I must say that I can relate to everyone else's posts.
The worst is the loneliness. The hyper focus on the computer and the virtual social life that he created on Facebook that I am excluded from, and the safety in intimacy with strangers, which avoids any intimacy with me, be it social, personal or sexual. I wonder what he is doing here at all, just sitting there, would he even notice if I was gone. This is the real problem and the chaos and the support that he needs for that are draining and that makes the above all the more painful.
It is almost like an implicit agreement that I give him what he needs otherwise he does not cope well.
When I assert my needs and start to put boundaries in he says that I am a bully, that I am misinterpreting him, when I am holding him to account for his actions and asking him to do something about it.
There is a lot of positives but i'm starting to wonder how much of it is adhd and if it is consciously manipulative, like calling me a bully when he cannot get his own way, that has probably worked in the past or calling me tactless and saying that he is not the only one to point it out (which is true).
Also the damage that he causes and the fact that he does not listen until the talking becomes shouting because I am so frustrated with having the same conversation over and over again and not getting anywhere. He lacks common sense, he super glued the slats of our bed to the rails so they do not move anymore he draped wet sheets over the furniture to dry off as it would give them a larger surface area.He broke the sofa, the bed, ruined my sheets, mattress and bedlinen and then thought I was being petty until I added up the cost in concrete terms and told him it came to nearly £1000. Then he whinged to his therapist about going to Ikea, he did not say that I had asked him to go to make him accountable for paying for damaged items, he just made it sound like I was forcing him to go and when I asked him he said it was fine, but then sulked about and threw me resentful glances all the way there, during and back again. So when I said that I asked you if you wanted to go and you said yes, it's not my fault that you can't say no and are not prepared to make amends or fix the damage that you caused and if I was really fair I should have charged him for the petrol it cost to get there as he doesn't drive, I was a bully again.
The latest thing is sweating ammonia, I have empathy for him but it causes a lot of work, he says all you have to do is talk to me, but he never listens and never does anything about it, causing me to get frustrated and resentful as I have to do it as I cannot live in a house like that, my legs itch and now I had an infection on my leg which made me ill for a week, though the cause cannot be directly attributed to that, it did not make it easy to keep the wound clean when I was running around like an idiot trying to keep on top of everything while feeling like crap.
I really don't know what else to say as I read this back it makes him sound awful, but I also know that a lot of it is not conscious and that making someone responsible is a long lengthy process.
You're in the right place
Submitted by dweeb on
Hysterical, I hope this group brings the same clarity and support it's provided me.
May I ask a few questions to better understand you. Has your husband been formally diagnosed with ADHD? Does he seek treatment through meds or counseling?
If he's on meds, he might need to have them adjusted. It doesn't sound like they are the right dose for him.
Some great posts I've come across are: Melissa's post on when your husband doesn't think his adhd affects the relationship, the first post from Sunlight under the first post I wrote 3 months ago. And a post from Tired-to-my-bones in my post, I need to hear from you lady spouses.
What I've learned here so far is that you need to work on making yourself whole and to create a safe space within you. To keep your sanity. It's not easy.
Stay strong. And good luck.
Meds and counselling
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Hi H37...
Submitted by c ur self on
From your post it sounds like he expects you to be attuned to his needs (on stand-by for him) for co-dependency. Plus his independent acts or time eaters I call them have you walled off from expressing your desires in the relationship...Marriages only work properly in my view when both parties live interdependent as One!...There is so much emotional abuse going on these days, because there is no convictions of fulfilling the obligations of a marital vow. (To much what's in it for me!) And what you have stated here fits this model...You should think about counseling for you both...He needs to hear a third party speak accountability to the relationship...
Fear
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
I guess we get what we see w/people...even the one in the mirror
Submitted by c ur self on
Well good luck with this, and since you have training, you also know what Act/React is about...He is who he is and it sounds to me based on his remarks to you about your desire to move him into a better place emotionally through self-awareness, he may be seeing your efforts more as an attempt to manipulate or control him. I suggest to you, that when you meet his negative responses w/Anger and shutting down, it proves his point in his mind...Which possibly is you think he is broken and you want to fix him. So, to avoid the pitfall you described where you get angry and shutdown, where your efforts keep meeting this strong sense of denial, I suggest you step away from making verbal efforts to promote self awareness for him...If you quit engaging him, and just focus on how your efforts have just brought negative fruit so for into your own life. I think you will find more peace for yourself regardless which road he is determined to travel...
You sound so much like me, when I first married my wife.... I was relentless to trying to build a loving relationship of sharing in all things...But, she is not capable of being me or meeting all the expectations I had....I can leave or I can stay and accept her, and set up boundaries to protect myself from co-dependency. It really comes down to commitment and choice.
Fear
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Watch This Video Hysterical37
Submitted by kellyj on
This video was sent to my wife through her work as a Social Worker from a person in her office who has ADHD. She suggested that she watch it because she felt like it applied to her too. I understand that Asberger's is different than ADHD but they are in the same spectrum of disorders. When I saw this for the first time I was amazed at the similarities however. What I saw immediately was how the chain of events and interactions with other people including the culmination of experiences end up having the same effect and therefore....the same outcome. This is what was truly enlightening for me to see as I could have echoed nearly everything that was said by this young man. I also agree with him completely in taking this approach with someone with ADHD as I too have felt and experienced the almost identical thoughts and feelings for most of my entire life when confronted with the exact same situations with the exact same results, conclusions and assumptions being made. Identical in every way.
For me I could also see the differences too which there are a number ....but I told my wife that if she could approach me from this understanding across the board with the same expectations as this young man is suggesting.....the desired results and my ability to meet her expectations of me would increase by leaps and bounds. I know this already since in many ways, I have already come to some of these same conclusions and have done my own version of this from my end.
I don't know if this applies to your situation exactly either but it was really helpful for my wife and I to discuss some of the more relevant points after having explained so well in this video.
At the very least....it can't hurt to see if there is something that resonates here with you and your husband as it did for me and my wife in finding some common ground for discussion. I agreed completely with her co worker in the things said applied remarkably well to ADHD in almost every aspect aside from a few core features that were mentioned or to the level or degree....bringing it down a few notches but still applying it the same.
http://www.aspergerexperts2.com/video-1/?gw=youarein1277
Veru useful
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Hi,
I watched this morning and thought it was very useful, it is exactly as I describe in my reply to the post entitled fear which is about being brave enough to be open to sharing vulnerability which all of us feel. I also bought the roadmap as insight into how other's function is always useful. My comment on their website sums up what I thought:
I love the fact that your desire to help others with aspergers syndrome comes across so wonderfully, it makes you very endearing, especially when you say you will give a refund no matter what. I have to say that I would have purchased the videos anyway because I believe that you are worth it and worth listening to. I also have to say that everybody feels as you described and people go on courses so that they can be open and aware as you so aptly put it, watch TED lecture on authenticity to understand what I mean. It makes most people feel very isolated I'd say otherwise there would be no need for therapists at all, otherwise what is therapy but a safe space to share your vulnerability and grow. Watching your video made me realise how similar we all are, it is just the way we process information that is different. I know exactly what you mean by being overwhelmed by stress, the difference is that I can just probably juggle many more items before I feel overwhelmed or maybe there are some items I don't have to juggle because I can block them out, which is where the sensory overload comes in I guess. I also guess that the innate ability I have to understand social rules also takes a load off the processing capacity of my brain and thus is then freed up for other tasks. What is my point here? That you are no so different to anyone else and you are definitely not alone.
I think I understand people with adhd and asperger's quite well? you may disagree, but we all have needs and I think that is what a lot of non-adhder's are saying that sometimes the traffic is all one way? that is not a criticism of people with adhd or aspergers but people yearn human connection and this is especially difficult to accomplish, so it is rather an expression of loneliness.
Yes, It Came to Mind..
Submitted by kellyj on
when I read your post on fear. It did seem in context to what you were saying. And yes, the young man was so endearing at the end when he was talking about the price of the video's...it was one of my favorite parts:) By the way, I love watching TED.....so much there that sums up my personal feeling about the world. I will have to look up the one you mentioned on authenticity.
The most important point in the video for me was not so much applying everything in it exactly to someone with ADHD directly as he was suggesting ( for someone with Asbergers)......but simply as a means to see how (we) may be different in some specific ways as a means to understand or make sense of things that may not makes sense otherwise. Despite the fact that I had come a long way in my own journey with ADHD before I met my wife and had many discussions on the topic with her when we first met ( being up front and open with her)....we still run into the same issues that appear on this forum anyway.
In hind sight now I can see why this is with her so many times. It's one thing to tell someone about something with acknowledgement that they understand cognitively what you've said. It's another thing entirely when they experience that same thing in real life especially when it's not something they've ever experienced before. I can say that I was very diligent on my end to make sure to cover as many bases as I could with her in the beginning because I've had enough previous experience to let me know that the last thing I wanted was any surprises for my wife but with that comes a tendency on my part to say..."I told you so."...or at least feel privately a little resentful at times at least when complaints started to emerge on her end. Not so much anymore however.
What I've come to realize what is so very true on both sides is this: We both have our issues hers and mine. I had a pretty good idea of what her's were too and she was also as up front an open about them with me as I was with her as well. I think the difference between us and our ability to get along comes in the form of resilience and capacity. We both have our strengths and weaknesses in this department. I'd say I have a great deal more in resilience and she has a great deal more in capacity in some specific ways but when these things gets stretched to their limits.....the imbalance in these differences starts to become a problem.
And on my end with all things considered and with all the knowledge and experience that I have now compared to any other time in my life (including having my meds dialed in for quite some time now). There are still some places despite all of this where I simply lack the capacity that I see in others including my wife as hard as I try. The big one of course is my ability to be or stay connected ( consistently or long enough on a regular basis) in ways where she does not begin to feel a loss or to feel lonely as you described. This is really the source for everything else that comes from her in the form of complaints
I'm so far beyond feeling hurt or not understanding all of this that I also no longer react or take things personally like I used to simply because it no longer overwhelms me or erodes my self esteem. That's where the resilience really comes into play. I can can get stretched really far in lots of directions now compared to my past without having it effect me negatively however......there are some areas that have changed very little or at all and one of them gets brought up in the video.
It's the part where he describes becoming stressed and anxious and how he needs to have a chance to decompress to go back out and function again at fully. I can describe this differently for myself;
I am exactly like a battery when it comes to my ability to connect and stay connected to people. I have a finite limit to my "charge" at any given time or circumstance. When my battery run down it needs to be charged it's that simple. When I runs to critically low I start to experience stress and anxiety and begin to fall apart. If I can take the intermittent breaks I need to charge my battery then everything is fine and I have no issues and everything ( and everyone else around me) appear to be OK including me. No problem. If the demands or expectations of others are too great or make it impossible for me to recharge then this is a real problem and stress and anxiety begin to overwhelm me in that order which is the reverse as described in the video ie: overwhelmed, stress, anxiety.
This is where the problems begin with my wife and I. She has a huge capacity to connect and stay connected to people. ( she's a social worker so that should say something right there) I have a finite charge to my battery and when I need to go charge, I need to disconnect for a while and come back later to continue.
This simple concept is not so simple for her to understand.....actually, she understands this completely ...the disconnect for her is in her ability to be resilient to this fact which causes her to begin to fall apart emotionally because of this intermittent aspect (or need to recharge) in my ability or capacity to be or stay connected with her many times.....me pushing the limits of my ability to try and stay with her as long as she needs until I'm completely exhausted stressed out and falling apart in my efforts with all the predictable consequences that come with that.
Bottom line....there appears no getting around my need to recharge. I've learned to limit the time needed and extend my charge time but the simple fact remains...there is just no getting around this fact for me. It's the part of my ADHD that has always been there and always will whether I like it or not.
That's what my wife and I discussed about the video that was useful as means to show another version of this said by someone else. It doesn't fix the problem with us but I'm hoping in time she will learn not to take this aspect of me personally and become more resilient????
I f not we will fail as a couple together and I realize that this is a real possibility too. I've also come to understand this and not take this personally as well if this does end up happening as hard as it will be to face.
I appreciate your response and will have to check out the TED video. Thanks
J
Honesty
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
'The most important point in the video for me was not so much applying everything in it exactly to someone with ADHD directly as he was suggesting ( for someone with Asbergers)......but simply as a means to see how (we) may be different in some specific ways as a means to understand or make sense of things that may not makes sense otherwise'
Everyone wants to be understood and valued for who they are, this level of acceptance is at the basic root of all relationships and applies whether you have ADHD or not and that is also what I need and what your wife needs.
Despite the fact that I had come a long way in my own journey with ADHD before I met my wife and had many discussions on the topic with her when we first met ( being up front and open with her)....we still run into the same issues that appear on this forum anyway'.
