I'm so done with myself that I'm willing to sit down in the corner and contemplate on what I have done. Or let happen.
For context, I've been on a many year streak of not losing my belongings carelessly as I did when I was a teenager—entire sets of school uniform, shoes, expensive bookmarks, water bottles (I know this happens very often in general), my purse (!), etc. It's gotten so bad that I wondered if there was something wrong with me in the head. Well, maybe I do, what with the bipolar and anxiety disorders thing, what's one more diagnosis to explain some of the things I do that I have mistaken for a quirky personality or other.
But this ONE, I simply can't brush it off because it involves permanently losing items and when totalling the cost of replacing them... I don't even want to go there. Let's just leave it at that. The point is, I've always had this habit of forever losing things: whether it's from my personal body like in my hands or pockets or scattered in my environment. I either lose them or mix-match them for something else, and by the time I realise that they're missing, it's too late. I'd be too far away from them or they're taken.
Is this ADHD talking or ...?
So, my psychiatrist and I have a hunch that it may be ADHD, but before we can truly confirm this, I need to run through a test with a psychologist, and all this would take time to arrange. Losing very personal valuable items too often is one of the symptoms, among others.
In the meantime, I just lost my brand-new purple bottle that I JUST bought over the weekend. I swear, it's the cutest 1,300 ml piece of plastic I've ever owned—it has a sipper plastic straw, a place to hang my pretty charms, and pink highlights going all over the bottle. It's different than the other industrial looking bottles I own, okay. That's just what I want to say and I lost it.
By the counter.
Basically, within 24-hour of filling the water bottle up and using it roughly twice, I have lost the said item.
As much as I am frustrated with myself, I won't blame it on me too hard. I've done that for too many years and it's obviously not helpful nor healthy. Losing things doesn't mean it's because I have little regard with my belongings, but according to psychology, it's an alarm bell for having an overwhelmed cognitive system.
- Attention Regulation: This is my brain's director which decides what gets my immediate attention. While I was putting my handbag down at the counter to confirm with the staff my identity before retrieving the meds, I placed my bottle beside it with my other hand. I barely registered this happening because I was too nervous to speak and arrange my things at the same time. I don't even remember when I put my bottle down.
- Executive Functions: These include high-level management skills that usually are helpful for planning, organising and completing tasks. However, when they are overwhelmed, getting things organised smoothly can be impossible. Being in a queue for something always freaks me out and maybe that time it got to me bad. I don't like feeling like I'm being rushed (nobody was rushing me though) and I was tired from waiting.
I usually have a system in place for this sort of situation: to calm down, breathe and stop panicking, and stick to the routine of taking things slowly. Perhaps this is that one time when it fails and I just have to own it and move on. As the saying goes:
Getting a handle on losing things is a process of compassionate trial and error.
I'll just get another water bottle. In pink next time.
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