The Psychology of Jen...?

Yeah, OK...so I have issues. I found an interesting article about dyslexia that I posted on Show-n-Share for your viewing pleasure. I was diagnosed (many, many years ago) with dyslexia, though granted it’s relatively mild compared to others. It used to be that reading and writing were very hard for me and I remember getting so frustrated when the words didn’t make sense or I couldn’t remember how to spell something that most people would find simple. I pushed through the reading and writing part of it because I’ve always loved both of those things so much that my frustration became a non-issue. The more I practiced reading and writing, the easier it got. Now, even though I still sometimes read something wrong or spell "the" backwards, I find that it’s mostly because I’m in a hurry and not taking the time to absorb what I’m reading or think about what I’m writing. I feel like the difficulties I had as a young child are still there, but I’m more able to deal with them after so many years of practice. The problem I still have (and it is as bad today as it was when I was a child) is with numbers. I am constantly transposing numbers and for the life of me (even though I know the difference) I cannot say "hundreds" and "thousands" correctly. For example, the amount might be $1500 and if I need to relay that number to someone verbally, I will say "fifteen-thousand." It’s quite frustrating. Thank goodness my husband understands this, and will now just look at me, smile like he’s amused and say, "Um...try that again, hon." I also think a lot of this confusion is due to the ADD I’ve struggled with my entire life. I’ve learned to live with it, for the most part, but sometimes I find I’m so scattered that I cannot function. This is why I get frazzled and upset when I have a clean kitchen, or bedroom, or bathroom, or desk at work and then it gets messed up – either by me or by someone else. The more orderly things are, the less confused I am and the more able I am to concentrate calmly on the matter(s) at hand. I am, however, a messy person by nature. I have clutter absolutely everywhere; not science experiments – nothing disgusting or anything like that, just clutter. I feel like no matter how hard I try, or how motivated I am, I’m still living in a disaster; both at work, and at home. My desk at work was clean, neat, and orderly and I was so completely productive last week that I thought I was definitely headed in the right direction. Now it’s a mess again and I don’t know how it happened! My kitchen was absolutely spotless last week (or was it this week...I can’t remember now) and I was so happy; the shiny sink made me feel so good – like I could tackle the rest of the house and make it shine if I only had the uninterrupted time to do it. And now, the kitchen is a mess again and I don’t know how it happened. Those are just examples. One of my husband’s biggest frustrations with me is that when we’re driving somewhere, I have to know which way he is going to go. I know that it really doesn’t matter, and that whichever route he takes we’ll end up at our destination – but I cannot handle, truly cannot handle, not knowing which way he intends to take me. It doesn’t matter! I know it doesn’t matter! I promise myself every time I get in the car with him that I will not say anything; I will not ask him which way he is going to go; I will keep my big mouth shut this time. But keeping quiet makes it worse. The feeling I get is like there’s this rope inside my body and it just keeps twisting itself tighter and tighter until I’m so wound up I could scream! This culminates in my asking, as politely and calmly as possible so as not to betray my inner "tight rope", "Which way are you going, babe?" Or some other similar question. I know it makes him crazy when I ask him that, and I’ve tried a thousand different times to keep my question inside – but I can’t do it. It is physically painful to me not to know. Anyway – I guess I don’t really have a point in all this. I guess I just needed vent and get it out of my system. Too bad there's not cure in the venting, eh? I’m a bit OCD, too...but I’ll leave that for another day! TTFN JMS