This comment made me feel so sad for you, it was like you were trying to prevent further pain in the future.
'In hind sight now I can see why this is with her so many times. It's one thing to tell someone about something with acknowledgement that they understand cognitively what you've said. It's another thing entirely when they experience that same thing in real life especially when it's not something they've ever experienced before'.
I totally agree
'I'm so far beyond feeling hurt or not understanding all of this that I also no longer react or take things personally like I used to simply because it no longer overwhelms me or erodes my self esteem. That's where the resilience really comes into play. I can can get stretched really far in lots of directions now compared to my past without having it effect me negatively'
Totally normal for everyone, adhd or not, this is why I said watch that video on authenticity. Another great resource is 'what you feel you can heal' by David Grey where he covers the way that unexpressed feelings build up over time and erode the relationship, this happens to everybody so often because being honest and risking vulnerability is so hard.
It's the part where he describes becoming stressed and anxious and how he needs to have a chance to decompress to go back out and function again at fully. I can describe this differently for myself;
I am exactly like a battery when it comes to my ability to connect and stay connected to people. I have a finite limit to my "charge" at any given time or circumstance. When my battery run down it needs to be charged it's that simple. When I runs to critically low I start to experience stress and anxiety and begin to fall apart. If I can take the intermittent breaks I need to charge my battery then everything is fine and I have no issues and everything ( and everyone else around me) appear to be OK including me. No problem. If the demands or expectations of others are too great or make it impossible for me to recharge then this is a real problem and stress and anxiety begin to overwhelm me in that order which is the reverse as described in the video ie: overwhelmed, stress, anxiety.
All men need space to recharge, just with ADHD it is is more extreme and I understand that - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_cave
In fact I work away so he gets plenty of space.
This is where the problems begin with my wife and I. She has a huge capacity to connect and stay connected to people. ( she's a social worker so that should say something right there) I have a finite charge to my battery and when I need to go charge, I need to disconnect for a while and come back later to continue. - I am in a similar line of work.
This simple concept is not so simple for her to understand.....actually, she understands this completely ...the disconnect for her is in her ability to be resilient to this fact which causes her to begin to fall apart emotionally because of this intermittent aspect (or need to recharge) in my ability or capacity to be or stay connected with her many times.....me pushing the limits of my ability to try and stay with her as long as she needs until I'm completely exhausted stressed out and falling apart in my efforts with all the predictable consequences that come with that. - This sounds more like a communication issue to me, your wife does not have adhd so while she may cognitively understand this she may not intuitively understand it, I understood that after months and months of stress I felt like this and needed some space, we have all at times felt overwhelmed and the problem is that you do not have a shared experience in terms of capacity, your resistance is far lower so you need space more quickly, but I think probably that this time needs to be communicated in a particular way and boundaried so that when you get space you don't then go into hyperfocus and then ignore her completely for a lengthy period of time, so make it it contract, have an alarm or something so that you can review how 'charged' you are after a period of time and then reassess if you need more time and then communicate that to your wife. No matter how much I understand ADHD it is really hard not to take personally when someone constantly ignores you, after all what is the point for me or her in even being there, she wants to connect to you, she has shown commitment in sticking by you in spite of all the difficulties you have faced. Believe me if she has stood by you through that, she loves you. All she wants is a little more balance, that is the point of setting boundaries so each says what they want and then they have a contract so that they agree what works and neither feels obligated to do something they don't want to do out of guilt or whatever, which causes resentment. So it is about give and take then and is more healthy and balanced for both.
That's what my wife and I discussed about the video that was useful as means to show another version of this said by someone else. It doesn't fix the problem with us but I'm hoping in time she will learn not to take this aspect of me personally and become more resilient????
She may or may not take it personally, but she has needs as well and regardless of understanding the feeling of loneliness may still be there and would be valid because she is on her own a lot of the time, this is in fundamental conflict with our nature where we need to connect to others, feel accepted, nurtured, loved and cherished.
I f not we will fail as a couple together and I realize that this is a real possibility too. I've also come to understand this and not take this personally as well if this does end up happening as hard as it will be to face.
Very sad indeed :(
I appreciate your response and will have to check out the TED video. Thanks
I also appreciate the time that you have taken to reach out to me and hope that sharing our perspectives will help to improve our understanding of each other's worlds.
I have one last thing to say and it comes back to authenticity. It is easy to reach out to someone online, someone where there is very little risk of pain, but take this risk with your wife. It is what she really wants and this is the only way to make a true connection, to risk hurt, otherwise you are virtually guarantying hurt anyway through continued loss, so actually the perception of risk is false, but it is a hard hurdle to jump, but always so worthwhile. The quality of this connection then would outweigh the need for quantity of connection. Also remember that because you are wired differently and have told your wife how adhd affects you, talk to her about what you are experiencing 'now' because it is not always obvious from the outside. I will give you a classic example, my boyfriend drives me crazy when we go shopping, he dithers continuously about what to choose, makes a big issue about small differences in price between items and has to go around and look at every bargain in the shop. I am very decisive on the other hand, even for a non-adhder. I read on this forum about the impulsive spending of some with adhd and I talked to him about it and he said 'I could be like that, but I've got it under control' I suddenly realized that all of that annoying behaviour is a coping mechanism for impulse control and I accepted it, while it still annoys me I let him go off and do it on his own, because I know and understand why he needs to do it, so I just let him, and put my own boundaries about not being dragged in to it if I don't want to and sometimes now we will go around with him and have a laugh about it....
The Four Agreements and Man Caves ( ha ha )
Submitted by kellyj on
The book by this title by Don Miquel Ruiz has become my bible over the last 15 years. If you haven't read it you might find it worth the read as it is a short and simple concept. These are:
Don't Make Assumptions
Don't take things Personally
Do Your Best in Everything You Do
Be Impeccable with Your Word
The last one is by far the hardest one to achieve.....it's another way of wording or saying be "authentic" with your words which require you to be authentic in the first place. Easier said than done! It took me several years after first reading this book to even understand exactly this concept about the fourth agreement.....when I finally understood this I realized why it is so hard to master. This goes to the core or communication and to how we think....about everything! It encompass's who we are as seen from the outside world and begin with who we are within ourselves.
Anyway.....I read this book repeatedly over the first few years after initially coming across it book until the point that I have memorized it enough to put this into practice ( saying practicing it...not mastering it!!!!!)
I agree with so much of what you said and the conclusions that you have come to. I had to laugh about the story of your boyfriend and shopping....I'm the same way when I'm buying things of interest to me and much of it has to do with the cost. I don't have spending issues as some of the men I've heard on this sight have...actually quite the opposite! So yes...I will agonize excessively in making certain purchases in trying to figure out the cheapest one or the best value....this can go on for hours!
On the other hand......factisiously speaking now....My mom used to drag me around when I was little taking my older sisters clothes shopping ( sometimes the better part of a whole day) ...... to this day I am traumatized any time I step foot inside a women's clothing section at the mall.....or even going inside a mall to begin with starts to give me the heebie geebies after only a short period of time. lol
And yes.....communication breakdown is a big part of our issues. I think that (we) really do have a different language sometimes apart from most people ( like the young man mentioned in the video about learning to speak differently to someone with autism. ) This is an area where I've really focused on and it is showing some noticeable improvements in our ability to communicate. Having some established rules and agreements have really begun to pay off in this area.
I love the thing about the man cave. I have a shop that is mine that is apart from our living area which serves this purpose but I am constantly trying to improve this aspect so it doesn't impose on my wife. It takes time and that's the one area that my wife struggles with...impatience. She admit this but at the same time...it's still a problem for me when she runs out do to her own issues. It's no different than with my ADHD and the things you mentioned. We have to understand how another person feels in any given situation even if we never feel that way ourselves. That's just it. it's easy to relate to things we can relate with. Things we can't relate to fall more into the category of faith.....beleiveing something that is unseen or unfelt to us in someone else. I think this goes more outside of empathy and has a more esoteric quality and therefore a need to understand it differently because it I think. Most people ( including me) try and relate things to something they are familiar with and many times this simply does not work...it requires a different kind of understanding I think just like the young man was describing in the video. And to be fair....(we) need to do this possibly even more at times than other people too. You can't get what you can't give!
I also wanted to throw in something that I was just recently trying to put into words myself when it comes to my own experience as being a "guy". It was within the article you sent me on "Man Caves" and think this is really relevant to so many issues men face in relationships especially if "you're old and in the way" like me. ha ha
It said:
"Men have had an identity problem since the women's movement. They have tried to figure out who they're supposed to be. For a while women wanted them to be more sensitive, so they were more sensitive. Then women wanted them to be more manly. One of the things I discovered is when men have their own manspace, what they put inside of it is really an expression of who they are. Manspace is about establishing an identity for a man. Our premise is that women have control of the look and the feel of the house and that left guys wanting more. Anybody who has a specific interest or hobby or work or collection is going to want a space to indulge that."
—Sam Martin, in the Chicago Tribune, 2007[13]
I could write a book on this topic and how it relates to "the collective female pain body" but for now, I'll just thank you again for your well thought through response. I still haven't had a chance to look up the authenticity video on TED but in light of what I said about the 4 agreements and "being impeccable with you word"....and the communication struggles that you were so right on the money about with my wife.....I plan to do this soon as it's already something that I am very interested in.
But the core of how you began this thread and the feelings that you experience by being emotionally vulnerable with someone who has ADHD is really the issue in all of this. The rest of this are all ways to try and do this better for (us) and to understand exactly what we need to do differently. I'm working on it! lol
Much Thanks and Appreciation ....and Happy Thanksgiving!
J
A more considered response
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
On the other hand......factisiously speaking now....My mom used to drag me around when I was little taking my older sisters clothes shopping ( sometimes the better part of a whole day) ...... to this day I am traumatized any time I step foot inside a women's clothing section at the mall.....or even going inside a mall to begin with starts to give me the heebie geebies after only a short period of time. lol
Me too I hate shopping.....
And yes.....communication breakdown is a big part of our issues. I think that (we) really do have a different language sometimes apart from most people ( like the young man mentioned in the video about learning to speak differently to someone with autism. ) This is an area where I've really focused on and it is showing some noticeable improvements in our ability to communicate. Having some established rules and agreements have really begun to pay off in this area.
Good for you.
"Men have had an identity problem since the women's movement. They have tried to figure out who they're supposed to be. For a while women wanted them to be more sensitive, so they were more sensitive. Then women wanted them to be more manly. One of the things I discovered is when men have their own manspace, what they put inside of it is really an expression of who they are. Manspace is about establishing an identity for a man. Our premise is that women have control of the look and the feel of the house and that left guys wanting more. Anybody who has a specific interest or hobby or work or collection is going to want a space to indulge that."
—Sam Martin, in the Chicago Tribune, 2007[13]
I was thinking I could make him a manspace and fill it with empty crisp packets, coke bottles and half used packets of tablets (I mean what gives, 'I need a new prescription honey', 'what is wrong with the billion tablets you have over there', 'what tablets?')..........or am I missing the point - just kidding!
.
But the core of how you began this thread and the feelings that you experience by being emotionally vulnerable with someone who has ADHD is really the issue in all of this. The rest of this are all ways to try and do this better for (us) and to understand exactly what we need to do differently. I'm working on it! lol
At least you are willing to try and you are not in denial. Kudos for that. My boyfriend is apeing me at the moment because I have compared him to a small child, every time he does something he says, look at how adult I was there etc and then says 'I can even go potty on my own now mummy' I'm sure I will never live that down!! and then he will say look that is why I shouldn't do that as I am getting it wrong and I say no that is every reason to do it more often, you need the practice. Laurel and Hardy eat your heart out.
Much Thanks and Appreciation ....and Happy Thanksgiving!
You too :)
One of My Favorite Mark Twain Quotes...
Submitted by kellyj on
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
I thought of this when I read the comment about your boyfriend... My boyfriend is apeing me at the moment because I have compared him to a small child, every time he does something he says, look at how adult I was there etc and then says 'I can even go potty on my own now mummy' I'm sure I will never live that down!! and then he will say look that is why I shouldn't do that as I am getting it wrong and I say no that is every reason to do it more often, you need the practice. Laurel and Hardy eat your heart out.
I feel your frustration as well as his at the same time! It's hard to deal with anyone is compares themselves to themselves and says "see what a good job I did."
Compared to what?...would be my question to him. lol
Compassionately speaking for him....I understand. This is part of that esoteric aspect that I was talking about. Until someone with ADHD finally gets that they are different in some areas and they really AREN'T doing as well as they think they are ( your's truly included )....all you're going to get is more of the same.
