grad school, anxiety, and ADHD

     i am currently in my second year of a three year grad program. i had no idea when i started this program just how much i would learn about myself. things that seemed fairly normal or no big deal, suddenly, in this intense program, became fairly big problems. i have only recently, through counseling and scientific testing, found out that i have a generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactive disorder), and a reading disorder.

     i have always known that i was a "worrier" and tended toward the more anxious side. i hate doing things i've never done before, going places i've never been before (because i worry the entire time that i will get lost), talking in front of large groups of people, and i would never engage in thrill-seeker type activities. i have no desire to go to any country, state, or neighborhood where i would be highly concerned for my safety. i like people, places, and situations i am comfortable with. i also care a lot about school and how well i do in it. it's one of the reasons i made it into the top program of its kind in the country. it's also why being in such a stressful program led to high levels of anxiety.

   in undergrad i never experienced overwhelming levels of anxiety. i never took more than 12 units and didn't work. i put all my focus into doing the best i could in the classes i was in. and even though the stress levels definitely rose around finals time, i often had a nice break between semester to relax and come back down from that high stress moment. grad school is very different. i had to take 18 units in the fall and spring semester. i took 9 units in the summer. my longest break in the entire year was winter break at 3 weeks long. other than that, all the other breaks were at most a week long. because of all this, my stress levels just continued to rise and rise over the course of a year and a half.  it finally got to the point where i knew i absolutely had to do something about it. i was even having anxiety attacks in class whenever someone said the word "project." i started seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist, started taking some mild anti-anxiety meds, and went on something my school calls the "flex program." that means i get to add a year to my schooling so i can spread out the coursework and take less units per semester. 

     i felt immediate improvements but it still took about one to two months before i really felt like myself again. in going to regular meetings with a psychologist, she thought i portrayed traits of someone with ADD (attention deficit disorder) and thought i should get some testing done. she felt it may be part of the cause of the anxiety. if it takes me longer to do things, because of the ADD, then being on a intense time crunch where i don't have the time i want to do everything would be a large reason as to why i would feel more anxiety while in this program. it never occurred to me that i could have this condition before now. no one ever suggested it. and i really didn't know that much about it. i definitely wasn't the hyperactive kid who was bouncing off the walls. i never had low grades or made my teachers crazy by being a trouble maker. i was always the quiet one. i was, however, always called "spacey." i was often lost in daydream and would forget lots of little things that didn't matter too much. no one ever suggested that this could be ADD. once the idea had been presented to me, i couldn't help but notice how often i lost my train of thought. as i got closer to project presentations and finals i noticed it was harder and harder to concentrate and i was having increasing difficulty starting the work i needed to do.

     the testing took a total of 3 days and involved i hour of subjective interview (me talking about myself and why i was there), and two days of formal testing. the first test i did was a personality test, which basically just confirmed that i wasn't "get the straight jacket" crazy. so that's nice. then we did a test that looked at my processing speed. i had to look at these lines and lines of symbols that were all very similar and only cross out certain ones. i came out average but in the slightly slower range. then there was this test that looked at my overall ability to understanding language. they showed 4 pictures and then said a word and i had to say which picture best represented that word. my results were in the high average range. pretty much what i expected. there were also these questionnaires my dad and i filled out that basically checked off which ADD/ADHD symptoms i had and at what level of severity. these were used when looking at the results as a whole to determine if i had ADD or ADHD. then there was a computerized attention test. i had to look at a computer screen with head phones on and only click the mouse when the number 1 ( and not number 2) was said over the head phones or flashed on the screen. this looked at accuracy and reaction time. it was fifteen minutes long and by the end i felt like i was dreaming. at one point i literally felt like i was sideways as i sat at the table. it was so hypnotizing. apparently i was very "impulsive," a symptom of ADHD, because i often clicked the mouse for the number 2. then i had to do a basic vocabulary and reading comprehension test. i came out average overall but needed extra time to finish the reading comprehension test. the reading comp test alone had results in the low average range when the extra time was considered and in the low range if they only looked at the normal time constraints. and when they looked at my reading speed compared to my "peers," i was about as low as you can get (1st percentile). finally there was the memory testing. it started off simply with 3 numbers or letters being said and i had to repeat them. this increased up to 6 numbers or letters. and then they did the same thing except i had to repeat them back in order (1, 2, 3 or a, b, c). i got average scores at these. interestingly, the last test was the only one i did really well at. i'm assuming it was supposed to be the hardest. i was given 4 letters and 4 numbers and had to repeat them back doing numbers in order and then letters in order. i ended up being in the very superior range (99.9th percentile). who knew?

