Post by Daveofbass on Dec 22, 2016 16:55:12 GMT
Hi there.
I've no idea where to start on this so please bear with me.
I'm thirty five and things really haven't panned out as I'd hoped. That is to say, I feel like a failure. There's been a few points in my life (pre 1990) where add/adhd has been mentioned but from what I can gather neither were recognised by the NHS at this time.
My time in school was a disaster. I left with three GCSEs at a C grade and a litany of behaviour reports, suspensions and isolation. New thing that I've carried with me from those days in an obsessive love of music. I now play bass, guitar, uke, banjo and the mandolin (I offer private tuition) and am just starting to teach myself the piano. Bar two initial years of bass tuition I'm self taught and it's not been an issue initiating or maintaining focus. I've just completed a music performance degree (2:1) and due to my dream job falling through I've started a music related masters (I should be working on it now but I've spent the entire day reading this forum) so apparently I'm not a total thicko.
Back in the mid/late 1980s my long suffering mother got me reffered to a psychiatrist to see what my problem was. I remember an another related appointment around that time where I had some sort of brain scan. Neither revealed any anomalies so I was just assumed to be a naughty kid. This is a big source of guilt for me as up until secondary age I attended fee paying schools.
It wasn't like I was malicious, I just couldn't seem to get myself started on work and produced very little in the way of homework ever.
In terms of career it's been a total shit show. I'm constantly in debt and due to late charges on my interest only mortgage I now owe nine grand more than I did when I bought the place a decade ago. I have however in the last three years put together one of the finest collections of a single brand of vintage guitar amps I've ever seen. I drove to Germany for one of them and I've just about proved another to be one of the first six that went to Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac in 1968. Anyway, I digress.
As you can imagine, some of these have been very expensive and this is one of the reasons for my money troubles. Mostly impulse purchases too by the way. Its not all bad, as mentioned I'm obsessed with all aspects of music and I've had twenty three years engaging with it. Once I finally get rid of most of it (I've been meaning to since the job was pulled in May) I'll have a nice lump sum to hopefully do something sensible with if I don't mess it up in the meantime.
Socially I've learned to keep my mouth shut until I get to know people. Some of the stuff that comes out of me can be fairly horrific, my sense of humor has a tenancy to offend strangers and quite a few that know me well.
An example of this would be when a family friend of fed themselves in a greenhouse with a canister of helium was being discussed over Sunday dinner. When helium was mentioned before I could even think I'd blurted out "goodbye cruel world" in my best faux helium voice. That was around my family thankfully.
So I've mentioned my mum who is a relentlessly hardworking lady who has stood by my antics and bailed me out financially over and over again. I should speak about my dad too. When I was in primary school my dad had student property. He's nearly always been self employed and doesn't like to be told what to do or be criticised. You could say the same about me. We both can be short tempered. Very successful he was too for a time. That all went wrong in the 90s for various reasons and all of it went.
After that he bought a chippy and I spent twelve years working for him. First few years were great and then we expanded and it went very wrong around 2008. It was for the same damn reasons too. One thing my mum mentioned him saying was that he "liked the idea of owning a business but didn't like the effort involved in running it". At the time hearing that hurt me greatly. I'd worked myself to the bone to make it a thriving business and it was ruined by bills and baliffs. I could have helped out on the business side more, but I wasn't interested beyond the day to day. It all makes a lot more sense now.
I feel very grateful for the upbringing I had. My parents taught me right and gave me a cultural education you don't get in schools. I love them to bits.
Sorry it's a long excessive read. Its been brewing three decades and it just came out.
I just want to know how best to approach my doctor when I see him.
I've no idea where to start on this so please bear with me.
I'm thirty five and things really haven't panned out as I'd hoped. That is to say, I feel like a failure. There's been a few points in my life (pre 1990) where add/adhd has been mentioned but from what I can gather neither were recognised by the NHS at this time.
My time in school was a disaster. I left with three GCSEs at a C grade and a litany of behaviour reports, suspensions and isolation. New thing that I've carried with me from those days in an obsessive love of music. I now play bass, guitar, uke, banjo and the mandolin (I offer private tuition) and am just starting to teach myself the piano. Bar two initial years of bass tuition I'm self taught and it's not been an issue initiating or maintaining focus. I've just completed a music performance degree (2:1) and due to my dream job falling through I've started a music related masters (I should be working on it now but I've spent the entire day reading this forum) so apparently I'm not a total thicko.
Back in the mid/late 1980s my long suffering mother got me reffered to a psychiatrist to see what my problem was. I remember an another related appointment around that time where I had some sort of brain scan. Neither revealed any anomalies so I was just assumed to be a naughty kid. This is a big source of guilt for me as up until secondary age I attended fee paying schools.
It wasn't like I was malicious, I just couldn't seem to get myself started on work and produced very little in the way of homework ever.
In terms of career it's been a total shit show. I'm constantly in debt and due to late charges on my interest only mortgage I now owe nine grand more than I did when I bought the place a decade ago. I have however in the last three years put together one of the finest collections of a single brand of vintage guitar amps I've ever seen. I drove to Germany for one of them and I've just about proved another to be one of the first six that went to Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac in 1968. Anyway, I digress.
As you can imagine, some of these have been very expensive and this is one of the reasons for my money troubles. Mostly impulse purchases too by the way. Its not all bad, as mentioned I'm obsessed with all aspects of music and I've had twenty three years engaging with it. Once I finally get rid of most of it (I've been meaning to since the job was pulled in May) I'll have a nice lump sum to hopefully do something sensible with if I don't mess it up in the meantime.
Socially I've learned to keep my mouth shut until I get to know people. Some of the stuff that comes out of me can be fairly horrific, my sense of humor has a tenancy to offend strangers and quite a few that know me well.
An example of this would be when a family friend of fed themselves in a greenhouse with a canister of helium was being discussed over Sunday dinner. When helium was mentioned before I could even think I'd blurted out "goodbye cruel world" in my best faux helium voice. That was around my family thankfully.
So I've mentioned my mum who is a relentlessly hardworking lady who has stood by my antics and bailed me out financially over and over again. I should speak about my dad too. When I was in primary school my dad had student property. He's nearly always been self employed and doesn't like to be told what to do or be criticised. You could say the same about me. We both can be short tempered. Very successful he was too for a time. That all went wrong in the 90s for various reasons and all of it went.
After that he bought a chippy and I spent twelve years working for him. First few years were great and then we expanded and it went very wrong around 2008. It was for the same damn reasons too. One thing my mum mentioned him saying was that he "liked the idea of owning a business but didn't like the effort involved in running it". At the time hearing that hurt me greatly. I'd worked myself to the bone to make it a thriving business and it was ruined by bills and baliffs. I could have helped out on the business side more, but I wasn't interested beyond the day to day. It all makes a lot more sense now.
I feel very grateful for the upbringing I had. My parents taught me right and gave me a cultural education you don't get in schools. I love them to bits.
Sorry it's a long excessive read. Its been brewing three decades and it just came out.
I just want to know how best to approach my doctor when I see him.