Cock Blocked by Adderall

I was rear ended in a car accident about 3 years ago. I sustained a concussion. After the accident I started having concentration and memory issues also problems with sleep deprivation among other things. I decided to get evaluated by a doctor who told me I was ADHD.

Shortly thereafter I started taking adderall. I’ll never forget the day I took the first dose. Suddenly all the noise in my head was silent. I’d grown accustomed to an ever changing list in my head of things to do. The silence was both palpable and glorious!

Evidently if you don’t need adderall it can cause you to speed. If you do need it, it calms you down. It calmed me down.

I was on it for several months when I discovered that if I took the second dose any later than noon I would be up working on projects until 5 or 6 am. Evidently this is a side effect.

Another side effect is that it increased my libido to the point of distraction. Because I hold a firm belief, which now has been statistically proven, that orgasms are great for your heart.

I had grown accustomed to “handling things” on my own. But now I found myself “handling things” sometimes twice a day everyday as opposed to just once a day. It was an annoying distraction. It was reminiscent of the scene in A Christmas Story. Remember when Flick pleads with Ralphie not to go back to class when his tongue is stuck to the frozen pole?

Ralph abandons his best friend saying “But the bell rang!! The bell rang!!” Much like the bell ringing, I couldn’t seem to ignore it’s power. It was annoying sometimes. I think I better understand how guys must feel when they get random boners!

I got onto OKCupid and wrote a unique profile which brought quite a bit of attention from an interesting array of accomplished men. It wasn’t anything overt. It was just very candid about what I wanted and didn’t want in a gentleman caller.

In the profile I had mentioned that my first singing gig in 30 years was coming up in a couple weeks. I thought it might be a good opportunity to meet anyone who is interested. There were several guys who said they were going to show up (which would have been quite awkward.) The night in question I noticed someone sitting at the bar who is in his late 20’s early 30’s who I believe was there for me. But he never approached me. Just stared alot , waiting for me to recognize him no doubt.

I was a nervous wreck. Because I only had 15 minutes rehearsal with a band I  had never met before. There was record heat in Chicago that day. Hot and steamy, which only added to the stress. My son was also performing on the same bill which was exciting for both of us.

Shortly before going on, I greeted friends who had come out to support us. In the confusion, I spotted a face that looked very familiar. We approached one another and I smiled and said, “Gary?”

“Blossom?”

“You made it! I can’t believe it!! That’s just so sweet of you,” I said.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. He had come to Fitzgerald’s ( from Oakbrook, oddly enough) with a buddy, to hear me sing! I was so tickled.
He had a great smile and was very personable and attractive. I really admired his chutzpah in showing up. There were about 13 guys who said they were coming, which made me a little bit nervous. But Gary actually made it.

I don’t recall if he was divorced or a signature away from being divorced. But after the show we sat and had a few cocktails and talked for hours. What a doll! By far, one of the most legit and appealing guys I had ever met online. But he was new to online dating and I suspect may have viewed it (as many do) as something of a smorgasbord. I think we’ve all been there to one degree or another.

I thoroughly enjoyed his company. It turned out that our kids knew one another! In fact, they were in choir together and graduated from the same class. Not only that. We grew up in neighborhoods very near one another but had never met. He was familiar with all the haunts of my early childhood in Oak Park. He also helped to raise five daughters. Since the separation, I think the girls were living with him. I think it was 5 daughters. Might have been six. So clearly he had a good understanding of women, if only by default.

So what does adderall have to do with all this? We said goodnight and clearly the chemistry was there. I didn’t sleep for more than about 6 hours over the next several days. Effects of the adderall had escalated out of control. It’s a bit insidious. Because I’ve always been of a mindset that I could work forever if my body can keep up with my mind. But it can’t possibly. I just kept pushing myself for days. (A friend once told me, “if you can’t sleep, by all means, don’t just lie there, get up and work!”) Because the adderall helps to eradicate any signals your body may be giving that your are WORN OUT, I just kept going. I was working on videos, building my first website, just stuff.

I had previously had an experience with insomnia that lasted a month. It happened several years ago. I went weeks with only a couple hours a day of sleep. I had terrible mood swings. Eventually I started hearing things and seeing double. It was crazy. Not even rx sleeping pills knocked me out. I only found out the medicine was the cause by googling it. It was a side effect from a brand new medication that was relatively unknown because of it’s newness on the market.

I had only slept about six or seven hours over several days. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t hear from Gary again. At the time I had rekindled the friendship with the woman from my youth who had been divorced for 30 plus years. “Bitter! Party of one!” Every time I went on a date she had something negative to say about the guy. She had such contempt for men that I often wondered if she might not be better suited to women.

The sleep deprivation made me crazy.Her tainted view of men started to seep into my brain. I had been in bed for hours and the sun was coming up with no sleep in sight. I had run out of things to do to pass the time. My mind wandered to this sweet, charming and funny guy (albeit a rare find through online dating). Talk about an unsuspecting soul! I don’t even remember exactly what happened nest. All I know is I grabbed my phone and started writing him an email! Holy Crap! This woman is off the chain!  I managed to compose a very caustic, snarky email like I was not only a woman scorned, but one who might have been humiliated in the public square by this guy! It was absurd! I had ONE DATE with the poor guy. And it wasn’t even a date!!! He supported my first performance and bought me a couple drinks afterwards.

