Been looking for answers all my life…

[Anonymous]

I’m a (less than successful) 38 year old male who’s known about ADHD for about 20 years! The problem is that where I live, there has been really no help for ADHD at all.

My story begins in Saskatchewan where I was born and spent the first 8 years of my life. Oddly enough, I was a perfectly fine baby. The real troubles (I think) probably began after I turned 2. My mom just had her second child and didn’t know a word of english (she and the rest of the family are from over seas). My Dad was a complete spaz (verbally abusive) and a mama’s boy. My grandmother, who lived with us, was an evil old woman who loved making my mom’s life a living hell. Because my mom didn’t know english, she was socially isolated. After my second sister was born, my mom “discovered God” and dad was having none of it, which became another source of marital friction. I must have gotten messed up in that confusion somehow.

I entered kindergarten in June ’79 (to my humiliation, a year late). That’s when life got really fun, NOT! I could hardly pay attention and get started on the schoolwork in class. even worse, I was the kid who was “different”. I had a thin skin so the other kids just loved picking on me. The teacher said in the report card that I needed “firm discipline”. In grade 1 things got even worse. The teacher thought I was lazy. The kids thought I was stupid. I frustrated really easily and had a bad temper. At the end of the school day, I was grumpy and burned out. I could hardly handle the homework. What was the parent’s and teacher’s brilliant solution? MORE DISCIPLINE! My parents actually told the teacher to spank me in class when I was being “bad”. I barely made it out of grade 1 with my sanity in tact. During the summer my parents took me to a local mental institute to figure out what was wrong with me (there was SOMETHING wrong). The genius headshrinkers there couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I guess nobody THERE knew about ADHD back then.

Come grade 2, it was more of the same, only worse. My teacher HATED me. The kids treated me like I was a retard. I could hardly sit down and do the work. Homework was a non starter for me. The school principal thought I was a demon seed. My life was hell. I was going to fail and get stuck in the same grade as my younger sister. Before the school year was up, we moved to BC in the spring of ’81. It was a life saver. The new teacher was a lot more patient. She got me through to the next grade. In grade 3, life again got a little difficult. The teacher was frustrated by my inattention and my temper. My grades mere merely OK. The kids were picking on me. I didn’t really have any friends to speak of, either inside my mom’s new religion or in school.

In grade 4, life became a real struggle. I was flunking out and the mean kids thought it was fun to pick on the “retard”. It wasn’t fun for me! The teacher worked extra hard with me and again I made it through. She was an angel. She set me on a different life course. I still think of her. In subsequent grades I made it through okay with special tutors and counseling till high-school. I remained a lonely kid though.

In grade 7, my teacher was a quite rough on me. He could see I was intelligent and so he thought that there was no excuse for my sub par grades. He thought I was putting on an act and being lazy. He was always on my case, constantly telling me I should pay more attention, that I should “try harder”, that I have “so much potential” and I was wasting it. I had also gotten on the school principal’s radar too. It turned out to be a very lonely and humiliating year. My dad was getting on my case all the time. He was constantly telling me that I should “buckle down”, I was “being lazy”, that I was “good for nothing”, and so on. Dad and I argued a lot. I started thinking about suicide. Report card time was never a happy occasion. And all this time, my little sisters were prefect little angels in comparison.

High-school was naturally quite a change. Unfortunately, I was still as socially awkward as ever. My grades continued to be rather middling. After some time I started to become a homework “refusenik’. By the time the school day was done I was emotionally exhausted and burned out. I had no energy to do hours of homework. The teachers sure complained about that! They made remarks about my book binders and homework being “messy and incomplete”. I found that I could survive by dong well on tests and exams though. In grade 10 that really backfired with the english teacher. He got so mad at me that would drag me out of the hallway, “by the ear”, during recess to try and force me to do my homework. No fucking way! When that didn’t work, he refused to let me do the exams and that gave him the chance to flunk me. I still want to kill him. My parents eventually gave up fighting with me over the homework thing.

