Advice with bad parent/s

[Morgs89]

Hello fellow ADHDers!!!

I’m recently (few months ago) diagnosed as an extreme case Combined ADHD with GAD,

I’m currently medicated with Dexamphetamine for the ADHD, and medicated with 100mg of PRISTIQ (7th sept 2018) for my anxiety which has already made a difference.

Also have 10mg Melatonin at night for sleep.

My question is about narcissist parents and how to deal with past memories and/or feelings.

In a bit shell my Father is a nasty vindictive narcissist whom is also alcoholic and some Marijuana (for extra effect for drunkeness)

Most of my childhood is blocked due to my anxiety.

I would always freak out internally and my ADHD symptoms would worsen when going to see him.

How do I not freak or feel depressed when thinking about past experiences or hearing of others past problems with families.

Any advice is welcomed

[Lovinit]

I’m sorry I had an unfit dad. What about your mom and are you all grown up and on your own?

[Morgs89 in reply to Lovinit]

29yrs now. Near on 30 and only recently had my diagnosis.

My day to day has gotten better. Far better then I ever thought it’ll be.

Married 4 yrs going on 11yrs together

[Lani24]

Have you heard of emdr? It’s a type of therapy and most effective treatment for trauma. I did a year of it. Best thing I ever did. Completely changed how I feel and experience the world.

[Morgs89 in reply to Lani24]

Does it work for trauma from entire childhood?

[Bonjoe]

So glad you have your diagnosis and are on medication that is working for you. My husband is also severe ADHD and we have really gone through it with medications! I, unfortunately, understand life with narcissistic parents all too well. Not sure where you stand as far as faith, not religion, but relationship with Jesus Christ. We became believers just 7 years ago. Through the support of our church family, prayer and study, our lives have been healed from our past and transformed. Perfect? far from it! but we are not angry or hurting any longer. That said, if you believe faith is not for you, I suggest talking to a psychiatrist and/or psychologist that specializes in ADHD. Having a professional that understands YOU first, your thought patterns and traits, they can then help you deal with the process of healing from the scars of your past.

[Morgs89 in reply to Bonjoe]

I grew up in a baptist home.

My father liked to use the bible for justification for the things he did.

Religion is far from my thoughts unfortunately.

Works for some.

My wife also suffers from GAD so it somewhat helps to have a fellow stuff up to lean on.

Makes us feel normal

[Batgrrly]

My childhood too. Toxic parents. Dad finally died and took that pressure off. Now toxic Mom has decided to make up for all the bad things she contributed too. I have massive anxiety every time I make the annual holiday visit. Still haven’t explained I’m Humsnist and non organized religion because I really don’t want her to know about my life.

It’s okay to be you and be different. You have a right to steer conversation away from their agendas. You can leave. Set boundaries, change subjects, leave when their negative.

[cjnolet]

Forgiveness. True, deep, forgiveness. Mindfulness. A whole lot of confidence and self respect.

Then perseverance.

I believe those are the ingredients you need to build yourself a much more inspiring future. Struggle breeds understanding and thirst for change. If we didn’t struggle, we would have no reason to better the world (or at least our own lives).

My suggestion to you is to find your self, love that person, and build the confidence in yourself to appreciate human nature. We are imperfect and it’s such a beautiful thing. When we are born, we are forced into a hierarchy where our parents are the supreme beings that control everything. As we grow, we begin to define our independence and our parents often struggle knowing how to set the proper boundaries. Some never figure it out.

But when we become adults of our 30s and 40s often our parents become old, and weaker and it becomes very easy for us to live past memories and trauma as if they are still occurring now. For one, those memories are past and both you and your parents brains were different then. Memories also tend to get tainted with different “feelings” and emotions as time passes until we have abstracted away all the explicit details that make them the truth. I’m not saying they become a lie, but at the very least they have been encoded as feelings until even the images that remain have a very low signal to noise ratio.

I was raised by imperfect parents. Now that I have my own 3 children I’m realizing how hard that job is. I’ve often caught myself making very bad decisions, both out of impulse from emotions, and just because sometimes we don’t know what to do so we try to do what we learned from our childhood.... see where that goes?

I think you owe it to yourself to face those noisy pictures and feelings from your past, stand up to them with self confidence and forgive them. I mean truly forgive- let the emotions go, look at them as a necessary evil that allowed you to become what you are.

I’m sorry if this seems like a side step to your original question but I read your words and it brought back memories of my outlook on the world about 5 years ago. There’s a reason for you being here and you get to establish that reason! You would be surprised how much more beautiful your world becomes when you learn to forgive, build up your self confidence as a unique individual to with something wonderful to provide to the universe, and become mindful about the now rather than living too far in the past or future.

The best memories your body will ever have are those experienced in the present.

Hope this helps.