A Journey I am just starting.

[Takingbacktyler]

I am 24 years old and I am finally coming to grips with the fact that I have ADHD.
My life up untill this point has been shrouded in confusion. Growing up I was always ” different”. I never could figure out why. My peers would pick on me relentlessly. I guess this became a pattern that persisted into my early adulthood. I would find a group that I felt intimadated by. I would be the funny fat guy, and then I would piss someone off because I didnt stop to think before I spoke, lied about something incredibly stupid, or I let my feelings of inadequacy overtake me.
I would go from one job to the next. Seemingly being talented enough to do the job but failing the basics. Failing to be interested or intrigued enough to keep going.
The failures I experienced so often early in life really shaped the way I acted. The abuse I got handed early in life really trapped me inside of my mind.
The failures I went through happended because I was different. I suffered from ADHD. I still suffer from ADHD.
It was never than I was per say- very hyper or couldent sit still it was that my mind worked differently than everyone elses. My mind still works differently than most peoples.
I am not very dependable, I often make commitments before I think about it and later I am forced to go back on them, I obsess to nauseum about worst case scenarios and how incredibly stupid I am and have been.
My mind is much like a Ferrari on ice. Going 100 MPH. I cannot control a thought and choose to disregard it. Instead I slip and I slide between one obsessive thought to the next. For hours and hours I think about the same thing, What did i do wrong? How could I have done it differently? Will i be fired tommorow? Why havent my friends been in touch? Do they hate me? Did i offend them? Have I been a good person? on.. and on.. and on.. it goes. Eventually I take something to help me sleep and it knocks me out.
The thoughts cease for a time.
This is what it is like for me to live with ADHD. I am not depressed. I am not Bi Polar. I am not giving up and I never ever will.
Testing out medication for the first time in my life opended up my eyes, it opended up doors. No longer would I ever wonder what i ” suffered” from something…. I knew.
ADHD is apart of my brain makeup. I cant think a certain way and “change” it. It is and forever will be apart of who I am.
I am astounded at how many people that I have met with ADHD since I started looking into it and gathering information. They all have suffered and some still suffer. They go through countless jobs, marriages,opportunities , and friends.
I can no longer ignore it. Instead I have chosen to face it and fix it. On January 25th I go for my official diagnosis ( a 5 hour test). My doctor was amazed at how much of a typical case I am of a person living with ADHD. After my test I plan on getting on medication and to begin learning techniques to live my life happier and fuller with ADHD.
I really felt like I needed to put this all into words. To finally identify my enemy and to finally let it out from inside of me.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Wow!  It sure sounds as if you’re one of us!

Welcome aboard, friend!

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[Phil, Just Phil.]

Yes, welcome.  It is amazing how many of us come to these threads with similar stories.

Try as you might, it is hard to say the wrong thing here, or come up with an angle that nobody else understands. 

Get involved, ask questions, share what you are learning.  Some of us will hear it for the first time and others may just need to be reminded so don’t ever think you are not adding value.

 

Maybe we need to do a spot on rumination and constantly obsessing over past events, hmm….. that could be helpful.

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[Patte Rosebank]

We do tend to ruminate (usually over the bad stuff), remembering & replaying every tiny detail.  This is because one of the symptoms of ADHD is the inability to filter out just the important stuff, and ignore all the tiny details.  This inability is also why we find driving to be so difficult.  So much information, coming at us so fast!

We can get so caught up in ruminating over the past, feeling the slings & arrows as keenly as when they were first shot at us…  And what good does it do us?

 

On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, 1958, my mom’s fiance phoned her and said, he was sorry, but he was feeling really sick, so he’d have to cancel their date to go to a party.  A few days later, she found out that he’d lied to her, and gone to that party with another girl.  She felt so crushed and betrayed and furious, that she dumped him immediately.  A few years later, she met and married my dad.

But, every New Year’s Eve, she ruminates over that *one* New Year’s Eve, and how her jerk of a fiance stood her up and lied to her.  She never wants to go out, or do anything that might be fun, or might make her feel good, or might celebrate the occasion.  No, she just wants to replay every cruel, painful detail of what happened to her, FIFTY-FOUR YEARS AGO.  The jerk probably completely forgot about it, decades ago.  Heck, he might even be dead by now.  But, every New Year’s Eve, my mom lets him hurt her, all over again.  It’s like those rituals that people who cut themselves follow…

 

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[Takingbacktyler]

Thank you for the welcome. Thank you for reading. I am really excited and hopeful about particapating on here.
Really interesting Larynxa, I have never thought about the ” why” part of obsessing. Filtering is a real struggle though, There is no denying that. I lose sight of the big picture. Often the things that i fear doing based on past results or perceived results turn out to be really good things that i should have done long ago.