     so what did the results mean? like i said at the beginning, i was diagnosed with ADHD and a reading disorder. i was expecting ADD but not ADHD because i wasn't a hyperactive kid. but the impulsivity i showed in the computer test led them to ADHD instead of just ADD. the reading disorder didn't totally surprise me because i always knew i was a slow reader and always hated reading comprehension tests. even as a kid, i would hate doing any sort of reading comprehension assignment. we had these really short ones in elementary school where they had the essay and questions on one side and the correct answers to the questions of the other. every time i would maybe get one of the answers correct.  i often have to read the same sentence over and over again to feel like i really know what it says. but although they said it was highly likely that i have a reading disorder, they would have to do more testing to confirm what kind of reading disorder. i don't really like the idea of more testing, and since i have been able to compensate so far, i figure it's not that big of a deal to require more testing. but that one memory test surprised me a lot. during the test where she said just numbers , whenever she got to 5 or 6 numbers it suddenly went from making perfect sense to hearing "asjdhfawhefih3owifo" when she said the numbers. i would just look at her confused and say "i think there was a 3 in there somewhere." but then in the one with the numbers and letters together, because she went back and forth (ex: F4G8P2) i had a much easier time hearing them and remembering the sequence. it had a rhythm and basically was like a song looping in my head as i figured out how to put the numbers and letters in order. by the time we were at the end of the test and she was saying 4 letters and 4 numbers, i would take almost 5 minutes figuring out how to rearrange them and remember them in the new order and then would spurt out the correct answer, only to see a look of awe on the face of my tester. that was pretty awesome. maybe all these years of listening to music all day long has paid off.

     the funniest result of all of this testing was talking to my parents about it and being able to find out who i can blame for all of my quirks. i definitely get my anxiety from my mom. who gets it from her mom. who probably gets it from her mom. in fact, if she hadn't gone to therapy for anxiety a few years ago and found success with some mild anti-anxiety meds, i might not have decided to seek help when i did. the reading disorder i definitely get from my dad. he also reads at a slow pace and claims to have some type of dyslexia. i was telling him that although i don't look at a word and see the letters all jumbled up, when i read a sentence, often it's like the whole sentence gets jumbled up in my head. this is why i don't often read for fun. i dont read the harry potter and hunger games books for a reason. i read so slowly that if i am going to read a book that isn't a textbook, it's going to be a very funny and silly book. i see no point otherwise in putting in the effort. actually, i usually prefer short stories. woody allen and steve martin both have books of short stories that are fantastically silly and weird. just the way i like it. but i think i would have to blame both my parents for the ADHD thing. they both kinda have the symptoms. i remember my psychologist asking what conversations were like with my family. it's basically a lot of going off on tangents, people cutting each other off because they suddenly got reminded of something, apologizing afterwards for cutting the person off, and then lots of "what was i going to say?" it's pretty entertaining.

     it's funny how i could be aware of the fact that i have a tendency to worry or daydream or read slow and have no idea that i am diagnosable. and as it turns out, there are things i can do about it. i am going to set up an appointment with my psychiatrist to see what medicinal options i have for the ADHD that could help my concentrate in class and when i am studying at home. also, if i want i can have more time during tests, have special cd's where my textbooks are read to me, and can even ask to have a private room with minimal distractions during tests. i haven't yet decided if i will do any of these things yet. the suggestions they gave for study habits were mostly things i figured out for myself over the years. i remember back when i had to do hours and hours of reading for my chemistry class in undergrad, i used to keep a bag of chocolates just out of reach and at the end of each section i would stop reading and eat one chocolate. getting a break while simultaneously getting a reward was very helpful. i don't tend to need that these days since i mostly study off my class notes instead of spending hours reading textbooks, but the idea of rewarding myself and taking breaks regularly is still used and very helpful. 

     i wish i had known some of this stuff about myself before i started grad school. maybe then i would have straight A's instead of mostly A's :) but either way, knowing more about myself, my random strengths and weaknesses, is definitely for the best. it takes some of the load off to know that there is a reason why i am not the most perfect student ever and i don't have to be so hard on myself. just because i was summa cum laude in undergrad doesn't mean i can expect to be that in an incredibly hard grad program. the fact that i have come as far as i have without even knowing about the extent of my limitations or having done something about them until now is pretty impressive. i know if i can make it this far i can make it through this crazy program and figure out what i need to do to be successful in my future career.  