The irony is, it’s not my nature to be caustic or snarky. Life is too short! I’m at a point in my life where, if someone inspires me to want to be snarky or caustic, they have no business being in my life and it’s a waste of breath to tell them. Just move on! Don’t put that negative energy out there. Just leave them in the dust and don’t bother with them. At least that’s what I do.

When I wrote the email I was so worked up! I had a nagging feeling that I should take a sleeping aid from Costco and try to get sleep before sending it. That’s what logic would dictate. But I told myself I was putting off an unpleasant task which should be dealt with, like emptying the dishwasher. At this point logic was but a distant memory. I decided to put theory to the test by reading my horoscope.

I used to put a lot of stock in the horoscopes at astro.com. Considering it is specific to the date, day, time and city that I was born, I often felt it had more validity.

I thought it said that basically, someone I like would be eliminating me from their circle of friends. And something about a misunderstanding. Being in this crazy paranoid state I thought it was saying that I misunderstood that he liked me and that I was being played. Bat shit crazy!

That was all I needed! Ever feel that finality that sometimes comes from hitting SEND? Sometimes it’s a great feeling. Sometimes, it can fill you with fear and loathing as you don’t know if it was the right move. I think I felt like I had just taken care of business. Then I took a fraction of costco sleep aid, and fell asleep. I was desperate for sleep.

I woke several hours later feeling rested and much calmer. I was enjoying the sense of relief that comes from having finally gotten some rest. When suddenly it hit me like a flash. Did I hit SEND? Or save it as a draft.
“Please god, don’t let me have sent that letter! It was crazy and mean! Was it reality or did I dream it? I quickly grabbed my phone. I looked in my sent email box. There it was staring me in the face! Dammit! WTF!

I don’t know about you. But once somebody shows me that they’re probably crazy, it’s hard to unring that bell. There’s no going back. You can apologize til you’re blue, but unless they have a baseline of their personality, and you know who they really are, forget it! Run like HELL! God know I’ve met enough nut jobs in online dating to know that.

In case you’re wondering what the letter said. I was so embarrassed I deleted it. As I recall it said something about him wanting to use women, that I included him in a very special event in my life which I regretted.

The kicker is, he couldn’t have been any sweeter or more sincere. I felt like I had known him a long time because we shared things in common from our childhoods. Our kids not only knew each other, but were both musicians having dropped out of college to pursue their dreams. At least that’s what I thought I never got to know him well enough for sure. But my gut is usually good about that sort of thing.

He responded saying “Wow! I don’t know where to begin…”

He handled it in a very gentlemanly manner. He said he had been out of town and was planning to ask me to dinner that Friday evening. Which only made things worse.

I might have felt better if he’d sent me an email saying, “Bitch! You crazy!” Cuz he’d have been right, at least at the time…temporary insanity.

I still wasn’t quite myself yet. So I called the prescribing doctor and of course I googled it. I learned that adderall can cause something like a psychotic break. Then again, so can sleep deprivation. She said it was probably from the sleep deprivation. But considering the adderall caused it I should stop taking it.

I tried to explain the situation. But he handled it a bit like a guy stuck in a room with a rabid dog…just back away slowly and head for the door.

I never took adderall again. Which may be indicative of my writing. You could say I messed it up myself. But if Adderall hadn’t gotten in the way, who’s to say.

So where is the silver lining to this one? I very rarely read horoscopes any longer. (Although that one was fairly accurate.) When I went back and read it again I noticed that it said something along the lines of “someone you like will be exiting your life after a confrontation”. In my sleep deprived daze I read it wrong.

I now believe we make things happen in our lives. Both the good and the bad. We somehow attract it, sometimes unknowingly. Everything happens for a reason, whether we are aware of the “why” or not.

I don’t know. Maybe in retrospect, I wasn’t really ready to meet a great guy. Maybe he wasn’t a great guy. He certainly seemed like a “keeper” though. I’m sure he’s content with some cutie somewhere. I hope she treats him well and they are very happy.

It’s a drag though. Because even if we hadn’t become lovers, I would have enjoyed his friendship. Its very rare these days to meet someone who comes from your circle, so to speak. Or very near it. There’s a lot to be said for that. it’s comforting. Because it allows you to speak in shorthand. People are very transient these days.

My parents were three years apart in age. They went to the same Catholic grammar school. They went to the respective brother and sister Catholic high schools(Trinity and Fenwick). Dad went to Notre Dame and mom went to St Marys of Notre Dame. It wasn’t until she dropped out of St Mary’s to go to (what is now) Dominican University, that she finally meet my dad. They met at the Edgewater ballroom in Chicago. They fell in love and remained the best of friends, still enjoying sex with one another when Dad was 70 years old! (I only know because mom told me he passed.) There’s a lot to be said for familiarity