parzival
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Post by parzival on Jun 28, 2019 10:17:39 GMT
Hello there forum, I'm looking to meet someone nice with the same interests.........
Oh sorry wrong forum.
Ahem.
I am 49 years old, and I had the second of my two assessments yesterday and the diagnosis was that I am on the spectrum, have ADHD and Pathological demand avoidance.
I really don't know what this all means in terms of going forward, and to be honest I can't even get my head around it.
Waking up today and thinking about it all is still a struggle, the clouds have not cleared for me as yet and I am in a real mess.
It has been an uphill battle with waiting for appointments and pushing and pushing for assessments and the constant 'But theres something not right doc' appointments.
When I now read through the ADHD information online that might as well be me they are talking about pretty much from start to finish, same with the avoidance stuff. It is incredible that you can be so exactly like the description and yet. And yet! And that is where the problem is I guess.
I have struggled with keeping the see saw balanced for as long as I can remember and to think that I am over the hump so to speak and am able to put this right is mind blowing, but like I said of no immediate peace or help
The team I am seeing are putting me through for specialised consulling and that should be 6 to 8 weeks time. In the mean time they are going to make appointments for me to go back and see the team as well at some point. I have waited this long I don't suppose waiting months more is going to matter.
It is a very strange feeling, and one that is quite difficult to come to terms with, even though I suppose the answer was kind of the one I was hoping for.
Is there a thread here for local support groups in the UK? I would be interested and would find it helpful i think to start doing something positive while waiting for the appointments to come through.
Thanks for listening.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2019 14:52:38 GMT
Welcome to the club 👍
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Post by jp on Jun 29, 2019 20:46:26 GMT
Hello :-)
Was just going to say that I’m not sure a PDA diagnosis is helpful in addition to an ADHD diagnosis. Don’t all people with ADHD have PDA?!
I bet there are plenty of ‘demands’ you don’t avoid, or even embrace? But then those are not ‘demands’ are they?
;-)
So perhaps it’s simply that we adhd folk just don’t like the stupid demands neurotypical society places on us?
It’s one of the things that meds do help me with i.e. the boring, pointless grind.
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Post by jp on Jun 29, 2019 20:58:10 GMT
Should also have said that I can sympathise - a diagnosis is the start of a new life, one with a little insight, and yet all the challenges are still there. And then there’s maybe mourning for a wasted life, hope for change, and despair when it doesn’t come immediately 😩
Fortunately I get distracted from the despair :-D
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parzival
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Post by parzival on Jun 30, 2019 8:40:57 GMT
Hmmmmmmm
Thanks Jessop.
jp, I dont know what other people have and have not. I dont even really understand what it is that I have. For me it isn't the demands part that makes sense. It is the avoidance. I guess I may get more answers when I start the counselling.
Meds are not an option at the moment, my benefits stopped some while back and I don't qualify for prescription costs anymore.
Things have not become any clearer since my diagnosis. If anything its more difficult because now I have something to blame. I dont know if I am 'allowed' to blame everything on the diagnosis or if it is just me using it as an 'excuse'. Times are confusing!
Someone mentioned that there is a diary section I would like to start 'blogging' here, I love writing and this could quite easily get out of hand in the normal forum.
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Post by jp on Jun 30, 2019 19:23:47 GMT
avoidance
It’s a bitch
I avoid anything that resembles paperwork.
Or responsibility generally - unless it’s fun. I hate that bit - so childish!!!!
I don’t open letters unless I’m very drunk.
I even avoid sending out invoices for work I’ve done. I’ve lost tens of thousands this way. If I can bang one out on the last day of a project - that sometimes works. Otherwise I’m just too ashamed to face my incompetence.
I think partly what’s happening is an emotional overreaction to an anticipated judgement of my character - by others or myself - for the expected failure. Over the years I’ve become an expert at avoidance such that the merest hint of a possible failure and I’ve put whatever the demand is to the back of my mind. Sadly of course it’s not actually gone and all the unfinished things exert a MASSIVE emotional energy drain. They also reinforce my low self esteem, which becomes a self perpetuating vicious cycle.
ADHD is real. It’s a serious disorder (AND a deficit!) Have you read up on executive function? That’s where it hits hardest. And executive function is HUGE - planning, working memory, inhibition, persistence, motivation, etc even our sense of time itself.
Can’t remember where I heard it but a mental health professional said it was the most serious disorder he sees outside of presentations on the acute ward. It’s also largely invisible. I think it’s ok to blame it. Presumably you’ve been blaming something else all this time? Presumably yourself for some kind of character flaw or moral deficit?
In the long run I’m not sure blame helps much. But a diagnosis can give useful context and explanations, even if only partial. You are more than your diagnosis of course. There must be a huge number of personality traits plus acquired wisdom/ experience etc that have nothing to do with ADHD. Plus, as many say, there are aspects of it which may be beneficial. That’s another thread :-)
And no it’s not a ‘get out of jail free’ card sadly. Although, again it’s very real, and perhaps in time society will make adjustments such that so many of us don’t end up in prison.
Expecting to be able to function according to societal norms is a bit like expecting someone with no legs to ‘pull their socks up’.
Why aren’t meds an option? They are £9 a month on the NHS.
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Post by swagnusswagnusson on Jul 3, 2019 16:07:44 GMT
Mourning a wasted life? No chance. I might have had a lot of , well constant anxiety about stuff i havent done or stuff i need to do, or stuff that would have been ewzasy to deal with but now is something i cant even thinkl about....
