Is it ok if I have mayonnaise?

Have I mentioned that my entire family is ADD? Yes, it is hereditary. And yes, BOTH parents have it. (sorry if I gave something away there, Mum and Dad).

My brother made an interesting comment this weekend when the whole family was together. He said that he learned a few "coping" (my word) skills while he was on meds and now that he is off them, he still uses the skills. Mum said something about "imagine if you were still on them, think about how many more skills you'd be learning."
I do think he is right. Things that I couldn't get my brain to wrap around before, my brain could finally grasp when I was on the meds. And then it stuck with me and I could apply the concepts even while non-medicated. (This is probably sounding very strange to you 'civilians').
I agree with Mum's comment too.

A friend said that she couldn't tell by my first blog entry if I was happy or not about being off meds. I told her, that's because I'm not sure myself.

Socially, the one annoying thing that has gone away is people asking me why I'm not drinking. It's amazing how obsessed people get. Why do THEY care if I'M not drinking? I'm not stopping anyone else from doing so. (tangent: same with being a vegetarian. I don't tell other people not to eat meat. That's their choice and this is my choice. Why do they have to obsess and get down to the exact details of why? No one obsesses over other things I won't eat.) I got tired of explaining that I couldn't have alcohol with my meds. And then explaining why I was on meds (and then explaining it's not like mixing cold medicine with liquor, it's more dangerous than that). And either having to explain ADD or getting someone's uneducated opinion about it. If you don't have it - you can't know.
Sometimes I wouldn't explain it at all. Other times I thought about lying and telling people I was A.A. or pregnant. And it wasn't like I announced when I walked in to a party: "NO ALCOHOL FOR ME!" Someone would offer and I would give a casual "no thank you." That was it. Or I would just grab a can of pop and someone would notice that it was a Pepsi instead of a Henry's in my hand. A few times I even brought long-necked bottled root beers and hid the label with my hand, just so people would leave me be. There isn't that much alcohol that I do like, so often I am still going for the RC instead of the Red Hook.

Jim Gaffigan is one of my favorite comedians. A tea-totaler himself (and I love the fact that he never says why. Right on, brother!) he has this great routine about people reacting to him not drinking. To those who have heard it, you'll know what I am talking about when I say "Mayonnaise." If anyone knows of a sound byte on the web of this routine, let me know so I can link it here.