I also rebelled against phys-ed. I thought it was beneath me to have to chase a ball around, and besides, I sucked at sports anyway. I hung out with the bad kids during phys-ed even though I was a nerd. Flunking gym class was endangering my chances at graduation, until I broke my ankle riding a skateboard. Free pass! (Thanks to a kindly school counselor pulling some strings)

I loved the shop classes and drafting. I always got As and Bs! I was interested in computers and electronics but computer science and electrical didn`t work out for me. Another thing that put a crimp in my future was struggles in math class and algebra. Learning to drive at age 16 didn’t work out either. I just couldn’t pay attention well enough! As i was in the process of graduating, I started hearing about this new fangled thing called A.D.D. on these American TV news shows, and it seemed to fit. It explained a lot. Ah; but how to get diagnosed. Didn’t happen.

In the end I DID graduate. I made it through high-school WITHOUT drinking, drugs, smoking or attempting suicide. See, Mom and Dad! I wasn’t a bad kid! Troubled, but not “bad”. I graduated with only grade 10 math and a 1.8 GPA, however. College was pretty much out of the question.

After graduating, life continued to be a lonely and miserable experience. Job hunting ended up being an exercise in futility because of the bad local economy of the early ’90’s. No one wanted to hire a kid fresh out of school. I ended up on the dole and in a deep depression. My doctor sent me to a psychiatrist and in turn I was sent to group therapy for DEPRESSION. I inquired about the A.D.D. thing and Ritalin. It was dismissed out of hand. [Silly rabbit! A.D.D. is for kids!] I was given some depression meds and sent on my merry way. I started working my way through the system, finding one lousy, underpaying job after another. Eventually the depression started to fade and I didn’t feel need to take meds or see the headshrinker anymore (a lot of good that all did). Group therapy eventually ended and it was a fresh start. I had some new tools to work with. Low paying jobs remained the course du-jour, and that left me unable to live independently. That pretty much put the kibosh on any romantic aspirations as well. I kept reading about ADHD here and there and continued to come across information (and some misinformation). I eventually gave up trying to find a diagnosis ‘cuz nothing was really available here.

I finally got a drivers license at age 26. I eventually found a steady job, found a way to move out on my own, found a life (kinda). But the ADHD bugbear kept haunting me. I could never work as quickly and efficiently as others on the job, limiting my income. Friendships kept slipping out of my grasp. Social interaction never came easily. The romance thing was out of the question for most of my adult life. I’ve NEVER been in love. I hate having crushes on the opposite sex and not being able to do anything about it. Three years ago, an attempt at a relationship ended particularly badly. It was merely the straw that broke the camels back. Without a solid network of friends I could truly rely on, I slipped back into a deep depression. I saw my doc about it and I got depression meds again, this new fangled “Cipralex” stuff. It got me back on an even keel, sort of. But it started doing weird things to me. It started making it hard for me to get out of bed. I started not caring about life. I was in a fog. I was a zombie. I had to quit taking that stuff. Oh, and it made me a borderline alcoholic too! A few months ago I got laid off from my job, though to be honest, I don’t really miss it. I feel like I was being used.

Now I am seeking help for ADHD, once and for all. People don’t grow out of it! I didn’t! I can’t escape the bugaboo anymore. My depression won’t go away until the ADHD dragon is slain. I want to get an apprenticeship to a Red Seal trade and that means a little bit of school. By some dumb luck and a lot of digging, I’ve finally got a referral to a psych who actually deals with ADHD. STILL waiting.

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[Saffron]

A quick note to say congratulations on making it this far. And if you don’t mind my saying so, you write very well. (I’ve been noticing what a gifted literate bunch we are around here, despite how many of us clawed our way through academia.)

