notanotherphony.

day two and three of Concerta and my new commitment to figuring out how to live with adhd. very little help from Bell and it’s “let’s talk” campaign. very little help from our government. very little help from my psychotherapists. very little help from anyone. it is such a frustrating and misunderstood disorder that many don’t know how to help. left to my thoughts, shame, and lack of structure I meander through life hoping for a miracle but settling for ten km runs and drinking wine while listening to good music. today is a new day and, although, my head is buzzing a little bit I feel that today is a good day. had a great long walk with Murphy and his friends in the back trails and now I am quickly writing a note before I forget and before I throw on my running clothes to go running in the back trails before I get changed and go down to my Father In Laws for a Thanksgiving Dinner. company is always better for me than being alone. being alone I accomplish very little. i look at my phone. i look at Youtube. i read five different books. i drink coffee. i jerk off. i wash clothes. i do the dishes and then I may mow the lawn. lots of busyness but not much accomplished. grateful for great friends. and grateful for a great family. even when my family and I struggle I know that we love each other. love is so vital for me. love is so vital for everyone. imagine growing up not feeling loved? how sad. how can people be so cruel to their own children? life is so short. live with love if possible. i forget that sometimes. another problem with my adhd. i get so fixated on fixing myself that I forget about my loved ones and I forget that they need me as much as I need them. not need in a needy way but need in a loving and understanding way. adhd is cruel if left alone and untreated but can be such a blessing and a gift if treated properly and treated with love and understanding from people who love and understand you. love and understand me. but this is not easy. it is not easy for me to always understand and love. do we ever really know what is going on with someone else? why are we always so quick to judge? why are we always so quick to attack? why are we always so quick to talk? sit and listen. sit and listen. please sit and listen and listen with love. love. love. love. i just want to love and be loved. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. as a fifty-four year old man with adhd I still don’t know what Thanksgiving is about. I am not joking. I am serious. I don’t know many things about our history and about hanging up paintings or building a deck. I never really cared about those things as a kid. I never had a Dad to teach me basic life skills. I also had adhd and a Mom who loved me very much but who was also in pain from the death of her husband. I had great friends. i always had great friends. i still do. i am not a great friend though. i miss events. i miss birthdays. i miss parties. i agree to things then back out last minute. i am never really there for them but they have always stuck by me. everyone has always stuck by me. I am sooooooo grateful for that. there is that love thing again. unconditional love is real, I guess. I grew up thinking that it wasn’t and that I had to do something great to get love. to get approval. this lead me down some sideways paths with sideways people. waking up in people’s houses I didn’t know and waking up with girl’s I didn’t like. didn’t love. didn’t listen. didn’t respect. but I didn’t respect myself and if you don’t respect yourself how can you respect other’s? those days were fun but amidst the fun was lots of chaos. lots of pain. lots of shame. lots of going insane. and then sitting alone in a dark jail cell wondering what happened to my entitled life? entitled life? entitled life? i have always wondered why my life was entitled?

and now I sit alone in my upstairs bedroom that I pretend is an office but with no job that needs an office and I write, listen to great music, drink a coffee, pop an Omega 3-6-9, pop some Zoloft, pop some Concerta, and sweat. i am always hot. why am I always hot? always on FIRE. FIRE. FIRE. FIRE.

CREATE.

TRUE SELF?

AUTHENTIC SELF?

WHO AM i?

ADHD.

why did it take ten different psychotherapists and over forty years to get a proper diagnosis of ADHD?

adhd…such a frustrating disorder.

but I am on fire and grateful to great friends. great family.

love.

love.

LOVE.

after a consistent and never ending break I am back to my struggle and back to my thoughts. thoughts and struggles always around. always close. always getting in the way of extreme joy and extreme relaxation. the world is changing and I am aging. I was once thirty-six and now I am fifty-four. I am back on my meds and back into my books. I am still trying to find the secret to letting adhd work for me instead of allowing it to debilitate me. many don’t believe adhd to be a “thing”. they, obviously, don’t have it. the struggle is real. the lack of empathy is also real. i am now back on Concerta, once again, after a few months off. a few months of scattered thoughts. impulsive actions. cancelled appointments. messy rooms. lack of sleep. lack of structure. lack of confidence. lack of progression. the struggle is real, once again. once again, the struggle is real. “there is no such thing as adhd,” they say. but “they” have never had it. I wish “they” could experience it for one week. one month. one year. not fifty-four years. forty of those years undiagnosed. professionals not really being professionals. the wrong people always in positions of power. positions of authority. talentless “yes” people moving up the ladder but moving up with zero to offer. they will die. we will all die. some die unfulfilled. many die lost and alone. a lifetime of chasing the wrong things in the wrong country with the wrong people. where are the real artists…real artists…WHERE ARE YOU????

