Overwhelmed part 4 —- ADD Tip o the day 194

So the third type of overwhelmed I might call “frantic”.  My wife called me, “Come on, Doug, let’s go, we’re going to be late.  And would you make sure the doors are locked and take out the gargbage.”  I was in the middle of writing an important e mail and lost my train of thought, but I knew that there was a phone call I really needed to make before I could leave. 

Go? Write? Call? Garbage? Doors?  Spin in circles and scream?   Can’t get in gear.

Strategies:  1. Recognize this state – I am frantic right now.

2.  Stop.  Just stop, take a deep breath, don’t do anything. 

3.  Tell my wife I’ll be a few miutes yet.  Don’t argue about it.

4.  Say a short prayer.  Or laugh.  Or do a few pushups or situps. Or all of the above.

5.  Then do one thing, it doesn’t matter much which one.

6. Then do another.  And so on, til I’m ready to go.

Frantic seems to include feeling desperate, can’t think, can’t decide, can’t function, pulled in eight different directions at once, agitation.  Unpleasant!  Need strategies to shift gears and break out of this state.    

doug

The books are on amazon.com, and at Collected Works and Garcia Street Books in Santa Fe. A few are in the mail but most won’t get sent out til 2012.  The web site is ADDadultstrategies.com.