Forum topic: The body DOES keep the score

So sorry Off the Roller, this must be hard. 

I think there is a very real health risk with ADHD behavior in some cases. I have friends whose divorced ADHD husbands have fallen into unhealthy habits like eating nothing but fast food for years, also taking risks with their children’s health (one child is a diabetic and the father seems unaware she might die from hypoglycemia). One of them has also not sought care for a serious condition in themselves, needing surgery. 

Spending all day in bed, never exercising, never cooking, not being aware of how many days things have been going on or the extent of their own passivity must be extremely risky for these people healthwise.

I think some will live shorter lives for sure. 

If I've learned anything from being "Mogli" in my growing up years. If your out there alone, the kindness of strangers will just happen. That exists just as much as anything bad that out there too. 

 "Manifesting" is what your saying I think?. I've never heard of the book your describing, but I know there's a science to it. It's not magic and things don't just fall from the sky because you pay some online gurus person to tell you how to "manifest" what you want by thinking a certain way.

It's like that Rolling Stones song where Mick Jager says "  Well, the preacher kept saying that all I had to do was send Ten dollars to the church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart Of Jesus Located somewhere in Los Angeles, CaliforniaAnd next week they'd say my prayer on the radioAnd all my dreams would come true."  He was being facetious, and no, it doesnt exactly work that way.

And that yum yucker thing ( I also didn't know what that was until I looked it up ). That's my Xs son. He's a chronic complainer and puts down things that you like all the time. It's basically a negative attitude as a mind set. He also has ADHD.  There's a science to that too...that leads to all kinds of health issues.

It's basically believing you won't be taken care of...that your needs won't be provided for without asking for it.  I found, that simply isn't true. Just like Mogli in the Jungle Book, the kindness of strangers cannot be overlooked or discounted.  It just happens when you're out there doing things. Poeple just give you what you need, you don't need to beg for it.

I'm experiencing that same thing now again...just as it was before. Manifesting isn't something you buy,  it's something you do. Its paying it forward...no strings attachment. You do for others and they do for you. I think the most important part is just believing that there are people out there doing the same thing you do. If you don't do it yourself, you won't believe it will happen.

I think that's what they mean by.."It takes a Village."  I know it's true,  and I try o do it myself. That's not something you pay someone else to do for you it just happens. Manifesting is a doing thing. It's not majic and things don't just fall from the sky even if someone tells you it does.

I just had a very kind young man give me Pizza last night.  I wasn't asking for pizza. We were chatting about how expensive gas prices were as we were both standing there filling our tanks. He told me he had to ask his boss for an advance just to buy gas to get to work and I casually mentioned that it's so high you have have to choose to eat or buy gas. He had the leftover pizza from work that he had already eaten all he could and asked if I wanted it?

I was literally going across the street to buy some dinner after filling my tank. I was handed dinner...at the gas pump from the kindness of a stranger.  I didn't say I couldn't afford dinner ( I absolutely can ) but he had already eaten, so he was just sharing his left overs with me.

I do that same kind of thing, I'm taken care, and I return the favor to others. Or try to at least.

But it is that negativity or a negative attitude that says  "I won't be provided for..there's not enough for me".

My Mogli experience says that's simply not true. And yes, I think it does get stored in your body which manifests into actions. If you recall....Xs son buys two hamburgers at a time and then stuff his face. Then he's got all these health issues and a negative attitude to go with it.  He also has ADHD which sounds similar to your spouse.  He's much younger than your spouse in his 30's. The one who pats Uber to being him fast food.

The kid who gave me the pizza last night is only 24. He's got a child on the way and money is tight he said.  X's son makes a 6 figure salary, and can afford to generous. This kid last night had to ask for a pay advance just to get to work in comparison.

Off the Roller. You mentioned lifestyle. Looking past "my situation", that is, no home. I've established some very workable routines that fit my particular lifestyle at the moment. This is actually working out quite well which is why I came back to include my daily routine.  This is my "in town" routine ...I have a different one when I'm our in the wilderness.

You could easily say, these are my bites if you like.

