The Vine: April 20, 2001
Dear Sars,
Love your site, especially love The Vine. When I read the letter from “Argh,” all sorts of bells and alarms went off. The fact that she said that she has been diagnosed with ADD and is on meds and “twitches constantly” is a problem. Argh, I hope you read this: You should not be twitching constantly. If it is a side effect of the meds then your doctor should try you on other meds. Ritalin is NOT the be-all and end-all. Did your regular doctor diagnose you, or did a neurologist? If it was your regular doctor, I would insist on seeing a neuro. ADD does not by itself cause twitching, and some things that do cause it can be aggravated quite a bit by the medicines given to people with ADD. For example, my little brother was diagnosed with ADD, but it turns out he has Tourette’s syndrome, which was made A LOT worse by taking Ritalin. Ritalin can be a useful drug, but not if it is given to people for the wrong thing. Right now get off the computer and go to the phone and call your doctor about the twitching. And if your doctor blows you off, get a new one.
Sign me,
Concerned Adult with ADD
Dear Concerned Adult,
Thanks for the tip. Argh, you might find some helpful resources here.
[An addendum, 4/23: Neither Concerned Adult nor I read the original very carefully; Argh isn’t actually twitching or anything. But Concerned’s advice is still good, generally. So there you have it.]
This has been bothering me for awhile…I figure that if all my friends think I’m nuts, I need to turn somewhere else for help!
Okay — I will attempt to keep this as brief as I can. It goes back to 1998, when I was a college freshman. I became friends with the incredibly funny Jared Leto (circa Jordan Catalano) look-alike who lived on my floor. I developed an insane mad crush on him, which was sort of reciprocated, although perhaps not as insanely. Anyway, the problem was he had a girlfriend from back home. So I accepted this and dealt with it and tried to move on until one night…and a bottle of Smirnoff later…we end up hooking up. In our drunkenness he told me that he liked me and if circumstances were different, we’d be together. Well, nothing was the same after that. We tried talking a few times and I tried to get things back to the way they were, but he was mostly blah blah blah awkwardcakes.
Okay, so 1999, sophomore year…found out he broke up with the at-home girlfriend…still thought about him constantly. But it seemed like things were so damaged from the year before and his attitude toward me just wasn’t the same and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
2000…spent the first semester of junior year abroad…2001…back at school. Saw him at a party a few weeks ago and he was friendly, and still gorgeous, and it got my hormones all stirred up. And now I can’t stop thinking about him and how much I miss him. Am I pathetic? Is there anything I can do to stop obsessing? It’s pretty sad that I’ve been crushing on the same guy for going on three years now.
Thanks for any light you could shed on the situation!
Angela Chase
Dear Angela,
Girl — please. One of my crushes lasted for FIVE YEARS, on a guy that’s basically a waste of oxygen. Maybe it’s pathetic, but it’s hardly out of the ordinary. And eventually you’ll stop obsessing on your own.
But…how come you have to stop? It’s not like he turned to you and said, “Ew, get away from me.” In fact, it’s just the opposite. Yeah, a lot of time has passed, but why not give him a call, invite out for a coffee, see if he wants to see a movie? Just friendly-like, you know…but then if he’s all “is this, like, a date date kind of thing?” then you can sort of bite your lip and go, “Well, um, yes,” and then if he wigs, you can hold up a hand like a diva and say, “Look, here’s the deal. I still like you that way, and I think you used to like me that way, so I thought I’d take a shot. So, there you go.” Maybe he’ll stammer a lot and try to blow it off…but maybe he won’t, and you won’t know until you give it a go.
I come from the nothing-ventured-nothing-gained school of crushing, but if that’s too much for you — and I don’t blame you — just let yourself daydream about him for awhile. It’ll pass; it always does.
Tags: boys (and girls) health and beauty
