Post by EA on Nov 7, 2017 19:25:49 GMT
Hi, I'm 47, I've never been diagnosed, I have literally only started to wonder about having ADHD in the last 6 months or so having recognised so much of myself in my daughter. Reading and educating myself on how to help her in life I've had the light bulb moment about myself. I have been treated for depression all my life and have a bipolar 2 diagnosis and take meds for this. Whilst they help me function, they still don't hit the mark. I always feel on the outside looking in - my mind is a hive of creativity, ideas bounce around, I go off on a 1000 different tangents and I know these ideas could work but I can't work out how to get there, so nothing happens. The ideas stay trapped bouncing around getting bigger and bigger and I physically freeze. I am a mistress of deception - I have trained myself over the years to put on the people pleasing ultra capable front but inside I'm waiting for the moment I get found out. As a result I carry a huge amount of shame and guilt and all in all it's just so bloody tiring. I have had more jobs than hot dinners, I start with great enthusiasm and then either come unstuck at the mundane stuff or master being so efficient that I get more and more responsibility heaped on me and I end up going sick and just leave. I then pick a job which is physically demanding to accommodate the need to move but eventually come unstuck at being able to keep to schedule. I crash out physically but the brain never stops whirring, I lose train of thought, find myself zoning out in conversations. Friendships are too difficult to maintain, be 'in' and my marriage ended. I have avoided all possibility of any romantic emotional relationships since then because they are too difficult, I just always feel 'lacking' and a flake who can't keep anything going. But the irony is if people could see what's going on in my head they'd be gobsmacked.
I hugely self-medicated as a teenager into my early 30s. I smoked 40 a day, to have the nicotine buzz and something in my hand, I have drunk so much alcohol over the years, to oblivion and my drugs of choice were cannabis and speed. I don't do any of these things anymore so it's coffee and sugar now, so I also have trouble sleeping. I was incredibly active as a young person, I trained as a professional dancer but illness put pay to that and just compounded my feelings of failure as I felt it was the only thing I was good at - it was contemporary dance so I could be as weird as I wanted! My schoolwork was always 'almost there', showing signs of brilliance but never finished... I was withdrawn, weird, wired, morose and a complete daydreaming romantic as a child. I constantly fidget, make patterns in my head and in my mouth using my tongue over my teeth, anything to move without making it obvious. Procrastination to the point of complete standstill is my middle name... Nothing ever gets finished, books, projects, studies, I just feel like I'm always chasing something and never mentally complete. So sorry for the long post, I've never looked at things from this perspective before, it's always been from a bipolar point of view. It's all a bit of a revelation... Does this sound familiar to others?
In the time it's taken me to write this, I've checked my emails, Instagram, read a chapter of a book, had a chat with my sister and have about 20 pages open on my laptop - there's never enough time in the day to take in everything I NEED to take in. Now I'm knackered.
I hugely self-medicated as a teenager into my early 30s. I smoked 40 a day, to have the nicotine buzz and something in my hand, I have drunk so much alcohol over the years, to oblivion and my drugs of choice were cannabis and speed. I don't do any of these things anymore so it's coffee and sugar now, so I also have trouble sleeping. I was incredibly active as a young person, I trained as a professional dancer but illness put pay to that and just compounded my feelings of failure as I felt it was the only thing I was good at - it was contemporary dance so I could be as weird as I wanted! My schoolwork was always 'almost there', showing signs of brilliance but never finished... I was withdrawn, weird, wired, morose and a complete daydreaming romantic as a child. I constantly fidget, make patterns in my head and in my mouth using my tongue over my teeth, anything to move without making it obvious. Procrastination to the point of complete standstill is my middle name... Nothing ever gets finished, books, projects, studies, I just feel like I'm always chasing something and never mentally complete. So sorry for the long post, I've never looked at things from this perspective before, it's always been from a bipolar point of view. It's all a bit of a revelation... Does this sound familiar to others?
In the time it's taken me to write this, I've checked my emails, Instagram, read a chapter of a book, had a chat with my sister and have about 20 pages open on my laptop - there's never enough time in the day to take in everything I NEED to take in. Now I'm knackered.