Because gas is so extensive, I try to combine multiple bites, in one trip. 

I start my day at the Truck Stop 5 miles from my hub ( storage unit ). I quickly discovered, I wasn't allowed to stay at the Truck Stop itself which is understandable.  However,  I noticed across the street, trucks were also parked as an over flow along the street. I also noticed other non-truckers parked there too. It's a Grey area since technically, street parking and sleeping in your car are not allowed but...this side street overflow has an extra wide shoulder and it's all industrial businesses on that street Police patrol it daily and say nothing as long as I behave like a trucker. Come on in the evening at dusk...leave in the morning at a reasonable hour. The key point here, your moving along not planting yourself there indefinitely.  All is good..if you behave like a trucker.

So my daily route to my hub includes: 

Bite #1. I go to either the home building store right next door first, use the rest room and buy supplies.  I only buy what I can do in that day or week. I don't buy in advance too far so it's sitting around and I have to manage the supplies. No hoarding allowed !!

Bite #2 . On my way..on my same route, I have multiple options and stores in line to pick up again...only what I need that day. "Old World" shopping. Daily supplies bought for that day only.

Bite #3  Food shopping just down the street from my hub. Again. The "Old World" idea of only buying what I need for that day...because I go every day. My small refrigerator freezer only holds so much anyway.

Bite #4 Arrive at hub. This route is almost an exact straight line from end to end and everything exists on that line. There's no waste or excess travel. Gas is reduced to a minimum. Shoping is every day.

This is NOT some grand new idea. People have been living this way for centuries and walking instead of driving. I'm just doing the modern updated version.

Bite #5 At my hub...I pick 1 task I can start and finish in one day only. I make it very doable.  I big task per day. The rest of the day is my own to do as I please. I pick my task...and I get it done with any supplies I purchased ( if needed ) on the way.

Bite #6. Leave and travel back to my Trucker lifestyle with all my Trucker poeple. 

If I have shipping or mailing ...I use Amazon lockers that are on my direct route or inside stores I need to go to.  I'm getting a UPS box for mail as they also receive larger packages. Also on my direct line route.

This is a very efficient and ergonomic strategy with minimal waste and driving. I get the most done with the least cost and I buy daily..every day so I don't need to store things. I package up garbage from the stores it came from and deposit it back from where it came outside in the receptacles provided. I'm a no trace camper.  I leave no trace I was even there. It's extremely efficient and it saves both time and money but...there's no "sitting still" for too terribly long even though...I have plenty of time to rest. I'm fundamentally retired anyway. I'm 68 and have worked since I was 15 at my first job and 40 years at a career. I work a lot harder than most retirees but hey...I feel really good, I'm at my perfect weight, my health is still excellent and I'm always moving.

If you think of the Mediterranean lifestyle ..Old-World ...where people walked to the market and carried bought only what they could carry in a basket. That's what I'm doing and it's really not that bad a lifestyle if you stop and think about?  I meet people daily on my way to and from at every stop and I have a chance to stop and say hello. Human beings have been doing this for thousands of years...I'm just thankful I can drive instead of walk  the entire way.

Anyway, I understand this is a retirement type lifestyle...I just don't have a retirement fund...I pay cash...I don't buy on credit. It's not a lot of money...but my wealth comes in other ways. 

Those are my bites at least. It's a very efficient way to live. 

I've been thinking a lot about ADHD and health recently. Before we separated, my husband had a series of health issues. I swear they were from simply not getting up from his desk, other than to eat, bitch at me, watch TV and sleep. 

Some were low key complaints, but gross, like fungal nail infections, bad spots, blackheads the size of dressmakers pins, that he just let flourish. There was bigger stuff like weeping boils I had to squeeze and dress for him. He developed eye problems that required surgery. I swear it was a decade or so sitting at his desk and staring at a screen. 

Since we separated, I know his diet and lifestyle in general have got worse. I know he tries to fix things by spending money on them - a personal trainer, a bespoke skincare regime - but he's not able to be consistent with either anyway; they don't represent real change, so he's still putting on weight and his skin is terrible. He's still at his desk till all hours, but now he doesn't get a healthy home cooked meal, he goes to the pub and/or a restaurant, every day, boozes, eats badly, and he says that him living like this is all my fault. 

