As a creative, I always knew I had organizational problems, but it wasn't until I was in a relationship for four years did the accumulation of all of my ADD tendencies take a toll. I didn't realize it during the relationship but so many of the symptoms fit now that I am about a year away from our break-up and newly self diagnosed with ADD within the last week or so.
My then fiance couldn't trust me with our finances b/c of my impulsive buying and past debt I had incurred partially out of unemployment and partially out of inability to cope with paperwork. He resented being the "boring dutiful one" when I offered to let him pay my bills. He always wondered why I couldn't try harder. He was always upset about the household chores being neglected. He found me ultimately irresponsible. By the time I lost my job because I couldn't focus well enough on excel spreadsheets proofreading figures (one aspect of my job), he told me while he didn't want to break up there was no way we could get married. He had a nightmare about how disorganized everything would be when we had children, because everything would be worse. When I lost my job I broke up with my fiance because I was so tired of trying to live up to his expectations. When we had gotten engaged I had suggested he take full reins of all of our finances. But he just wanted me to be able to care for my own independently.
In the end he was worried fiscally what a huge toll it would be to marry someone like me who couldn't be a partner in the true sense of the word. It was devastating to never find acceptance for my flaws. I don't really know where to go from here. It almost feel worse that all his fears were justified in not wanting an ADD partner in life. It makes me feel like an inadequate person and I feel overwhelmed and frightened I will never make a good wife/mother/spouse.
Hang in there, Seegeo
Submitted by officefailure on
Hang in there, Seegeo.
One step at a time. The first step is to speak with your physician or other medical professional regarding your concern that you may have ADHD. Likely, they will want to know family history and other medical information. There are other medical concerns that can mimic ADHD, even some thyroid conditions, so an accurate diagnosis by a medical professional is the only way to know for sure if you have it.
I hear you regarding not being able to focus on Excel documents. I have ADHD, and have had issues focusing on data entry. Normally, it is b/c there are so many projects going on at once, in addition to the data entry. Right now, I looking into working in non-office environments, such as freelance writing and working with kids. It's really hard to accept that I'm wired differently than a non-ADHD, esp. as the bills pile up, but I know trying to find full-time work in another office environment will result in more of the same.
Take a moment to reflect
Submitted by DF on
What makes it difficult for you you to believe you're wired differently is that you've made it this far in life just fine. There's plenty of people in the same boat here. I just learned about me back in April and I'm 37 which is funny because this whole time I swore I was 38 and have been telling people that.
It's always nice to re-evaluate your career options, but you should never limit yourself on options because your worried about your attention to detail. I'm a web engineer and deal with troubleshooting lines of code all the time. I don't particularly understand all of it, but after a while it kind of makes sense. My whole team consists of people with varying degrees of ADD(HD). Code is boring, but not impossible and neither are spreadsheets.
I used to be a bit of a spender myself because it gave me temporary reprieve from the depths of my sorrows. We buy something for us or others because we want to experience that feeling of gratification and escape from current realities. I can tell you I'm in much better control of my finances because my of my commitment to me. There's a lot of things I'd like to have, but I know I can't fully appreciate their value unless I'm happy with me first. The irony is, is that now that I'm happy I'm content with what I have in life and I'm in no hurry to buy much of anything.
Get yourself checked out. Self-diagnosis is a start, but medical diagnosis is an answer in itself to many of your questions. Don't be a Goof - there's someone for everyone and if it hadn't worked out with your ex-fiance then it wasn't meant to be. I don't know your situation or if he's been trying to pursue you now since the breakup a year ago. Just know that with knowledge and understanding on your side, you are in the drivers seat. Start slow so you can learn faster. Doesn't make sense now, but by gathering too much information too fast it becomes too much to retain and you lose track of the overall picture -> You can't fix you because there's nothing to fix.
You just need to learn who you are and why you make the choices you make. If you picked the red car it doesn't make you any different or special than the other million people that picked the red car. The only difference is that they may have picked the car because of its safety features or reliability whereas you walked up to the car and "knew" without a doubt that red car was meant to be yours.