construed as educational.

Yes, that is the BIGGEST problem we addicts have. Figuring out just which addictions are ruling us.

That tired, old saying, “Sick and tired of being sick and tired” is, well, the truth.

What is an addiction?

Is THIS?

OR THIS?

OR how about THIS?

Twitter has become my newest addiction. I am @Fredgarrett *by the way

What is your addiction and what are your plans for dealing with it?

*Disclaimer: I have a contingency of people on line that would like to see me and anyone that follows me off of Twitter. If you add me, you will likely be seen as a collaborator. I just want to warn those that may not know.

Filed under: MY LIFE , aa, addict, addiction, alcohol addiction, alcohol rehab, alcoholic, drinking, drug addiction, drug rehab, rehab, smoking

#Eric fans and Nine Inch Nails fans would like to see MORE censorship

You read that title right!

I had planned on never having to write Trent Reznors name again. Best laid plans and all…

SO.

Tonight, I got home and saw that the same contingency of #eric supporters were attempting to have anyone that, “trolled” Reznor from Twitter… BANNED! NIN fans have joined in the assault as well. As the target of the attack I ask;

What about free speech? Being an American I spoke out against something and it appears as though it was heard LOUD AND CLEAR.

Want to see a bunch of people leave Twitter? Start banning account for people speaking their mind.

ATTENTION: NIN followers and #Eric people that are trying to censor people,

Do you people really want to try silencing someone for speaking out against something?

Really?

Filed under: Internet, censorship , #eric, #fuckfred, @mariqueen, blogging, celebrity gossip, celebrity news, censorship, nin, NIN FANS, nine inch nails, Trent Reznor, trent reznor attacks, trent_reznor, twitter, twitter broken, twitter censorship, twitter twouble, twitter-celebs, twitter.com, web 2.0

Who is Robert Towels and WHAT is Efusjon Part Deux

I will begin this with, I am sorry for the comments section on the other blog about this subject. I will have that cleaned up soon.

SO…

EFUSJON!

I called their corporate office only to be told to send an email for a request of information (The email I sent detailed who I was attempting to reach and why). I received an auto reply stating that I would be getting a call back in the next 48 hours.

Since I had my hands full with other issues, I could wait.

Well, a week went by. No email, no call.

I called back and explained who I was and what I was doing. The young woman said she could answer any of my questions. So I began…

Efusjon, why is it spelled like that. It seems very confusing.

Efusjon is Gaelic. It means pouring out.

Try as I may, I can not confirm this… I will continue. ANYONE SPEAK Gaelic?

Why is Efusion not spending any money on online advertising, keywords banner ads etc?

Efusjon depends on the word of mouth from its independant distributors. They must note that they are independant distributors in all of their advertising. This is covered in their training.

But in your policies, you have strict guidelines not allowing them to use the name Efusjon.

As long as they follow the guidelines they can advertise how they see fit.

What is your projected growth for this next year? Rep? Product? Website ranking?

That information is not available to the public. One statistic I can release is that we have 32k active distributors.

What makes this drink any different from say Monster, NOS or any other energy drink I can buy from a convienince store?

Efusjon is a healthy supplement and energy drink.

Who is Robert Towels?

Our CEO, all the information about him is posted on our website.

Yes, I know he is listed as the CEO and Co-founder. But who is he? Where did he come from what is his background?

My only answer is… It’s on the website.

I hear what you are saying. Yes, I can plainly see on the website where he is listed, but there is zero information about him online or on your website, unless you count my blog and 3 other mentions of the name being attached to Efusjon as the CEO.

I am sorry sir, that is all I have here.

SO…

This leaves me with an odd feeling. Who is this guy?

Robert… Feel like talking?

Filed under: Internet, MY LIFE , efusion, efusion energy drink, efusjon, Efusjon CEO, myefusjon, myefusjon.com, online advertising, robert towels, web 2.0, who is robert towels?

Trent Reznor offered this as his good bye wave to social media and allowed comments for a little while

Since the mods of nin.com have closed the thread. I figured, I would give those people a chance that were too afraid of backlash or censorship a place to speak.

Know that trolls will likely go insane once this post is published…

“This Thread is growing to an incredible size of senselessness and trouble!”

Trent Reznor offered this as his good by wave to social media;

Trent Says:

It’s been an interesting experiment over the last couple of years or so. Faced with leaving the infrastructure of traditional record labels and figuring out what the right thing to do is in this new world – I found myself realizing that for me to have any concept of how to interact with the community and know what they might want / what they find appropriate, I need to immerse myself in that world and live it for a while.
The reason no record label knows how to market anything to new media is they don’t live there. They don’t get it because they don’t use it. What you’ve seen happen with the marketing and presentation of NIN over the last years is a direct result of living next to you, listening to you, consuming with you and interacting with you. Directly. There’s no handlers or PR people here, it’s me and my guys – that’s it. There’s no real plan, even – it’s just trying to do the right thing that respects you the fan, the music, and me the artist. That’s the goal – a mutual and shared respect.
When Twitter made it’s way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I thought it through and in light of where I was / am in my career I decided to lower the curtain a bit and let you see more of my personality. I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there’s a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I’m not what you projected on me. All expected. I’m not as concerned about “breaking” your idea of NIN at this point. It is what it is and I am what I am. The relationship between artist and fan is changing if you haven’t noticed, along with the way we consume and experience music and even communicate since the internet arrived.
The problem with really getting engaged in a community is getting through the clutter and noise. In a closed environment like nin.com a lot of this can be moderated away, or code can be implemented to make it more difficult for troublemakers to persist. It’s tedious and feels like wasted energy doing that shit, but some people exist to ruin it for others – and they are the ones who have nothing better to do with their time. Example: on nin.com, there’s 3-4 different people that each send me between 50 – 100 message per day of delusional, often threatening nonsense. We can delete them, but they just sign back up and start again. Yes, we are implementing several changes to address this, but the point is it quickly gets very old weeding through that stuff.
Back to Twitter. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and “human”. I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I’m in love and it’s all I think about and that’s that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you’ve projected on me, fair enough – it’s probably time for you to leave. You are right, I’m not the same person I was in 1994 (and I’m happy about that). Are you?

