I’ve begun to notice my moods go on somewhat of a cycle. About every two weeks I seem to repeat the same set of moods. It’s almost like a wave: at the crest is the beginning, at the trough is the middle, and the next crest is the end of one cycle and beginning of another.

The crest is normally like this:

I feel extremely good in general, like being high on something. The world is a bright sunshiney place. I talk more than normal, my thoughts race, and I can’t pay attention to anything. It’s almost like I didn’t take my Adderall. I honestly can’t say I have the best judgement. I get a lot of ideas in my head about what I want to do with my life, and it’s at this point where I have a strong craving for knowledge. I spend money impulsively, usually on food. I fidget a lot and can’t sit still. I have a ton of energy and I stay up later than normal (usually past 4:00 AM; my usual bedtime is ~2:30-3:00 AM) and get up at my normal time of 11:00 AM without feeling tired. I laugh way too hard at dumb jokes, and I think everything is funny. I get an odd obsession with cleanliness and neatness. I lash out occasionally and my frustration with things turns into inappropriate anger. For example: while losing in a video game, instead of saying a few profanities to myself and moving on, I start yelling said profanities and tossing the controller.

Then the crest starts to decline, and I become “normal”:

I become quieter, more calm, but also stressed. I begin to worry about everything. My knowledge craving passes. The world seems more dim and unforgiving. Things stop being as funny as they were in the days prior. I take on a more serious attitude, but I still smile and I feel alright. I clean less and don’t mind little messes like small piles of clothes on the floor. I start to lose my motivation to do things. The money I spent starts to dawn on me and I feel bad for it. I go to bed at my normal time. I eat a little more than two meals per day. My mood is generally nonchalant.

Finally I hit the trough, which is my “rock bottom”. This only lasts two days or so:

I stop talking, smiling, and start feeling sad. The world is now a dark hole. I eat one meal or less per day. I feel completely empty and helpless. I convince myself that I am a failure and can’t do anything right. It is during these times I begin to think about death (not suicide) and cutting myself, but I refrain from self-injury. The lowest point comes during the last night in the trough: I sit in a dark room and cry uncontrollably. I talk to my teddy bear and ask him if he still loves me. I hug him like my life depends on it. I have legitimate conversations with an invisible man named Steve. I feel lost, scared, and vulnerable. Though I eventually stop crying, the smallest criticism will trigger it again.


After a few hours, I either pass out from crying, or my girlfriend comes in and comforts me until I calm down. The next day I’m in the middle of the wave again, and by the end of the day I am at the crest. Then the process starts all over.

I have an obsession with getting rid hair on my chin, knuckles, and between my eyebrows.

I know that sounds weird, but it's true. I absolutely cannot go five minutes of the day without feeling any of those areas for hair. I rub my knuckles on my bottom lip to feel for hairs, and feel my chin and eyebrows to make sure nothing is there. If I feel one little hair, I mess with it all day until I get home. It only gets worse from there.

I don't stop until the hair is gone, even if it means I have to dig into my skin with the tweezers and I start bleeding. I have a ton of scars on my chin from it, and a few on my knuckles. I'm starting to become scared because some hairs have come in on my neck, and I've had to dig for those, too. Luckily there are not scars, but I'm afraid of digging into a wrong spot one day and hurting myself.

I spend at least 1-2 hours a day plucking these hairs. Once I see one, I can't stop until all the mentioned areas are smooth. It drives me crazy if I can't do it for one day. I always feel like something is there and I have to check in the mirror. Sometimes I can convince myself that nothing is there and be alright for a few hours, though. My girlfriend gets annoyed by it. She constantly bats my hand to get me to stop, but I just go right back to what I was doing.

I don't know if that's considered OCD or not. I don't see my psychiatrist for another two weeks, and I'm not really sure he'd be the right person to talk to about it.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

It's something I do everyday of my life, but it is the thing that sets me off. A few of your may have seen my posts in other forums concerning a car accident I was in. Well I'm about to give you the story.

I was driving to class on November 21, 2009, when suddenly traffic was coming to a halt because of construction. I really didn't think much of it and sat waiting for the cars in front of me to move. Out of nowhere I heard screeching, but I saw nothing. It gets quiet for a split second, and then it happens: an SUV slams into me. I go up in my seat, hit my head on the sun visor, and came back down. I remember myself screaming "Watch where you're ****ing going!" I got up out of the car, walked and saw the damage, and sat back down because I was getting dizzy. Witnesses comforted me until an ambulance came and took me away. The police report said the driver who hit me was charged with reckless driving, and hit me at 60mph with no signs of braking. Good indicator of distracted driving, such as texting.

