Better living through chemistry

So much to say and so little time. I've got about 10 mins here, I'll just spew out some stuff.

My main shrink (psychologist) can't prescribe, so I've now got 2 shrinks. Shrink #1 said that some of the things I say sounded kind of like ADD. So we did some tests, and it sure seemed to me that at the very least it's a useful metaphor for some of the things that happen in my head. Jumping around from thought to thought, can't focus on anything non-fun for more than a few minutes, write 2 sentences and then go check my mail, get a snack, browse the web. Forgetful, anxious, etc etc. Symptoms or missing skills? Problem or metaphor? How do you tell?

I firmly believe that our weaknesses are mirror images of our strengths. I'm a really smart guy. Trying not to brag here, but that's been my internal defining characteristic for a long ol' time. I'm smart as hell. One thing I can do is think about a lot of things at once. Time slice, mostly, but some realtime multi-tracking. I remember once trying to imagine how Beethoven composed however-many lines of music at once, the bass going ba-bum, ba-bum, and the first violins going deedle-deedle-deedle and the second violins going doodle-doodle-doodle. How did he keep that all in his mind at once? Did he have a 16 track brain? Mine is 4 or 5, tops. Finally I realized that he probably approaches it more like a painter, add a dab of blue here, some yellow over there. But I wondered about that for a long time.

So: thoughts bouncing around - strength or weakness? Or both?

One of my all time favorite quotes from Tom Waits: If I exorcise my devils, well my angels may leave too. And when they leave, they're so hard to find.

This all came up several months ago, and I went on the waiting list for shrink #2 to see if she thought I should try new drugs. I finally got in to see her Friday, and as with prescribing shrinks (psychiatrists) everywhere, the answer to questions like these is always the same. Let's try some drugs and see if they change things for the better. If so, then whatever the drugs help is your problem. If not, not.

So now I'm on an updated version of ritalin.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

It really seems to tune down the static. I get a much better signal-to-noise ratio. I can willfully follow a thought for more than a few seconds.

This weekend, while experimenting with new drugs, I took my 2 oldest daughters to this event in San Mateo, CA. It's like a home-built trade show for inventors, hackers, builders, dreamers. I was hoping the girls would get inspired to explore technologies and be creative in new and exciting ways. I was also hoping to have a lot of fun. Both goals were met. The PC maintenance folks "Geek Squad" were sponsors and had a booth there, my daughters got gimme teeshirts with the Geek Squad logo that I think they may actually wear! They soldered circuits, played with breadboards, were amazed by robots, and the ideas started to take hold - hey, I could do that!

At the same time, it was a grand and wonderful place to be experimenting with new drugs. So much stimulation!! I really felt more relaxed with people, had some great conversations and met some great people and learned a lot of stuff. Everyone was so enthusiastic to share their pet project, however geeky or outrageous. It's like Burning Man - we're all geeks here, let's party!

Am I better with drugs or not? Can't tell yet. It's definitely fun. For instance, I think I'm kind of overdriving this morning. This blog post has been fun to write and I've been totally focussed in on it, but I fear it might be a bit of a bumpy ride for you, the gentle reader. Was I more relaxed with people because the static was turned down this weekend or was it just a particularly congenial bunch of folks.

WHoo, the rush is settling down, don't quite feel so hyper now. My 10 minute note is now pushing 30 mins. Somewhat edited.

I'll try to keep a running log of this experiment here.

Swampdog, out.