Drawing a series of blanks.

[Anonymous]

Hi. New user here.

I was diagnosed almost 2 years ago, at the age of 40, and started taking Adderall 1½ years ago. My therapist has used the adjective ‘severe’ to describe my case.

I have Primarily Inattentive Type. Inattention is an innocuous-sounding word, but, as I’m sure many of you can also attest, it caused problems that have ballooned exponentially until they filled every corner of my life.

Chronic inattention caused me to nearly always get things wrong. These repeated failures in turn caused terrible feelings of hopelessness, and a constant frustration with both myself and work of any kind. This frustration in turn caused a paralyzing fear of failure that manifested itself in two extremes: an extreme reluctance to try anything I’m wasn’t confident about or interested in (which included most things), and an extreme perfectionism, ensuring that anything I DID attempt would take ages, require constant, endless revisions, and likely remain unfinished. I found a very effective way of escaping these fears: denying that they even existed, and finding something more pleasant to think about. I drifted and meandered from one thing to the next, improvising my way through life, and almost never taking steps to make things happen myself. This strategy predictably caused abysmal underachievement, in both school and the working world.

Inattention also caused me to miss out on most of the social interactions that were happening around me, which in turn caused a general cluelessness about interacting with people, which in turn caused a near-total rejection by and alienation from my peers. I never quite knew what was going on, and could never quite grasp the difference between acceptable and unacceptable modes of social behavior. The memories of my own behavior, and of being ridiculed and laughed at by my peers, still make me cringe when I think of them. It all combined to produce a general oddness about me that persists to this day: odd behavior, an odd manner of speech, an odd way of looking at the world, an odd way of interacting with people. I’m so odd that my therapist initially thought I had autism. Some people of my acquaintance find it charming – they don’t know that I would willingly trade anything for the ability to shut it off permanently.

It didn’t take very long for all of the above to reduce my motivation, ambition, self-esteem and self-confidence to absolute zero. That happened a long, long time ago.

So here I am at 42, with little income, few marketable skills, no non-menial job experience or prospects, an utterly trashed credit rating, an extremely limited (and ever-shrinking) pool of friends, a total lack of self-motivation, self-confidence, self-esteem, etc. Even if treatment “turns my life around”, I don’t really have any directions to take it in. At this point, there’s nothing that I’ve missed out on that I still have the means or opportunity to do.

Perhaps I should have posted this under “angry”, “cranky” or “venting” because, well, I’m sorry, but getting my diagnosis hasn’t helped in the slightest, because just knowing the origins of all this hasn’t solved anything. I keep reading that it’s supposed to: the diagnosis itself is supposed to be of enormous therapeutic value. I have not experienced that. There has been no great exhalation, no profound sense of relief, no epiphanies, no “a-ha!” or “eureka” moments, none of the immense satisfaction I’ve read so much about at “finally giving a name to it all”.

I take my meds dutifully, and see my therapist once a week, but I’m still left with a series of blanks in the boilerplate ADHD testimonial:

• I never knew what was holding me back from being more of a success at _____________.

• ADHD has had a terrible impact on my career as a _____________.

• Now that I’m receiving treatment, I can finally _____________.

• I try, with occasional success (tee hee), not to let ADHD interfere with _____________.

• I get ADHD coaching so I can stay focused on my goals, such as _____________, and _____________.

• If I don’t set a strict schedule with definite deadlines, I can never manage to _____________.

• It hasn’t been all bad. My ability to hyperfocus at times enables me to _____________.

• Now, instead of fighting my symptoms, I’ve embraced them, accepted them as a part of who I am, and integrated them into my efforts to _____________.

• I can’t help procrastinating when it comes to _____________.

• I have daily alarms set on my cell phone, so that I never forget to _____________.

• At last, I’m free to be me! I never knew I was so good at _____________.

• All of your marvelous Coping Mechanisms/Structures & Strategies/Tools, Tips & Tricks are really helping me work toward _____________.

John Corr

REPORT ABUSE

[Shadow Nexus]

http://totallyadd.com/forum/topic.php?id=850

Hi. Read this. You’ll find a kindred spirit.

REPORT ABUSE

[Stash]

Hi John,

I’m fairly new around here too. In the diagnosis process myself.

I wanted to say a couple of things – first, you are extremely well-spoken in writing (I love good grammar, spelling and sentence structure!) It was a pleasure to read your post and a number of things resonated with me.

When I first put two and two together about 6 weeks ago (!) I did have a huge Aha! moment and a sense of relief. Since that moment I have had many ups and downs. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been given a new start, and other times I have small (and not-so-small) freakouts over how much mess there is to clean up, literally and figuratively. When we’ve had 40 undiagnosed years, there is a lot to fix.

My doctor has asked a number of times, in a number of different ways, about depression. My answer has always been that I’m not depressed (have been through it though), but rather that I actually have a pretty positive outlook. I think that’s how I’ve survived this far without diagnosis, meds, therapy, support, awareness, etc. Sometimes I call it my “ostrich” (stick head in sand, and poof! all better), but generally I think every step I take is a new beginning.

This week has been tough. Mid-diagnosis, so no meds, and I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. My mother suggests that now that I “know” I shouldn’t wait but begin to implement new strategies. Thanks mom. I have been trying to do that my whole life. Look at my bookshelf of resources. Every day begins with the best of intentions. Every night ends with me struggling to go to sleep because I feel like I’ve failed at another day.

