What's your superpower? Focusing on the positive

[allan wallace]

My superpower is fucking everything up…. 😯

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[Anonymous]

Tid wasn’t me you were supposed to e-mail……..I just gave you the reminder as per your request. Read on……Tid.

Thread Title: What if it’s how other people treat us that’s the biggest problem?

You Posted: Re the references – I’m at the tail end of a piece of work on this. I’ll post my bibliography (or maybe even the whole piece if I’m allowed.) But remind me – I am likely to forget.

I don’t need to explain why. LOL

So…. as you requested Tid, here is your reminder………. cool???

Toofat

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[Shadow Nexus]

Some of you are again missing the point. We have them. It’s just a matter of finding yours. Film and Television is a skill I never knew I had until I took that first class. Then, “Wow! This is fun and easy.” Start trying new things, sooner or later you bump into your superpower.

Our brains are structured differently. We think differently, see the world unlike anyone else. We have strong weaknesses and strengths. Most people have their abilities fairly balanced, My auditory memory is really bad. I make up for that in visual memory that is superhuman.

Could be separate from ADHD? I don’t think so. Single-mindedness(hyper-focus) is one of the common abilities we have. Personality is very complex issue. I’m definitely complex. 😉

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[Anonymous]

FilmB…….”it’s just a matter of finding yours”………YES YES YES…I could not agree more!! As for balance, that could well be true as well….I have many traits that I do less well at…but then where I am uncommonly strong….WATCH OUT!!! I would suggest more eccentric than balanced…..extreme living maybe???

I too believe these strengths come from my ADD type brain….it has a lot to do with what I see, how I process….the way many things are self evident, these are all brain functions. I live with a very intelligent Linear ( for 40 years) she manages my life administrivia…..it escapes me, she knows it….I’m shitty at it…..so what, I don’t care! On the other hand she also marvels at what I see, and know, or comprehend, and how my ADD head works……after 40 years she still is amazed at how and what my ADD brain does.

Both my children in their 30s now are also ADD….and they are no less a marvel to her. She struggles to keep up when we three get yaking…tripping over the roof tops of subject matter, drawing parallels and metaphors that others struggle to keep up with…two three conversations all going on at once, but on the same topic….all just a day in the life!!!! So yes…filmB…we are different and the things we see, and do, and think, the patterns, the connections….the depth and width or scope….often may seems super-ish to those from the Linear World….to me it’s just life….it’s just ADD. It’s normal, and cherish in this house!!!

Toofat

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[Anonymous]

I think my Significant Other’s superpowers include but are not limited to:

thinking outside the box (whomever wrote “the whole damn packaging plant, sometimes” had it right)

artistic vision

killer sense of humor

storytelling/songwriting

multi-tasking in the kitchen

basic mathematical calculations

people smarts

mechanical inclination (he can fix all kinds of small household appliances)

MissMuffins

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[Anonymous]

Being free-spirited and spontaneous.

Not having enough attention to stay mad or hold a grudge against loved ones for more than 10 minutes

Seeing the big picture and not being bogged down by the small stuff

I have always hyperfocussed on biology and physics, which has been fulfilling for me in school and now career

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[Wgreen]

I can’t believe I’ve been kicked off this thread! Oh the cruel injustice. But, look, I wanna negotiate. If you “gifties” get to have your own no-dissent-allowed thread, then I want a thread where more spouses of ADDers can tell us what it’s REALLY like living with “gifted” attention-challenged people! (Missmuffins’ comments notwithstanding) We need input from Filmbuff’s significant other (if s/he has one). I want to hear what Mrs. Toofat has to say about Mr. Toofat. You people may think you’ve got some special mojo goin’, but is that an opinion shared by the people who have to listen to all your brainstorms and clean up your messes? And hey, no cheating. Deal? Maybe Ava Green or Mrs. Patrick McKenna can start it…

And we need to know how long each significant other has been in the relationship. No newlyweds allowed—fresh love is blind.

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[Anonymous]

Hey Wg…..I spoke with Mrs. Toofat and read her your suggestion……..she just smiled….scarey!!! To that….I think you will get your response….she was just running out the door at the time but…..I promise, I will give her a second heads-up on this….my guess is YES…..she will respond asper your request. She is fearless……..

Should be funny…….a Public Flogging maybe eh….hahahahahahaha

Toofat

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[kc5jck]

That should be interesting. Start a new forum “What it’s like married to someone with ADD.”

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[Anonymous]

I’ll go start something in Parents, Spouses and Families/I married an ADDer.

After much discussion about why we couldn’t have fish for dinner tonight, I thought we’d agreed on macaroni and cheese with ham for dinner. Apparently we’re having fish. And macaroni and cheese. But no ham.

