5 Minutes into the Life of an ADHD Riddled Mind

Essay for my first year writing class. Suppose to include footnotes hence the footnotes. Sporadic but remains true to what goes on in a mind jam packed full of thoughts and ideas.

5 Minutes into a Peculiar Mind

Before I go off into the abyss, I feel obligated to provide my audience with background into the madness of an ADD mind. My best advice is to just go with it. I have this fun little “quirk” that drives my entire family absolutely bat s**t crazy. It’s a mixture between an OCD ritual and the fact that I just sweat an obscene amount. I refer to it as “showering off” for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I don’t wash my hair each session and secondly, the duration is much more condensed and less strategic. I don’t like to feel dirty and to quell that anxiety I shower off 2 times a day

I start to undress as I attempt to rally all my shower things together for my daily morning shower session. As I stand stark naked in the middle of my room, I accidentally glance at the mirror bolted to the back of the door. “S**t. I looked.” As I begin to look myself over I realize that the 2 year grace period after quitting competitive dance has long since subsided.1 1 I began dancing when I was 5 and I continued to do so up until sophomore year of high school. I began competitively dancing in 6th grade however and this consisted of 5 days a week of 3 and half an hour practices. Needless to say I was in the best shape of my life and had the calves of an olympic bicycler. I really took for granted just how in shape I was because later on after I had quit dance everyday tasks became somewhat difficult. For example lifting boxes at my job at the local subway shifted from a breeze to nearly impossible. I required assistance with mostly everything. Basically I became pretty much useless. And now a flight of stairs brings me to a fever pitch of a sweaty sloppy mess.“I really should workout. But what even is working out.. Like do I just show up and start running in a circle? I really don’t want to sweat that much in front of a bunch of athletic people. I am not an attractive sweater.” I peer down to find one of my pink shower shoes awaiting my foot on it’s face. “Hey sandal. Where’s your twin?” I begin to riffle through my room in search of the other one, lifting up chairs and throwing my dirty clothes bin onto the floor.

I really should fix this...thing..here. But most of my clothes aren’t even dirty I just throw them in the dirty clothes hamper when I can’t get my s**t together enough to hang them up. There’s that blue fuzzy zip­up I stole from the lost and found at the elementary school I work at. Does that make me a bad person? There’s no way that could have belonged to a child, it’s gigantic. Not saying there aren’t morbidly obese children in the United States, because there definitely are. I’m just saying that this sweater looks oddly sophisticated for the average 7 year old. It’s not brightly colored and Elsa’s face isn’t plastered on the front, so therefore I find justification in my new find.

My eyes scan over the room only to find my missing sandal leaning up against my roommate's closet. (She has been gone all weekend). “What are you doing over there buddy? Get on my foot, it’s time to cleanse myself.” I slide the shoe on and grab my shower caddy as I whisk out the door. I really hope no one is in there. I really really hope no one is in my shower stall. I don’t want to have to walk my a*s all the way over to the middle bathroom area.

I realize there are 2 other stalls in mine but the first one is very large and the water slaps my face and body making me feel like I’m being assaulted. Also the water never gets above luke warm which is not optimal disinfecting temperature. And the water pressure is pathetic but aggressive, like a powerful mist that can pelt your skin off. The middle stall, on the other hand, used to be my favorite, but then the handle went to s**t. I’d be showering off in that particular stall when all of the sudden the knob would start to turn upwards as the temperature would continually rise. Only stopping once the knob reached the scalding vicinity. I used to be able to keep it from moving by carefully balancing my lufa between the base of the knob and the wall, but now it blatantly ignores me. That shower stall has it’s own agenda and I don’t really feel like dealing with it’s crap today.

I enter the bathroom to find it completely abandoned. “Yes.” I cheer to myself in a Tina Belcher voice. Now I can shower in peace without feeling self­conscious when my body wash bottle makes farting sounds. As if anyone would actually believe a person would fart that loudly in a public place as they showered. But then again some people have no shame.

I mean I don’t mind farting in my room or in passing time or at a loud concert venue but not in the shower. Especially when I’m surrounded by judgemental gas passing deniers! I can’t be held responsible for my flatulence.

