Day 72 of 100

“But how does it make you feel?”

I was never much good at focusing. I have always struggled to complete things even though I am good at starting them.

“Gotta be startin’ something,” a Michael Jackson lyric just jumped in my brain and I spent the last 30 minutes trying to remember all the words and if it was even Michael Jackson who sang those words.

But I digress.

I was living in San Diego and working for Kozmo.com, the infamous delivery startup that promised to deliver most anything in under an hour. It was mostly DVDs and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, but we had all kinds of convenience items. Yes, in many ways it sounds like Postmates. There are no new ideas.

And I was struggling. I was depressed all the time, I couldn’t focus on my day to day, and generally things were not great. I had benefits so I went to a therapist.

“Take medication until you can focus. Here is some Ritalin.”

I proceeded to try 2 or 3 medications over time and none really felt right. I could focus, but then I also started to feel a lot of things. Bad things. Good things. Just things that I really didn’t want to feel.

“I’m not sure I like it.” I said during our next session.

“Keep on taking them,” he directed.

During our sessions I would tell him about the companies I started when I was a kid and how I was early at a startup.

Then one day he said, “So you like this startup stuff?”

“I guess.”

And then the bomb dropped. “I am working on a board game that I want to sell, want to help me figure out how to make that happen?”

Yeah, my therapist just asked me to be an advisor to his game company. Which felt weird. And wrong.

“I’d rather just get therapy.”

“Of course. Of course.” But he started to ask me startup questions during our sessions.

Needless to say, I left his practice. I found out later that folks that are bipolar have difficulty in focusing, and that all the drugs: Ritalin, Adderall, etc will help anyone focus.

So I don’t have ADHD and I never was an advisor to my therapist. I guess that was time well spent…