my mind is clear today. but who knows about tomorrow. time to get as much done as possible today for tomorrow brings a new day and a new mind. a new sense of hope coupled with a headache and a crippling memory. JUST DO IT. everyone says, “JUST DO IT.”

driving into the city all week and the drivers have gone mad. they have gone bad. they are undeniably sad. five am commutes filled with busy roads and manic drivers. fast. slow. riding each others “ass”. all in a rush to get to their shitty jobs with somewhat shitty pay. why? is there nothing else out there? are you not worried about killing someone? killing yourself? smashing your car? what is the rush? why are you always rushing? why are you so impatient. everyday another accident. everyday NOT a single lesson learned. peasants. maggots. rats. rodents. the city is filled with them. the province is filled with them. the country is filled with them. the world is filled with them. what is life for? what is your purpose? what are your passions? how old would you like to live until? do you have family? do you have friends? has everyone become so frustrated with the world that they have all become so selfish. drive. drive. drive. in. out. in. out. brake. accelerate. fools looking around me to see all the other cars ahead of me. “FUCK FACE, YOU ARE NOT GETTING ANYWHERE FAST!!! RELAX AND LISTEN TO DRAKE YOU WORM!!!! where have all the real people gone? bad music. bad movies. bad culture. celebrity worshippers worshipping celebrities that offer the world nothing. why follow them? what is so dull about your life that you feel the need to follow a narcisstic bore?

and now I am bored. bored with writing. bored with reading. bored with my day. everything boring. lacking excitement. lacking purpose. lacking structure. it is now 2:44pm. i want a coffee. i want to fuck. i want to run. i want to act. i want to travel. i want to play hockey. i still remember my first team. The Flemingdon Kings. I loved playing hockey.

It’s Saturday afternoon and my dog is laying behind me on our basement couch. i have a sore tooth. i always have a sore tooth. i go into the dentist twice a year to tell my dentist about this sore tooth and he semi fixes it and fully charges me but it still hurts. so many people making so much money and not even great at their jobs. a complacency has set in and we allow the complacency and even applaud the complacency. applaud the average. applaud the dull. dull opinions on dull topics while life continues to move at rapid speeds and many people continuing to drop by the wayside. forgotten and alone. alone in their thoughts. alone in their emotions. does anybody really understand another person’s life? good people try to understand. try to empathize. but do they really know what the other person is feeling. feelings always more important to me than thought but that doesn’t mean other’s can’t put thought before feelings. I really have no idea what is right and what is wrong anymore. i only try to be a better human being than I was the day before. i try to learn. i try to grow. i try to listen. i try to heal. i try to love. i try my hardest to live my life with good intentions. i try to treat others as I would want to be treated. my mind is constantly busy. constantly scattered. adhd? anxiety? childhhod trauma? manic? a need to succeed and an urgency to win? stress? i run. i write. i take my dog for long walks in nature. i try to slow down but while I slow down life speeds up. the days are becoming quicker. the weeks are passing by quicker. the months are passing by quicker. the years are passing by quicker. while I try to slow down life speeds up and the end becomes closer. minor pains become major fears. fears of disease. fears of death. fears of life coming to a tragic and lonely death. watching your family as you shrink further and further into your shell. into your grave. knowing that life moves on and their will still be sunny days and rainy days. couples making love and families torn apart by divorce. life is so beautiful when it is lived and it is so tragic when it is not. waiting for happiness in retirement while living in misery in your formative years. working for dull people with shady lives and washed up wives. five years becomes ten. ten becomes twenty. twenty quickly becomes forty and forty becomes eighty. high school was a very long time ago. my body tells me that I am old. my mind tells me that I am in high school. still shy. still scared. still manic. still horny. still troubled. still impulsive. everything is “still” but me. busy mind. restless body. yoga. meditation. pills. doctors. psychiatrists. homeopaths. teachers. mentors. friends. gurus. advice comes from everybody and everyone. I am so fucked up that I even offer advice. ADVICE FROM AN UNSETTLED CHILD. but we take advice. we offer advice. some people build up walls while others, like myself, have no boundaries. have no plan. sit in the moment and sit in the mud. my dog now wants my attention. i want to run. i want to write…oh yeah…i am writing. i hear a beeping noise outside and now my dog is restless. he is staring at me while making weird noises. i want to be in mexico. or amsterdam. or new york. i want to travel and have meaningful conversations about life. with love. with wine. i want to be on a sailboat on an ocean. i want to ski on big mountains. i want to sit around a campfire with great friends and great strangers. i want to connect with other human beings. i want to love. i want to play. i want to be free.

i want to be free.

i want to break free.

i want to feel.

i want to feel other people’s feelings.

i want to help other’s but I also want to help myself.

the world can be so beautiful.

why do human beings ruin it?

what type of human being wants to ruin the world for everyone?

what is life?

what is life?

what is life?

love?

another week has almost passed.

my dog is restless.

i am restless.

old and restless.

old body. restless mind.

what a bad combo.

i wish we could really know what other’s go through.

mom.

