For an adult person living with, dealing with and coping with a diverse brain, there is a time of acceptance or succumbing to the knowing or realisation that our brain has been, does do, will always do, and always will do a different twitch. We don't feel it, we don't think it, we don't know it happens, it's what we've always done, and so it's who we are.
The question 'how?'
How do we do it? How can we do it? How is it possible to it with this? How can we move forward? How, with this condition, do as we want to do? How do we even begin to try?
How?
The most common reply to the question 'how?' is 'Just do it'... 'You won't know unless you try'... 'just do it'
Let me rephrase the question 'how?'
I keep wondering how I can do it.
Then the ideas begin to flow
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AuDHD3245
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This is the challenge. How people do things without ADHD generally doesn't work for me. (get a planner, make a list, try harder, pay attention, "just do it")
After I was diagnosed, almost a year ago, I went through an emotional roller coaster. But I thought I finally had the answer after all these years. I had ADHD and all I had to do was take my meds, follow the playbook, and my life would snap into the normal mode.
Except there is no playbook. While there was a great sense of relief that my lifelong struggles, anxiety, depression, and so on were not character flaws (I believe I deeply held and a thought which still hangs around), I didn't know what to do and was overwhelmed by the "just do this," or "try this."
I hired an ADHD coach thinking they'd have the answers and would give me a game plan. But she didn't. What she did teach me was that I needed to figure out what works and doesn't work for me. She could guide me, but in the end, only I could know what works or doesn't.
So the experimenting started. Some things didn't work at all. Some techniques work sometimes and didn't work other times. And sometimes my brain just doesn't want to cooperate and I do nothing.
Things are getting better for me, if for no other reason than I am not as hard on myself now that I know what's going on inside my head. However, it's still hard. It's still exhausting.
I understand I can't change everything at once so I start small and focus on just one thing- using the Pomodoro technique to clean out my closet on the weekend as an example. Mindful meditation to become better aware of my emotions. And again, giving myself a break in terms of not beating myself up.
I'm coming to terms with this being a journey with no end for me and I'll just take it a step at a time. And sometimes that's a step forward and sometimes it's a step back. (of late the steps forward are outnumbering those back and I'll take that small win).
I wish you luck. Know you're not alone in this struggle.
I'm going to ask you to be more specific. How can we do what? Relationships. Complicated jobs, jobs that require skills we don't have? Or how do we get to jobs we can perform well in? Self acceptance?
We were doing it before we had the diagnosis, so we know some of the hows. Now that we know our diagnoses, we can research and learn about things that worked for others in the same boat through forums like this. It’s taken me years, but I’m learning to accept myself and openly communicate accommodations that work for me. I try to focus on my superpowers (working in emergencies, multitasking) rather than my weaknesses (filling in time, filtering communication).
Thank you very much for your reply. It's true that we were, have been, and are still doing life, and it's exciting to learn 'how' to flip the negative states/traits that we walked into the first doctor with, into the positive. Construction not destruction. However, as we live with ADHD/Autism, the moralistic spectrum being so vast, is the reason behind the question: How?
It's reasonable to suggest that when we're not allowed to do something, a diverse brain will want to see why we're not allowed. Following rules and rule breaking being a prominent element of AuDHD, the question still stands, how? do we progress?, How to flip the negative to a positive. Make sense?
How do we become someone we know we can be, know we are, but don't realise that we what we do is in the right direction?
Changing our habits help me tremendously. I notice that I try to fill time with building rapport, but I falter. I problem solved so that I would have a plan for when I need to fill the time and fill it more appropriately.
Make a plan works for me. I write down issues and then goals and talk it out with partner and counselor. They check in with me on those goals and I track them over the week and what worked/didn't. They help me brainstorm how I want it to look like and what steps I need to take to get to my end goal.
If we tap into it instead of brooding on the negative, we can actually think outside the box and come up with some good ideas. Implementing them is the hard part, but that’s why I suggest talking to people. They will check in on our progress, and we don’t want to disappoint by not working on it (our go to when not being checked on).
