What do you do?: Hey, quick thanks for... - CHADD's Adult ADH...

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What do you do?

6 Replies

Hey, quick thanks for choosing to read this post.

Agh, rough start, I like typed fifty jillion sentences to start this off and none made it. Finally this did lol.

I’m just going to jump into this because omg I’m getting manic hahaha. I am the type of person who can’t be told not to do something. I’m hard-headed and stubborn, and find myself struggling at times when I get in the position of being told I can’t. Something inside me gets disturbed by those words.

I noticed it can trigger my hyper focus tendencies and so I start hitting whatever it is that I “can’t” and end up learning about something that is not, does not, will probably not, be important to me other than in that moment lol. Oh and it’s all gone and forgotten in a few hours if not by the next day lol. I’ve been clever and told myself, YOU CANT BE SUCCESSFUL, YOU CANT BE SOBER, YOU CANT BE HAPPY. It doesn’t hold the effect as it does coming from someone else, unplanned or sudden.

Yeah I crashed and my mind went back to its wilderness of thoughts before getting my head all on here. Well..

That was a random thought or interest I held a while ago lol.

I’m open to any feedback, if any.

Make sure you tell yourself “I love you”, it’s important and also anyone else who matters to you! :) Love ya!

I’m working on being ok with most things I want to say too and so I tell on myself on little tiny things like, I wanted to remove the little part above this, I doubt myself a lot and quickly start to think what everyone else would think lol. Like, bro ☹️😅.

I love me too. ✌️

6 Replies
GatsbyCat profile image
GatsbyCat

Hello, fakehackr~

Welcome to the group!

Sounds like you are going through some really bad *** right now, so sorry to hear.

Being hard headed and stubborn is a tough path to choose. My father was hard headed and stubborn. He could never admit when he was wrong (a trait alas that I've inherited and learned quite well). Consequently, he had very few friends during his life time.

You already said that your hyper focus will not allow you to leave alone whatever you "can't" do. What, if anything are you getting out of this activity?? Or, are you just wasting your time? It's great that you've recognized this about yourself. Have you done anything yet to change this attribute?

I choose NOT to be hard headed and stubborn, which is a path I've chosen over 10 years ago. You can tell yourself that you want to change your behavior, but you need to take action to do it. I have learned the hard way, that talking about change doesn't equate to actually doing it. Actually working on it is a whole lot harder. There are some great Cognitive Behavior Therapy books that you can pick up and read. YouTube also has guided meditation which has helped me tremendously.

Yes, telling yourself and others "I love you" is great! And, we all need to be kinder to ourselves and each other. Don't beat yourself up with negative self talk- it accomplishes nothing and just makes you feel worse. Positive affirmations like "I can choose to stop being stubborn by practising my deep breathing techniques" is a wonderful way to intentionally set your mind to achieving positive things for ourselves.

If you are an alcoholic and recognize that, may I ask if you are going to AA? In many medical websites, it is said that alcohol is used to dull the racing ADHD mind.

We know an older lady who lives on the street, and goes through trash cans for cans and bottles to redeem for change. She could go and live with her son who is a doctor and has offered to take her in on 1 condition; no more drinking. He's got small children and does not want them exposed to an alcoholic. So, she'd rather dig through trash than give up drinking.

Getting yourself sober would be a great start.

Another question: any ADHD medications yet?? They really do help out. If not, please go get diagnosed and get some.

Are you seeing a therapist, or going to group counseling?? It is helpful to go to both, as you are free to discuss these and other thoughts. The first time I went to a group, I mostly cried throughout the entire session. It was cathartic.

There are CHADD meetings around the nation you can attend. Here's a directory of locations:

chadd.org/affiliate-locator/

I sure hope I don't sound preachy, but you really need to get some help NOW. Please take care of yourself as best you can, and help your situation improve so that you can be happy.

YOU are the most important person in your life.

Best wishes on your journey.

in reply to GatsbyCat

I appreciate all of this. Great feedback.

I just completed an intensive outpatient program and was going to group therapy for almost 5-6 months. I did learn a lot and I was able to accomplish this, expressing myself a little more than what I’m used to. What they call “getting out of your comfort zone”.

I recently did an assessment for diagnosis and am now just waiting for the results

Yeah like I knew but I didn’t know about my illness. Wasn’t told about it and I never had insurance up until I got this job I have now.

As I work on myself after so many years of destroying myself, honestly, I’m finding myself in more problems but I stay positive and remind myself that it’s just because I have been ignoring this for so long

I do really appreciate your input on this.

TacoLover profile image
TacoLover

This sounds so familiar that I won’t comment further, bc I could go on all day...

I feel your pain. Random useless knowledge & waisted hours learning unimportant things while putting off priorities.

Good luck. Let me know if you figure out how to effectively change the pattern long term!

in reply to TacoLover

The only thing I got to combat it is getting my hyper focused interest, which is learning to code it switches my headspace quickly. That’s assuming I caught myself thinking aimlessly.

I’m trying to understand my triggers but I’m all over the place it’s kinda hard since my memory is kinda horrible.

But if it helps, I am leaning towards setting a nice schedule with 10 hours covered of non stop activity. I’m extremely extremely energetic so If I even for a second let my brain idle, I probably lost a good hour of the day lol just in that moment, more can come 😬

What do you currently do to get through your days without going insane?

Thanks for adding to my post. I appreciate it.

GatsbyCat profile image
GatsbyCat in reply to

Hello again

Did you hear back on your diagnosis??

One item you mentioned earlier was coding. Are you teaching yourself to code?? Or is that part of your job??

Another item you talked about was scheduling your day. There are some excellent electronic schedulers available one of which is called Evernote.

Hope things are getting better🌷

in reply to GatsbyCat

I am trying to dig through my emails to find the rest of the questionnaires I have left to do. It’s immensely stressful for me but I’m getting closer and closer to completing.

I am teaching myself. And I would like to eventually demonstrate what I’ve learned at my job for a role change. I recently enrolled in a Cybersecurity boot camp to go into my preferred subject dealing with computers.

I am trying to get in the habit of journaling, tracking my for sure daily tasks and want to start looking at using timers cuz I hyper focus way too often and I don’t notice and time just flies like crazy.

I appreciate your reply back and checking up. Means a lot.

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