Ever since that day I have been mortified to sit behind the wheel of a car, though I keep doing it because I know I have to. Every stoplight, honk of a horn, buildup of traffic, even a fly hitting my windshield makes me grip my steering wheel until my knuckles are snow white. My heart pounds in my chest, I start to sweat, and I have flashbacks of the accident. I think about it constantly. It never leaves my head and it pretty much controls my life. I lost touch with the few friends that I had because I have confined myself to my house. There are days where I am okay with driving, but the thought that another accident could happen is still there and I cringe inside. I lie awake in my bed and cry some nights because I feel that if this accident never happened I would be well on my way with my life and education. But now I am stuck visiting a neurologist and a chiropractor, trying this and that, going to whatever doctors or people they refer me to. I feel lost, like there is a hole in my life's map.

I picture myself as a stick figure, and there is a group of other stick figures not far away. I walk over and immediately jump into discussion with them. One person acknowledges the things I am saying, but only for a moment. The conversation picks up among the other figures and my commentary is ignored. I walk away from the group with my head hanging, and no one notices.

I am extremely lonely, and I always have been. The first six years of my life, all I had was my parents and my grandmother. Kids at school used to make fun of me, and I used to sit in the sandbox alone during recess. My grandmother left when I was seven. My brother was born, then my parents were gone, too. I stopped having a close connection with my parents, and I was bullied at school for the way I looked and how "weird" I was. Even the other "weird" kids thought I was weird. I remained mostly alone without regard to romantic relationships, in which I still felt extremely lonesome, until I got into 10th grade. I made "friends," but quickly realized these people were only using me as a taxi. I exited high school with a sister-figure and one "best friend." That best friend constantly blew me off when I would ask her to hang out with me, yet I was there for her at 2am when she arrived at my home in tears with deep cuts on her arm. My sister-figure walked out of my life last year, and left me a message on Facebook letting me know she had talked about me behind my back during the eight years of our sisterhood. A few months after I started college in 2009 I got into a bad car accident that left me stranded at home. One person came to see me, but it was to bring me food. I've remained somewhat of a hermit since then.

I've spent the last 3 hours crying. I miss my mommy. She walked out on my family on December 18th. I lost my job on December 1st. I have my fiancee here with me now, but I am still insanely lonely. I think part of the reason for my loneliness is because I constantly avoid interaction with others, because I believe I am insignificant, and they don't need to concern themselves with me. But I long for someone to care. I long for a friend that I can count on who won't treat me like dirt and use me. I get jealous when I see people with their friends because I so badly want that, too. But I'm so afraid of people, and I'm so afraid of rejection that I won't even try to make friends. I just can't bring myself to do it. And because of that, I have remained alone. Lonely, depressed, and overwhelmed.

Every little thing in the world worries me. I worry so much that I don't even know how to relax, and I just can't do it. I feel so hopeless. I feel so out of control. I feel as though I carry everyone else's burdens, and I just can't do it anymore. I feel like I am going to crack, but it hasn't happened yet. I just want everything to go away and to have a great life with my girlfriend. I wish I didn't feel like I needed friends. I just want somebody to hold me and make everything better.

Absent-mindedness and bouts of procrastination have controlled my life since the age of eight. In elementary school, I had my own desk in the school counselor’s office, and I was there everyday during what was usually nap time for everyone else. She made me keep a “good behavior scorecard,” on which smiley face or star stickers were placed to rank my behavior in several areas for each day. No stickers for an item meant bad behavior, and improvement was needed. The counselor finally told my mom to take me to a psychiatrist for further evaluation. When my psychiatrist diagnosed me with ADD, my mom breathed a sigh of relief, but I spent the next 13 years (and counting) on medication after medication. You name it, I’ve probably been on it. I was on Concerta for eight years before it finally lost its effect when I was 18. We tried visiting previous medications: Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta (stronger dose), Welbutrin, Vyvanse, Focalin, Intuniv, Strattera. I’m back on Adderall now, but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore.

Being an adult with ADD isn’t easy at all. Even with medication I have trouble concentrating at work and listening to others when they are talking to me. I’ve had trouble finding a career path to follow because I lose interest in it after a few days. I also misplace things all the time: car keys, pens, my glasses. My bookshelf is lined with novels I’ve never finished reading. Under my bed are several spiral-bound and marble notebooks that are blank after the first few pages. Last November I decided I was going to do NaNoWriMo; I began my novel but didn’t get past the first two pages. As an artist, I’ve struggled with projects. I have folders on my laptop of unfinished artwork, and there are paintings that sit partially completed in my attic. I often attempt to multitask but get sidetracked on something else entirely.

I also suffer from depression, which I feel is a product of my ADD. A feeling of inadequacy fills me from head to toe whenever I realized I haven’t finished something. I set goals for myself and become discouraged when I do not reach them, or have to change my goal because it is too far out of reach. When I think about how many times I’ve changed my goals, I begin to feel as though I am incapable of success. I also have a hard time with failure, so I feel as though I’m stuck between these two emotions eternally. I become sad and sometimes jealous when I see someone else achieving my goals. I feel as though one day everyone I know will be college graduates with the careers they wanted, and I will still be changing my career path every two weeks.