I love this question as it is the one that goes through my mind quite often. Old Owl is right in saying you figure out what’s right for you. Before my diagnosis and years of researching ADHD I often wondered how the others did it life with such ease and sense of normal. How do they pay bills, have a clean house, go to work and still have a life? I read tons of books and had therapy, I still couldn’t do it.
What I have learned is I have to accept that I am not them and I can’t live by their standards. I can’t allow cultural and societal expectations get into my thinking. I have to stop pretending normal and be me. I now know a little of what I do that causes me to have problems and find my way to make it functional for me. One of my biggest challenges has been to be on time. I had to come to see that at times that was because I was avoiding something I was uncomfortable with. I was late for work because I did not like the pre work routines of my colleagues. It was too loud and some people were very inconsiderate. I became ok with my why and arrived earlier but separated myself from the herd. Sometimes I just sat in the parking lot doing my prep for the day. I have also struggled with keeping my house clean. I have had to drop all that I have grown to know as a clean house in my thoughts and decide I want a functional house that I feel comfortable in. Perfectionism and the desire to be accepted and appreciated has been my downfall. It’s hard because I want to “fix” everything now. I get impatient and fall back into old patterns often. However when reflecting as I am now I have made a lot of very slow progress. Find your own way to make your journey through life your journey not someone else’s. And know that being you is not wrong or bad even when others don’t like you. Those people probably aren’t truly caring for you and there’s not room for someone not supporting you in your life.
I love your reply. I'm with you and for me the key is dropping the standards of what I am not and being fine with who I am. And also spot on in saying that if someone doesn't support you as you are they have no place in your all to short life. Thank you for posting.
Is it fair to suggest that you want to be someone you 'dont know' who you are though? People talk about pushing the boundaries and learn something new every day, but isnt that changing you? Today you will be someone, but if you learn something new tomorrow, that could change your whole life. You may learn something you didnt know and become someone you didnt even think you could be.
For example: You may learn a chord on the piano that changes the whole history of music, 'how' do you do it with this condition?
Wow. Really good question and I thought a bit about it before coming back to answer.
First, to quote Popeye (old school reference coming from an older guy), "I yam what I yam." By this I mean the person I was before my ADHD diagnosis, and lots of therapy prior, is essentially the same person I am now. But the knowledge I've gained, and what I've accepted about my condition has my going through a major paradigm shift where core "truths" I have held about myself are in question and likely false. Almost like the movie where Neo wakes up from the matrix to the "real" world.
When I question who I am, the answer ties to how I see myself, or what I believe about myself. Up until recently my unwavering truth stated: I am lazy, I am unmotivated, I am careless, I am inappropriate, I am loud, I was stupid, I never complete anything. I am a lier, a coward, a fraud. I am bad, not that cool bad. The good vs. bad, type of bad. I proved the beliefs true time and time again, no matter how deeply I wanted to be good. I wanted to be the hero, but I was bad.
Anyway, I've got ADHD and all that comes with that. I agree with the diagnosis and am understanding how differently my brain functions. Many of my "truths" are symptoms minus the moral judgment.
I'm open to evidence that maybe I'm not that bad while cautious this could just be an excuse, which would just support the beliefs (ADHD or no ADHD)
So I am working through it using cognitive behavioral therapy. Sorting through where the weaknesses are and maybe accept some strengths. But it's a battle of the rational and the emotional. And the emotions have been with me all my life. I still feel guilty when anything happens even if I have nothing to do with it. And I can't just wave my ADHD card to make them all disappear.
The "I am bad" belief is dying, leaving a void populated with my doubts and fears. It's the only belief I've ever had. It will take a while to figure out the truth that replaces it.
I am what I am. It's not about who I want to be or possibilities of who I could be. Or who I might be in the future. It is discovering the truth of who I am- who I have always been, and hopefully living comfortably with that person
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