I am sitting down at my computer again. Much has passed since my last writing. my last sitting. Much has passed. much has happened. but very little change. still anxious. still fearful. still sitting in shame. still sitting in pain. still loathing. loathing and fear. fear and loathing. all stemming from pain. childhood pain. childhood trauma. years of hiding. years of wall building. years of escape. years of booze. years of drugs. years of sex. years of running. years of barking. years of hiding. always hiding. always drinking. sometimes playing but playing still masking pain. masking shame.

I sit down to write with nothing to write about but my mind is filled with events. filled with passions. filled with fights and struggles. filled with thoughts. filled with ideas. too many ideas. too many thoughts. not enough clarity. my adhd brain has also taken on anxiety and combined these disorders render me helpless. helpless or fearful. or both. sitting in fear. stuck in mud. unable to make a decision. unable to relax. unable to finish. unable to plan. unable to live fully. live happily. live maturely. what is living maturely? my eyes are deceiving me. they are becoming more blurry. i am getting older. we are all getting older. walking around in masks and avoiding human contact. this is hurting me. this is hurting many. when will this end? how will it end? can we love again? can we feel again? i want to feel. i want to connect. i want to love. i don’t care about your houses and cars. your botox or your boats. love. honesty. open communication. vulnerability. curiosity. art. real art NOT phony pop. phony pop is not art it is phony pop. i want to live a life filled with love and connection and play and purpose. what is my purpose? what is your purpose? what is life? what is war? what is it good for? lies and deception running rampant while human connection falling by the wayside. the wayside of lust and greed. my back is sore. my left arm is sore. years of running and drinking and popping pills and struggles are taking their toll. i am in a never ending quest to be my authentic self. a lifelong journey. i must avoid the distractions. the social rules. the social norms. the social elites. all sorts of social bullshit that favours the rich and leaves the poor scrambling, hoping, and begging for more. more food. more money. more sex. more opportunity. dangling the proverbial carrot. what does proverbial mean anyway?

I am writing again.

i am lost again.

i am bored again.

i am afraid again.

i am ashamed again.

i am loathing myself again.

lists.

goals.

life coach gurus.

cult heroes.

religious worshipping.

devil worshipping.

celebrity worshipping.

we worship the wrong people.

why worship anyone?

i will choose to work on myself today.

i will choose to sit in silence today.

i will choose to love today.

i will choose to love myself today.

i will choose to “be” today.

life.

love.

happiness.

HUMAN CONNECTION.

HUMAN CONNECTION.

HUMAN CONNECTION.

Covid Test this morning. driving in the rain. listening to sad songs. songs that make me feel. songs that make me present. songs that bring about memories of long lost loves or long lost dreams. songs of lost childhood and a lost Dad. a fractured Mom. loneliness amidst the rain. breathing for once. calm. cold toes and cold fingers. hot face and hot heart. life continuing to be surprising. life continuing on until one day it stops. never knowing when that will be. part of life as they say. human connection needed more and more. an old friend from high school sending a message to me over Messenger brings about a huge smile. love at it’s finest. most of us care about most of us. we want everyone to be happy and healthy. we want everyone to smile. we want everyone to love and be loved. human beings. be human. choose humanity over hate.

I finished my Covid Test and drove to my wife’s flower shop. Murphy was waiting at the front door for me. such a beautiful dog. such unconditional love. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. more love. more understanding. more listening. less conviction is sometimes better than more conviction. listen to learn and learn to listen. everyone has a story. everyone has a past. i love hearing people’s stories. truthful stories from truthful people living truthful lives with both their up’s and their down’s. humanity at it’s most precious state. authentic over perfection. BE. sometimes I say, “DO.” but today I say, “BE.”

I hope my Mom is doing well. the pandemic is hurting everyone. the lockdowns are hurting everyone. my Mom is all alone. getting old alone must be hard. alone with your thoughts and alone with your emotions. nothing to distract you. STUCK. hopefully no regrets but most have plenty of regrets. many people lack love. many people lack family. many people lack direction. many people lack. lacking in love. lacking in life.

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.

love thy neighbour as the love thyself.

I must learn to love myself.

i love most human beings.

most human beings are good.

sharing ideas.

sharing thoughts.

sharing secrets.

sharing food.

sharing clothes.

we should all share more.

we should all love more.

we should all have more fun.

more life.

less objects.

more sun.

more fun.

more rum.

more hope.

more acceptance.

more clarity.

more time.

we all need more time.

where does time go?