I part the shower curtain off to the left side and make sure the shower head is facing towards the left and not directly at me. (I’ve made that mistakes a few too many times). As the water heats up to a suitable temperature I once again check myself out in the body length mirror attached to the farthest wall. I check my surroundings for the judgers and quickly open my towel to do a survey. I back up a little ways to get a better idea of what I was working with and then turn sideways to get a side view. “Yep. The grace period is definitely over with. From here on out it’s either exercise or compartmentalize.” The water is starting to steam so I hang up my towel and side step in. I let the warm (non­defiling) water pressure wash over my body before I reach out to my caddy to grab my toothbrush. I spot my toothpaste and my electric toothbrush but I can’t find my retainer. It usually hides underneath, clinging to the lufa like a crab dangling by one hook as I pick up the lufa. “Found you.” I collect my materials and retreat back into the warm haven of the shower. I paste my toothbrush and rinse off my retainer since it collects a disgusting but impressive amount of saliva over the course of the night. I turn on my electronic brush only to find that it’s not buzzing to life like usual.

My face immediately falls in disdain as ironically remember what I was suppose to remember to do last night. 2 2 I think back to when my aunt gave me this fancy little toothbrush as a present when I got my braces off this past August. It was a long and arduous process. 5 years of braces but 7 years in total of orthodontic work done. I had a tooth embedded in the roof of my mouth and other crazy things like that. But in regards to the toothbrush, I find it unbelievable that they haven’t come up with some kind of technology that charges electronics over the wifi or something technologically advanced like that. I always forget to put my brush on the charger once the 3 little green lights eventually diminish to one flashing green light. (A polite indication that it’s time to recharge). But I’m not the most proactive person in the world and I definitely need more than a blinky green light as a reminder. Losing/misplacing things is my vice and a regular occurrence in my daily life. I mean I know a lot of it can be linked to my ADD, but 80 milligrams of Vyvanse and 20 of Ritalin

really should clear most of that up. At least I would think it would... 

I snap back to reality when I hear a sudden cough accompanied by faint footsteps out in the hallway. I hold my breath as the individual pauses at the bathroom doorway, only to continue their mysterious trek onwards seconds later. “That was a close one” I exclaim to nobody but myself. I then non­committedly brush my teeth with the stiff brussels of my brush and use the then frothy remainder of toothpaste to scrub my retainer. I proceed to apply shaving cream to my armpits and wet the razor, so as not to irritate my sensitive skin. As I empty the contents of my Pure Silk shaving cream onto my fingers I am hit by it’s so called cherry blossom scent.

In my opinion, it smells like a man’s shaving product but who am I to argue with the makers of such a fine high end product?

I then suds up my loofah and apply a generous amount of pistachio and magnolia scented dove body cream.

I actually hate pistachios but I love it in body wash form.

As I lather up my body, making sure not to let a single crevice escape my wrath, I contemplate about my life. I don’t do that for very long though because I realize I forgot to wash my face. I pull back the curtain for the 3rd time and grab my green tea tree face wash and lather until I feel less hormonal and pimply. I then go to retrieve my more heavy duty stuff when I am then greeted by a shriveled up container of, what used to be, a Neutrogena Blackhead Eliminating face mask and or wash bottle. I once again frown in disappointment.

My dad had just asked me earlier that morning before dropping me off if I needed anything from the store. And I had replied with a vague “no” due to my current game of Candy Crush Saga which required my full attention. 33 Candy Crush Saga is the best game to ever have been invented by man.

I contemplate ramming my head into the concrete shower wall in sheer manic frustration. “Now I’m going to be an oily and bacteria infested disaster.” I pull myself together enough to finish my shower session and to wrap myself in my towel. I pause

and stare blankly forward into the sink­head mirrors. Just then I notice a poster off to my left and begin to laugh to myself as I exit the bathroom, mulling over the words in my mind and realizing the absurdity of my life.

Plastered across the poster are the words, “What are you doing in college?”

Author's Note

Had difficulties finding a way to transfer original essay from google docs to here. Kept messing up the format and weirdly embedding the footnotes so I just put the footnotes in blue right after I mention them instead of at the bottom of the page.