The Story of Me: LeonZeppelin

[Anonymous]

Hmm. I’m not sure where to start. I have about a billion points to make but it seems that said points are rapidly rushing through my brain in no obvious direction. Annoyingly the only thought that seems to stick is the brilliant idea of an ostrich and a lemming being fused together to create some sort of new super beast, one which shall rein master over all other beasts! This beasts name shall be: The Ostrilemming!

My silly brain and its silly thoughts aside, I do have serious things that I want talk about, and serious questions I wish to ask.

NOTE: I’m not too great at writing and I do waffle a lot so bear with me. Also, my questions are in the last paragraph if you feel like skipping the waffley back story.

I guess a good starting point would be that I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD, although, I’ve suspected it since I was 15. I’m now 20 and after 5 years of battling with other ideas of what might be wrong with me (aspergers, depression, social anxiety disorder, lack of motivation, plain old laziness etc) and doing as much research on the subject that my brain will allow, I have come to the conclusion that I most likely have ADHD. Having said that, I am still open to suggestions that I may have something else.

After finally deciding that I have ADHD, and that it needs to be sorted, I stumbled upon this amazing website (this was about four months ago) and straight away I found that I related to pretty much everything on the videos, blogs and forum posts and that there are people out there that actually have similar minds to mine. This was exceptionally comforting to me as I’ve never met anyone with ADHD or heard/read anybodies personal experiences with ADHD. This motivated me even more to seek help.

My quest in search of help started with telling my parents that I feel I have a serious problem. The problem here is that while they say they believe me, I don’t think they are taking me completely seriously. I want them to understand as much about ADHD as possible and I’ve told them numerous times to go onto this site as the information on here explains exactly what’s going on in my head. But, they haven’t looked and sure enough soon after telling them what’s wrong with me my dad had booked me in to get a shiatsu (my parents are very into eastern healing methods) to get grounded, which is a form of meditation that can be used to achieve epic focus (apparently). The main problem with this, of course, is that you have to able to sit still and focus in order to do this, which I most certainly cannot.

Now, my parents being the way they are, they seem to think that I am now “fixed” and despite telling them that I still cannot focus, the only response that I get is that I need to meditate more. Now don’t get me wrong, my parents want to help me, and I am thankful to them for trying, but they won’t accept that my problem isn’t as simple as that.

This led me to seek help from my universities mentor. I had my first meeting with him three weeks ago and I’m already feeling better. He’s currently trying to help me get organised and he has referred me to the university psychotherapist, who I am meeting for the first time on Tuesday. I feel like I’ve achieved more in these past three weeks than I have my entire life. I am making steps to getting the life I want, and I feel great, for the most part.

I think now is the time to talk about my problems, mainly because I forgot to talk about them earlier in this post. Ahwell.

As a child, I always had my head in the clouds. I was always daydreaming. I remember when I was little my mum would send me upstairs to get ready for school, only to have to come up and check on me about half on hour later to find me sitting in my underpants, staring at the wall, obviously contemplating the many mysteries of life…or imagining being the Green Ranger (I wanted to be him when I grew up). And the same goes for when I went to the toilet. I would sit there for hours on end (really), staring into space, completely forgetting the main reason for being in the poo evacuation chamber. I guess those things are more amusing and can be said for most children (I think), but I am going to start getting serious soon.

Not only did I have my head in the clouds, I was also ridiculously hyper. I was always the one that kept going when everyone else had stopped. I was always moving. All I wanted to do was run around and play football (soccer to those who follow that badly named game where they spend most of the time holding the ball).

Unfortunately, my constant state of hyper annoyed the children in my school. This resulted in me being bullied, a lot. I had friends but they couldn’t handle me anymore they would turn to teasing, and with my brain being in a constant muddle, I wouldn’t be able to find a non physical solution to the teasing. So I hit them. That made them stop, but made me feel awful. I never wanted to hit them, ever, I hated doing it. The sadness from all the teasing and the immense rage I felt, mixed in with guilt made my brain feel like it was going to explode. This happened at least twice a week.