Hmm, I started to post with the intent of saying something encouraging to you because I could hear the hopelessness, but I can see something more. I guess that’s the struggle we are all facing here. I’m not going to give you any helpful tips, because you know them already. What I will say is that you have a lovely “voice” and I hope that you find a community here of kindred spirits that will help you in ways you might not even be aware of yet. I know I have.

REPORT ABUSE

[quizzical]

I agree with Stash – you’re an excellent writer!

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Buff, Quiz & Stash —

Thank you for your kind words. I’ve been meaning to write a lengthy reply, but I haven’t been able to set aside the time – it took me almost an entire day to compose that first post. C’est la A.D.D.

JC

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

John .. I have had many long months as you have described. Although it is of little use as a direction, I found something, quite by chance that I liked .. started doing it and the like developed and I am slightly less cranky …

By stay in the Present … and dragging my inner critic back to the present, there is less stuff to be depressed and angry about.

You write well, consider that as something ..a tool as it were and use it … baby steps are all we can do .. 3 forward, 2 back.

REPORT ABUSE

[munchkin]

Hi John,

I’m not sure if 1 1/2 years is a very long time – think about it – hypothetically, if you were 10 years old and got treatment, how much of a career or life goals would you be expected to have by age 11 1/2? Kids have to start to find out what their means and opportunity are, and hopefully find a direction to move in, but it takes a long time to do that. We have to dream big, realize our limitations, grieve about that, recover, see our strengths, scan the horizons for how those strengths can translate into action… try new things at random to see what happens…

You said: “At this point, there’s nothing that I’ve missed out on that I still have the means or opportunity to do.” – I would say, maybe there are things you haven’t noticed in the past – things you do have the means and opportunity to do – you would have to begin looking, and looking, and looking – keeping your eyes and ears open, experimenting, and never giving up. This world is infinite!

I hope that didn’t sound too squishy – I can really relate to what you’re saying, and I’m struggling to fill in the blanks myself. You got me all inspired Welcome to the site!

-Munch

REPORT ABUSE

[trashman]

Hi John, thank-you I can understand where you are coming from. you have some abilities I don’t have, so being a few years older than you I can tell you to see if there are some things that hold your interest and see if it is possible to create a future out of something that will help you stick with it. if not know you are not alone. sorry I can’t help.

REPORT ABUSE

[billd]

You are indeed good. You can leave the despair behind – welcome to the group.

In fact, I think you were actually in school with me, as you sure seemed to write about me there:

>>Inattention also caused me to miss out on most of the social interactions that were happening around me, which in turn caused a general cluelessness about interacting with people, which in turn caused a near-total rejection by and alienation from my peers. I never quite knew what was going on, and could never quite grasp the difference between acceptable and unacceptable modes of social behavior. The memories of my own behavior, and of being ridiculed and laughed at by my peers, still make me cringe when I think of them. It all combined to produce a general oddness about me that persists to this day: odd behavior, an odd manner of speech, an odd way of looking at the world, an odd way of interacting with people<<

I think I see a new friend. I have SO few………..

I’d set reminder in my cell phone – but I either forget to, or decide it’s not critical and can always do it tomorrow. I’ve gotten most of today’s stuff done already, but geesh, tomorrow’s list almost doubled.

Severe here, too – and also in amongst that, as PART of our severe ADHD, we have social anxiety. When one therapist read off her report to me, I stopped her in her tracks and said “I thought you said I had severe ADHD” she replied – you do, and that is part of it.

I’m 54 – diagnosed this year. I’ve always known I was “special” (ok, WEIRD in others’ eyes) and didn’t know why until Patrick and Rick came along (and this forum and WEEKS of research)

Now I have the explanation – it was a RELIEF to know I’m not just weird, a freak, LAZY, dumb, etc – there’s a REASON why it’s this way. Same for you – I see a lot of potential in there – for one, that writing is great. So readable! In fact, better than so many NON-ADD folks.

REPORT ABUSE

[resipsa]

John,

Merely getting the diagnosis may be helpful to many because it gives them warm and fuzzy feeling that the problem, having been identified, can be fixed – they start their meds and everything is better! Then there is us. Sucks.

In one of your follow on posts you mentioned it took you an entire day to write that first post. Yes! Thank you! It too takes me an eternity to get something coherant down on paper. Out of morbid curiosity, how many times would you say you re-wrote your post? 6 or 8 times or more?

Does any of this sound familiar? Would you revise a sentence multiple times because it wasn’t just right or because you felt that sentence didn’t express EXACTLY what you wanted to express? Did you try to follow the adage that “the perfect is the enemy of the good” by simply writing a paragraph and then hitting send? Did you stop trying to follow that adage after you read that paragraph the following day? When your boss looks at you as if you were an idiot and asks you why something didn’t get done, do you think to yourself that if you knew the answer to the damn question about why you didn’t get something done that you wouldn’t be having the conversation in the first place? And why is it that the $175/hour therapist can’t answer the question either?

If I had the answers I wouldn’t be here in this forum. Just keep doing what ADDers have lots of practice at, getting up again.

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts