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This thread has been on my mind SO much lately. Truly, I believe I’ve thought about it every single day for at least a week and a half, because I’m SO there.
I laughed at the belief the cops outside the grocery store were there for you, @Fabulous. I’ve been there, done that. In fact, recently I felt as though the cops who were ALREADY at the grocery store when I arrived must be there for me. Why? I have no clue. 😀
I also understand and empathize with your future visions in some weird way.
I’ve had one helluva time lately with my landlords–I do some chores around the property in exchange for reduced rent. Having ADD, I have messed up a lot of course. However, lately I find myself thinking *anything* that goes wrong must be my fault–or at least I believe that’s what they’ll think. It’s to the point that if the wind blew the roof off their house I swear I would think that somehow *I* caused it to happen.
Off topic a bit: @Robbo–the horse turning its butt to you may just be wanting you to give him/her a good butt scritchin’! 😀 All of my equids love a good butt scratch more than just about anything other than food. You should try to take photos of donkeys–when they hear the distinctive sound of anything resembling a camera (and trust me, they learn those sounds astonishingly fast), all donkeys will immediately rush up to the lens so that all you get on “film” is a great big, enlarged donkey nose. 🙂 It’s similar to how dogs will instantaneously cease any cute activity when the camera comes out.
REPORT ABUSEAgain @Larynxa proves to be my long-lost twin. 🙂 You touched on something very important–while at this moment money is important to survive in this world, my parents (or for probably most of you, your grandparents) learned through the Great Depression that value of currency is truly an illusion and can disappear in a heartbeat. I often fear that we in the US are very, very, very close to a similar collapse of our economic situation.
Larynxa makes the ultimate point which I often think of and talk about when watching shows like “Antiques Roadshow”–your (fill in the blank) is only worth (fill in the blank dollars) if someone is actually willing to PAY you that amount. Unfortunately, I’m proving myself correct lately. I have been trying to sell some items which are new, and which would sell for lots of money in a store. Sadly, I can’t find anyone willing to pay even 1/4 of the store price for any of them. Ergo, in reality, they are worth zip, zilch, nil. No matter what the websites of retailers say. Further, paper money is really worth nothing at all. At least OLD (very old) coins were made of precious metals and still hold some value (although, again in agreement with Larynxa, gold isn’t as valuable anymore—but thankfully for me, who wore silver jewelry all my life, silver is rising!)
But I digress. I do sympathize and empathize with the desire to live in my memories and fantasies. Always have.
On the other hand, as Robbo points out, the vast imagination and ability to see both detailed and big-picture beauty of ADHD makes us unique in this fast-paced, life-is-passing-by-unnoticed world, is a treasure when seen in the big picture. I mean, seriously–on my death bed am I going to remember how I sweated out my finances in middle age or how I spent many hours marvelling at the beauty of nature and evolution, watching dung beetles solve problems and rolling on the floor with five dogs last night?
I think–I HOPE–I’ll be glad I spent that 5 minutes rolling on the floor and watching the glee in my landlord’s dogs faces that a human would ACTUALLY get down to their level and play with them. Certainly “their” humans (my landlords) never do that. I have spent many, many hours communing with other species. I cling to the hope that, when I’m dying, THOSE moments will seem to be the most well spent.
Or am I lying to myself?
On another note, in some ways I WISH it only took what we need biologically to survive…I actually think I could survive in the wild (after much study and real life experience), but I really love my creature comforts such as TV, the internet, chocolate milk ready to drink, and a roof over my head. Could I survive without the money I so desparately need right now? Oh heck yes. But do I WANT to? No. I have too many domesticated four-legged friends I want to keep with me for that. I just need to find more people willing to pay me for my vast, ADHD-fueled knowledge…
REPORT ABUSE@Weiners n beans, I so know what you mean about acceptance and taking our lumps. Don’t you get tired of being the one who has to eat crow? I sure as heck do. I’m always reminded of a song written by a particularly talented, but troubled, songwriter I worked with way back when, which says in part “I’m tired of being sorry.” Oh yeah.
But I had to post to say I always wonder about that .6 kid. What does he/she look like? Can you buy clothes at Walmart or do you have to have them custom made? LOL.