I finished primary school with mediocre SAT’s, a report that simply said “very nice boy, very clever but needs to apply himself” and I had no real friends. This caused heavy social anxiety problems for me.

Going into high school at the age of 11, I went to one that no one else from my primary school was going to, except for one guy who has stood by me my whole life (he got bullied and responded in violence like me – he was the only person I related to). So going into high school, I knew no one. I had to make new friends. I couldn’t make new friends. I was scared of people teasing me. Sure enough I hung out with people, but they didn’t care for me. I was still very hyper, and I still annoyed people, and I was still violent. At the same time I wasn’t paying attention in class, my grades were still mediocre and I hadn’t finished a single piece of homework (I can think of three occasions where I did). I felt like shit. Time for a new paragraph.

People all around me were basically telling me that I’m useless, except for my parents obviously. They just didn’t understand what was wrong and would always get angry at me and lecture me about my school work but I felt I couldn’t do anything. The only thing I was capable of concentrating on was my guitar and painting, and that took effort.

As years passed I still hadn’t got any friends, and I was still useless at school. By the time I was 15 (which is when I had my last fight – yay for me) I was getting depressed regularly and started thinking something was seriously wrong with me. Over the next year my depression got worse and I got closer and closer to killing myself. After finishing my GCSE’s (same story on them), I went into sixth for to attempt my A levels.

Sixth form was the same story to begin with. No friends, not being able to concentrate in class, still moving, depression getting worse. There was no violence at least. For the couple of months I wanted to kill myself. I hated my life. I hated myself. But then my mindset strangely changed and I suddenly didn’t hate myself, but hated everyone else. I despised everyone. I didn’t want them near me, I didn’t want to hear them speak and I didn’t want them to be friends with me. It was kind of like “If you’re not going to accept me, then fuck it, I’m not going to accept you”. I was kind of like Sephiroth without the awesome powers and the need to kill things.

This had an odd effect. It drew people to me. People suddenly wanted to be friends with me. They wanted to spend time with me. Half way through the age of 17 I went from being friendless to having more friends than I can count, in the blink of an eye. And just like that, I was happy, with my social life anyway. Those people are still my best friends today.

Obviously, I was still doing terribly in school, which kept me in the lovely depressed mood. I still wanted to stop living, despite all my friends. I needed good grades to get into university, and I knew I wasn’t going to get them. This scared me. I needed them to get a career and any sort of life after school, especially in the eyes of my parents. Regardless of this, I applied for one university; it was my first and only choice. They are privately funded so I didn’t have to go through UCAS. I had an interview there and they offered me a place on the year long higher diploma course. I was happy with this. It was unconditional so I didn’t have to rely on any grades, and through it I am now studying in my second and final year of uni.

This was one of the few ups in my life of education. Despite doing the thing I love most, I still find it impossible to focus at choice. I do have more drive to complete work, but it’s always rushed and very last minute. I never complete an assignment to my full capability. In my first term of this year, I got a first on a piece of course work. I could have done so much more on it, and I wanted to, but that didn’t happen. All my other assignments have been mediocre, I’ve also had a fail. I’m working no where near to my full potential. I could be getting straight firsts, but I’m not.

This is where it’s getting serious. I’ve got to a point where, unless I get help quick, I’m going to fail the course. And that is for certain. Not only that but all the money and time my parents have invested in it and me will have been washed down the drain. All the help they have given me will mean nothing. It will be like me slapping them in the face. I honestly think it’s too late for me to get even a half decent grade. How do I explain to them fully what’s wrong with me? How can I make them understand? I am at a loss for what to do. I need their full support if I’m going to turn my life around, but if they don’t understand, they will only be angry at me and feel like I’m a waste of space. I feel like it would be the last disappointment before they disown me. I’m depressed. I keep thinking that I want to die. I’m not going to kill myself. I’ve never even tried. As always I’ll manage to push through it because I know what needs to be done to stop my depression, I just don’t know how to do it.