Looks like the Metal Sludge contingency has discover Twitter! Finally! For those of you that don’t know what this is, please let me explain. Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I’ve ever come across. It’s populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn’t stop there – hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).
Cutter’s tip for my friends there: remember to cut along the length of vein, not across. Bigger payoff.
So when you see the new accounts that pop up daily on Twitter spewing exactly the kind of thing I just discussed, usually from picture-less creatively named profiles, spewing hate at Mariqueen and I, take a moment to visualize the sad couple people behind them.
A few years ago some people tuned me in to that world and when I figured out who these people were, I was amazed that I’d been seeing them in the front rows of the shows for months. I really don’t understand what kind of “fan” spends that kind of time and money to travel across the country seeing a band, to then dedicate an incredible amount of time and energy into non-stop hate diatribes online. That one puzzles me a little.

Anyway, I’m bored on a long bus drive and there’s no real moral to the story here, just writing. I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it’s now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.

I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it’s participants for purposes of context. The idea was to have a place where you can actually discuss whatever and have some idea of who you’re conversing with. For example, if we were discussing drumming techniques and you can see that someone participating in the discussion is a drum instructor vs. a 13 year old kid Googling answers, you’d have the proper context in which to have a potentially valid discussion. If we were discussing EDLC’s heart condition and a real cardiologist speaks up, I’d value his opinion over, say FredFuckFaceWhateverHisLastFuckingNameIs’s “opinion”. Know what I mean? Anyway, we’re in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.

With all of that said, I have business in the real world to attend to including wrapping up the live version of NIN, DOING some cool new shit and spending as much time as possible with the most amazing woman in the world.

I am aware he did some backpedaling somewhere in the 31 pages of comments… I am sure one of his minions will post that here as well.

For those of you that did not want your comments to @trent_reznor censored, I say…

GO!

Filed under: Internet , #fuckfred, celebrity gossip, celebrity news, nin, NIN FANS, nine inch nails, plump, Trent Reznor, trent reznor attacks, trent_reznor, twitter, twitter-celebs, twitter.com

@Fredgarrett vs @trent_reznor twitter flame war

My original intention was to blog about Trent Reznor calling me out.

After letting this percolate for a few days, and seeing the amount of hate that has come from the mans mind in the meantime…

I decided to write about what made me start this in the first place.

Full circle as it were.

The power a celebrity has in today’s day and age. Having the ability to, “release the hounds” at a moments notice to hundreds and thousands of people in real time web 2.0 fashion.

I would like to share some interesting numbers with you;

At the time Trent Reznor, “went off on me”. He had ~600k+ followers.

~10% made their way to my blog in the first day or so.

~10%! Nowhere NEAR what I expected.

Everything else follows (loosely) the same 10% rule.

~10% of those kept checking it.

~10% of those commented.

Of those that commented, ~10% threatened me.

The interesting fact that came along…

Publicly of the people that bashed me, only a handful actually attempted to gain my information. There was a picture of me tweeted, while others attempting email bombs and pornados. These failed as I expected the worst and only menial attempts were made. The picture that made its way out there, was from a video clip that appears elsewhere on my blog, that video made it out there too. Were threats issued? Certainly. Were they followed through with? Nope!

I expected the worst because I knew who I was dealing with. Trent Reznor is a computer genius and would love to monitor every thing people do or say. Just read that last rant he made on the board. “In a closed environment like nin.com a lot of this can be moderated away, or code can be implemented to make it more difficult for troublemakers to persist.” I have emails from people detailing just how deep Trent Reznor went in his attack against them. Mainly because they signed up on a NIN support board and spoke out against him, or said something he did not like. Trent, you do not control everything, and you might want to get used to that idea…

Perhaps celebrities do not posses the power they and we think. It would appear that way in this case. I had a bunch of people making snide remarks and met some wonderful people along the way.

Dangerous?

The way I see it;

Perhaps because I am not signed up to any of his feeds, or commenting on his fan sites, my information remained, “anonymous” to him. Yet here I am. I have said many times before, I am not a fan of an unbalanced scale. Sometimes I tend to OVER balance things.

TR:

I figured you would have some nutty stalker trying to out me. I never figured in a million years YOU were that nutty stalker. After reading all of the horrible things you have publicly said and done to people, I am saddened that your career ended like this and seeing what a control freak you are, perhaps you should stick to music.

Since you only seem to understand vulgarity… NOPE. I wont do it. You will not lower my standards to your level.

I was never asked  into this, as a matter of fact, I made an observation and decided to blog about it…

AND blog I did.

Will it end here?

I seriously doubt it!

http://tinyurl.com/nnlj66 <— AUF’s new Blog. A great read if you disagree with me at all.

Open Section to the #Eric supporters;

Following the same vein of censorship…

One of the most concerning things I did see, was the #Eric fans. At one point actually attempting to silence me and others by concocting a plan and directing complaints to spam at twitter.

Know this, I am an American, born and raised. I will stand up against tyranny EVERY time. Try censoring me and see where it gets you.

From my cold dead hands, people.

Filed under: Uncategorized , #fuckfred, @fredgarrett, @mariqueen, celebrity gossip, celebrity news, flame war, nin, NIN FANS, nine inch nails, Trent Reznor, trent reznor attacks, trent_reznor, twitter, twitter-celebs, twitter.com