I'm not a gym bunny; I'm not a puritan. I didn't make his life miserable about any of this stuff while we were together; I tried to do things better, but it was always such a struggle, and it's not my business now. 

I want to mention the stress his ADHD will be exerting on your body too. I, certainly, lived less healthily while with him, giving up on my good habits and falling in with his bad ones. I drank too much; I put on weight. I developed hypertension. 

Since we separated, I've lost half a stone, drink far less, and have got the BP under control. 

I think it's really worth considering that too: certainly the way things were going for us, it wasn't just that his behaviour was unhealthy, and potentially longevity-reducing for him; it was having that effect on me too. 

For me, there has been great confusion about my instincts and emotions in the ADHD marriage. That can also make adjustments around an ill spouse difficult. 

If I chose a partner based on early impressions, and stayed with them though they later morphed catastrophically, disappointed me and hurt me, what does that say about me? What did my bond to them, and the urge to have an intact family, do to my judgment? Or did I not understand what was happening? Or did I just deal with the ADHD badly, while some other approach could have saved the marriage?

Advice for these situations often focuses on forgiving ourselves for what we’ve done or not done. I still struggle with this. I feel fooled, not so much by my ex partner but by life in general. I feel my emotions and impressions can’t be trusted. They put me up for being used, humiliated and compromised.

One consequence of this is conversations with loved ones are now often bewildering. I don’t know what to think about things others say about relationships or other complex experiences. I’ve become aware that we all tend to shift narratives to fit our own needs or desires.

Everyone is different, and everyone carries their own truth, and it’s overwhelming, ADHD or not. I no longer think people generally understand each other. 

Sometimes I long for a time when all these confusing realities I’ve lived through, and my own emotional get up, make sense to me. When I can trust myself again. It will always be in a humble way, I think. But still, enough trust in myself to keep emotionally oriented in the world. 

has a lot to do with this I think. This is a huge consideration for myself in my own experience. And I do forgive myself for what I didn't know. As a young teenager, I just loved music especially rock music at the time. I was chomping at the bit to go see my favorite bands perform, before I could even drive. So for me, walking inside these venues with friends, was like waking into another world and without besting around the bush, it was a vortex of illicit behavior like nothing I'd ever seen before. I was completely out of element and had no bearing on what, or who I was seeing in the audience itself. Even now, I have these realizations where I go...wait a minute, that was (             ) ..fill in blank.

Seriously,  I only recently recalled a situation where ( at age 14 ) I was confronted with this guy who I ended up taking to. He was offering me some drugs then this woman walks up next to him who was scantily clad. They both seemed friendly enough and nothing about them registered as "wrong". I just thought it was a couple ...girlfriend-boyfriend ...when in reality, that was a pimp and a prostitute who was also hustling drugs.

The important distinction to make here is that the vast majority of concert goers were more of less there just like me. There was no danger to you directly, but, with rock music..you get: sex, drugs and rock and roll ...so to speak.  Those elements do exist together when you went to shows back at time when there were illicit behavior was deemed as more normal. Specifically, most often,  Cannibis or Marijuana. It's wasn't so much the user's as much as the people who dealt in it...the dealers you'd say. Those poeple were there and in higher concentrations. This completely skews your perception as to who are the "good guys and bad guys" when mostly, it's all good guys using that frame of reference. 

I'm not trying to make any comparisons to anyone here or being discussed  ...absolutely not.  I'm pointing out how perceptions get skewed without any ability to tell the difference.  I didn't hang out with these poeple ( the pimps and prostitutes ) but they were there, and I'm still sorting out which ones were which. Just my ability to tell even now tells me my perception and intuition is working. At age 14, I had absolutely no way to tell?

Thus is also why in a big way, I "have to" know how to spot an unsavory guy like in the video I shared. That guy truly was a psychopath...so at least I have some frame of reference in my ability to keep myself safe. I was in contact with too many of these folks in my past, when I was too young to tell the difference. Going to those shows were a highlight of my youth as I loved and enjoyed them immensely.  The answer wasn't not going, only, that my ability to "spot them" so to speak, was simply not there yet. Obviously,  I'm much better at doing this now which also gives me the ability to know how to react or know what to do ...or even who to avoid in the future.  They don't have anything I want and they don't have any need to hassle me either.

I'll only say this in retrospect ( in terms of Cannibis ) from a sociological perspective...any law that most people break should be examined carefully. ( is not a good law ). When the majority of people are sent underground to get something...it has a negative societal impact ...the very one I just described. That's not me promoting Cannibis...I'm merely pointing out what happens which in my case, skewing my perception between who or what a person is...even when their standing in front of you and having a conversation with them.  This was the early 70's ...things are much different now.

I would be remiss, if I didn't share the life lesson this taught me. This, being the partial story of the pimp and the prostitute. The "Hustler". You could also call him a "salesperson", and she was the "influencer". Either way, the technique is the same. It's just what level your talking about and which "wares" they're selling or prontoming.  Human nature doesn't change, it just depends if it's elicit or not? And "hustler " is still a good term to use.

This isn't some new revelation in my own experience but I thought it would have some value to anyone else reading it. This is not  implying anything other than what happened to me and what I learned from it. I think this is really fascinating how this all worked for me at the very least. 

So I am standing there in the concert venue, waiting for my friend to come out of the bathroom. And next to me is this pimp or "hustler" waiting for the prostitute to  out of the bathroom too. I had only recently tried Marijuana for the first time, and this guy offers me a pipe to smoke with him. I thought, he was offering me Marijuana? I mean, that's what everyone around us was smoking so I saud sure. Right then his prostitute/influencer walks up and says something close to " oh, you'd better sit down for that, it'll knock you off your feet." So I took one hit, and it nearly floored me. She wasn't kidding ..it buckled my knees. She goes " isn't that great ??" Or something to that effect. Great wasn't actually the word, it was beyond great...I felt wonderful.

I just wandered off in this state of bliss ...but I had no idea what that was? I definitely knew...it was NOT Marijuana!! Lol  No doubt in my mind...there was no confusing it. And since the pimp didn't say, I was clueless.  And the rest of the evening was amazing...but for years I wondered what that was?

Well, what that was , was Heroin. And before you go down your own rabbit hole, the lesson wasn't " never take things from strangers " or any other thing you might be thinking. 

Heroin, or opiates are pain killers. Straight up. Its an opiate...it kills pain. And because my tolerance for pain from all my training was no high,  to that point,  I had managed to deaden it myself on my own. In that moment however....I felt what it was like to feel no pain at all and it was a wonderful feeling...it was amazing !

All that built of pain I was carrying in my body instantly vanished like it was never there. That's the point I'm making and moral to this story. It's about drugs being bad. I mean...I take Amphetamines daily. The other "bad" street drug right? Yet used approximately for the right condition, it's the proper one to use. 

And even using Cannibis for example. Some people say it kills pain. I'm not aware that it has that effect on me exactly. It works for anxiety for me if anything at all but not pain. It actually amplifies it for me using that reference. 

But in moment, going back, I was carrying a lot of pain in my body and suddenly, it was gone and I felt wonderful for the possibly the first time ever.

Which is why the pimp/hustler/salesman and his influencer/ prostitute teammate were working me to buy some more. Giving me that "sweet taste" so I'd come back and buy some more.  That's how sales tactics work. They give you a try or taste....and you go...wow, that's really good. Let my buy some of that. It's not different than at a trade show or deli counter.  The only difference is, you don't become addicted so instantly to that wonderful feeling.

I'm my case...I didn't even know WHAT he was selling ? Not until much much later when I figured out what that was? And I never went back because I was managing my pain by myself just fine. I didn't need it, but at least, I understand what it was doing.

Your body does carry it. Case in point. That was my lesson learned at least...I've just not been able to explain it this well before.