Who Moved My Stuff?

or
Things Not to Do to Me

So I occasionally write these Adventures in Ritalin posts, but the thing is that I really do flake out when I'm driving, all the time: I enter this fugue state and then I kind of come to and realize, "Oh, hey, I'm up to this part already!" When I go on automatic, I really go on automatic. And I really don't like it when my stuff is moved b/c there are too many papers and it's In the Way. And I get it that if you're at all marginally neat, that's going to be tough to live with. But here's the thing: if you Move My Stuff, I can't find anything, and that I get really upset, b/c it's like it's Lost Forever.

Primera does some version of this when she doesn't see her preferred object: it's like, "Where's my DS case? Moooom! I can't find my DS case!" and then, like a half-second later, "[Sob] It's gone! I lost it!" Because if she can't see it right then, it could be permanently disappeared. As a kid, I used to have this half-thought, picturing the oblivious object, safe and secure somewhere, perhaps in a nice landfill, waiting to be discovered, impatient with the obviousness of its location and my stupidity. And it was that certain quiddity, that knowledge that it was out there, but I was too stupid to find it, that would really push me over the edge.

So anyway: don't move an ADD person's stuff. At least w/o telling them or giving them a really giant clue. And never, EVER throw stuff out thinking we won't notice.

End of PSA