One of the worst things in my life is not knowing where my brain disorders end and where my personality begins. It feels like no matter what I do, I'm never good enough for myself.
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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ADHD
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Honestly, I can't bear to imagine the rest of my life dealing with this. Truly, I'll never amount to more than scraping by in life, and it's such a shitty bleak picture. But whatever, I've already mourned for the normal life I'll never lead, and I'll keep doing my best which isn't good enough until everything falls apart completely, then I'll kill myself. Happy Friday!
First and foremost, I don't know your circumstances but I can relate and I'm sorry. Your worth isn't measured by "productivity" or "what you amount to", you matter. Work Culture and general North American society isn't great for us with ADHD, all we can do is try our best. I swear to you that even when things look dark and there's no way out, it does end. I'm going to put a ramble of my experience in a spoiler.
Long ramble of my experience
My ADHD got me into a pit of credit card debt, small compared to others at just under $19k CAD but I still had $20k+ in my student loan and I couldn't see a way out, struggled hard, kept deferring payments and hitting overdraft, legit at my worst point I was $20 from bankruptcy, I probably could have got support from family and my at the time girlfriend (now partner) but I was too ashamed of it, I didn't want to admit it to my partner (and she knew it, I don't lie well, not that that's a skill I really want to have). It put a lot of strain on my relationship, made me the most anxious I've ever been and very nearly ended my relationship, my life was on the verge of falling apart completely, I'd be lying if I didn't have the exact same thoughts.
I was diagnosed 3 years ago at 31, I did what my dad (who's likely got ADHD if not AuDHD, but won't get evaluated) did and expended all my energy on work to the detriment of other parts of my life, I also struggled with binging (spending is obvious, but also alcohol and food) and emotional regulation.
My partner is the reason I got evaluated, she convinced me to get into therapy (I have a good therapist who has ADHD, didn't know that when I found them). After diagnosis, it took me at least a year to begin accepting that I have ADHD (funny that putting a name to it changes things right), that it effects everything I do and that I have, and will always have it. Hardest thing was realising just his much of my personality is influenced by it. Medication is helpful but it's not perfect, but with therapy, it's helped address some of the maladaptive coping mechanisms I developed.
If you have access to therapy and aren't already, it helped me immensely. Depending where you live there may be resources you can access through your health authority. We're here if you want, even just venting can be helpful.
Go get professional help. This is incredibly disordered thinking.
Not a healthy outlook.
In therapy and on meds, which is why I'm still limping along instead of giving up 👍
Intellectually I don't think there's much point to continuing existence, but working on that in therapy and thanks to medication I'm emotionally disconnected from the depressive Bad Thoughts ™️, so I'm still just going until I can't. The depression can get better but the ADHD can't really.
So, I might not really want to exist, but I feel apathetic about it generally! 🎉
The good thing is that what is considered "being successful" is completely arbitrary and in the grand scheme of things completely irrelevant. You don't need to "be successful" to lead a happy life. This "scraping by" you say is a pretty bleak picture is just so because you think it is, you can be absolutely happy living like that. I hope you'll be able to be happy eventually <3
What’s RSD?
rejection sensivity disorder, fear of being rejectected
fear is a light word to describe it tbh, i'd opt more for "irrational mental anguish over the slightest implication someone might think even slightly less of you, which is strong enough some can feel physical discomfort when it triggers, and leads directly to an impossible to fulfil instinct of constant people pleasing and having difficulty saying no to anything"
should have told me that when i was 25 :-) in my case, i realized that the queasy feeling and the unrelentless pressure i felt around people, was., in fact, fear. it began when people in my school started to form peer groups that hung around after school. yes, i had my cirlce of friends, but parties, social gatherings and stuff filled my with worry and anxiousness. i knew i didnt want to go, buit i didnt know why. at the same time, i wanted to go, because i had social needs, regardless. so i would drink. that helped a great deal. i was very social when being drunk.
well. when you have autism, you have problems identifying feelings.
the clown part about the whole thing is, i always thought that idea to be utterly ridicoulus. i perfectly knew what i was feeling at all times. i was angry or totally depressed or enthusiastic. thats about it. i had no middle feelings.
today i recognised that i have all sorts of feelings, but they are like behind a pane of milky glass, and i kinda have to guess what they are.
There are several studies that show neurotypicals react 30% more negatively to neurodivergent speech EVEN IF THEY ONLY GET A TRANSCRIPT!
They are programmed by evolution to ostracize us. And no one takes it seriously.
Imagine starting every interview, every job, every class, and having a 30% disadvantage in social interactions with EVERYONE, AND the inevitable meltdowns when that disadvantage becomes to difficult to bear.
They really don't give a fuck.
Perhaps you can take solace in knowing that when you hear the phrase "good in a crisis" you can bet your ass that they only got that way by constantly fucking things up and making it work at the last second.
Those "planners" and people who can "remember things that aren't directly in front of their face" just freeze up like a deer in headlights when things go sideways.
Where do I learn the skill of remembering/noticing things that are directly in front of my face
If you can handle the things that aren't, we should team up.
Most of my brains bandwidth is used up by remembering things like that my passport is in that canvas bag half under my bed and that my birth certificate is in a specific stack of paper at my mums house in my former room. So yes, let's!
Perfect! I don't know where ANY of that shit is! You're hired!
I'm in my mid 30s, and I have been dealing with ADHD my whole life. I have some important, but hard advice. If you aren't up for that, just don't read the rest of my comment.
I get the frustration of having people not struggling telling you to just struggle harder, and people you would expect sympathy from (friends, family) not supporting or sympathizing with you.
That said, and this is a bitter pill to swallow, the world at large does not care about your personal conditions. Whether you are a reliable friend, teammate, worker, spouse, etc matters far more than your ever present inner turmoil.
Work with medical professionals to get your symptoms under control so you don't beat yourself up at every turn for fucking up in ways that you are predisposed to. Learn to work with and around your own shortcomings and limitations instead of beating your head against the same damn wall every time. Build proper internal responses and coping skills to these events.
You clearly are aware of some of your own behavioral and thinking patterns that are not good or helpful, like overanalyzation after a fuck up. You already have your targets for things about yourself to work on.
This is not a nice thing to hear or to have to do, but it is essential if you want to survive as a grown ass adult in this world. You don't need to be perfect, but you will need to keep trying to do better, forever.
You can blame the condition that you are just going to have to live the rest of your life with, or you can take ownership that you fucked up again and work to not do it going forward. The fact that you are already beating yourself up about your mistake does not invalidate the right of other people to be frustrated at what happened.
No one has the right to make their internal turmoil everyone else's problem, even if it may be particularly burdensome. The world should be far more sympathetic and empathetic, but at some point you have to take responsibility for you. That means more than "I feel so bad", it also means "What can I do to prevent repeats, that I can actually follow through on rather than just have as magical thinking?"
Don't make plans dependent on getting your shit together. Make plans that will still work even if you keep fucking up in the same ways you did before.
It all gets easier with time, as long as you keep trying.
Goddamn I needed to hear this
I mostly agree, but (what else ^^):
No one has the right to make their internal turmoil everyone else’s problem, even if it may be particularly burdensome. The world should be far more sympathetic and empathetic, but at some point you have to take responsibility for you.
IMO you do take responsibility when you tell others about your boundaries and how they can work around them. If they don't want to because it also costs them a little bit of energy and disrupts their typical workflows they have (again: IMO) no right to blame it all on you. If I tell them "I can't do X" or something and they again and again expect me to do X, it's also on them.
Simple example: I tell colleagues, family, whatever to please remind me again if they feel I missed something they expected of me. If they do, all is good. If they later are pissed that I missed something and immediately blame me ... sorry my friend, I warned you. (If I had the ability to set a reminder, sure that's on me for not doing that. But it doesn't always work that way.)
There are times in our lives when people will need to rely on us. Whether or not you tell them that you are unreliable, or ask that they remind you; it is reasonable for them to be upset if you wind up letting them down. You are not immune from blame. It doesn't suddenly become their fault for relying on you when you mess up. It is still you who messed up.
If you tell them you can't do what they rely on you to do, then no, you haven't fucked up, they have fucked up. They should not have relied on you. When you promise someone to do something and you don't, yeah, then you fucked up, but if you don't do that, then it's 100% their fault.
yeah, but "I have ADHD, so I'll never be on time" is a very shitty excuse. You waste other people's time.
"I have ADHD, so I hate queuing, so I'm not going with you to that famous museum" is boundaries.
don't confuse boundaries with expecting everyone around you to put up with your symptoms all the time.
Why the fuck is that not a valid excuse? It can be impossible to find sufficient support and adjustments to enable yourself to reliably arrive on time, saying shit like this is a great way to make people who are already struggling feel even more worthless, jesus christ.
Yeah sure, you can't expect people to literally always be able to accomodate every struggle everyone may have, but to just summarily say "deal with it" is so heartless..
You can always, always, plan things in a way that you're an hour ahead of schedule. And you'll be on time. Or like 30 min too early.
It's your struggle and you can deal with it in a way that's costly to you or to everyone around you.
And the trend this days seems to completely utterly ignore your symptoms, develop zero coping mechanisms, and then rant on lemmy about the cruel society.
There’s also a big difference between “I’ll never be on time” and “there will be times I’m late because I have adhd”. But seriously if someone can’t handle my adhd symptoms I don’t expect them to, but they should also not expect me to care that they can’t deal with them. Because I don’t.
I never mention my ADHD to anyone but my therapist and friends I've known for several years. I don't want people to change how they treat me, whether for better or worse, when they find out about it.
I find it helps navigate certain quirks and get the help I need to thrive. For example, after disclosing I have ADHD, people are much more open to move when I am affected by background noise.
I do the opposite and tell everyone. I am who I am and they can accept me or not, no skin off my back. But when I eventually forget something, I’d rather them already know it’s not personal or because I don’t care, in fact it’s not about them at all. It’s because my brain just sabatoges me sometimes.
100%, either outcome is positive: either i immediately learn that i want nothing to do with the person and that being around them would be detrimental to me, or they're a decent person and can use the knowledge to make things easier for everyone.
"hi, just so you know, i'm autistic and have ADHD so i'm going to be staring at everything BUT your face while doing weird stims, and my leg WILL be bouncing and i might need to take a break to just go outside and jump my excess energy away. just a heads up so you know what's going on and that i'm not trying to make you uncomfortable, and i don't need to feel miserable by trying to mask these things away which would inevitably lead to me avoiding you"
ADHD is a reason not an excuse.
Not for this specific case but I've often said "It's an explanation, not an excuse"
This thread has successfully convinced me that this community is not of people who have ADHD or for supporting same, but of people who hate anyone who does whether that's self-hate from internalized abusive BS or just plain ableism.
Am interested in finding one that's isn't awful, if there's one hidden away somewhere. Will be blocking this pit.
or it is about people learning who they are, accepting themselves, and figuring out how to stand up for their own well being.
I got diagnosed with ADHD and you will never hear me reference it for any excuse for anything ever. It's the worst crutch to excuse lack of self improvement.
All a person can do is deal with themselves and grow.
I regret society ever learning about it, it is so abused as an excuse to forgive a lack of personal awareness and growth.
I just roll my eyes at the shit people say claiming they have ADHD. Pathetic really.
All a person can do is deal with themselves and grow
Then why are you projecting your own view of ADHD onto it? Not really dealing with yourself if you're judging everyone else with ADHD based off your own difficulties.
Only thing I'm rolling my eyes at here is blatant hypocrisy. Pathetic really.
Pathetic huh? Maybe dont be so desperate to paint other as the villain.
Good luck in life.
Maybe dont be so desperate to paint other as the villain.
Dude, you started whining and complaining about people who you've invented in your head after basing all of the troubles of people you've never met off of what you've personally gone through. You literally started this. You don't get to whine when someone points out your behavior is no different than what you're complaining about. You created a strawman and lit it on fire.
You're a narcissist. I'm going to block you now because I can see absolutely zero value from anything that you're contributing. It's just malice, hatred, small mindedness, and self absorption. Especially when looking at your other comments in this thread like "I don't care about peoples birthdays, it's selfish bullshit and everyone loves me for it once I point that out." Jesus christ.
I think it should be relative to the person's abilities. 8 hours of work, laundry, 50 minutes focussed studying, healthy dinner, remembering aunt's birthday and bedtime at 10 might seem reasonable to most. Some with ADHD might also pull it off. For others, their best is to do one of those things after work.
Different people, good and bad days. Absolute measure & judgement for everybody is the problem.
Lol, I never try to remember birthdays. I think days that are meant to make people feel special (aside from children) are inherently unhealthy. Valentine's , birthdays, mother's Day, father's day.... all days with false expectations that can wreck havoc on a person's moral when it doesn't unfold as they selfishly desire.
I found this stance works particularly well once I let this view be known to those around me, and everyone is happier for it.
When I do special things for people it's because I want to, and they know it, making it infinitely more special and intimate.