Your friendly neighbourhood LeonZeppelin

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[Anonymous]

Sorry for double posting, but is it possible to edit posts? After a nights sleep I feel almost completely different about my situation. In fact, I am ridiculously happy right now. Last night I hit a bump in the road and it threw me off a bit and sort of made me lose sight of how I actually feel and what is actually going on right now. Does that make sense? Anyways, it happens every now and then. I get extremely depressed and think the worlds going to end. Most of the time it’s a different story.

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[wawabyjohnah]

Sometimes getting things off your chest makes things better, clearer. Maybe print some stuff out for your parents to look at. My mum wouldn’t read a webpage so print a list of symptoms and highlight yours or something like that for them to have a look at. They might see that you do ‘fit’ adhd. I hope everything works out for you.

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[Curlymoe115]

It sounds more like a bi-polar situation to me. The impossible lows and the impossible highs. The first thing I would do is contact your doctor and ask for an assessment. Bi-polar does not preclude ADD or ADHD these are often co-morbid problems. The next thing I would do is find a tutor in the subjects you are having problems with, and contact your professor to make arrangements to get some extra assignments and help if you need it to pass the course. The counselor’s can also help you determine where the most of your problems are. If you need help completing assignments find a study buddy or a study group that can help you get on task and stay there. The majority of work in college and university must be completed outside of classroom time so not handing in assignments or doing the reading puts you impossibly behind.

As for your parents, once you have an official diagnosis then you can help them get educated about what is going on in your brain. Medications are available to change the negative thought patterns but often this is a case of one step forward two steps back until you find the right mixture that works for you. Often journalling or blogging can be just as beneficial because then you can feel like you are getting it out instead of bottling it in. Then try to find one person that is willing to listen and talk. This can be a friend, parent, or counselor. Things can be better in the future, but it is up to you to determine what that future looks like. Maybe the reason you are not doing well in your courses, are because these really aren’t where your interest lies. If you are having trouble making the material palatable, imagine trying to make a career using this material palatable.

LeonZepplin- You need to find your passion and with that your life will get better. When you are young life can seem overwhelming but if you find something that you feel good about then try and find a way to get paid to do it. Life is a lot more fun when you make it fun. There are lots of organizations out there that are geared to helping youth find what they like, Often a good fit for a hyper person is a physical career and there are tons of apprentice programs to teach you to do something with your hands and mind that pay a good wage. They also act as a stepping stone to the next phase. Careers don’t have to just be scholastic. If this is not your forte don’t force it. Look at the non-traditional. The world is open to you right now before you have to settle down and raise a family and pay bills. Explore this while you are relatively free to do so. By seeing how big the world really is and the plight of people that aren’t as fortunate as yourself it will probably help you feel better about yourself.

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[Anonymous]

Curly that is great advice, find your passion, would that I had been willing/able to heed that years ago. It’s good stuff.

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[Anonymous]

I think I need to explain my situation more fully. Reading back, I didn’t really give all the important details.

In response to bi-polar, I have to be honest and say I have always thought I might have it but always forget about it, so thanks for reminding me. Although if I do it’s not a huge problem for me. There are times when I can be depressed, for no reason, to the point of not wanting to move or do anything for up to a week (I actually just got out of a week long stint this morning) but that doesn’t happen all the time, and when it happens I just soldier on through it because I know I’ll be happy in a few days. The problem is when I get depressed for a reason that I know can be easily controlled by most people whereas I can’t. I know the differences between the types of depression I get. When I wrote my first post I was depressed over the reasons I mentioned.

