My rant to no one

i have a problem. this problem, which has been amplified in recent months, is trying to maintain interest in anything for an extended period of time.

this includes movies, music, conversation, or just about anything else that you can think of. Say for instance when i'm watching a movie. I think it's a pretty good movie. I laugh cos it's funny. I realise it's funny, I think to myself "hey... that's pretty funny, and that's why I'm laughing"

and then it isn't so funny anymore.

I'm not really sure whether anybody else in the world understands that, but that's what i go through. I always thought it'd been because of my own self-conciousness, which in turn, is related to my own self-esteem.

I mean, that's how i got over it. I find that when i feel better about myself, i stop being self-conscious, and i can truly revel in things like movies, music and conversation.

but today, i met a guy. He's an old acquaintance of mine called Dique, and the reason i met up with him was to discuss him doing my band's music video in CG. Anyhows, as the conversation was progressing, he brought up the problem of bad short term memory.

"i mean like, really bad... i lost a couple of phones by leaving them on the roof of my car while i was trying to find my parking ticket"

I've almost done that about 100 times myself. so i asked him how he deals with it. He says it's so bad that he's actually on meds. Something called Ritalin. I recognised the name as a drug used on kids in america with ADD (attention deficit disorder).

when i was studying there, i was diagnosed with ADD. it was a hyperactive disorder for me. they were wondering why i'd always get into fights after school. Found out, that if we were little angels the whole day, teacher would give us jelly beans at the end of the day. When i got jelly beans into me, i could never sit still, so i'd start play-punching the guy next to me like hey..*dish*...hey...*dish*...hey...*dish*...hey...*dish*...hey...*dish*...hey...*dish*...hey...*dish*

this guy's name was hogan. and he'd punch back, and we'd get into fights.

so this was how i never got sweets or coke (i got sugarless barley) until i was like 15. i always thought that i'd learnt to control it... although in many ways, i'm still a social irritant today.

anyhows, the reason it's called ADD, is exactly because we can't focus on anything too long. Thus my inability to enjoy movies or music for any extended period of time. it was really bad for me for a long period last year, after i got dumped by an ex. first time i've been dumped since high school. so self-esteem down, self-consciousness up. and not knowing what the problem was, i can tell you guys now that i was feeling myself having a nervous breakdown.

i think a nervous breakdown happens when the problems you have in your head don't get any better no matter how hard you try... no matter how much you vent or emote, your head just gets stuck in an endless cycle.

I managed to find a way out of it, by taking measures to help build back my self esteem. I'm privileged in that sense to have a pretty good life overall.. i love my job, the income's decent and so on. I'm a pretty lucky guy, and slowly... i'm starting to be thankful for all the things i have once again. I can only hope that others with nervous breakdowns can be so lucky.

If not, i guess there's always ritalin.