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[MarieAngell]

@Takingbacktyler, yes, yours a familiar story, but it is your own.  Allow yourself time to sort of your medication, your life and, yes, even to mourn a bit for the life you could have lived had you only known sooner.

I hope you take some comfort in having found out now rather than 20 years from now, like many of us.

It’s not easy to be patient (ADHD, duh), but it can take a while to work through finding strategies that make your life better. Don’t get discouraged.

Rumination is a horrible thing. In our house, we call that the Vortex of Doom. Medication helped me with that so much, enough that I’m able to fight it off most of the time (and I know I’m lucky in that regard).

Before I knew I had ADHD, my therapist suggested a strategy for dealing with rumination that helped some. He said, when you notice yourself ruminating, focus on what is right in front of you.  It works especially well with words. If you’re reading or have print in sight, read each word as slowly as possible. Do this for as long as possible, really stretching it out.

I thought he was insane (well, he is a little), because I’m a fast reader and that sounded incredibly painful. But it really does work to break the cycling thoughts. It also aids in for refocusing when your mind drifts. (This is a form of mindfulness, which Rick mentioned in the webinar Jan 10th.)

 

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[Takingbacktyler]

Marie- Thank you for your input on my story.
Although I am in very early stages in getting the correct help and techniques figured out it hasent stopped me from trying anything that may work. I will def. try your advice. It is nice to know what my battle is because now i can learn things that have worked for others.

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[Patte Rosebank]

I have so much trouble filtering information that I made the conscious decision that the world would be much safer if I wasn’t driving in it.

I made this decision after failing my driving test. (I made the tester scream, which is a pretty spectacular failure, I think.)

I replayed the test (and the many in-car lessons I’d had) in my mind, and quickly realized that I just couldn’t handle all that information coming at me so fast, from all directions. And that, if I missed something important, in less than a second, I could kill someone.

Driving is a privilege, not a right, and it requires tremendous responsibility. I wasn’t about to be selfish and insist on driving, when I knew that I lacked the cognitive ability that it requires.

Besides, I knew I’d move into the city.

Here, I’m within walking or public transit distance of nearly everywhere I want to go.  And I can take a lot of transit and cab rides, for the cost of owning a car in the city for just one year!

 

Rumination can be a good thing, provided you’re doing it from an analytical perspective, and you know how to learn from it, and to stop as soon as you’ve done that.  That’s how I’ve become self-aware.  I’m always asking WHY, and HOW I can build on that.

Kind of like being my own personal psychologist!

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[Robbo]

Wow! what a great post and thread. I wish I had more time. I’ll do what I’ve been doing a lot of lately at this camp. Just unplug my computer thing ang turn off the monitor… leave…

Good one MrMcKay. “Maybe we need to do a spot on rumination and constantly obsessing over past events, hmm….. that could be helpful.”  You crack me up!

I shall come back and read more of the various rumations and ponderins some more.

AAAHHHH crap. I just heard a gun shot. That’s sux. Hopefully it was a truck tire blowing up.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Dang, Robbo!  Where the heck do you live???

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[Robbo]

All over the place and mostly a couple hours south of Sacramento. I’m planing on moving to southern Utah, maybe Co. Somewhere in the 4 corners/south west area of the US area. I love the rocky mountains a lot. If my shoulders heal well enough I’ll get myself back into the sea a few times. n then I’ll go live near the mountains. Utah has 4 of the most beautiful parks I know of. Beautiful beautiful country. The desert is a very beautiful place too. Many of the best western cowboy movies were filmed there.

Nowadays it doesn’t matter where we live. There are guns.

I was at my neighbors house earlier and she heard it too, “it sounded like a large shotgun or a small canon”. Creepy, but not scary enough to make me come down with a case of agoraphobia.

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[kc5jck]

We hear gunfire out here all the time.  If it gets too close, we just shoot back.

When we lived in Galveston, we didn’t hear so much of it except on Saturday night.  One night someone got shot in the leg outside out bedroom window.  He hollered a lot about being shot and hobbled over to the neighbor’s house across the street.

Also, when we lived there, I read in the paper about someone’s car backfired and three goons fired back on him.  I think the title of the article was something about the benefits of keeping your car tuned.  I guess when they see someone drive in with bullet holes in the side of their car, they know it’s going to be a tuneup job.  😮

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[Robbo]

Dude!, cut it out- you’re killin me

Love them cats man

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