As for my passion, well, I’m a musician. I’m at uni studying music. I love the subject matter and all my friends are either musicians or artists (I’m also an artist). I also live with musicians. I’m exactly where I want to be, in fact, I chose my uni when I was 15 and I’m here. The problem here is that I got to where I am without putting the effort in that I wanted to. I’ve got here by doing far less than I’ve set out to do, it almost seems like I got here by fluke. The thing is that I’m at a point in my life where that is no longer good enough. I have to put every last bit of effort in that I can, to be what I without a doubt want to be. But I can’t. The career I desperately want is as good as gone unless I get solid help soon. I’m working on it though.

Ohh there’s one last point I need to make. I haven’t finished a song in my life. I’ve started hundreds and have enjoyed writing them while I’ve being doing them but then just stopped in the middle.

Oh and I would just like to say thanks for reading my post and taking the time to reply. It’s comforting that there are people here that are so willing to help. Cheers!

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[memzak]

leonzeppelin

I remember reading a story about a sculptor that could never finish his work. He went to a councilor as part of his ADHD treatment and the councilor told him to find a finisher. He found someone that had trouble starting works but was great at finishing and they formed a partnership and lived happily ever after churning out their combined works of art. Maybe you can find a finisher for your song work.

PS. I must confess I skipped reading your first post. The length was a little daunting and I need to get off the computer in a few minutes. I will come back and read the whole thing when I have more time.

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[Anonymous]

leon, i read your many posts here, and i just want to sit down and cry! your personal story has TRULY touched me. mainly because in how you describe yourself. i’m now 40 and a housewife. for me though i feel like materially i have what i need, i’m still unhappy, depressed, unfulfilled and have never lived to my true potential. i’m in no position to tell you what to do with your life. i’m not your parents. but i want to tell you about my own personal struggle and anguish and hope that it can begin to put you on a better path to self discovery. i have a feeling that i’m going to write a terribly long answer here but i hope i can help……also curleymoe115 has some good ideas here as well….

i can 100% relate to your story! your desciption:

“As a child, I always had my head in the clouds. I was always daydreaming. I remember when I was little my mum would send me upstairs to get ready for school, only to have to come up and check on me about half on hour later to find me sitting in my underpants, staring at the wall, obviously contemplating the many mysteries of life…” OMG, THIS DESCRIBES MY SON WHO IS NOW 9 YEARS OLD!!! he ends up playing with his Legos or writing stories or making up really cool games on scraps of paper scattered throughout his room…

“Not only did I have my head in the clouds, I was also ridiculously hyper. I was always the one that kept going when everyone else had stopped. I was always moving…” THIS IS ME when I was little AND MY BOY. He doesn’t stop, he is always occupied with something!

“Unfortunately, my constant state of hyper annoyed the children in my school. This resulted in me being bullied, a lot. I had friends but they couldn’t handle me anymore they would turn to teasing, and with my brain being in a constant muddle, I wouldn’t be able to find a non physical solution to the teasing. So I hit them. That made them stop, but made me feel awful. I never wanted to hit them, ever, I hated doing it. The sadness from all the teasing and the immense rage I felt, mixed in with guilt made my brain feel like it was going to explode. This happened at least twice a week.” THIS IS MY BOY NOW. He got suspended last year and the school tried to send him out of district…. I had to go to court to fight to keep him in school, long story…. but emotionally, I feel on some level exactly how he feels….he doesn’t know how to process THIS so he acts out.

I do not have to edit anything for content because your descriptions are so spot on! (I’ve experienced the same thing when I was in college-long time ago-but applicable here)

I do want to say one thing. Make sure that you get officially diagnosed, go to a specialist, neurodevelopmental or what have you. This will really help you.

You are 20? You don’t need your parents’ permission to medicate. I will explain my own situation here because I also want you to understand what I’m going through as well.

I’m going through a horrible time now with my own depression but I see my child going through what you are going through. I UNDERSTAND, I SO GET IT, but I feel so powerless because my husband won’t support me. Ok, just forget my own personal issues here, please make sure that you get the appropriate help. I just want to say this about the medications: not a magic bullet, they are not a miracle drug, but if they make your life better, if you can rise above and become better than yourself with them, you have my FULL support!!! Not to mention, after you realize that you are happier with them in your system, then it’s time….