Unfortunately....having to admit this or see it in the first place is not always pleasant....to down right depressing and painful sometimes for that person. I've had to swallow a lot of pride at times and it can be a pretty big pill to swallow. And even after you do....now you have to keep reminding yourself of this fact all the time in order to keep improving. There are days you're just not up to it even when you know this. I think the doses need to be kept at a size that one can manage on a daily basis or the results feels like your getting it shoved down your throat until your choking on it.
I'm saying this even after you understand it. Some days are better than others and some days you just need a day off too.
I just had this conversation with my wife. When she gets stressed about things ( not just me) her tolerance gets shorter and shorter. I thought about that term..."to be short" with someone and realized what that meant now if I never did before. The time period between when you want something and when you get it! Another way to say this is patience.
Whenn she loses patience....I start to lose it in general! lol
I see this directly connected to what I was just saying. She knows what I capable of doing....I know how big a pill I can swallow at any given time so where's the problem? It comes when I feel like I'm trying to do too much...too fast and being pushed to do it faster than I'm comfortable with.
Can I do it faster? Yes.....but it's not comfortable, sustainable or manageable for me. And when she starts getting "short" with me is when my eyes start to squint and I start grinding my teeth. LOL
It sounds like your boyfriend is is that "stubborn" ,"lockdown mode" like the young man in the video was talking about + some denial on top of that. It appears that most of the men being discussed on this forum are in some version of this too. The "denial" is part of that pill I'm talking about. The stubborn part comes when you know better...(not denial)...but when I'm feeling pushed to go faster than is doable at times.
In the 4 agreements it talks about ..."doing the best you can in everything you do". It also says this is dependent on all things including a persons ability at any given moment which can change from day to day. Of course this is for you the person using this guide to decide not someone else but...being stubborn definitely gets in the way of doing your best. I know this one well as I can be extremely mule headed and stubborn at times to spite myself. Not as much as I used to be as I would not be able to write this now if I was! ha ha I also see this in many of the post on this forum written about (us) and I competently understand. Saying I understand it from being there in the past and also understand how frustrating it must be on the other side.
This is why I thought the Asberber's video was so relevant especially the part where he says that you've got to get (them) out of lock down mode into aware and open mode first before you're going to get ANYWHERE with them. I think this might be a little different for (us) but not necessarily in the concept itself. I think the concept is right on the money or else all your going to get is static feedback and stubbornness from (us) at least until some progress and results start to show up and both people see it working.
That's where I am now with my wife....enough success to see some kind of change and things beginning to move forward in the process. That may be the only real difference between me and some of the men being discussed in these post but I also see the need to get to this place first or not much is going to happen very quickly ( again ..like the young man with Asberger's was saying)
What I think in part is true about that video is simply due to human nature. So much of this is not specific to ADHD, Asbergers or any other issue a person faces...some of it';s just common sense and human nature if you can put yourself in another persons shoes and imagine what you'd how you'd feel or behave under the same circumstance.
Some of the most successful conversations I've had with my wife is when I can get her to see something in a way she can relate too...in a way she can go " OH....I see what you mean now."
The same is true for her as well but that will only come without denial and being aware first.....and the willingness to swallow a little pride too I think. Maybe you should have your boyfriend read this too...who knows what will register and what won't
*disclaimer...if he suffers from being a Narc forget what I just said....it probably won't do much good but.....this is a very small percentage of people at large. Lot's of behaviors that look Narcissistic like stubbornness and being controlling come more from the things that the young man was saying in the video...not from having a lack of empathy or the ability to empathize.
I realize now that some of my own stubbornness comes not from lacking empathy but from lacking compassion...the ability to stop what your doing and put yourself forward when the opportunity arises instead of turning away thinking that I've got my own problems to worry about and can't take on someone else's. This is more of a "choice" not to be empathetic instead of the inability to. I also realize where this comes from.....it comes from the feeling that others don't show me empathy so why should I? I grew up with this feeling because it was true at the time.
This is the wrong way to look at things but I think it's a common one with a person with ADHD and it's part of being stubborn...making what you do contingent on what other people do or how they treat you first before your going your going to budge.....or quitting early if you aren't getting the response you want.
I don't know if this even falls into the category of denial either...I think a bit more self righteous indignation I think?
Anyway....these are all things I felt or experienced as a way of thinking or a way of dealing with things in the past. From where I sit when I read the posts on this forum.....a version of this ( or these things) is probably what's happening more times than not even though it's not what being discussed or being addressed.....
At least this was for me. It wasn't so much I couldn't see a great deal of these things.....or was in denial...... or lacked empathy......
I just wasn't' about to talk to anyone about these things unless they behaved themselves first otherwise.......they got my middle finger if you know what I mean. lol
This is in itself acting a bit like a child but the feelings behind it are what's important. that's truly what I wanted is simply to be heard and having some showing of even an attempt to understand first before I was going to listen to what anyone else had to say.
If you can get through this part I think you might be surprised what will come from it.
I posted a video in the "other" section of this forum a short time ago entitled..." Undiagnosed Oppositional Defiant Male w/ ADHD". Whether a person hates or loves this kind of music is not really relevant to why I posted outside of the humor aspect ( at least for me??).......I think it's a brilliantly done satirical look at this perspective that I'm talking about depicted from a teenage point of view.
When I first saw this video back in the day I remembered thinking how funny it was but also thinking just how much I identified with it. What I identified about it was this part me that I grew up with( back in 1983) at age 26. (my feelings at the time) whether I openly discussed it with anyone or not..... or even looked, dressed or acted like *Mike Muier ( the singer ) in any way.... .....
*Side note: Mike Muier by his own accounts did not grow up this way at all in fact, just the opposite with a very supporting family who were not anything like the depiction he was portraying...fun fact.
it was there underneath how I felt about myself and my feelings in general and I couldn't have done it any better to show this than in this video....from an artistic perspective all things considered......he did a really good job. I also love satire too if there is any question? ha
This video may not speak to you or anyone else who see's it (thinking not for everyone for sure).........but if you understand it from my description then I will say that this is the person lurking somewhere inside that you need to find and you need to talk to and get out in the open.
This character in the video who lived inside of someone like me or perhaps other people who've had this kind of frustration in their life that is angry, frustrated and pissed off no matter how polite and courteous they may appear on the outside. This is the stubborn resentful person who know's what you want but is not going to behave until you open up a dialog with them first. It's the child that you and your boyfriend are referring too I think. If I'm anywhere close to being correct in what I'm saying....then this really is the child that is causing all the problems for the two of you. If you can see it from this perspective it might help explain things better. I have no advise or suggestion in just how to approach your boyfriend but this might give your some insight at the very least....also, just to be sure...I'm not defending or excusing your boyfriend but at the very least...getting him to see thing so he can start taking responsibility for his child first and then moving forward from there.
I didn't realize this at the time but this truly was how I felt inside whether I would admit it to anyone or not.....or could even see it myself for that matter. And it would come out many times when provoked. If you could imagine approaching the kid in the video instead of approaching a person who presents themselves differently at times.....I think this video does a terrific job at showing this in a humorous and satirical way. At the very least...I think it does a good job or depicting my own version of that child thinking it's probably close enough for others as well. Hopefully this makes sense???? I LOL
J
Thought Provoking
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Wow what a lengthy and in depth thought provoking response, thank you, I just hope that I can do it justice in my response and that my response is balanced between our two worlds.
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
Haha, I love Mark Twain, he puts in a nutshell so much about human nature that is un-ageing and it is funny because we can all relate, he is so congruent!
Compassionately speaking for him....I understand. This is part of that esoteric aspect that I was talking about. Until someone with ADHD finally gets that they are different in some areas and they really AREN'T doing as well as they think they are ( your's truly included )....all you're going to get is more of the same.
Yep, I go back to the therapy analogy again, someone asked me why they couldn't feel anything, and I think it is because they are not ready, when you have developed yourself and have built your inner reserves than you are ready to be fed your pain piecemeal by your psyche, this is so prevalent among psychology and has developed into the common language 'defensive' your ego is defending itself against a truth that it is not yet ready to accept...again totally normal, just probably delayed in the adhd mind due to added processing strain. So your posts are making me reflect, the frustration is caused by the fact that he is not willing to be open, despite all of my patience and removal of barriers, so I would think then his psyche is not yet strong enough to start accepting himself for who he really is and to be honest he is not that bad, in fact I think he is lovely and I love him for it, but it is so frustrating when he gets in the way of himself!! people do generally not judge others on behaviour but underlying intent, unless this intent is hidden.
Unfortunately....having to admit this or see it in the first place is not always pleasant....to down right depressing and painful sometimes for that person. I've had to swallow a lot of pride at times and it can be a pretty big pill to swallow. And even after you do....now you have to keep reminding yourself of this fact all the time in order to keep improving. There are days you're just not up to it even when you know this. I think the doses need to be kept at a size that one can manage on a daily basis or the results feels like your getting it shoved down your throat until your choking on it. - yep as above
I'm saying this even after you understand it. Some days are better than others and some days you just need a day off too. - Do I? I understand it in an intellectual sense after being given time and space to understand it but it is not intuitive. The problem is that my mind takes many short cuts throughout the day, let me use another visual reference, say I want to get to the Centre of a circle, I would look at the circle and almost instantly calculate the best and shortest route, I would walk directly from the circumference and follow the line of the radius to the centre. I would then be standing in the centre watching my boyfriend try to tackle the same task and I think that he would start jogging in a spiral, without thinking ahead about the best way to accomplish the task, he would give it no consideration whatsoever to planning the best way to accomplish the task and while he is jogging in a spiral he would become easily distracted and probably have a snack or play the computer in between the completion of what to me is a relatively short and easy task that should be accomplished quickly. I would be thinking 'what are you doing? why are you doing it like that? and why do you need to take so many breaks? Because we are wired differently I say to you again, it is only when I pause and think that I can apply my understanding to a situation because I experience it differently.
I just had this conversation with my wife. When she gets stressed about things ( not just me) her tolerance gets shorter and shorter. I thought about that term..."to be short" with someone and realized what that meant now if I never did before. The time period between when you want something and when you get it! Another way to say this is patience.
Whenn she loses patience....I start to lose it in general! lol - Your wife is a social worker, she probably suffers from burnout because people who care do not always care enough about themselves and when they do this they ultimately get overwhelmed and stressed because they need to recharge their batteries, she is feeling the same as you here when you become overwhelmed by your experience. I know when I am stressed I lose patience with my boyfriend not because I am stressed but because I need him. I need him to comfort me, to take some of the load off, to tell me that he will be there for me and to rest and take care of myself. Without an understanding of adhd it is easy then to see the behaviour as selfish, she probably thinks I am always there for you, where are you for me when I need you? the stressed brain cannot take a level headed and objective view of the situation and it is emotionally flooded, so it does what it does to get what it needs, it breaks down so you have to take a break, you have to rest, it instructs you to stop. Maybe see it as an opportunity to connect, don't look for validation and say 'see that is exactly how I feel all of the time' try and say instead 'I understand how you feel' and connect to your own feelings about yourself, your own vulnerability and then reach out to her and comfort her.
I see this directly connected to what I was just saying. She knows what I capable of doing....I know how big a pill I can swallow at any given time so where's the problem? It comes when I feel like I'm trying to do too much...too fast and being pushed to do it faster than I'm comfortable with. - Does she know what you are capable of doing? again she may do intellectually but she wouldn't know that without having to think about it and people don't do this because most of the tasks they complete are skills which reduce the demands on the brain's capacity to process information. Let me give you another example, the human brain is capable of remembering (Short term) seven items plus or minus two. When you are learning to drive, you have to remember lots of different items, how the clutch operates, how to steer, when to change gear, how to evaluate speed etc and how all of these things interact, a very complex and heavy demand on your processing capacity, that is why when people learn to drive they don't have the radio on or don't talk to people as it is yet another processing demand and it may be costly in terms of a mistake. When people are skilled at driving the process becomes one item not seven or nine, it becomes something that is automatic, that is not thought about in terms of individual items anymore. This applies to everything that your wife has been doing for years and does automatically without thinking, including communication, that is what I mean when I say my brain takes short cuts all of the time to reduce the processing demand because all of the items become fewer, compacted by the acquisition of skills. This is my understanding of the main difference between people who have adhd and people who don't that they are unable to reduce their capacity in this way or block out or attenuate items so effectively they have a lot more balls to juggle, so back to the analogy with driving, you may always have to juggle 7-9 balls, where as your wife only has to juggle one and as this is a natural process which she doesn't have to think about, it just happens then she will have to be reminded that you operate differently because your worlds are different, because you do not think the same.
Can I do it faster? Yes.....but it's not comfortable, sustainable or manageable for me. And when she starts getting "short" with me is when my eyes start to squint and I start grinding my teeth. LOL - again for her it is easy to do quickly because of the processing shortcuts I have described, so sometimes she will just not get how you can't do the same.