blog title explanation

so i realized that i should probably explain the title of my blog. well, when i decided to do a blog i didn't have a definite theme in mind, so i couldn't come up with some witty title based on the theme i was going to use. and doing something as boring "katie's blog" made me wanna vomit. so since i love all things weird, silly, ridiculous, and nonsensical, i decided that my blog title should show that. the name Squeegee Beckinheim is a fake name i've used for some time. i actually stole it from Gilmore Girls. there's this one scene where they are going through all of their catalogs and lorelai is talking about how she just wanted to see if they would really send catalogs to someone named something ridiculous like Squeegee Beckinheim. there were other silly names, but that was the best. although, Tookie Clothespin is pretty good too. and then the lion tamer thing. originally i wanted to write professional killer instead, but then i got all paranoid about the idea of being watched by the government for using that as my blog title so i decided against it. even though i love a good Gross Point Blank reference. so then i remembered a couple halloweens ago i went as a lion tamer and it was totally awesome and my friends created a new drink for me that night which we called the lion tamer from then on. thus the creation of Squeegee Beckinheim: Professional Lion Tamer. hope that cleared things up.

what the hell...

     first off, i never capitalize if i don't have to. i can't be bothered to reach for the shift key. now that that's taken care of let me explain why i'm trying a blog. i figure it's like a journal only for someone who needs attention from others, aka validation. check. i actually never really kept up a diary or journal when i was young. i know it's what young girls are supposed to do but it never felt right. plus, i'm just weird.
     i tried once. started off with normal journal entries. turned into drawings i did of myself keeping track of my acne ( which i had for years and was incredibly self conscious about), and then finally just list of music playlists. this was back when i had to make mixed tapes which i was really into. i never wanted to have a song suddenly get cut off before the end because i ran out of tape,  and i never wanted to waste more than a minute of blank tape, so i would spend hours calculating the length of the playlist and figuring out exactly which songs to include and in what order so that they fit perfectly on the tape. i was quite proud of this.
     surprisingly, i am not nearly as OCD about anything else. in fact, i think if i were to get married one of these days, the only thing i would be an anal bridezilla about would be the music. (ugh, did i just use the word "bridezilla?" i'm gonna barf.) other than that, lets just have a casual backyard bash with TOGO's catering. they have really good chocolate chip cookies.
     anyways, this is new to me. but i'm in grad school and it's been really stressful and i was thinking that it might be good stress relief to write it all down. not actually a suggestion from my psychologist, who is such a nice and supportive lady, but rather a sudden inspiration while watching an interesting indie movie called submarine. it's really good, you can stream it on netflix.
     so where do i begin. i guess the best place is childhood. born in santa ana. first place i remember living was the little house in garden grove by that big brown hospital. we had this huge tree outside our house. one time one of our cats got stuck up it and i guy had to climb up and bring the cat down in a bucket. i remember swinging on the old swing set in the back yard, the imprint of a dragonfly in the concrete by the house, the above ground pool my parents had for awhile that i would swim in all day even though i hated getting my face wet, the slip and slide my parents put up in the summer, our dog odie running all over the place, and my dad teaching me how to ride a bike in the parking lot of the hospital on a weekend.
     i had a great childhood. could not have asked for more from my parents. when i was about 2 they started taking me to this little private montessori school in brea. i loved it, so small and everyone knew each other. there were very few times i felt like someone didn't like me or was trying to exclude me. i mostly just felt safe and was in a place that really taught me how to teach myself and have desire to learn. it was a rare school in that it went from kindergarten through 6th grade. so i didn't go to a public school till junior high. that was terrifying. i didn't know anyone. i had to ride a school bus for the first time. i had no idea how shy i was till junior high. i ended up spending a lot of time in the library even though i kinda hated reading.
     i was grateful for dance. i started dancing when i was 3. the christmas before i turned 3 i was in a christmas show for school. it was some sort of "christmas around the world" show so i, the blond kid, was wearing a hawaiian print dress and was supposed to stand in the back and look cute while my brother and some other kids sang a song in front. instead i walked up to the front and started dancing to the song. my parents picked up on the hint. as cheesy as it sounds, dance was my first love. and oddly enough my first heartbreak, but that wasn't till i was 21-ish.
     anyways, dance and my friends at dance got me through the junior high and early high school years. i had been best friends with michelle since i was 9 and was forced into carpooling with her to our dance studio in garden grove (the colony of performing arts, and no it's not a cult) because my family had just moved to a condo in yorba linda. we didn't even have classes together yet but we soon would and before long we were talking about our crushes and all sorts of other crap that little girls talk about. eventually i became part of a pretty tight group of girls who performed together and spent almost every day together. too many dances and too many memories to list.
     at one point i got frustrated with the studio (and that chick lauren g was really bugging me at the time) so i checked out some other dance studios. met some interesting people, learned a lot about dance, and learned more about myself. my friends are more important than which studio i go to and whether there happens to be a vain chick who constantly has the steal the spotlight every chance she gets. so i went back. i was particularly happy when michelle and i were finally at the same high school together (she was a year younger than me). it made me calmer and more confident at school. but i was still really shy and thanks to teenage hormones had a tendency to be overly sensitive.