I can understand from your parents perspective that they want to go “au natural” but it’s an immense struggle to keep muddling through life not living up to your true potential. My own teachers when I was in elementary would write things like “very intelligent, capable of doing better”. Socially, I never made a multitude of friends, I’ve only had 1 best and only friend in school and socially we were both made fun of. What torture that was! No, we were not nerds or anything but I think with my ADHD, it stood in the way of being socially active and accepted. Fast forward to today, my boy, kids DO like him, he’s a chick magnet, (yeah, i’m proud of that) but with HIS ADHD, it drives the other children away because of his lack of focus, hyperactivity, negative, attention seeking behaviors, he wants to make friends and be Mr. Popular but it kind of scares them… so they tease and the other boys get aggressive with him.

BTW, he got diagnosed through the school system with ADHD. He’s now in special ed, with his own paraprofessional and he has a behavior program. He’s got the full support system that the school now provides though before he did not. He was put on Intuniv (after we went thru 3 other meds which had terrible side effects). He finished out the school year doing really well. Then this summer, we gave him a med vacation.

I think when I saw how the Intuniv med has helped my boy last November (socially and academically he was much better – he had more play dates, etc.) but now that he’s off, we wanted to try to see if he could succeed without the meds. My husband thinks he’s doing better in school without it (he’s really NOT). I do see the difference with my child on and off the meds – we’ve tried both aspects and though I’m not into finding a chemical solution, I feel that given all these circumstances, it’s warranted…I’m very torn about it personally but I do not want my kid to end up like me with no friends, being ostracized and stigmatized, unhappy and unfulfilled when he has his whole life ahead of him! I can see THAT with your story, my heart goes out to you!

The only thing that truly bothers me is that this is a chemical solution and long term, I still have my doubts about putting him on the meds. I’m not trying to medicate him because I want to make my miserable life easier but because I see that it helps him to focus, to think before he speaks and acts, since he is not misbehaving in school while he had been on it last year, socially, he was much happier.He’s a lot less happier now and becoming more and more angry and frustrated – he’s starting to have trouble again socially as well. His teacher wrote me a disturbing email recently about his behavior and he’s now “messing up” in classes that he loves – ART AND GYM!

How do you convince your own family what the benefits are? I’m trying to actively read more on this, i’m trying to help my boy, so eventually, I will make my husband put him back on it but because he doesn’t believe in it, there is no support so I truly feel alone in this fight and I’m also depressed.

Oops, I’m digressing because the main point I’m trying to make here is this. Please do not look to your parents to make the decision of taking the meds for you. Please research your options for being on vs. off. Try to answer these questions: How does your life work with them vs. off? If you find that you can do better, think better, get more accomplished, personally and socially you are better with them in your system, you WILL find yourself being happier I think by being more productive. I hope that by putting in my own personal anguish as a a mom, and one who has never been diagnosed with ADHD (but I’ve known all my life that i’ve had it, because despite my depressions, I’m not organized, I daydream a lot, still a litle hyper, though with age, it seems like i’m now starting to slow down, i’m always late wherever I go, I’m always missing something, etc.) I took the test on this website and I’ve also answered questionnaires when I was in the doctor’s office for my son and though the drs. never told me so, i HAVE it. and it’s made my life SO difficult, i’m unhappy because I’m so frustrated with myself, I am not lazy but it feels like I’m spinning my wheels and I’m not getting anywhere.

So, please, do not wait another day. Try to get diagnosed, and try to medicate – it’s not too late for you, my young friend, and as a mom, I support you!! I hope that what I say makes sense, and that you do not get upset with what I have written because I speak from the heart though I hardly know you. You have your whole life ahead of you as well. FIND YOUR NICHE and be happy….DO NOT muddle anymore…..thank you for reading about me and my personal story… hope this helps….

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