It sounds like your boyfriend is is that "stubborn" ,"lockdown mode" like the young man in the video was talking about + some denial on top of that. It appears that most of the men being discussed on this forum are in some version of this too. The "denial" is part of that pill I'm talking about. The stubborn part comes when you know better...(not denial)...but when I'm feeling pushed to go faster than is doable at times. - Yep I could do with a little help here, I can't see any forward progress until he comes out of denial, intellectually he says he has adhd but not emotionally, he has to do it himself and this is the grind for me as there is nothing I can do about it, though it impacts me daily.
This is why I thought the Aspergers' video was so relevant especially the part where he says that you've got to get (them) out of lock down mode into aware and open mode first before you're going to get ANYWHERE with them. I think this might be a little different for (us) but not necessarily in the concept itself. I think the concept is right on the money or else all your going to get is static feedback and stubbornness from (us) at least until some progress and results start to show up and both people see it working.- I agree, I am usually quite good at getting people to relax and open up, but my boyfriend is an absolute nightmare, he has been to therapy and has not been successful because he does not have an open mind about changing or believe in the process at all.
That's where I am now with my wife....enough success to see some kind of change and things beginning to move forward in the process. That may be the only real difference between me and some of the men being discussed in these post but I also see the need to get to this place first or not much is going to happen very quickly ( again ..like the young man with Asberger's was saying) - Good for you.
What I think in part is true about that video is simply due to human nature. So much of this is not specific to ADHD, Asbergers or any other issue a person faces...some of it';s just common sense and human nature if you can put yourself in another persons shoes and imagine what you'd how you'd feel or behave under the same circumstance. - yep!
Some of the most successful conversations I've had with my wife is when I can get her to see something in a way she can relate too...in a way she can go " OH....I see what you mean now." - exactly what I was saying above about the driving example. Brilliant that you are able to recognize it, at least sometimes if not all of the time.
The same is true for her as well but that will only come without denial and being aware first.....and the willingness to swallow a little pride too I think. Maybe you should have your boyfriend read this too...who knows what will register and what won't - I'm not sure that wouldn't be like getting him to swallow his psyche in one gulp?
*disclaimer...if he suffers from being a Narc forget what I just said....it probably won't do much good but.....this is a very small percentage of people at large. Lot's of behaviors that look Narcissistic like stubbornness and being controlling come more from the things that the young man was saying in the video...not from having a lack of empathy or the ability to empathize.-believe me he's not, my Dad had NPD so I know how to deal with that and would be running fast in the other direction.
I realize now that some of my own stubbornness comes not from lacking empathy but from lacking compassion...the ability to stop what your doing and put yourself forward when the opportunity arises instead of turning away thinking that I've got my own problems to worry about and can't take on someone else's. This is more of a "choice" not to be empathetic instead of the inability to. I also realize where this comes from.....it comes from the feeling that others don't show me empathy so why should I? I grew up with this feeling because it was true at the time.- you echo my thoughts about describing how your wife is when she is stressed and probably don't realize what she is able to do for you most of the time, this is not your fault it is just because it is difficult if not impossible to put yourself in the shoes of a non-adhder. I love Melissa's post about when her husband had to do a job working with someone with adhd and he was the more organized one in that situation because they were so chaotic, he then came home and said that the burden he was putting on his family was unacceptable!! If she is sticking by you and making the house run smoothly etc then believe me that she is doing a lot more for you that you probably realize, your feelings are valid because that is how you experience the world but that is different from how she experiences it so her feelings are also valid.
This is the wrong way to look at things but I think it's a common one with a person with ADHD and it's part of being stubborn...making what you do contingent on what other people do or how they treat you first before your going your going to budge.....or quitting early if you aren't getting the response you want. - it is normal given how you experience the world.
I don't know if this even falls into the category of denial either...I think a bit more self righteous indignation I think? Yep and don't we as non-adhd partners know it!! Imagine running around after someone who is really chaotic all day to keep them running smoothly and they are absolutely oblivious to what you do and then when you try and talk to them about it you get a lecture on how you are treating them. I was aware that you may become a little defensive when you read this but that is not my intention, it is just simply a way of telling you what I have experienced, so maybe you can understand both sides if you can put your own feelings aside and really try and understand. It may sound a little silly but I have done this at work and completed role play where we have switched roles and got the person to act out the role of the other person. I have seen a lot of light bulb moments from employing this strategy.
....
I just wasn't' about to talk to anyone about these things unless they behaved themselves first otherwise.......they got my middle finger if you know what I mean. lol
This is in itself acting a bit like a child but the feelings behind it are what's important. that's truly what I wanted is simply to be heard and having some showing of even an attempt to understand first before I was going to listen to what anyone else had to say. - ''You wanted to be heard and yet you weren't about to talk about these things unless they behaved themselves first'' - you will never be heard in this case because good communication is at the heart of understanding, this is such a vicious and self fulfilling cycle for the production of misery that I have ever heard! that is so sad :(
If you can get through this part I think you might be surprised what will come from it. - Both of us need to. Together.
I posted a video in the "other" section of this forum a short time ago entitled..." Undiagnosed Oppositional Defiant Male w/ ADHD". Whether a person hates or loves this kind of music is not really relevant to why I posted outside of the humor aspect ( at least for me??).......I think it's a brilliantly done satirical look at this perspective that I'm talking about depicted from a teenage point of view.
When I first saw this video back in the day I remembered thinking how funny it was but also thinking just how much I identified with it. What I identified about it was this part me that I grew up with( back in 1983) at age 26. (my feelings at the time) whether I openly discussed it with anyone or not..... or even looked, dressed or acted like *Mike Muier ( the singer ) in any way.... .....
*Side note: Mike Muier by his own accounts did not grow up this way at all in fact, just the opposite with a very supporting family who were not anything like the depiction he was portraying...fun fact.
it was there underneath how I felt about myself and my feelings in general and I couldn't have done it any better to show this than in this video....from an artistic perspective all things considered......he did a really good job. I also love satire too if there is any question? ha
This video may not speak to you or anyone else who see's it (thinking not for everyone for sure).........but if you understand it from my description then I will say that this is the person lurking somewhere inside that you need to find and you need to talk to and get out in the open.
I will certainly take a look :)
This character in the video who lived inside of someone like me or perhaps other people who've had this kind of frustration in their life that is angry, frustrated and pissed off no matter how polite and courteous they may appear on the outside. - yep this is definately my boyfriend no doubt, he never tells anyone how he really feels and is no good at telling people his negative feelings except for me and he has done this directly to me, which I think is brave and steps in the right direction. I have never invalidated him when he has done this as I recognise completely it's importance, again back to authenticity!!
This is the stubborn resentful person who know's what you want but is not going to behave until you open up a dialog with them first. It's the child that you and your boyfriend are referring too I think. If I'm anywhere close to being correct in what I'm saying....then this really is the child that is causing all the problems for the two of you. If you can see it from this perspective it might help explain things better. I have no advise or suggestion in just how to approach your boyfriend but this might give your some insight at the very least....also, just to be sure...I'm not defending or excusing your boyfriend but at the very least...getting him to see thing so he can start taking responsibility for his child first and then moving forward from there. - a self fulfilling prophecy if ever I heard one!
I didn't realize this at the time but this truly was how I felt inside whether I would admit it to anyone or not.....or could even see it myself for that matter. And it would come out many times when provoked. If you could imagine approaching the kid in the video instead of approaching a person who presents themselves differently at times.....I think this video does a terrific job at showing this in a humorous and satirical way. At the very least...I think it does a good job or depicting my own version of that child thinking it's probably close enough for others as well. Hopefully this makes sense???? I LOL - Yes it does and I may get him to watch it as well, maybe this might be a way forward. It does concern me when he has to cover up all of his emotional expression, when we go and watch a film, I cry which makes him uncomfortable and then he cracks jokes loudly in the cinema and laughs....oh dear.
Thank You So Much
Submitted by kellyj on
I wanted to stop here for a moment and say how useful the things you've said are for me. And you are kind in thinking that some of the things said may be hard for me to hear. This is what I want to say about this.....it takes practice. I've had some practice already in swallowing my "ego" long enough for these things to start to take hold. The hardest part is simply starting as it is with anything. Once you've done a few times it gets easier and you begin to see the benefits far out way any negative feelings that come from doing this.
Here's me being authentic like Mike Robbins suggested:
What I've come to realize deep down about myself and having ADHD is just how wrong I have been in my own thinking for so many years. How I learned to compensate most of my life has been by collecting skills and experiences. That has been how I saw my own value as a person. the message I got early on was that "you are unacceptable"....and to this day I still hold this to be true despite knowing that the first statement is wrong. Of course I'm acceptable? What does that even mean? But yet I still believe that I'm not.
How I compensated for this feeling was by becoming "useful" instead. That then became my bartering chip. Applying this to work or my career is appropriate to making a living and it works there. Applying this in friendship has it's benefits as I am good at researching fun adventures and knowing how to be an "adventure guide"....also very useful at least in the beginning for new friendships as it does attract people back for more if you've done a good job of showing them a good time.It also makes you available to someone who is looking for another person to share adventures with ...in my case ie: motorcycle touring with groups of competent riders and my ability to keep up and stay with the group ( I ride with a bunch of former motorcycle racers who are completely insane at times but are truly amazing in their talents....I am their student but the expectation in mentoring me is that I will not hold them back or create a burden on the group. I also Mountaineer and climb, snow shoe, cross country ski winter snow camp ( dig caves, hike/ski into remote fire look out towers etc) People who do this depend on your skills to keep them safe and out of harms way. They rely on your skills to stay alive as you on them for the same reason. The same is true in sports teams that I used to participate in.
The self fulfilling prophecy that you mentioned comes from feeling used but I now realize that I created and encouraged other people to do this sometimes quite unintentionally on their part. When it came to my love relationships I found myself feeling hurt when I realized that many times...women were with me for what I could do or do for them instead of for who I was. This was my fault at least in the beginning of these failed relationships because I realized I did nothing to ensure that the latter was true first. My skills have always been acceptable and useful ( which was my intention whether I cognitively knew this at the time) The problem with skills as a basis for your own value is that people who don't have these skills themselves are usually the people who are first attracted to you therefore....you immediately feel validated and accepted by them.
But in reality that's not what I wanted. What I wanted was to be accepted in the first place ADHD and all but I spent most of my time learning skills to compensate and becoming "good" at doing "things" instead........instead of being good at being in a relationship with other people and focusing on the things that get in the way of that ie; skills in managing my ADHD or at least the parts that affect others negatively.
This is what I'm trying to do now. There is one positive thing that doing what I did ( or how I did it) has done for me so it's not a total loss in one respect ......that is is learn how to do things and learn skill I also learnedd how to learn ie: starting from the beginning as a complete novice..making mistakes, frustration, trial and error and failure. These things have never got in my way and I expect it as part of learning. No problems there. This makes you teachable and approachable too when you aren't expecting to master anything without a lot of time effort and patience first. No free lunch......you have to earn everything you do in life from the time you first learn to walk. Lots of falling down and getting back up and things don't ever change there! LOL
And learning, earning and accomplishing things teaches you how to do it in other areas. Pretty soon you realize that everything overlaps with everything else after a while and the world is open to your disposal anytime you want to learn how to do something new. Another way to say this is that any fear you might have that you will not succeed or learn something in the process of failure goes away.
The only fear that is left is the one that tells me that I am unacceptable the way I am. ADHD is a part of that fear and the other part is the part that I know that I will never completely master the things that make (us) irritating, annoying, frustrating and even hurtful to others the same as I have mastered any thing else I've set my mind to. I have more skills, talents and hobbies ( activities that I am proficient at) than anyone I know. It's because of what I just said. If I look at that it does tell me what I am capable of at least.
But when it comes to managing the ADHD issues.....where it stands now is lots of capability and a novice level of success ( in light of what I just said saying that's OK....I'm still learning and I know how this works. I have met my own expectations reasonably well thus far and see that I have a ways to go. No problem with that either.)