@crapiforgotmyusername, I sympathize. I learned a looong time ago that it’s best for me to avoid all jobs that require salesmanship. Mind you, when I really believe in something I can sell it like nobody’s business. problem is, those things aren’t really marketable commodities, and I don’t tend to feel all warm and fuzzy about most products requiring sales people. Is there another line of work you could pursue? I’ve lucked into an ideal scenario where I freelance as an editor and have a “go between” person who does the selling part for me. Win/win/win.
Well, win-ish…going through a slow period right now that is creating enormous financial pressure and stress. Gee, maybe that’s why I’m having trouble sleeping??? Good thing I see my pdoc tomorrow…
REPORT ABUSE@Evelyn, Wow–I had never even though of trying to reset my internal clock that way. When left to my own schedule, I inevitably creep to the to 4:30/5:00 a.m. bedtime, and waking at 1:00 or later.
But I’ve been caring for my landlord’s two dogs for 2 weeks and one of them is an old gal (who is also diabetic) who has trouble holding her pee for more than about 6 hours at a time. So she’s been woofing me awake at 7:00 or 7:30 am for many days now. I was so exhausted earlier tonight I though I might just fall asleep in my dinner. But, whadda ya know?, I’ve gotten my umpteenth wind now…*sigh*
I so agree with your sentiments about this place. 🙂
I’m curious about your online alarm clock, too, but have to wonder if it will become like my task reminder on my smart phone, or my bedside alarm clock, both of which I have an astonishing capacity to completely ignore. In fact, sometimes I don’t even HEAR the alarm clock.
@Larynxa, OMG yes I know too well about the fallout of sudden unstructured time. Mine led to a complete crash and burn of my whole life, which I’m still crawling out of. In fact, the co-writer I went longears on suggested adding an addendum to our contract detailing out specific weekly goals, etc. I went even further than she had suggested when I realized such a legal commitment may be just what I need to kick my butt into gear on that project.
REPORT ABUSEOooh–I love “neurodeviant”!! That will have to go on my list of “compliments you’ll have to explain,” right after jackass. 😀
I know it’s hard to predict what we would choose if given the option. But I like to think that, despite the horrific difficulties that crop up seemingly out of nowhere, I would opt to stay with my ADD because of the creative and curious way my mind works.
I also realized recently another “gift.” I’m co-writing a novel with a neurotypical–the one who made me go longears. But I realized she NEEDS me when she asked how these disparate parts we’re both writing will come togther to form a cohesive novel.
It took me a moment to realize she was serious in asking that question. To me, that’s a no brainer! The whole picture has been in my mind all along. Worse for her/better for me is that I can’t explain it to anyone–I just have to do it. Kind of like math problems (which I did have in high school and why I declined to tutor when I was acing prep trig–I was getting the right answers but couldn’t explain HOW).
REPORT ABUSE@weiners n beans, I don’t know how grateful some folks in my life are right now…but thank you so much for your kind thoughts and words. I actually embrace my childlike curiosity and hope it NEVER goes away…
And on that note, I love, love, love the creative minds and posts here. Yours are so much fun. And Larynxa could be my psychological twin. I’m so happy to find this place of interesting people. Like I have said before, I’m sure grateful we exist, as I can’t imagine how boring the world would be without those of us on this end of the mind spectrum–just poke my eyes out now and put me out of my misery! LOL.
@Larynxa, OH YES!! I LOVE jewel beetles. When I came back to Texas in 2006, I was living on a wonderful ranch (my dream life and home). We had the most incredibly beautiful beetles there who ate only the Russian thistles. They had not just the green, but also an irridescent blue mixed in! I should see if I can find the photos I took of them. Amazing.
And I recall reading once about Ellen Terry’s dress for Lady Macbeth. Lovely! Thanks for the link. I will always envision you shimmering your way across traffic whenever it rains now. 🙂 See–another wonderful trait in a fellow traveler on this end of the spectrum.
REPORT ABUSE@weiners n beans, I don’t know how grateful some folks in my life are right now…but thank you so much for your kind thoughts and words. I actually embrace my childlike curiosity and hope it NEVER goes away…
And on that note, I love, love, love the creative minds and posts here. Yours are so much fun. And Larynxa could be my psychological twin. I’m so happy to find this place of interesting people. Like I have said before, I’m sure grateful we exist, as I can’t imagine how boring the world would be without those of us on this end of the mind spectrum–just poke my eyes out now and put me out of my misery! LOL.
@Larynxa, OH YES!! I LOVE jewel beetles. When I came back to Texas in 2006, I was living on a wonderful ranch (my dream life and home). We had the most incredibly beautiful beetles there who ate only the Russian thistles. They had not just the green, but also an irridescent blue mixed in! I should see if I can find the photos I took of them. Amazing.
And I recall reading once about Ellen Terry’s dress for Lady Macbeth. Lovely! Thanks for the link. I will always envision you shimmering your way across traffic whenever it rains now. 🙂 See–another wonderful trait in a fellow traveler on this end of the spectrum.
REPORT ABUSEWe’re beans–I’m glad to find others appreciate my bug fascination. Actually, one of the things I was pondering as I watched that particular dung beetle was the split among cognitive scientists between those who desperately seek a way to set humans apart (and above) non human animals, and those who seek to find similarities. I had recently read how some of the former were saying problem solving was a sign of “higher” consciousness. But there I stood in my pasture, watching a dung beetle who rolled that little pile of dung into a hill. Let me be struck by lightning if that dung beetle didn’t stop, walk ALL the way around the pile of dung, including up and over the hill. Then went BACK around. Then promptly went to another part of the dung in order to roll it AROUND the hill. Now, I ask you, if that’s not problem solving, what is?
—time passed–nope, I’m still here. No lightning. 😀
I had a point in mind when i started this post, but…
Did I mention I’m ADD? *Embarrassed*
REPORT ABUSEI love that comeback! I’m going to remember it.
REPORT ABUSEJA–I must say that yes, I am a jackass–and that is a HUGE compliment! 😀
The negative connotation must have come from people who tried to force donkeys into doing something. If you just play with them, become their friend, and remember they like to make up their own minds about things, they’re so much fun. In reality, they really are amazingly sweet, smart, and funny critters. Sound familiar? 😉
That’s why I take it as a compliment.
So please know I’m complimenting all of you, too.
And Larynxa, funny story. Imagine how boring the world would be without us to entertain.
REPORT ABUSE@Fabulous — Actually, it’s a baby donkey riding his mother. 🙂 Owning donkeys is much like having ADHD–you must have and appreciate a sense of humor, or you’ll just get massively frustrated.
Speaking of mules, did you know (ADD trivia here!) that mules are technically the offspring of a jack (male donkey) and mare (female horse). Much more rare is the hinny (plural hinnies) who are the offspring of a stallion (male horse) and jenny (female donkey). See how many blank stares you can get next time you’re at a gathering and share that one. I’ve racked up in the neighborhood of 1,000s.
Procrastination–I, too, use amazingly creative rationalizations. Like right now…I should be showering and going to buy hay for my donkeys, but my brain is saying to me “you’re far too fuzzy headed right now, and besides it’s ONLY (insert time).” I dread showers. Is that odd? Even though I like being clean, it feels like going to the torture chamber to think of going in and dealing with the whole boring personal hygeine routine. Especially when i could be reading something funny here instead.
My ADHD niece is married to a severely ADHD man who was very fortunate to be raised by a family and gone to a school where he benefitted from state of the art ways of helping him. He once told me his trick is to find a new game, like can he grab the washcloth with his foot instead of his hand. That’s fine for a 20 something man…could be disastrous for a 51 year old osteoporotic woman! Besides, after 50 years, how many more new games can I make of that routine? LOL. So instead, I procrastinate.
I have to say, I’m very amazed at how frequently these threads actually stay on topic, since we’re all ADHD here…
REPORT ABUSEOMG I’ve laughed SO hard at this thread. Many, many very familiar moments or situations I could easily imagine myself in. I’ve locked my keys in the running car more times than I can list. I’ve also carefully locked up everything in and around my house only to get up in the morning and realize the keys to my truck were still in it. And I’m notorious for rushing around madly searching for something I’m clutching in my hand.
