jakk1e
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Post by jakk1e on Feb 10, 2017 22:26:42 GMT
So.... I saw a chat/interview about adults with adhd on breakfast TV on Saturday last week and everything all of a sudden fell into place.
I feel like a total idiot though as I was diagnosed and treated as a child. My parents were keen on academia and everything was done through the school but I don't remember ever having it explained to me. All I knew was the dictionary understanding of the sequence of words in the title. I was on ritalin from the age of 7 and when I finished my gcses I stopped taking it and I remember my mum just shrugging and saying it was up to me.
So... I suddenly this week became really positive. Thought maybe I could turn my life around, stand on my own two feet and do more than the bare minimum to get by. All I needed to do was go and get help.
Oh boy how silly of me. I have private insurance through work but possibly not for long as I'm on notice of redundancy. They're basing the decision on last year's reviews and I guess you will not be surprised when you hear that mine were fine apart from the whole controlling moods relative to a professional environment, concentration, speed and attention to detail aspects.
Anyway that's my story so far this forum looks quite daunting right now so not sure where to go next but please feel free to say hi.
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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 11, 2017 12:45:24 GMT
Hi jakk1e Welcome to the forum, don't be daunted, we're quite friendly I've often wondered what it would have been like to be dx as a child for the reason you say, that it wasn't really explained to you properly. . I also worry that explanation to children is normally all related to behaviour and academic performance by people who don't understand that it affects every area of your life and doesn't suddenly go away when you're an adult. Although I would rather have known about my ADHD before I was dx at 48. . . I'm glad it was in the Internet age and I was/am able to educate myself and connect with others.
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jakk1e
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Post by jakk1e on Feb 11, 2017 18:24:10 GMT
Hi vagueandrandom
Thanks for your reply. I think now at 33 I'm only just understanding how this may have impacted me.
I gave up on relationships a long time ago, work I cope with but with huge frustration because I know I can be so much better and the bare minimum of domestic attention has so far seen me through.
Right now I need to get my thoughts together and decided what direction to go first. I would love to March up to my parents and scream and shout until they say it's all their fault and if only they had explained and continued to push for help keeping me involved in it enough that I could ultimately fight for myself.... .
In reality though it looks like the support didn't and still doesn't exist for adults and confrontation would only end in tears. I don't know about you but seeing my mum cry basically tears me apart and it happens far to often anyway without me rocking the very delicate boat.
So..... As with my usual state of play there was a point I was coming back to but I've forgotten it and my dinner is burnt.
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ant
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Post by ant on Feb 13, 2017 9:48:51 GMT
Hi Jakk1e....
Thanks for your advise on my post and Hi.
It must be hard having been diagnosed and seeing a past you could have had if they had explained it. But, yeah, giving your parents both barrels might not help you or them (they probably feels rubbish about it already, or still just don't know adult ADD exists)... But I do think it is a cultural thing around ADHD. It only happens to kids and, actually, that is just an excuse used for badly behaved kids being kids... right?
I've mentioned seeing how much ADD relates to me to my mum now who, I could tell, is not convinced. Despite taking me to be evaluated when I was a kid for issues in class to be told 'He's very bright, just immature and unable to follow sequences of instructions'. But as Vagueandrandom mentioned, they see it only as an academic thing. So, in my case, he's getting by. He can't remember his times tables, any dates or names - but isn't last in the class and the evaluation says he's 'bright' so just a lazy kid that would rather be playing than working.
I have the same thing of looking back at 'what if' ... I reckon I could have had a fantastic career if I could have focused and pushed through the seemingly self-inflicted blocks. I am ashamed and embarrassed by the years I wasted and have beaten myself up about it no-end. Realising the link with ADD (which has been VERY recent) helped a bit... then the self hate has changed to longing regret of what could have been.... (Cue images of being a top notch scientist... papers in Nature etc..)
But I'm still getting my head round the idea of ADD and how understanding can help and what steps to take next ... and have just written this instead of doing the work I should be shows I have some way to go ;-)
Hope you do manage to find some help and hopefully, the silver lining to your childhood diagnosis, is that it means it will be easier for you to convince a GP about having adult ADD - which I have heard from posts etc.. can be rather tricky (hence not having tried so far myself).
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jakk1e
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Post by jakk1e on Feb 13, 2017 17:52:30 GMT
Hi ant.
It really is quite enlightening on here isn't it. It's nice to see that others manage to articulate exactly what I'm thinking.
Today's distractions were texting my sister about all this gumff and writing a list of ingredients I need to take to my friends for dinner tonight, I finally got round to looking at the one urgent file I absolutely had to look at at 2 pm. Only got 5 pages through the report in the first hour only to realise that it was far more complicated than I expected.
Subsequently spent half an hour beating myself up for not concentrating half an hour reading the rest interspersed with more self loathing and the rest of the day writing and rewriting a ranty justification with all the half arsed reasons why hitting today's deadline was never going to happen.
"I'll try again tomorrow" has been my life mantra
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ant
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Post by ant on Feb 16, 2017 10:16:02 GMT
It looks like we share a mantra then! Pretty much every day, I look at the free time I have for the next day and say... I'll just do that then instead... what difference will a day make? But then a day doesn't matter - but when a day becomes 2 weeks and suddenly everything's late and won't hit deadlines, it becomes more stressful and just as likely to put it off.