The problem exists in what I'm saying and in what you said.. ''You wanted to be heard and yet you weren't about to talk about these things unless they behaved themselves first'' - you will never be heard in this case because good communication is at the heart of understanding, this is such a vicious and self fulfilling cycle for the production of misery that I have ever heard! that is so sad :( and...Does she know what you are capable of doing? again she may do intellectually but she wouldn't know that without having to think about it and people don't do this because most of the tasks they complete are skills which reduce the demands on the brain's capacity to process information. Let me give you another example, the human brain is capable of remembering (Short term) seven items plus or minus two. When you are learning to drive, you have to remember lots of different items, how the clutch operates, how to steer, when to change gear, how to evaluate speed etc and how all of these things interact, a very complex and heavy demand on your processing capacity, that is why when people learn to drive they don't have the radio on or don't talk to people as it is yet another processing demand and it may be costly in terms of a mistake. When people are skilled at driving the process becomes one item not seven or nine, it becomes something that is automatic, that is not thought about in terms of individual items anymore. This applies to everything that your wife has been doing for years and does automatically without thinking, including communication, that is what I mean when I say my brain takes short cuts all of the time to reduce the processing demand because all of the items become fewer, compacted by the acquisition of skills. This is my understanding of the main difference between people who have adhd and people who don't that they are unable to reduce their capacity in this way or block out or attenuate items so effectively they have a lot more balls to juggle, so back to the analogy with driving, you may always have to juggle 7-9 balls, where as your wife only has to juggle one and as this is a natural process which she doesn't have to think about, it just happens then she will have to be reminded that you operate differently because your worlds are different, because you do not think the same. This is so useful....not so much a revelation in any way but a nice condensed version of the things I need to keep in the forefront of my thinking on a daily basis. You said a lot in a short space and yes......these are the problem areas so of course it isn't as easy.
Connecting what you just said to the things I mentioned about being capable in so many other areas including the parts that she sees compared to how I well I do with managing my ADHD there are two disconnects I think with her:
One being what I said earlier....whether I like it or not.....I've become competent in lots of areas so my ADHD areas stand out.....thinking it must appears as if I'm not trying or putting any effort into it. Just the opposite is true. These are difficult areas and always have been so they tend to be ones you avoid ( since they are so difficult without lots of payoff along the way to stay motivated ) and because of the other reason I mentioned in that since I've not focused on these things throughout my life as I did with other things......I'm still learning. I'm a novice or maybe just advancing to an intermediate level so there's still lots of trial and error and mistakes and failure along the way. I see myself within this process but I don't think she can see this as I can. Not only can't see this or the progress the same but only see's the failure and how it effects her. This is where my comments about patience,being pushed faster than is possible (without detriment to me beyond simply making compromises ie: effecting MY life negatively. To the point that I have to concede that my best just may not be good enough and having to live with this fact knowing that the ultimate outcome will be in the form of us not being able to be a healthy couple together as I mentioned. This is simply being realistic not fatalistic.
My experience tells me in part this is true but I realize that my choices had everything to do with this. The NPD part you mentioned with your father was the same I experienced too. My inability to recognize someone like this in the past and therefore investing in them the same was a failure on my end not the person with NPD ( aside from my father...no choice there) Only a small child is truly a victim...they have no choice other than to survive and depend on caregivers at hand. We have choices and can leave anytime and still survive alone where a child cannot........... my failure to choose correctly or wisely is all on me and therefore my experience in this case is not necessary a good indicator for the future if I make better choices initially. This has become somewhat of a grey area so to speak?
Optimism has never been a problem for me except when it defies reason and reality and I have been guilty of this in past relationships too. Sometimes being aware of your emotions should also include going against what they are telling you to do as often as following them. It becomes a tricky business at times to say the least!
So to be brutally honest and authentic here this is what I know for sure. Out of life time of trial and error and many times doing things wrong.....I managed to learn to do a lot of things despite having ADHD. Sometimes doing things wrong is the best teacher and the lessons learned become hard wired into your repertoire permanently because of it. This is how I learned to do things early and in many ways I still do it the same today. I don't fear making mistakes and I never have. I also don't care what others think about it when I do because I understand my own process and for the most part it works just like I said. The real problems come at times when there is no room for error and the cost of making mistakes are too high to learn in this way which is how I see things at times with my wife. There is a time limit in all respects ( especially at my age) and there is less margin for error.
What you said about my wife understand the limits of what's possible for me and even for myself for that matter is really the key here. I appreciate you saying this...again very useful.
That and ..."Yep and don't we as non-adhd partners know it!! Imagine running around after someone who is really chaotic all day to keep them running smoothly and they are absolutely oblivious to what you do and then when you try and talk to them about it you get a lecture on how you are treating them. I was aware that you may become a little defensive when you read this but that is not my intention, it is just simply a way of telling you what I have experienced, so maybe you can understand both sides if you can put your own feelings aside and really try and understand. It may sound a little silly but I have done this at work and completed role play where we have switched roles and got the person to act out the role of the other person. I have seen a lot of light bulb moments from employing this strategy."
No..this didn't make me defensive. It's why I came to this forum...I don't want to here what I'm doing right.....I want to hear what I'm doing wrong. In light of what I said about how I learn things my comment will make sense.
What really makes me defensive is when I begin to feel that other people want me to be different than I am for them ( their own personal agenda) which is outside of my own best interest in any way....that and they stop listening. There's a big difference between what you just said and saying " People with ADHD are (this) XXXXX !!!"
I know what I am and what I am not most of the time at least. lol Telling me where I made a mistake or something I'm not seeing is not a judgment. Saying that people with ADHD tend to do or usually behave like ( blank ) and it's a problem for other people is not a judgment either . Saying people with ADHD are (blank) as absolutes as (we) appear from the outside is where all the trouble begins and the defensives comes from. What I do know for sure is the more awareness I have....the more accurate I become in communicating. If all your time is spent fighting to get people to believe (or trust) that you may be right as often as you are wrong then it becomes an uphill climb for everyone involved. Actually, right/wrong black and white thinking in general I have a huge problem with and it frustrates me to no end. I definitely have to fight being defensive when I'm confronted with this kind of approach. It's a dynamic process. The only thing that is truly static sometimes is how people think (on both sides). :)
Thanks again...I referenced another TEDx video that you might find interesting in a related way to the things we've been discussing.
J
Thank you too
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
It works both ways :) I think I really wanted to get the perspective of someone with adhd on this site, because I know the perspective of someone without adhd because I live it, it has provided me with a unique and considered insight into the way that you/others function and some of the things that you have said have been really thought provoking and caused me to reflect greatly on how I am, so I welcome constructive feedback as it allows me to develop, I think this is where you are also and it takes a great deal of work to get to that point, adhd or not, so thank you too :)
I really don't know what is going on with my boyfriend, yesterday he cleaned and organized his table yesterday and when we went shopping he was really helpful and organised I hardly had to do anything....Also he negotiated his requests risking a negative response from me - God that is progress, maybe what I am saying is finally sinking in, it has just taken a lot of time? or maybe I have changed but I don't think that much. I was like God you are like a normal person!! (I hate that word normal btw but you know what I mean).
Here's me being authentic like Mike Robbins suggested:
What I've come to realize deep down about myself and having ADHD is just how wrong I have been in my own thinking for so many years. How I learned to compensate most of my life has been by collecting skills and experiences. That has been how I saw my own value as a person. the message I got early on was that "you are unacceptable"....and to this day I still hold this to be true despite knowing that the first statement is wrong. Of course I'm acceptable? What does that even mean? But yet I still believe that I'm not. - Have you ever heard of the term 'i'm ok, your'e ok' in transactional analysis, what you have described is the basis of a theory in psychology where all children learn that they are not ok because their parents constantly have to intervene in what they are doing to keep them safe, don't do that, don't touch that etc. This reminded me of exactly what you just said there are good books on the subject 'staying ok' is one I have myself, but there are plenty of free online descriptions that may get you started.
How I compensated for this feeling was by becoming "useful" instead. That then became my bartering chip. Applying this to work or my career is appropriate to making a living and it works there. Applying this in friendship has it's benefits as I am good at researching fun adventures and knowing how to be an "adventure guide"....also very useful at least in the beginning for new friendships as it does attract people back for more if you've done a good job of showing them a good time.It also makes you available to someone who is looking for another person to share adventures with ...in my case ie: motorcycle touring with groups of competent riders and my ability to keep up and stay with the group ( I ride with a bunch of former motorcycle racers who are completely insane at times but are truly amazing in their talents....I am their student but the expectation in mentoring me is that I will not hold them back or create a burden on the group. I also Mountaineer and climb, snow shoe, cross country ski winter snow camp ( dig caves, hike/ski into remote fire look out towers etc) People who do this depend on your skills to keep them safe and out of harms way. They rely on your skills to stay alive as you on them for the same reason. The same is true in sports teams that I used to participate in. - Exactly the same as me and I mean exactly, this is why I have been in the helping profession for years. I now have got to the point where I want to do something I will and don't need to do it, it is a massive weight off and some other people have rejected me because of it, which was my worst fear come true, but you know what? It wasn't that bad, I actually see it as positive and think that person wasn't worth it, if they can't be happy for me looking after my self instead of being there for them all of the time then, excuse the language but fuck them. Glad to say my boyfriend wasn't one of these people and we can move forward together.
The self fulfilling prophecy that you mentioned comes from feeling used but I now realize that I created and encouraged other people to do this sometimes quite unintentionally on their part. When it came to my love relationships I found myself feeling hurt when I realized that many times...women were with me for what I could do or do for them instead of for who I was. This was my fault at least in the beginning of these failed relationships because I realized I did nothing to ensure that the latter was true first. My skills have always been acceptable and useful ( which was my intention whether I cognitively knew this at the time) The problem with skills as a basis for your own value is that people who don't have these skills themselves are usually the people who are first attracted to you therefore....you immediately feel validated and accepted by them.- yep often set in childhood, an awareness and acceptance of them is the first step on the road to change, you are not aware because you were taught to be that way and you knew of nothing else.
But in reality that's not what I wanted. What I wanted was to be accepted in the first place ADHD and all but I spent most of my time learning skills to compensate and becoming "good" at doing "things" instead........instead of being good at being in a relationship with other people and focusing on the things that get in the way of that ie; skills in managing my ADHD or at least the parts that affect others negatively. - That's what we all want isn't it :)
This is what I'm trying to do now. There is one positive thing that doing what I did ( or how I did it) has done for me so it's not a total loss in one respect ......that is is learn how to do things and learn skill I also learnedd how to learn ie: starting from the beginning as a complete novice..making mistakes, frustration, trial and error and failure. These things have never got in my way and I expect it as part of learning. No problems there. This makes you teachable and approachable too when you aren't expecting to master anything without a lot of time effort and patience first. No free lunch......you have to earn everything you do in life from the time you first learn to walk. Lots of falling down and getting back up and things don't ever change there! LOL
And learning, earning and accomplishing things teaches you how to do it in other areas. Pretty soon you realize that everything overlaps with everything else after a while and the world is open to your disposal anytime you want to learn how to do something new. Another way to say this is that any fear you might have that you will not succeed or learn something in the process of failure goes away.- Good for you.
The only fear that is left is the one that tells me that I am unacceptable the way I am. ADHD is a part of that fear and the other part is the part that I know that I will never completely master the things that make (us) irritating, annoying, frustrating and even hurtful to others the same as I have mastered any thing else I've set my mind to. I have more skills, talents and hobbies ( activities that I am proficient at) than anyone I know. It's because of what I just said. If I look at that it does tell me what I am capable of at least. - You cannot change who you are, I have learned and I am learning still that we all have bits that we don't like but we can learn to love and accept ourselves for who we are. Look at this wonderful page I have found that tells you where you are on your journey to acceptance
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/humanresources/document...
I have used stuff like this many times to measure my progress and think that I am 'stage x' which is better than 'stage y' so I am encouraged by by progress even when I feel like crap.
But when it comes to managing the ADHD issues.....where it stands now is lots of capability and a novice level of success ( in light of what I just said saying that's OK....I'm still learning and I know how this works. I have met my own expectations reasonably well thus far and see that I have a ways to go. No problem with that either.) - Great stuff.
The problem exists in what I'm saying and in what you said.. ''You wanted to be heard and yet you weren't about to talk about these things unless they behaved themselves first'' - you will never be heard in this case because good communication is at the heart of understanding, this is such a vicious and self fulfilling cycle for the production of misery that I have ever heard! that is so sad :( and...Does she know what you are capable of doing? again she may do intellectually but she wouldn't know that without having to think about it and people don't do this because most of the tasks they complete are skills which reduce the demands on the brain's capacity to process information. Let me give you another example, the human brain is capable of remembering (Short term) seven items plus or minus two. When you are learning to drive, you have to remember lots of different items, how the clutch operates, how to steer, when to change gear, how to evaluate speed etc and how all of these things interact, a very complex and heavy demand on your processing capacity, that is why when people learn to drive they don't have the radio on or don't talk to people as it is yet another processing demand and it may be costly in terms of a mistake. When people are skilled at driving the process becomes one item not seven or nine, it becomes something that is automatic, that is not thought about in terms of individual items anymore. This applies to everything that your wife has been doing for years and does automatically without thinking, including communication, that is what I mean when I say my brain takes short cuts all of the time to reduce the processing demand because all of the items become fewer, compacted by the acquisition of skills. This is my understanding of the main difference between people who have adhd and people who don't that they are unable to reduce their capacity in this way or block out or attenuate items so effectively they have a lot more balls to juggle, so back to the analogy with driving, you may always have to juggle 7-9 balls, where as your wife only has to juggle one and as this is a natural process which she doesn't have to think about, it just happens then she will have to be reminded that you operate differently because your worlds are different, because you do not think the same. This is so useful....not so much a revelation in any way but a nice condensed version of the things I need to keep in the forefront of my thinking on a daily basis. You said a lot in a short space and yes......these are the problem areas so of course it isn't as easy. - No problem, this is helping me consolidate my own learning.