MissMuffins

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[Anonymous]

Well there you go…..Ms Toofat speaks!!! It is very hard to try and capture 40 plus years of relationship and family life in a paragraph or two, but I feel she did a great job, and hopefully provided the folks here a bit of insight into life with not “ONE” but “THREE” Adders. Not only that but possibly a little insight on how we make it all work….over all.

Anyway…..

Wg this is for you………please take this in the best way possible. Ms.TF responded to the “Relationship” thread out of interest and willingness to participate, being a “good sport”… but I must say…she was perplexed as to why you would submit a comment that suggested she was implying “he’s not a bargain”….meaning me. That’s your stuff not hers. So if you want hmmmmm…partners or relationship significant others, or who ever…outside of the folks here to participate as Ms TF did, I would suggest one might simply accept the contributors comments and leave the sarcastic follow-up out.

Toofat

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[laddybug3]

ADD supper powers

Supper hearing

Supper Multi tasking (just as long as you don’t want them by the end of the day.)

Supper Planner

Supper Daydreamer

Supper energy

Supper want-a-be-mind-read (I was just finishing someones sentence and they claimed I was not right.)

Supper nature lover (Leave me outside for hours and see what happens. Bird, squirrel, and dog)

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[Tiddler]

From my husband:

I’m not very good at this kind of stuff. I don’t really know what to say.

We’ve been married for 10 years. I can’t imagine being with anybody else. I feel like we’ve both really grown. We compliment each other really well and we understand each other really well. We’ve enabled each other to grow immeasurably.

She’s very caring and honest and loyal. She’s funny and a wonderful mother. She’s forthright with her opinions and has a lot of strength. She’s good at ‘feelings’! She’s very understanding of me and the things that I find hard. (I’m an aspie.) For example, she was very understanding of me wanting to leave work when I hated it, despite the fact that it meant a serious drop in our income. She understands that I need my own space and that I find it hard to socialise and don’t want to socialise.

What was hard was trying to understand what seemed like very irrational behaviour, like I couldn’t square up her high standards of behaviour and her incredibly low standards for tidiness! I think it’s fair to say she would occasionally have very strong emotional outburst which is the complete opposite to me, so I found that quite hard to deal with. And she seemed to change her mind a lot and contradict herself a lot. Even though I knew from how we spoke, she was clearly intelligent – very intelligent – and a committed professional, she could have the appearance of being disorganised, slipshod and lazy, which I couldn’t understand but I knew it wasn’t really her.

I am fairly sure at one point I suggested she might have ADHD but I was being flippant. It took a few years for her to get the diagnosis. These things didn’t really matter because above all the chaos she has a good heart. I feel very lucky.

The slow realisation that there was a reason for the chaos and that it could be dealt with and then the realisation that it was ADHD and then the diagnosis has helped to vastly reduce the amount of stress in the family. It’s hard when you don’t know what’s going on. I used to think I didn’t make her happy. Her mind was never on things so I thought she was really sad, but it’s just because her mind DOESN’T stay on things! Knowing that has made a big difference because it’s removed any nagging doubt that things wouldn’t work out okay.

Now there’s still chaos and that’s probably as much because we’re all in a state of flux. I’m building a business. We’ve got 2 small home schooled children and it IS chaotic, but I really think we’ve worked around the ADHD so much that it seems like a small factor in the chaos. I feel that the stresses and strains we have are normal ones now. I stand by the motto ‘we can handle it’.

She is able to give me an emotional link to society and people that I would have let slip without her. She supports me with everything. She’s wonderfully supportive. I can’t imagine anyone else tolerating the decisions I make! I know she loves me unconditionally and I love her unconditionally.

I’m very proud of her and what she’s achieved, especially given how many hurdles have been thrown at her during her life. I know she’s had a difficult life in lots of ways and I know she appreciates what we have now. I like that she still has ambitions.

Also, I don’t know how she got all that out of me. But here it is.

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[Tiddler]

He has just added:

Writing that was like a weird counselling session. I feel very strange now.

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[Anonymous]

Mr Tiddler, you/me/ I / we/ us… are fortunate indeed…..just from reading the past posts of Tid’s, I get that vibe, so how you describe your partner seems quite understandable…..that’s how she comes off in her writing too. We seem to have somehow found partners that are just that…. “PARTNERS”!!!

Just a side note, there is a thread started on this topic, it is under the heading…”What it’s like to be married to/cohabiting with an ADDer”…….so you might consider re-posting this under that heading, Wgreen started it just for this purpose. Ms.Toofat has posted there too.

Toofat

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