     i was the quiet smart chick and i never felt like anyone knew my name or even saw me. i found out later, that wasn't so much the case. i was quite the opposite with my dance friends. i was my loud and goofy self with them. the way i am with my family. it was so much easier there. when i was about to be a junior i decided to go out for the song squad at school. i wanted to have the kind of friendships i had at dance with more people at school. plus they did harder, less cheesy lyrical dances than the dance team did. i tried out and made it.
     i was used to other dancers realizing that if you have to perform together than you have to get along. i thought they would at least try to get to know me. only two of them did, and they were normally too busy with their amazing social lives to notice that i was being ignored and excluded at every turn. some of the girls even seemed to go out of their way to point out every mistake i made and make me feel like the worst dancer on the squad. i was on the team for 6 months before i quit. long enough to go to summer camp, perform at a bunch of football games, and do one pep rally in the gym in front of the whole school.
     it ended up being a way that a lot of people in school came to know me. apparently, after i quit my friends would over hear other people talking about how i quit the team because the girls were a bunch of bitches. since the girls on the team were some of the most popular girls in the school it was assumed already that they were bitches so people seemed to enjoy gossip that confirmed that fact. my mom even remembers going to lunch one day in our neighborhood with a  friend and was telling her all about my situation with the team when she realized that the group of ladies at the table next to her had suddenly stopped talking and were listening to their conversation. super creepy.
     i wasn't thrilled about the idea of going to this same high school for another year. i was so sick of all that crap. so when i had the opportunity to go to ochsa (orange county high school of the arts) for my senior year, because they had become their own school thanks to some really rich dude, i leapt at it. i did miss seeing my crush every day. joey siara. he was smart and funny and was the lead guitarist in a rock band. of course i had a giant crush on him. nothing ever came of it. i'm not sure if he ever knew, i'm just proud of the fact that i was eventually able to talk to him and be on semi-friends terms with him. i was so shy with guys, flirting was not something i knew how to do at this age. but going back to the topic of ochsa.
     it was the best decision i could have made. small classes, lots of dancing, fun and weird people all over the place, and some of the best teachers i have ever had. i even ended up getting an award for writing and composition at the end of the year. that was random and totally awesome.
     and then came the OCC days. i went initially to prepare myself for eventually going to new york to become a professional dancer. my first week there i met a guy who ended up being very important in my life. but i'll tell that story next time. this blog (i've just now decided) is about my first love: dance.
     so after my first year at OCC i went to this summer dance workshop up at csu san jose with the jose limon dance company. i was in love with the technique. it felt so right on my body. when i was younger i had been exposed to modern dance and proclaimed that i would someday be a professional modern dancer, but there are no modern dance classes for anyone younger than college age in orange county, california. at the end of the workshop one of the company members told me that there was a program in new york with the company that was almost a year long and that she thought i should do it. i applied and got in on a half scholarship.
     so at the age of 19 i moved to new york. my dance teacher talara helped me find a place and get settled. i ended up living in a women's hostel run by the salvation army on gramercy park. i had an amazing roommate who i barely got to see, i spent the mornings taking class with the company, i spent the afternoons working in the company's office, and i spent the nights working as a waitress at cosi to pay my rent. i had very little free time to make friends. it was amazing at first, but it got very stressful and very lonely. i only spent about 4 months there before i decided to come home. i realized i need my family and friends close by to be happy. keep in mind that this was 2002, before skype, facebook, texting, and myspace. i didn't even own a computer.
     when i came back i checked out different companies in LA but didn't really like any of them. i tried working as a temp to save money so that if i went back to new york i would be able to mostly audition instead of work constantly. i slowly became moody and depressed trying to make my relationship with dance work. i always loved the dream of being a professional dancer. it was such a romantic idea: getting paid to do beautiful dance that i loved. but i hated the part time jobs i would have to do in order to make a living as a dancer (cuz dancers get paid shit and they all needed some other job to pay for rent and food), i knew that there were few companies i would truly want to dance for, i knew that thanks to my bad back and knees and various other body parts i would have a short career, and i hated the idea of starting my life all over again in my late 30's.
     the romantic dream was turning into a very depressing reality. i had always had physical therapy in the back of my mind as something i could do if dance didn't pan out. slowly i began to realize that i couldn't be happy as a dancer. this relationship wasn't going to work, it just wasn't meant to be. it was utterly heartbreaking. slowly as i thought about what my life would be like if i went back to school to become a physical therapist i began to come out of my funk and feel better again.
     it's an odd thing to have danced everyday your life and then suddenly stop. i still dance in my apartment. i still dance socially. and everytime i hear music i see dance in my head. but it's not what i do. it will forever be a part of me and my identity, but it's not the focus of my life. and that's ok.
so if you actually made it through all of that, congratulations! you now know a hell of a lot more about me than you did before. hopefully that wasn't too boring. and i can only assume that you are a stalker. see you next time :)