Reply To: Diagnosed at 50 Because of Problems at Work

[lindsey3]

Hi stillwatergirl, I so relate to your point of ‘ swimming upstream’ via work that finally exposes reasons for ongoing difficulties. I was just myself – a bit odd, passionate, private, for me highly successful within my professional role, verbally insensitive with colleagues sometimes ( I would hear myself saying words but couldn’t help or stop the flow some how ) and increasingly losing capacity. My dear dog died on a Monday afternoon and I was back at work early on the following Tuesday – and so my hard won world of hiding feelings, over control, deeply entrenched patterns of routines and repetition, no private life and complex denial started to split open. My unconscious self tapped me on the shoulder and said – you can’t go on any more. I had been swimming upstream for thirty years professionally, but it all started at 18m when I jumped out of a first floor building. This resulted in stitches and a scar that I still have.

At four, I regularly jumped out of my mothers little van when stopped at lights, and ran in the opposite direction. My passion was to run until exhaustion as a child, or to jump from heights – sheds, bunk beds, car roof tops, walls – you name it. I had begun denial of my true self by the age of seven.

When the break or crack happened in my life, I had no idea where the depression and anxiety disorder came from, such was my dislocation from my own real self in relation to my exterior performance. It has taken over sixteen months, a lot of therapy and a diagnosis of ADHD, to begin the first next steps to being perhaps happy, but at least real.

Despite awful difficulties and down feelings, my goal remains positive, and I want this for you too! Everything takes time, but I truly believe that we can be happier with knowledge and strategies, than without.

I know that my future will be different from my past, and I hope happier and more resolved. Fingers crossed!

 

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