Connecting what you just said to the things I mentioned about being capable in so many other areas including the parts that she sees compared to how I well I do with managing my ADHD there are two disconnects I think with her:- Have you asked her?
One being what I said earlier....whether I like it or not.....I've become competent in lots of areas so my ADHD areas stand out.....thinking it must appears as if I'm not trying or putting any effort into it. Just the opposite is true. These are difficult areas and always have been so they tend to be ones you avoid ( since they are so difficult without lots of payoff along the way to stay motivated ) and because of the other reason I mentioned in that since I've not focused on these things throughout my life as I did with other things......I'm still learning. I'm a novice or maybe just advancing to an intermediate level so there's still lots of trial and error and mistakes and failure along the way. I see myself within this process but I don't think she can see this as I can. Not only can't see this or the progress the same but only see's the failure and how it effects her. This is where my comments about patience,being pushed faster than is possible (without detriment to me beyond simply making compromises ie: effecting MY life negatively. To the point that I have to concede that my best just may not be good enough and having to live with this fact knowing that the ultimate outcome will be in the form of us not being able to be a healthy couple together as I mentioned. This is simply being realistic not fatalistic. - At least you are trying to change.I hope it works out for you.
My experience tells me in part this is true but I realize that my choices had everything to do with this. The NPD part you mentioned with your father was the same I experienced too. My inability to recognize someone like this in the past and therefore investing in them the same was a failure on my end not the person with NPD ( aside from my father...no choice there) Only a small child is truly a victim...they have no choice other than to survive and depend on caregivers at hand. We have choices and can leave anytime and still survive alone where a child cannot........... my failure to choose correctly or wisely is all on me and therefore my experience in this case is not necessary a good indicator for the future if I make better choices initially. This has become somewhat of a grey area so to speak? - I do and do not agree with this, yes taking control as an adult is healthy response to trauma and is the healthy approach to recovery I agree completely but they are responsible for their behaviour, they have a choice about whether or not they sought help, you don't have any control over that true, but their life is their responsibility and they have a responsibility to others as well.I don't really blame my Dad but I have left it behind because he is not even prepared to admit there is a problem and I am not prepared to pay for his mistakes continually.
Optimism has never been a problem for me except when it defies reason and reality and I have been guilty of this in past relationships too. Sometimes being aware of your emotions should also include going against what they are telling you to do as often as following them. It becomes a tricky business at times to say the least! -sounds like impulsivity to me.
So to be brutally honest and authentic here this is what I know for sure. Out of life time of trial and error and many times doing things wrong.....I managed to learn to do a lot of things despite having ADHD. Sometimes doing things wrong is the best teacher and the lessons learned become hard wired into your repertoire permanently because of it. This is how I learned to do things early and in many ways I still do it the same today. I don't fear making mistakes and I never have. I also don't care what others think about it when I do because I understand my own process and for the most part it works just like I said. The real problems come at times when there is no room for error and the cost of making mistakes are too high to learn in this way which is how I see things at times with my wife. There is a time limit in all respects ( especially at my age) and there is less margin for error. - great attitude
What you said about my wife understand the limits of what's possible for me and even for myself for that matter is really the key here. I appreciate you saying this...again very useful.
That and ..."Yep and don't we as non-adhd partners know it!! Imagine running around after someone who is really chaotic all day to keep them running smoothly and they are absolutely oblivious to what you do and then when you try and talk to them about it you get a lecture on how you are treating them. I was aware that you may become a little defensive when you read this but that is not my intention, it is just simply a way of telling you what I have experienced, so maybe you can understand both sides if you can put your own feelings aside and really try and understand. It may sound a little silly but I have done this at work and completed role play where we have switched roles and got the person to act out the role of the other person. I have seen a lot of light bulb moments from employing this strategy."
No..this didn't make me defensive. It's why I came to this forum...I don't want to here what I'm doing right.....I want to hear what I'm doing wrong. In light of what I said about how I learn things my comment will make sense.- Good, but this may have more to do with me than I considered as I am conscious that I can be abrupt and it is one thing that I am working on.
What really makes me defensive is when I begin to feel that other people want me to be different than I am for them ( their own personal agenda) which is outside of my own best interest in any way....that and they stop listening. There's a big difference between what you just said and saying " People with ADHD are (this) XXXXX !!!"
I know what I am and what I am not most of the time at least. lol Telling me where I made a mistake or something I'm not seeing is not a judgment. Saying that people with ADHD tend to do or usually behave like ( blank ) and it's a problem for other people is not a judgment either . Saying people with ADHD are (blank) as absolutes as (we) appear from the outside is where all the trouble begins and the defensives comes from. What I do know for sure is the more awareness I have....the more accurate I become in communicating. If all your time is spent fighting to get people to believe (or trust) that you may be right as often as you are wrong then it becomes an uphill climb for everyone involved. Actually, right/wrong black and white thinking in general I have a huge problem with and it frustrates me to no end. I definitely have to fight being defensive when I'm confronted with this kind of approach. It's a dynamic process. The only thing that is truly static sometimes is how people think (on both sides). :) - Thanks for the feedback, this is useful.
Thanks again...I referenced another TEDx video that you might find interesting in a related way to the things we've been discussing.- I watched it and thought she raised some interesting points though I had trouble connecting with it emotionally and it didn't give much in the way of achieving the goals that she was talking about, though I agree with the theme of being as you as you possibly can do, I thought it was a bit wishy washy.....but thanks. I have however bought more videos from that Aspergers' site. I have an interview tomorrow teaching adults with autism life skills so that has been really useful thank you for that!!
No.. Thank You...lol
Submitted by kellyj on
I love the term Bits you Brits use. It made me smile:) ( I'm assuming British??? If you're an Aussie or a Sheep Shagger..oops, I mean New Zealander I do apologize) I'm a big fan of British Humor....(anyone you could name here) I may have just got myself into trouble but it was impulsive so please ignore me at this point!. FYI: half of my families origin is from Scotland so you can have at it if you like with me.....no real attachment anyway.lol
Anyway......
Yes....so perceptive now thinking about impulsivity. That's exactly right.....feelings, emotions ( or urges) that tell you to do something need to questioned first to make sure it's not something you should do just the opposite...that's the tricky business I was referring to.
I didn't relate to everything in the video either except the part where she mentioned women's tendencies specifically. I don't know how correct she is either since I was thinking....yeah, this isn't me but I'm a guy? My thinking however (to what I just said) about differences in people and a person's ability or inability to intuit them anyway in someone else.
After I wrote you something came to mind that might be relevant to you....now thinking even more after reading what you said about your boyfriend having a moment of clarity in his behavior. I actually realized this the other day when I ran out of meds before the holiday and went without for a day. I know they tell people to do this (or suggest that they do....not a requirement) if they want to be off them for a day of alpha wave rest. I prefer not to. I'll explain.
It's been years now so it's easy to forget what it was like before. I remember joking with my therapist after being on them for a while saying " so this is what's it like to be normal?" lol But I really wasn't kidding either. For me the meds almost completely take the edge off and with that the impulsivity factor. I mean almost completely gone. That's what so great about them. I put this another way to him saying " you know when your hungry or you need to pee real bad? All you can think about is finding food or a toilet (or a tree if you're a guy) as soon as possible. It starts taking over all of your thoughts to the point of distraction. There's the magic word.
This is what ADHD is like to have it all the time but much more subtly. I'd even be curious if functionally....this isn't the exactly the same brain process. I'd be surprised if these two things were related in some way because it feels just the same for me which is where my analogy came from. So for me....I've always hated this aspect of my ADHD so I never want to feel it...ever! The Adderall wipes this feeling out to the point I never feel this way anymore and have no desire to take a day off unless I absolutely have to!
So the other day was one of those rare days and I was reminded of what it's like to have ADHD without it...back to finding myself wandering around looking for ways not to feel this thing I just described....amelessly and quite unconsciously finding myself puttering around aimlessly without any direction.....pauing to remember what I was just doing or why I came into the room in the first place???? Sounding familiar? I forgot about it until I was doing it again and then remembered what I just said to my therapist except this time.....in reverse. ( oh...that's right. This is what it's like to have ADHD without my meds and NOT be normal anymore. ouch! )
What you mentioned your boyfriend's seeming change for the better this was brought mind. I do understand it from his place even if he can't right now in light of what I just said. It has everything to do with why we are so inconsistent and this comes right back to my analogy about having to take a pee. As soon as you relief yourself in my analogy....you stop thinking about having to find a bathroom ( or WC if you prefer) and now go back to focusing or concentrating with a new found clarity that you did not have only minutes before when your bladder is causing you distress! And this won't happen again until your bladder gets full. It's such a common everyday experience that no one pays any attention to it....in fact, you can go quite some time from the initial "call" to the point where you start to get distracted by your bladder to the point I'm saying during which....you still can do things and function the same however....as time passes and your internal pressure starts to increase...you start thinking about it more and more until you can't stop thinking about it anymore and need to find a source (WC) to take care of it. Somewhere in between getting the initial call and getting to the critical point is where your thoughts start getting hijacked by the need to pee yet.... no one really pays any attention to this process since it's such a common experience to everyone. I did only in a way to describe what ADHD feels like and this is the closest thing to it that I know. The only difference being that it's more of an undefined, more generalized feeling ( the esoteric reference) that is really hard to pin down for someone else but I think this is really, really close however.
So.....my comment about your boyfriend? That's easy.....he didn't have to take an ADHD pee at the time and could think clearly without the distraction. It comes and goes. Stress, anxiety, sleep, exercise, meds, diet.....the list goes on. All these things have an effect on the ADHD needing to pee feeling by reducing it or making it completely go away for the time being. It will return however.....the same as needing to pee. Exactly the same.
Your comment to me caused me to think about this once again and it has given me more reason to watch this to see how close this all works to my analogy. I know first thing in the morning after I take my meds is my best and most productive time of day. ( it always has been anyway...morning person) And no it's not just the stimulant effect. I'm an addict for crying out loud ( kidding of course) but to say that I don't get buzzed from my Adderall anymore. That went away years ago after only being on it for several months.
This has everything to do with what I'm talking about (ADHD pee effect ha ha)
I come back later to comment on some other things you said.....
J
Thoughts Continued....
Submitted by kellyj on
sorry....I didn't have time to finish earlier.
- Exactly the same as me and I mean exactly, this is why I have been in the helping profession for years. I now have got to the point where I want to do something I will and don't need to do it, it is a massive weight off and some other people have rejected me because of it, which was my worst fear come true, but you know what? It wasn't that bad, I actually see it as positive and think that person wasn't worth it, if they can't be happy for me looking after my self instead of being there for them all of the time then, excuse the language but fuck them. Glad to say my boyfriend wasn't one of these people and we can move forward together.
As I read this I had this feeling like I agreed and disagreed but wasn't sure why?? It's exactly how I fell too....but......it's also where the problems exist for me especially when it comes to the ADHD.
Here's the problem....actually, THE REALITY. I hope other's without ADHD who read this will take note because this is at the heart of what it's like having ADHD. The problem is.......for us it's not a problem. I'll repeat that......it's not a problem. At least not for me. Allow me to explain...
I was born this way. It's all I know. You can tell me whatever you like about executive function (brain) malfunctioning, cross wired hard wiring, thought filtering malfunctioning, etc etc etc..... All I can say is that this is all I know? If I didn't have ADHD and suddenly I caught it from someone like a viral disease...at that point I might throw a fit....or not?? How do I know...I've never not had it?? I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my late forties and before that I hardly knew what ADHD was. Until that point I figured I was as messed up as the next guy but not really more than a lot of people I meet on a daily basis on the street. All things considered....the only problem I had ( or still have) in having ADHD is that it's a problem for other people......and because of this fact...it's also a problem for me. If it wasn't for this fact alone.....ADHD for me seems like a walk in the park considering so many other things I see people afflicted with especially since there are things you can do about it. With almost any other inherent psychological issues or imbalances....outside of drug treatment there appears little you can do to change or alter the symptoms. With ADHD...you can do this with or without drugs!
