Reply To: MY LIFE IS HAS BEEN CYCLE AFTER CYCLE OF COMPLETE FAILURES

[Patte Rosebank]

@Jojosephine, welcome aboard!

Please remember this: You are NOT a failure!

Please also remember: You’re definitely not alone.

You’ve just discovered something about yourself that explains what was REALLY going on. It wasn’t YOU who “failed”. It’s just that the jobs and situations and timing were wrong for you.

As for not getting your ADHD treated after childhood, that’s not surprising. Most of what we now know about ADHD was learned within the past 10 years. Including that you DON’T outgrow it.

I had my “Aha!” moment in March, 2010, when I was about your age.

It was a total surprise because I’d never even been tested for a learning disability. I was one of those “gifted” kids. Until I hit university with its almost total lack of structure and accountability. Then, I crashed and burned, but somehow managed to earn a B.A.  This was followed by many years of bouncing from lousy temp job to lousy temp job, along with a couple of “permanent” jobs that were such a disaster that being fired came as a relief.  As you’d expect, anxiety and depression were my constant companions.

ADHD was something we’d never considered, until my brother saw a newspaper article about Rick Green (whose comedy we’d enjoyed since we were kids). But Rick wasn’t talking about his comedy; he was talking about his ADHD. As my brother read the article, he was amazed at how well it described me. He sent me the article, with a big note: “This sounds just like you!” And it did.

Since then, I’ve been learning all I can, especially by interacting with other ADDers right here in the Forums. And I can’t believe how far I’ve come in just three-and-a-half years. I still have good days and bad, but the bad ones aren’t nearly as bad (or as often) as before, because now I know what’s going on, and I can usually figure out what to do about it. If not, I can post about it in the Forum, and someone’ll give me a little advice and encouragement.  And I’ll return the favour for someone else who needs a boost.

Having ADHD is a lifelong thing—like being left-handed in a right-handed world, or the only 7-foot-tall Pygmy in the tribe.  It does NOT mean that you *can’t* do things. It just means that you need to find a different way of doing them that works for YOU.

Eventually, you’ll discover that you don’t “suffer” from ADHD any more. You just *have* it.

Believe it or not!

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