Whenever I go off my routine I get into trouble. I smoke only outside, so my habit is I leave my front door unlocked until I’m ready to go to bed, because my door has one of those electronic lock things and I have no key. Well, one night I thought I’d go to bed, so I flipped the lock, but then I got distracted by some fascinating website, and thought I’d have one last smoke before going to bed.
Yes…I stepped outside, very carefully closed the door fully so my dogs wouldn’t rush out and go barking and wake up my landlord (I live in a guest house). When I went to go back inside the door was locked! I frantically searched around for my cell phone for the electronic lock code I’d carefully put into it so I would remember it…but I’d plugged my cell phone in next to my bed as part of my bedtime routine before getting distracted by the website. !!
My dogs started barking at me when I tried to break in through the bedroom windows, but one of the things I like about this place is it’s pretty much burglar proof. So, with my dogs inside and everything all ready for bed, I wound up sleeping in my truck which, thankfully, I leave unlocked. I used the dog blanket I leave in there for covers, and waited until my landlord’s former house manager (who is herself, thankfully, very ADHD) to wake up and figure out how to get me back in.
My dogs were VERY confused. But she and I laughed heartily for a long time about it.
One of the reasons I own donkeys is because you must have a sense of humor to have them around. If you don’t, they’ll quickly play enough tricks on you to either lighten you up or cause you to sell them. So I identify with them very much. One time my ex, who was going through an unusually humorless period of his life, was bringing in their “nummies” (oats and cookies) when a mammoth donkey I owned, who was 17 hands high (very, very, very big donkey), was so excited and wiggling all over the place that he wound up knocking into my ex. I think that particular donkey was very ADD and much like me.
Anyway, his wiggling caused all four donkeys’ dishes to fly way up in the air, turn upside down, and spill all of the nummies right smack down on my ex’s head and down his shirt. My donkey then ran over to me to “protect” him, where we all (me and the donkeys) laughed until we couldn’t breath at my ex, who was fuming when I told him it definitely WAS funny and hopefully he’d realize how funny it was later. Three years later I began telling that story, but first looked at my ex and asked “is it funny yet?” LOL.
REPORT ABUSEI’m just finding this thread because I just joined, but had to revive it!
Filmbuff1984–I once went into the men’s restroom (I’m a woman) at a very crowded restaurant and was drying my hands when I realized there was a urinal there. I swear I thought to myself “are they making the restrooms in this place unisex?” until I went to leave, and saw the clearly written “Cowboys” sign on the door. I just walked quickly back to the table, where my now ex called me on it. LOL. It only took us six months to work up the nerve to go back there…
My sister, who is only just realizing she definitely has ADHD traits, even though she’s got at least one daughter and one sister (me) with raging cases, once texted all of us siblings “This morning I washed my hair with conditioner, so I washed it again, and I’m pretty sure I used conditioner the second time, too.” LOL.
REPORT ABUSEOh–ADD PS here–
Even when encountering some bad stuff in life, I eventually find a way to make a joke of it to help get through it. I just have to share this story….I have a cousin who is jaw-droppingly rigid in her extreme Christian fundamentalism. She has cut her own mother out of her life because she married a (gasp!) divorced man. Never mind that her mother was also divorced. WTF?
Last night I was talking with one of my sisters and she told me how this cousin recently also undermined her own sister’s attempts to get help from people with finding a way to get a much needed surgery done. All because her sister did start talking to their mother again.
After I’d calmed down my outrage enough, we were later talking about a movie in which many of the characters are extreme caricatures on purpose, and when I told her about one very, very, very rigid character, my sister blurted out “Just call him Mary (my cousin).” I laughed so hard I spit iced tea out of my nose.
It just really helps to make a joke sometimes of the more infuriating kinds of people in our lives.
