How did I fall the cracks???

[Anonymous]

As a child I was very shy and still am I guess……I only talk when comfortable. I was a daydreamer and my teachers would tell my mother this. I didn’t understand what I was doing in school and barely passed every grade. My report cards would say: Unable to focus, Does not concentrate, Does not pay attention, talks to much in class and so on……My mother would just yell at me and ground me and say “You need to stop talking in class and pay attention!”……..I would tell her I couldn’t help it, but she would always say, “Yes you can!”…….I have no doubt that she had never heard of ADD! Once I was in highschool, it was almost impossible for me academically ………I was so lost! As a freshman, I started to experiment or self medicate with drugs and alcohol. My sophomore year, much of the same. I remember a time when I was grounded for my grades and wasn’t aloud to be on the phone. My mother came in my room late one night and caught me on the phone and ripped it out of the wall. I went to the bathroom and found a full bottle of cough syrup with codeine and drank it down. I was up all nite with the sweats and thirsty and couldn’t hardly sleep…..That morning I went to get ready for school and just started violently throwing up! When I told my mother what I did, she was on the phone with the school and I was running out the door to catch my bus………I arrived at school with my guidence councelor and a police officer waiting for me. Things just snow balled from there and it’s continued into my adult life. I’m 41 now and I don’t feel that I have dealt with this all my life, I feel I have suffered all my life. I’m currently getting my 12 year assessed for ADHD and I feel guilty because I may have went undiagnosed for all these years and now she is learning by example, by learned behaviors from ME!! I see so much of me as a child in her it’s scary! I have an apt. tomorrow with my phych. and I’m going to finally discuss this with her although it will be so hard and I’m sure emotionally draining! I’m so sad this was missed somehow, I’m angry that I never got help, I feel guilty that I’ve waited all these years to seek help! It’s overwhelming! I have no support at home……..My husband hates when I try to self diagnose but when I am diagnosed with something, he still doesn’t believe it’s true. I have no relationship with my mother or father and no siblings! I guess that’s why I’m glad I found this spot……..I can vent and hopefully get support here…..and eventually hopefully I can help someone who feels the same way I do

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[Anonymous]

Oooppsss……..How Did I Fall Through The Cracks!!!

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[Anonymous]

Welcome to the forum, survivor05. The most important thing you should do at this point is to let go of that guilt. The fact that you went undiagnosed was not your fault. You could blame your mother, or the teachers, or any other adult who could have possibly identified your behavior as being consistent with ADHD, but the fact is that assigning blame will not change anything. Guilt is a useless waste of time.

So, having said that, your new life starts today. Live it looking forward, not backward.

You will not believe how freeing and how much of a relief it will be when you talk to your doctor and she tells you that your instincts are right and that you can do things to change your life starting now.

Best of luck to you, and don’t forget that all of us here are always willing to listen and offer advice. Most of us older ones have been where you are (some of us not so long ago, as a matter of fact).

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[Anonymous]

BRENTITUDE is right about the guilt. Letting go is a must. But way easier said that done.

I feel guilty cause I resisted for years the idea that one of my kids might have ADHD. I hated the idea that she would be labelled.

Now that I’ve seen the difference it’s made for her, I’m kicking myself. It’s like, if someone had suggested she had diabetes I would have rushed out to get her tested faster than a blink of the eye. Stupid, right?

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Then I realize, sitting here calling myself stupid and regreting stuff I didn’t do years ago, well, that’s just…

Stupid, stupid, stupid! 🙄

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[Anonymous]

Oh survivor05, you sound soooooo much like me (except the talking in school part)!!!!!! I am now 40, never was diagnosed, was sooo lost in school, nobody even looked twice or blinked my way. It was like I was invisible! When my son (who is now 16) was struggling horribly in school as I did, I started researching as to why. It was then that I realized that he has ADD and that I passed it on to him. I too have had horrible guilt for it! I am now seeing the same problems in my 13 year old daughter with the talking in school all the time added to her symptoms. I hate that they have to struggle as I did my whole life, but am so thankful that I have recognized it and gotten my son help. Now I need to get my daughter help. I do struggle off and on with the guilt, but as brentitude said, we need to overcome that. We have struggled with enough guilt about all of the failures we have had in our life already. I don’t know about you, but I would like to finally be free of the negatives that this condition brings and finally just enjoy life and my kids! Good luck to you my ADD sister!