This is what crossed my mind after writing my last post to you and you mentioning that (para phrasing you here) " it sounds like poeple with ADHD......or I read or learned that people with ADHD........." It occurred to me that of course.....you can't say "yes...I know exactly what you mean"...because you don't have ADHD. And no...this is not a new revelation either.....how could I miss this since it's at the core of everything that gets discussed on this site. That's when I thought about what I just said.
Bottom line is this ( connecting the comment you made at the beginning of this post) Speaking strictly for myself.....the only reason I have to do any of the work that I'm doing with my ADHD is for other people. I don't need to do this at all for myself in respect that I've managed to function, make friends, have a career and make it through life on a day to day basis with a smile on my face at least 51% of the time and feel relatively happy all things considered.
And like you said in your statement.....if other people don't like everything you do ( or even just some people ). You can't change how they think or their opinions of you so as you said......some times you have to say Fuck'em and move on. You can't take on all of the worlds problems ( or everyone in it) especially if your simply trying to get by and be OK yourself. I hope I didn't misconstrue your comment in what I just said but moving beyond that......
I realized why I can't think this way anymore even though it's not an unreasonable way to think on it's own as means for self preservation at times...at least not all of the time for the sake of argument.
I say this because I have ADHD and I can't afford the luxury the think this way even if other people can. The reason why I can't is that I don't want to hurt people. That's it. I can't take on everyone problems but If I'm the source of someone else pain then I have a responsibility to the fact that if this is unacceptable for me to do...then I have to do something about it.
I think deep down that's what's unacceptable..... not simply having ADHD or the fact that people may not like me because of it. I can live with that. What I can't live with is hurting other people. That's unacceptable.
I think this is at the core of why we get angry. We lash out or project our feelings that we are causing others discomfort and pain and take it in until we can't deal with it anymore. I'd never used to get angry or frustrated when I lived alone at times. Never. I didn't feel hurt or upset growing up because my ADHD caused me to suffer. I didn't suffer at all! I was hurt of upset because of how I saw other people react to me and I took that anger and rejection onto myself. I really never remembering ever blaming anyone else for being the way I was??? I always felt things were always my fault many times even when it wasn't. I think now it's because of what I said only.....back then I could not process it the same as I can now .
I can only speak for myself here but this really is at the heart of it for me. I don't like hurting people and I never have. It matters. That's why I have can't afford not to at least double check to see if I'm the source first before I walk on by. this applies double when considering my wife! I think this too is at the core of my feeling "unacceptable".
This insight might give you an in with communicating with your boyfriend keeping this in mind perhaps. If he really cares about you then it's kind of a no brainer to think that deep down he feels bad when he see's you hurt especially if he's the source but maybe he's also not connecting the dots like I just did. I'm now curious..... and would be interested to see if this really is how other people with ADHD really feel at the core of their emotions?
You can only feel so bad for so long before it begins to effect you right? Even if your the one ultimately to blame. I think this is where people who don';t have ADHD make the wrong assumptions and therefore...make the same mistakes consistently with us. Ultimately...no one gets what they want when this happens. It becomes a lose- lose self fulfilling prophecy.
This is also part of the battle that I'm having with my wife. The battle for me is not reacting to her the way I have in the past even when she approaches me the wrong way and makes the wrong assumptions like I'm saying. It would make a world of difference and would make my job (and life in general) that much easier if she didn't do this....but it's not contingent on anything she does or doesn't do. I'm working on trying to get her to see this too and I have noticed that at least....if I don't react....she does come back later and apologize more often than not. I think that speaks volumes right there.
J
J
I HEAR YOU!
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
The Need for Connection!
Submitted by kellyj on
This is something that cannot be denied. I've tried and it doesn't work. I used to dream of not needing anyone for anything! I did a pretty good job of of too in many ways ( part of my problem I see now )...but not anymore. It finally dawned on me eventually that this is part of who we are and there is no getting around it. I see this now as a means to try and circumvent humanity but all I really ended up doing was circumventing myself! lol As you brought attention too as well. Good job at that! This was years ago now speaking but like I said earlier.......there is also value in being the Prodigal Son as the tale tells us.( and doing things wrong and learning from mistakes) I think these are the lessons we were all put here to learn. Not everyone does but I'm thankful for at least the ones I have learned along the way.
This is also why I say that what I'm doing and the reason's why have nothing to do with my wife or anyone else for that matter ( not being contingent on others ) That being said.....other people can make this harder or easier to do. This is where I draw my own motivation from and I don't see that changing any time in the near future! lol
One more thing to add as a side thought to earlier comments about speculating about your boyfriend ( possibly bi-polar ). At this point I pretty much already know this is not the case with me however....I've come to learn a couple of things about myself....actually more laying this stuff all out and taking a look at the whole in one big picture.
It appears to me now that I probably the combined type of ADHD. I say this in reference to my therapist who years after I had been seeing him told me that he has a touch of ADD....specifically ADD not ADHD but the (inattentive type ). One of his sons is also ADD too and we've talked about the differences. We are very different than one another from the sounds of things but he also see's some of me in his son which I'm sure is of interest to him at times. His approach with me is not to dwell too much with definitions, labels or diagnosis so I've never been pinned down to this officially yet I think this is probably pretty accurate now by my own understanding of it. By all accounts I seem to fit somewhere in between saying.....nothing stands out tremendously either way. I've also had a touch of OCD as I said. And earlier in life...some manic and depressive swings but here I would hardly an issue saying that it was far less noticeable and short lived ( barely worth mentioning) more of a stage to the point that I would not put myself into the bi-polar category yet the pattern existed at least in part for a while at least. Same with the OCD....it appeared and went for no apparent reason that I can see. My conclusion to all of this is what's interesting here and I'm curious to find out more. It seems there is a ratio or proportioning to all of this and to the degree that one thing changes...the others aspect appear to change with it maintaining the same ratio. It seems that nothing in my ADHD really stands out as far as issues from one symptom to another with little exception and is pretty even distributed across the board between ADHD and ADD without any real concentration area? The OCD comes in even lesser than that and if you could call my swings even Bi-polar that would be a stretch. I think what's more interesting is the ratio aspect or there existence as they all appear together? That and when things were at there worst with my ADHD in my late twenties is when the other things appeared. Not very long afterward when I began working on my ADHD symptoms ( without knowing I had it)...the other issues disappeared at the same time??? At this point this is just a curiosity since these related issues have not reappeared ever again?? Maybe no real answer but I thought I'd throw this observation out anyway whether it is relevant or not thinking.....it might be for someone? Who knows?:)
Anyway.....we all need connection and I value this more than ever now even it I didn't before which is a good thing:) did I just say that? I just sounded like Martha Stuart OMG!!! lol
J
Learn to take a compliment!
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
I Appreciate Your Honesty!
Submitted by kellyj on
I can't tell you how refreshing it is! It's something I've been waiting to hear and finally someone has said it. I've tried not to be too guarded in my comments ( or jokes ) as I would in polite company here on this forum for this very reason.....I want an honest opinion or feedback that I can learn something from and you just taught me something ( about taking a compliment ) Thank you for that....and yes, it makes me uncomfortable at times for all the reasons why but to the point that I did not recognize this as you said it is more valuable to me as a way to see it through someone else's eyes...back to the reason to do it
A quick side note not as an excuse or defense.....my comment came directly from my own experience while vacationing in Turkey years ago on a tour boat where a group of middle aged Brits ( from Manchester ) adopted me so to speak as the only American on the tour ( calling me John Wayne because they said I talked so slowly like a cowboy ). I heard my reference for the first time from a woman in the group who was probably 65 or so who proceeded to explain in great detail. This is only to say that I almost fell overboard when this happened I was laughing so hard in context to that moment and it certainly was presumptuous of me in the first place to think that anyone outside that small group of people would share their sense of humor anywhere outside of that moment as it was only really humorous in context to the situation and the person telling me the story....so at the very least I can apologize (for being presumptuous).
What is so interesting in your description about you and your boyfriend for me is that I sound more like you in these situations when I compare them to my wife and I.
I can just put on my clothes and go out the door without the need for excessive planning. If I were hungry or thirsty I'd just buy something without much thought, but he cannot do that, he would never buy anything from anywhere unless it were a budget shop and then go on about how much of a rip off they were even if he didn't buy anything and then I will have to derail the conversation before it becomes obsessive. I guess what I miss there is freedom to just get up and go out and I do this on my own still but it would be nice if we could have a nice shared experience.
I made the comment earlier about obsessing over spending at times but this is more in reference to large single purchases like a car....the hours of agonizing and obsessing. When it comes to the day to day little stuff......there is something to be said for convenience and quality of life. I generally error on the quality of life side of things most of the time and have the same wish in what you just said about the freedom you miss when trying to share this with your boyfriend. I hear you. My wife is an obsessive over planner and it can kill the spark of of life and adventure ( the freedom you referred to ) more often than not for me in the same way you described this for your self.
This is what is so curious about ADHD? It comes so independent of so many things while at the same time so consistently with others?? I'm still baffled by this and have no explanation for it?
But I am very glad you responded despite my inappropriateness so I could share my thanks to you for no other reason. Your earlier comment as a response to me saying that "my wife knows what I'm capable of " with you responding about asking her turned out to be a gift for us, I brought this up directly with her and it opened up a conversation that went directly to part of the disconnect we've been having in our communications with each other. The problem that comes when two people get into that defensive cycle is that it no longer matters who or why it started.....the transactional aspect of this is on both sides once your in it and no one is without guilt of blame in making their own contributions to it. What came out this conversation for us were some assumptions and some jumping to conclusions that neither one of us were seeing on our own parts (both sides)...which when you think about it, is really the only way that any forward progress can be made. The idea that only one person needs to make a change or adjust in couple or partnership is ludicrous if you think about it even though....one person does have the ability to make the first move or shift things to break unhealthy cycles I do know this as a fact in my own experience.
That said I think it is just another defense, another way of pushing back for fear of connection and it's tiring to experience and for me a massive cause of burnout. It's like resisting the impulse to retaliate knowing that this is the only way to get you to let your defenses down but the other aspects of adhd kick in like not noticing the effort it takes, repeating things over and over and it is so difficult to maintain patience with this. I kind of got this was your way of giving me a compliment, but can I challenge you to be real. Well I can but you can accept it or not. Tim Lott's article in the guardian on sarcasm summed up my feelings for it and I banished it from my lips, as I got into a cycle of giving it back, so I'm not going into that cycle with you either!
Guilty has charged. I accept this challenge and will give it a try here. But this is where I'm not sure where the ADHD begins and ends? What I think ( saying I could be wrong but what I have believed most of my life) is that this came more from my family and growing up in this kind of environment as a way relating to each other and avoiding reality. Specifically for me ( in light of a NPD father). Dissension or expressing an opinion were simply not allowed....period! How I've described this in my past was as a feeling of weight and repression bearing down on you without an outlet or release from it. That and the feeling of uncertainty that literally anything that you might say as a means to assert yourself in any way risked retaliation to the point that you give up trying out of the fear from this The net effect is that you are conditioned (Skinner) to expect retaliation no matter who you approach as a normal course of communication. Sarcasm is just part of this and I know this all too well. The other aspect of dealing with extremely envious people is that you never want to appear as doing too well either as there are consequences in that too. I think in part is where not feeling comfortable with compliments come from. There is a subtle difference between feeling low self worth or not worthy of praise and being afraid or uncomfortable receiving it out of fear in the way I just described. I think a little of both are true at the same time here for me but saying now at this time in my life........far less for any other reason aside from being conditioned in this way or more out of habit with nothing else to replace it with. This is what I've really come to see in myself now more than ever and it's the part that is so hard to see. It seems that the mirroring effect gets distorted in a way that (you) are no longer in the field of view at times which again makes me wonder if this is ADHD or the by product from it as commonly experienced? I don't know?
All of this appears to be ways to compensate but the question remains to what? Is it ADHD or the experience from having it? This is the most difficult part for me to distinguish from but at the end of the day what matters most is simply identifying it so you can do things to change from it.
I will say one thing that might encourage you with your boyfriend in the repeating himself and obsessing while talking part. This is one aspect of my ADHD that I hit early on ( years ago) in order to curb it or stop doing this. I've come a long way with this and it can be managed. What I've learned in part is why I think which really helps me in not doing it. For me at least in part comes from processing and speaking at the same time. Going off on tangent thought within conversations is different...that's another aspect. But this really does get down to the core of having too many thoughts bombard you all at once at the very same time you are trying to speak. That's one aspect. Another aspect comes when people interject and then losing your place in the conversation and having to back track or hold the thought while still being bombarded with all the other thoughts. This is where the tendencies to monolog comes from as well as feeling the need to jump into conversations at inappropriate times or interrupting. It can be really frustrating for everyone as I well know.