Yep.. then the self recrimination and loathing kicks in.
The thing is, I can't shake the feeling that I should be able to just get on with things. Surely if I just do it, it will get done. But knowing that doesn't seem to change my actions ... Also, living in constant fear that I've completely forgotten something important that's going to pop up isn't nice at all. I sometime feel memories of things to do are like bubbles coming up in a swamp. Nice calm, nothing to do, then pop... crap, I was supposed to write this..... phew, right.... pop, damn, that e-mail is late....... pop, you didn't set-up that meeting ...
Well... on the back of your message... for today at least, I will not put any work off until tomorrow!
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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 16, 2017 10:36:03 GMT
ant I like your bubbling swamp analogy I 'remember' things hundreds of times a day. .but only for a moment . . and usually when I can't do anything about them . . I might even write a reminder . . One of the worst things about not having a job is having loads of time and things can be put off . . I really like the structure that a job gives me and spare time is limited so you have to do things when you have time. Saying that. .I've been doing a lot of voluntary work recently and have earmarked today for finishing a job application and tackling things on my list that I've been putting off . .and I've spent all morning faffing about online . . .
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ant
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Post by ant on Feb 16, 2017 15:55:09 GMT
Structure and pressure does help. Except for things that I feel I'll get wrong... in which case I will procrastinate for months on those.
But Seeing your message has made me just do it... and have done 3 things I had been putting off for at least 2 weeks. (one took the whole of 2 minutes... literally).
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jakk1e
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Post by jakk1e on Feb 16, 2017 17:30:47 GMT
So going back to ants question of to be diagnosed or not I was starting to get cold feet worrying that if I go through the process I will just be told I'm lazy.
The whole remembering something for a fleeting moment then forgetting..... Doesn't everyone do that?
Putting things off till tomorrow whether it's something you actually want to do or not...... Isn't that just bone-idleness?
Zoning out and thinking about God knows what even when your best friend is talking about a family members life limiting illness... Isn't that just arrogance??
Jumping from one job to another half way through..... Ditzy??
Doing half a job... Lazy
I don't have anxiety (I don't think so anyway)
I've never suffered from depression.
So am I just looking for an excuse when really I'm just a rubbish daughter, employee and friend?
I've started avoiding commitments and my parents think I don't care because when they ask me if I'll come see then soon I say I've got loads on. Actually what I mean is that I know I've agreed to stuff but I can't remember what or when so I lie.
My standard response to a date specific commitment is ask me closer to the time.
Anyway this all seems very negative so I'll change tack. Today started well. Instead of floundering my way through trying to find the urgent things I'd forgotten I decided to go from the top of the list. Which was fine until half way through task 2 responses came in on the thing I'd just done. Can't blame the clients when they had waited so long but it put me off my stride and now I genuinely couldn't tell you how many things I'm part way through.
On the plus side I didn't faff on the Internet all afternoon and all the things I'm part way through are things I've been putting off so it's a start at least.
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ant
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Post by ant on Feb 17, 2017 10:16:33 GMT
Jakk1e... that is EXACTLY why I have still not done anything about getting diagnosed.
When is it ADD, when is it your personality? Am I over the line?
Also, my wife asked what I was hoping to get from being diagnosed... I thought probably meds to see if they do help. But She reckons that she reckons I'm not outwardly impacted enough for any doctor to give me a prescription (especially with the NHS as it is these days).
I'm not sure about anxiety bits... But, from what you wrote, it sounds like you do have constant stress that you haven't remembered a commitment and that puts you in less than comfortable situations with your family. I do not feel I suffer from anxiety... but I am generally worrying about something. But that seems like a by-product of the fact I am never sure that I have not forgotten something.
Anyway... I know it's Friday - but after yesterday's burst of doing actual useful stuff... will try and get another day of the same.
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amelia
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Post by amelia on Feb 18, 2017 15:36:09 GMT
Your wife isn't a Doctor and can't judge the amount it impacts your life clinically (no offence). By the time you become an adult the ADHD has interwoven with your personality and becomes part of who you are. That doesn't mean you can't treat/manage it though, for you to be here it has to be having some impact on your life. Getting diagnosed won't cost you anything and if you get told you don't have it you then no longer have to deal with the anxiety of wondering. If you have it, you get to make the decision on how to deal with it and you also gain a better understanding of yourself and your behaviours.
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Post by marionk on Feb 19, 2017 10:53:12 GMT
Structure and pressure does help. Except for things that I feel I'll get wrong... in which case I will procrastinate for months on those. But Seeing your message has made me just do it... and have done 3 things I had been putting off for at least 2 weeks. (one took the whole of 2 minutes... literally). Structure ok, pressure no . . pressure make my internal screaming worse, and is definitely not good. In fact I was about to say that "I'll try again tomorrow." is almost as bad as the self critical version "I must try harder." while we should be trying to de-stress and go more for the Spanish or is is Mexican? Manana. Maybe it's just my age, but I find pressure is almost totally counter productive, and even if it does force me to get whatever done, the longer term effects are extremely bad, to the extent that I can understand why so many people end up voluntarily sleeping rough rather than keep trying to do everything that it takes to keep a roof over your head in this country. I'll leave it at that or this will turn into a rant about various assessments only looking at ability to do various things, and not taking into account the effects of doing them, and that applies to blue badges too!
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