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[Curlymoe115]

I was diagnosed as a 5 year old. I was medicated with Ritalin and I would be wired all day and then I would hit the wall and crash. I was always the most popular person in the room and everyone was riveted. Just ask me. My family tells me I was born chattering and I have never stopped. When I was 7 after 2 years on Ritalin my mother stopped giving it to me. While I was on the medication my grade 1 and 2 teacher would rave about how cooperative I was. For a year after the medication stopped there was no new problems with this teacher. Then near the end of grade 2 the teacher found out that I had been off Ritalin for almost a year. She freaked out and suddenly the calls home resumed on a bi-weekly or daily basis. What changed, certainly not my behaviour. Just her attitude toward me.

When we changed schools my mother didn’t tell the new school about my ADHD. I was still the same person I had always been but now I was labeled a freak and the weird girl. I spend hours in the hall or in the vice principles office. I had to see the guidance counselor 2 times a week for an hour or two a day. I had no friends and would hang out with the teachers or would hide out somewhere under a portable or away from the others. I was chased home by taunting kids and my mother would come out and curse out the kids. Mom’s don’t talk that way but boy was it gratifying for me. My mother was the exhausted mother of 3 kids. She herself had quit school in grade 8 because she had a hard time learning in the school environment. She went to school in the 50’s and they had no patience for a disruptive student. Her mother had had a horrible life and so was unable to help her oldest. She was also in an abusive relationship with a partner suffering from Post Traumatic Stress from what he had seen as a Medic with the Military in World War II. My mother was incredibly smart and whatever she put her mind to she could do. She worked and earned money to be able to afford all the luxuries that her parents could not provide. She had been brought up to wear the hand me downs of the people of her church. She found it humiliating to be wearing outfits that had come from her peers closet. From the time she was old enough to work she would go to the store at the beginning of the season. She would pick out the clothes she wanted and then would put them on lay away. Then she would work her butt off to make sure she had those clothes as soon as possible. She also had a heck of a chip on her shoulder and hated to be told what to do. If she didn’t know how to do it, or didn’t want to do it she would tell her boss to take a flying leap and quit.

She also found a partner who loved her to distraction and would work to give her what she wanted. When we were kids we moved constantly. She never seemed to be able to settle. If something bad happened she would put the house on the market and we would move again. We always moved up, we never moved down. When we were kids we always had brand new. They may not have been the most fashionable but they were never used. She used to lament that her mother would give you the clothes off her back even if they all ended up naked, and she would never be that much of a sucker, but I can’t tell you how many times we would come home to find her taking something out of the house, because we had so much and X needed more then we did. My mother was not very organized and hated housework but there was never a lot of clutter. Every week or two we would be given a garbage bag and told to fill it because it was going to Goodwill. The moss was never able to collect at our house. The only exception was the laundry room. There was always 6 feet of laundry in that room. My mother had to work, when she was home she would slip into a depression. She didn’t really cook, couldn’t stand the noise, would wander off to her room to watch her shows in the evening or read a book. Looking back you can see her ADHD, as well as my Grandparents. She also had a partner with ADHD.

There are also a lot of co-morbid disorders in the family and get togethers were also loud and frenetic fun. My father had been brought up by a mother who was 13 and forced to marry much too young. He was shipped to different relatives and didn’t really have a place to call his own until he was 13 and started to live on my mothers parents covered porch. So from the time they were 13 years of age he had my mothers family when he didn’t really have his own. So we never had to split our time between two families. He saw his mother when he was older, with his step father and her new son. She had become a mother to this child and to her older daughter that had always stayed with her. So the “other grandmother” had a family that didn’t include us. While I had Granny and Gramps and did everything with them my cousins on my dads side had them. I think I was much luckier. So now that my mother has been gone for 11 years he still does everything with her family. And now he takes his new wife with him.

My mother went from a girl with no formal eduction to being a Dietary Clerk in the hospital. She took medical terminology courses and everything else she needed to get ahead. She had ambition and a goal and nothing would stand in her way. She took her youngest sister in when she got married and made sure that she finished school, and when she was older she busted her butt to make sure my aunt had a chance to go to University. She was selfless to this woman as she was for everyone in her life. When her father died she took on the burden of her mother (even though they were always like chalk and cheese) and though she let my father deal with her she always acted in her best interest. My aunt never does anything for anybody without an angle. She and her family have a me first attitude that used to drive my mother nuts but she loved her and still put her first. Only if my aunt would directly attack us or my father would my mother take her on. When she died there was standing room only in the church. She touched a lot of peoples lives.