Welcome.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Oh, Bobcat… (hugs)

It’s been a really tough road for you, and a lot of us have walked similar roads. But I can tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And, for once, it’s not an oncoming train! There’s so much information here, and so much support, to help you while you wait to see that specialist, and afterwards, while you learn how to work with all the ups and downs of having ADHD. And, if you’re feeling blue, “Bill’s ADDventures”, in the Videos section, are really funny.

Welcome!

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[Anonymous]

Good luck on your road to recovery. The good news is that it will get better once you have recieved a proper diagnosis and begin treatment. The bad news is that this road to recovery never ends. It has no destination, there is no big green sign that reads , “RECOVERY 18km.” It is a lifetime road, and how you travel on it depends how quickly you accept what the issue is(you have ADD), accept that ADD/ADHD is part of you, not the definition of you. And when you look at things from this perspective, you will realize that the things that get attributed to ADHD can be really cool as well. I am not complaining about how long your post was; it was very interesting to read. However, I will be honest that I must have left it several times to look at the clock, look out the window, think about what I will have for supper this evening, etc… But I know that that is cool, too, as it is a part of me. Once again, best of luck!!!

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[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. Apologies for the previous “magnum opus” of all forum posts. Quite a lot to read isn’t it?

@Saffron

Thanks for the welcome. I appreciate your compliments on my ability to write. People have mentioned it before…

@Larynxa

Thanks also. I’ve noticed the verbosity of your other posts and I find it quite amusing. A lot goes on inside your brain, eh? I know the feeling! I also appreciate your sense of humor.

@Squirrel Herder

Again I apologize for the super long forum post. I’m sure it’s hard to sit through it in one go. I dunno if I could sat through that myself, with someone else’s post . I am clear on the whole “life’s journey” part of things. I gotta wonder about this “ADD is a gift” thing though…

Best wishes to all

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[Patte Rosebank]

Thanks, Bobcat!

I think that ADD/ADHD is a gift because it makes us the creative ones, the innovators, the ones who see things differently from most other people, the ones with the childlike innocence, the ones who challenge the status quo and try to make things better… This different way of experiencing the world is a wonderful thing, if we can harness it and use it properly.

An example: My brother caught Mononucleosis, several years ago. He was so weak, he could barely make it from his bed to the kitchen, let alone cook anything. Mom and Dad stocked his fridge with homemade, nuke-able meals, so we knew he’d be getting fed properly. I, on the other hand, bought a life-size Animal (his favourite Muppet) and a get-well card. I cut a big, jagged “bite” out of the card, tucked it in Animal’s mouth (so it would look like Animal got hungry along the way), and mailed them to my brother. He still talks about how much that gift lifted his spirits as soon as he opened the box. And Animal still has a place of honour in his home.

Now that I think about it, “gift” is the perfect word to describe ADD/ADHD. “Gift”, in English, means “a present”. “Gift”, in German, means “poison”. Same word, one very good meaning, one very bad meaning. It all depends on how you use it.

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[Anonymous]

Bobcat – I echo the welcome!

My first post was (I think) quite long as well, but I have to tell you how good it felt once it was out there! My perspective is a little different, since I live on the “other side” of the the ADD diagnosis. While it does not apply to me personally, it does apply to my youngest son, and we are still waiting for evaluation results to see if this is also the case with my older son and my husband. Yup, I am potentially the ringleader of our very own little three-ring circus as we learn to juggle everyone’s varying gifts! These men with which I share my life mean the world to me, and I cherish their collective quirky humour, creativity, and ever-present curiosity about the world we live in. Think of how boring life would be if every day was the same!

Though we are typically very private people, it was something of a relief to relay our experiences, especially after viewing some of the feedback to my first post, and by providing feedback to others who were/are in similar situation, we felt that we were able to contribute some sense of encouragemen, however small. So far, I have felt nothing but welcoming support from others on this site, and if sharing means that even one person benefits by not having to go through the same challenges, it is worth every word!

I hope your wait isn’t too long, and look forward to hearing from you again soon!

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