🙂
REPORT ABUSEOh, faequine, my heart goes out to you, as I recognize parts of my own life in your story. It makes me realize how IMMENSELY fortunate I was to grow up with parents who encouraged us to think for ourselves and be ourselves, which led to my finding little job communities or other areas where the majority of folks were more like me than not. But I’ve also spent my time around people who exist on the opposite end of the brain spectrum from us…and it’s so demoralizing, depressing, and, frankly, toxic for us, because there’s only so much energy we can expend in trying to be someone other than ourselves. Additionally, IMO, there’s only so much we can change the ways our brains work. Therefore, our significant others (be they spouses, bosses, friends) need to have a reasonable amount of leeway and understanding.
I recently went through a very down time which made your original post here very familiar. In the midst of it all, a friend I had kind of parted ways with many years ago, but who had always appreciated the good qualities my ADD gives me, even if the negatives drove her away at one point, got back in touch with me. I called her and we had the most wonderful chat. She has mellowed a lot in the last few years…and dropped a lot of her judgmentalism. Sadly–really, really sadly–for her (and makes me sad too), she had to lose a son to suicide in the midst of depression before she realized many things.
But the good news is–she is good for me because she really values my sense of humor, my creativity, my empathy. Those are good qualities that ADD tends to give us all. Part of why I love it here (and I’m a newbie to this site, but now visiting every night!) is the ability to care deeply and understand each other added to the quirky humor shown widely here. When I get down on myself now because of friends and co-workers who don’t understand how my brain works and think I “just don’t care and am rude,”” I find it helpful to remember that my ADD also gives me a great sense of humor and a connection with non-humans and some other humans that those neurotypical people possibly have no clue about.
So, in that sense, I am grateful for the good side of this. It’s made me who I am and to heck with anyone who doesn’t like it. Mind you, that doesn’t mean I don’t see a need to continue working on weaknesses and finding ways to work around my weaknesses to get along in everyday life. But I recognize the need to also find people, places, and times to celebrate the good parts.
But, then, again, I’ve been very fortunate in my life. My ADD did eventually drive my ex and I apart, and I miss his friendship. But I don’t miss his attempts to control which led to ridiculous extreme criticisms of me. Life is too short to spend it hating ourselves because we begin believing what people who can’t understand our experience of life say to us. IMO, people on the opposite end of the mind spectrum from us are too rigid and never see the big picture. But I don’t dwell on that, let alone beat them over the head with my observation. I just leave or avoid them whenever I can, because I know how awful it feels to be told all the time how bad you are. I don’t want to waste my energy on it–I’d rather get lost for two hours watching a dung beetle roll one of my donkey’s poops away (yes, I did do that once!).
It may be that I just finished editing a book on emotional abuse, but I must add my voice to the encouragement of you seeking outside opinions of your situation. Again, life is too short to be berated and beaten down. We not only need, but DESERVE, to have parts of ourselves we love and feel great about. I can charm most domesticated animals like nobody’s business. And I’m really, really good at editing and fact checking books. I also crack myself up with my sense of humor–and laughter really IS one of the best medicines there is. When I get to the point of not being able to laugh at life, I know I’m in a real pit and need to act now to get out.
I really do hope you’ll spend plenty of time here and start valuing yourself, because you ARE great and you ARE much stronger than you think you are. BTW, that’s another trait I think we’re all actually forced into by being a minorty in the way we think–we tend to learn how to be flexible. I had a friend many decades ago who used to always say “I’m a willow. I bend.” I look back at my life now (I’m 51), and realize that the people I have learned the most from, or valued the most, were people who were also either ADD or very close to it. We have an ability to see beauty that others miss–sparkly!! 🙂 Another friend of mine actually took me to a beading arts and crafts store in Burbank once. She regretted it immediately when I was so rapt at all the wonderful sparkly things I literally didn’t hear her talking to me. But she also loved that about me.
The friend I mentioned before that I’ve reconnected with actually gave me two gifts back in the day that show me she really does appreciate me on some level. One was a coffee mug that says “I live in my own little world, but it’s OK, they know me here.” the other a t-shirt saying “Always late, but worth the wait.”
Find a motto like that and I send you many wishes to find a friend who will bring you things like that…then remember that even though our quirks can get irritating, without people like us the world would not have much of the great art and insight–let alone downright hilarious comedy–that it does. We matter. YOU matter.
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