Why am I telling you this. I think we often are so hard on ourselves and what we don’t do well that we forget about the other people that we affect. None of us are perfect but when people look back they don’t just remember all the times we got busy and forgot to cook supper and served the pie we slaved over all day instead. They remember our actions and how we don’t see ourselves and forget to remember. That we are good people doing the best that we can. They look at our motives and not just our actions. It is easy to write ourselves off and think why could we not have been more perfect. No one is perfect and certainly my parents and grand parents made mistakes. When I was about 16 I remember my father apologizing because we didn’t have more money growing up. I said we had everything we needed and they gave of themselves. We were encouraged to pass on our many gifts and to be grateful for what we had but not get selfish with it. We were taught that we are not the most important person in the room and that everyone has a story and we need to listen. Because sometimes they just need to tell it. So those are the gifts that I have tried to fill my children with. When they got selfish with their belongings they were encouraged to give them away. When we go places they are encouraged to listen to other people. These are the most important parts of our life, what we have to offer others. I had a mother who didn’t have an education but was incredibly smart and had the ability to be anyone she wanted. So I don’t look down at someone without a formal education but look for what they bring us. Everyone knows things. I have an aunt who is brain damaged and functions at a 12 year old level. She remembers everything that ever happened in all of our lives. She remembers every birthday. She gives generously from her heart because that is who she is. She certainly doesn’t feel sorry for herself because of all the things she doesn’t have. But Now I will close and say, We can never change the past, but with time everything just becomes a darn good story.

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[Wgreen]

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[Wgreen]

Unfortunately, many people fall through the cracks in the same way you did.

And when you think about it, it’s understandable: for centuries, Western civilization (formerly known as Christendom) believed in free will—the ability of people to exercise their moral wills to make good or bad choices. Researchers working on ADD suggest that this particular neurological disorder impairs the moral will. People who suffer from ADD/ADHD make life choices that often lie outside the boundaries of what is considered prudent, acceptable behavior—not because they are bad people, not because they do not know good behavior from bad, but because they are driven by compulsions that are bigger than they are. Though they try as hard as they can, they cannot get organized, they cannot focus, they cannot sit still, they engage in dangerous activities, etc.

This is revelational. And, if true, it turns centuries-old notions on their heads. Many people, understandably, have been reluctant to accept that this can occur. They insist that all humans have the ability to make choices, for good or bad. To admit that a neurological impairment can short-circuit free will is not a place they want to go. In fact, it’s a place they can’t and won’t go, because it would mean jettisoning their core beliefs.

ADD poses all sorts of problems for those who suffer from it. But it also poses considerable problems for people who have to live with ADDers… and people whose theology/worldview is predicated on the free exercise of the will. They certainly have a lot to get their heads around.

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[Lindstr7]

Its funny how all my life I’ve felt like an outsider, someone who has slipped through the cracks….I used to think I was from another planet when I was a kid. “Talks too much in class, always interrupting, speaking before thinking, easily distracted, blah blah blah.” Now, coming here, It feels more like being a member of an elite club. Great for my self-esteem. I’m looking at myself in a whole new light now and looking at this in all its positive aspects. I hope that when I see my doctor next week and start on Adderall, I can begin my life again. Thank you people!

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[Anonymous]

I fell through the cracks too. I did manage to get top grades, although the effort was exhausting and painful for me. I came off as shy, but I didn’t feel I was shy…I felt I was out of sync with the rest of the world. When I was in teacher’s college one of my profs told me I should be checked for ADHD. I put it on the back burner. I was officially diagnosed this December…after spending almost 8 years working as a Special Education teacher, and dealing with ADHD adolescents on a daily basis (I’m 32).

When I was in university I had a prof that wanted me to stay for a PhD. He told me he would hire me as his assistant to help offset the costs. I thought he was on crack. Seriously, how had I tricked him into thinking I was that smart? I was sure that if I took him up on his offer he’d be working close enough with me to see through my facade and realize I was some sort of impostor and a waste of his time. I wonder where life would’ve taken me if someone would’ve caught my ADHD and put me on medication then? I definitely feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of things, but am grateful that I can live life as I was meant to from here on in.

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[Author]

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