But my impulsivity got me into some right situations and decisions and did things anyone with any sense would have looked at and decided against doing. I can be impulsive about packing up bags and jumping from one cvountry to another, was living in Turkey when i was 19 and was on the piss one day and met a lorry driver and ended up hitching a lift to Poland wityh him that evening. My job in Turkey was about to go down the pan anyway, due to having had a bout 3 final warnings and i knew , just as we'd been on the alldayer that the following day might well be the last, and so it seemed , after a day of heavy ndrinking that this was a sign so the decision was made, and I buggered off.... Got myself to Gdansk and managed to get a job in a few days, was never stifled like that, but even then used to fail to do simple things that made life feel like wading through, i dunno, somthing difficult to wade thourgh But then I'll procrastinate about phoning the landlord to mend the oven and make do for months with a broken toilet flush and shit like that, You can cook most sort of roast meats on the stove in a big pan and if you do it right you can near enough create a 'roast' substitute, but ive tried making pizzas in massive frying pans, thats not such a successful workaround. I was at the estate agents yetserday asking them to look for a new place for me.. Stilll forgot to mention the oven
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parzival
Member's not posted much yet
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Post by parzival on Jul 10, 2019 10:29:30 GMT
Thanks for the replies folks.
I am just back from my holidays, and they were good. It was surprisingly quiet and just what I needed. Home and life stuff was kinda pushed onto the back burner so I got some time staring at the sea and balancing stones (one of my favourite pass the time beach activities)
jp I relate with your avoidance thing so much. Telephones are a problem for me, so i thought I would get an answering machine, but now I just don't bother playing the messages. Like throwing the mail in the drawer. Emails, texts, voice mails. The form and content doesn't matter.
I don't very often get letters anymore.
I have never taken responsibility probably for as long as I can remember.
What you speak of with problems of self esteem are something that I am hoping that the team now in charge of me (so to speak) can help with through conselling. I avoid by not be able to start because I know whatever it is I produce isn't going to be nearly good enough.
The things that I ignore tend to become balls that I have to try and mentally juggle. It is a constant battle throwing balls ever and ever higher to put them out of reach without ever really getting them sorted out so I can lay them to one side. Just thinking about the analogy of the balls is upsetting and constantly reminds me of ones that are on the way back down to be thrown ever higher.
Presumably yourself for some kind of character flaw or moral deficit? This, exactly this! It was always me, not good enough, smart enough, nice enough, never enough. Nothing has ever been enough.
I just put it down to those good old work horses of depression and anxiety to take the strain. Now it seems fairly obvious that there was and is a lot more going on then I ever realised.
Context is right at it again, its not about blame. Blame is a useful tool to lay problems and their manifestations squarely on the shoulders of the ADHD and other symptons rather than trying to shoulder them myself. Its how things are, but thats not my fault. I do feel like I have have a useful and specific set of skills, I just have never found a niche to settle them into or that someone else could make use of them. That is where I am heading now, to find my niche I suppose.
In the long run I’m not sure blame helps much. But a diagnosis can give useful context and explanations, even if only partial. You are more than your diagnosis of course. There must be a huge number of personality traits plus acquired wisdom/ experience etc that have nothing to do with ADHD. Plus, as many say, there are aspects of it which may be beneficial. That’s another thread :-) I have used up all of my ESA, I took them to court over the decision to move me to the Work Related Activity Group and lost after fighting for 18 months. This was before my spectrum and ADHD diagnosis. I applied for JSA but that is means tested (my wife works 21 hours a week), all I have left is Pip and I have not started that yet.
Financially I am in a hole, so I am looking for work, have had some feedback but not as much as a sniff of an interview. To be completely honest I have no idea of what I am actually capable of doing anymore.
Im stealing the sock analogy, like that.
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parzival
Member's not posted much yet
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Post by parzival on Jul 10, 2019 10:38:25 GMT
Mourning a wasted life? No chance. I might have had a lot of , well constant anxiety about stuff i havent done or stuff i need to do, or stuff that would have been ewzasy to deal with but now is something i cant even thinkl about.... But my impulsivity got me into some right situations and decisions and did things anyone with any sense would have looked at and decided against doing. I can be impulsive about packing up bags and jumping from one cvountry to another, was living in Turkey when i was 19 and was on the piss one day and met a lorry driver and ended up hitching a lift to Poland wityh him that evening. My job in Turkey was about to go down the pan anyway, due to having had a bout 3 final warnings and i knew , just as we'd been on the alldayer that the following day might well be the last, and so it seemed , after a day of heavy ndrinking that this was a sign so the decision was made, and I buggered off.... Got myself to Gdansk and managed to get a job in a few days, was never stifled like that, but even then used to fail to do simple things that made life feel like wading through, i dunno, somthing difficult to wade thourgh But then I'll procrastinate about phoning the landlord to mend the oven and make do for months with a broken toilet flush and shit like that, You can cook most sort of roast meats on the stove in a big pan and if you do it right you can near enough create a 'roast' substitute, but ive tried making pizzas in massive frying pans, thats not such a successful workaround. I was at the estate agents yetserday asking them to look for a new place for me.. Stilll forgot to mention the oven This as well swagnuss.
My impulses dont usually take me so far from home, and are usually financial in their devastation, I have a book collection that runs toward a couple of thousand i suppose for instance.
The oven thing, yeah, I kinda get that too in a way.
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parzival
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Post by parzival on Jul 11, 2019 9:57:26 GMT
I was just reading some of the other threads here and one stood out.
Someone said it is like needing something all the time but not knowing what it is you need.
This couldn't be more succint or spot on if the person saying that knew me personally.
It is the itch that can't be scratched, the knot that never gets untangled or the race that never ends.
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