What I did was to work on each one of these aspect one at a time. Your learning to drive and ball juggling analogy was perfect....I've used these myself almost exactly as you described them by the way and you are so accurate in using them for these things. ( thanks again for that too) And in keeping with this analogy....eventually it all starts coming together as one saying with practice, is the one area that has shown some of the most improvements for me over time to the point that I will dare to say that it is maybe only a minor annoyance and not a problem anymore. A huge part of this comes from not being defensive about this one aspect anymore either and learning how to slide it on while talking to others where no one is irritated or bothered by it when I do slip. That's a big part of it. The only concerning part about your boyfriend it seems has more to do with the OCD aspect. I say this in reference to other things you've said. I have my obsessive tendencies especially in my past but this was one area that I managed to get under control without too much effort and I still don't know exactly why that is? What I do know from living, working and being around OCD folks is that for them it really appears to be a problem with no light at the end of the tunnel. I feel for them greatly and at the same time....are equally irritated and annoyed by it too. If there is any place I can see what it is like to be around (us)....I think this is my best source for an example.
It appears you are really looking at this with an open mind and I am wanting to help. More than anything right now....I'm trying to focus on the same thing you came here for and that's the connection part. What I said about your comment about my wife understanding what I'm capable of pin pointed an important aspect to this saying:
The better you become at managing your ADHD the more people forget or possibly think that it is no longer there. This is not hard to understand from my side but in reality......it's always there and never goes away. We just get better at not letting it affect others which is my personal goal as well as the desire for everyone else. The disheartening part that I do not discuss with anyone or have not said until now is the feeling or knowing that this is about as good as it gets meaning....it's wonderful to feel that you are not burdening others but what you are left with at times is the feeling that once other people are no longer affected that the cycle many times begins to return....expectations start to go up and empathy diminishes. I watched this happen repeatedly and many times it feels like you are starting the process all over again....just when you think that you have it under control. What I've come to realize in a very sobering way is that there is no rest from it. I've read so many post about the relapses with ( us ) that say that as soon as the non spouse let their guards down the behavior returns. I can't say that this is not the tendency in human nature but that's not all there is here. If you feel that you have to do something against your will, beyond your means, out of coercion or a conditional means for anything else including love and affection it's the wrong motivation and is not conducive to intimacy. For me....this is the killer.
The conclusion from the talk my wife and I had thanks to your comment was this: without realizing it...my wife was doing the very thing that was keeping her from receiving what I have been trying so hard to give her...........that being, creating a scenario that did not allow for me to succeed which in another way of saying...beleiving things she wants will never happen ( or won't happen) and therefore simply not allowing me to have the chance. For her this comes from in part her own inability to accept failure in herself and being a bit of a perfectionist at the same time. Any failure at all she internalizes in absolutes and confirmation that it will "never" happen.
To be with someone with ADHD I think you have to understand it's limits and accept their limits at times maybe more or differently than you would for yourself or other people. In my wife case.....it requires her to give me something she has trouble with even giving to herself and that's where we run into trouble. I'm not responsible for this aspect in her as it was there long before I met her ( most of her live I'm assuming for all the reasons there are) What I can be is empathetic to her which I am trying to do as much as possible. That being said.......it becomes very apparent when she is not doing this for me at the same time and I haven't been able to reconcile that yet in myself. If I am going to live by my own words then I need to live with this feeling and not let it change anything that I am doing right and give her the same time and opportunity to learn to take responsibility for this side of her as well. That and understanding when I put my hand out and say "No"...I'm not taking this part of you on and I'm not responsible for it when she tries to blame me or give me something that does not belong to me. This much I am sure about. ( not taking things others try and give you that don't belong to you and you are not responsible for)
Anyway...thanks again for being the catalyst here. Much appreciated
* by the way....I really don't mind getting called out for saying inappropriate things( actually appreciate it ) It's hard to know what circles people run in and I have run in some circles with some pretty hard edges! anyway....I'm used to it
J
No probs I'm practicing authenticity on you :)
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
I can't tell you how refreshing it is! It's something I've been waiting to hear and finally someone has said it. I've tried not to be too guarded in my comments ( or jokes ) as I would in polite company here on this forum for this very reason.....I want an honest opinion or feedback that I can learn something from and you just taught me something ( about taking a compliment ) Thank you for that....and yes, it makes me uncomfortable at times for all the reasons why but to the point that I did not recognize this as you said it is more valuable to me as a way to see it through someone else's eyes...back to the reason to do it - what is the point of feedback that is not honest?
A quick side note not as an excuse or defense.....my comment came directly from my own experience while vacationing in Turkey years ago on a tour boat where a group of middle aged Brits ( from Manchester ) adopted me so to speak as the only American on the tour ( calling me John Wayne because they said I talked so slowly like a cowboy ). I heard my reference for the first time from a woman in the group who was probably 65 or so who proceeded to explain in great detail. This is only to say that I almost fell overboard when this happened I was laughing so hard in context to that moment and it certainly was presumptuous of me in the first place to think that anyone outside that small group of people would share their sense of humor anywhere outside of that moment as it was only really humorous in context to the situation and the person telling me the story....so at the very least I can apologize (for being presumptuous).- not really it came across as trying to make a connection which I appreciated but I felt was not genuine on your part because you hid yourself away? and I thought that this was the point of authenticity, that you take a risk and so make a genuine connection, which is difficult. I thought it would be helpful to make you aware of what you were doing, though I may not have been correct in my assumption and also to reflect how it made me feel so I could give you that insight. I think most people understand when others are not being genuine and there are loads of 'games' that people use to shield themselves that are learned in childhood. When I use the term games I mean in the Transactional analysis definition, as I am aware that this term may be construed as otherwise loaded though the term in general parlance almost certainly originates from this source.
What is so interesting in your description about you and your boyfriend for me is that I sound more like you in these situations when I compare them to my wife and I.
I can just put on my clothes and go out the door without the need for excessive planning. If I were hungry or thirsty I'd just buy something without much thought, but he cannot do that, he would never buy anything from anywhere unless it were a budget shop and then go on about how much of a rip off they were even if he didn't buy anything and then I will have to derail the conversation before it becomes obsessive. I guess what I miss there is freedom to just get up and go out and I do this on my own still but it would be nice if we could have a nice shared experience.- Hmmm weird eh? maybe I had assumed that it was part of his adhd and reading the posts on the site had extracted it as a generalization as it is a recurring theme?
I made the comment earlier about obsessing over spending at times but this is more in reference to large single purchases like a car....the hours of agonizing and obsessing. When it comes to the day to day little stuff......there is something to be said for convenience and quality of life. I generally error on the quality of life side of things most of the time and have the same wish in what you just said about the freedom you miss when trying to share this with your boyfriend. I hear you. My wife is an obsessive over planner and it can kill the spark of of life and adventure ( the freedom you referred to ) more often than not for me in the same way you described this for your self.
This is what is so curious about ADHD? It comes so independent of so many things while at the same time so consistently with others?? I'm still baffled by this and have no explanation for it? - Is adhd comorbid with OCD? There may be different explanations for the same behvaiour. Your wife may be doing it to gain control over situations that cause her pain, vicarious trauma is common amongst social workers.
But I am very glad you responded despite my inappropriateness so I could share my thanks to you for no other reason. Your earlier comment as a response to me saying that "my wife knows what I'm capable of " with you responding about asking her turned out to be a gift for us, I brought this up directly with her and it opened up a conversation that went directly to part of the disconnect we've been having in our communications with each other. The problem that comes when two people get into that defensive cycle is that it no longer matters who or why it started.....the transactional aspect of this is on both sides once your in it and no one is without guilt of blame in making their own contributions to it. What came out this conversation for us were some assumptions and some jumping to conclusions that neither one of us were seeing on our own parts (both sides)...which when you think about it, is really the only way that any forward progress can be made. The idea that only one person needs to make a change or adjust in couple or partnership is ludicrous if you think about it even though....one person does have the ability to make the first move or shift things to break unhealthy cycles I do know this as a fact in my own experience.- Glad it was helpful.
That said I think it is just another defense, another way of pushing back for fear of connection and it's tiring to experience and for me a massive cause of burnout. It's like resisting the impulse to retaliate knowing that this is the only way to get you to let your defenses down but the other aspects of adhd kick in like not noticing the effort it takes, repeating things over and over and it is so difficult to maintain patience with this. I kind of got this was your way of giving me a compliment, but can I challenge you to be real. Well I can but you can accept it or not. Tim Lott's article in the guardian on sarcasm summed up my feelings for it and I banished it from my lips, as I got into a cycle of giving it back, so I'm not going into that cycle with you either!
Guilty has charged. I accept this challenge and will give it a try here. But this is where I'm not sure where the ADHD begins and ends? What I think ( saying I could be wrong but what I have believed most of my life) is that this came more from my family and growing up in this kind of environment as a way relating to each other and avoiding reality. Specifically for me ( in light of a NPD father). Dissension or expressing an opinion were simply not allowed....period! How I've described this in my past was as a feeling of weight and repression bearing down on you without an outlet or release from it. That and the feeling of uncertainty that literally anything that you might say as a means to assert yourself in any way risked retaliation to the point that you give up trying out of the fear from this The net effect is that you are conditioned (Skinner) to expect retaliation no matter who you approach as a normal course of communication. Sarcasm is just part of this and I know this all too well. The other aspect of dealing with extremely envious people is that you never want to appear as doing too well either as there are consequences in that too. I think in part is where not feeling comfortable with compliments come from. There is a subtle difference between feeling low self worth or not worthy of praise and being afraid or uncomfortable receiving it out of fear in the way I just described. I think a little of both are true at the same time here for me but saying now at this time in my life........far less for any other reason aside from being conditioned in this way or more out of habit with nothing else to replace it with. This is what I've really come to see in myself now more than ever and it's the part that is so hard to see. It seems that the mirroring effect gets distorted in a way that (you) are no longer in the field of view at times which again makes me wonder if this is ADHD or the by product from it as commonly experienced? I don't know?- Yes Yes Yes!!! we are all a complicated mixture I know this is certainly true for both me and my boyfriend, one with and one without adhd.
All of this appears to be ways to compensate but the question remains to what? Is it ADHD or the experience from having it? This is the most difficult part for me to distinguish from but at the end of the day what matters most is simply identifying it so you can do things to change from it. - Is this necessary to distinguish? ADHD is a label after all all you need to ask is what do I need to change and identify those bits whether they are down to adhd or not otherwise you are going to get yourself bogged down in description. concentrate on feeling and you will be fine.
I will say one thing that might encourage you with your boyfriend in the repeating himself and obsessing while talking part. This is one aspect of my ADHD that I hit early on ( years ago) in order to curb it or stop doing this. I've come a long way with this and it can be managed. What I've learned in part is why I think which really helps me in not doing it. For me at least in part comes from processing and speaking at the same time. Going off on tangent thought within conversations is different...that's another aspect. But this really does get down to the core of having too many thoughts bombard you all at once at the very same time you are trying to speak. That's one aspect. Another aspect comes when people interject and then losing your place in the conversation and having to back track or hold the thought while still being bombarded with all the other thoughts. This is where the tendencies to monolog comes from as well as feeling the need to jump into conversations at inappropriate times or interrupting. It can be really frustrating for everyone as I well know.
What I did was to work on each one of these aspect one at a time. Your learning to drive and ball juggling analogy was perfect....I've used these myself almost exactly as you described them by the way and you are so accurate in using them for these things. ( thanks again for that too) And in keeping with this analogy....eventually it all starts coming together as one saying with practice, is the one area that has shown some of the most improvements for me over time to the point that I will dare to say that it is maybe only a minor annoyance and not a problem anymore. A huge part of this comes from not being defensive about this one aspect anymore either and learning how to slide it on while talking to others where no one is irritated or bothered by it when I do slip. That's a big part of it. The only concerning part about your boyfriend it seems has more to do with the OCD aspect. I say this in reference to other things you've said. I have my obsessive tendencies especially in my past but this was one area that I managed to get under control without too much effort and I still don't know exactly why that is? What I do know from living, working and being around OCD folks is that for them it really appears to be a problem with no light at the end of the tunnel. I feel for them greatly and at the same time....are equally irritated and annoyed by it too. If there is any place I can see what it is like to be around (us)....I think this is my best source for an example. _ I agree he has OCD but it is undiagnosed, which is why I derail it rather than anything else.
It appears you are really looking at this with an open mind and I am wanting to help. More than anything right now....I'm trying to focus on the same thing you came here for and that's the connection part. What I said about your comment about my wife understanding what I'm capable of pin pointed an important aspect to this saying:
The better you become at managing your ADHD the more people forget or possibly think that it is no longer there. This is not hard to understand from my side but in reality......it's always there and never goes away. We just get better at not letting it affect others which is my personal goal as well as the desire for everyone else. The disheartening part that I do not discuss with anyone or have not said until now is the feeling or knowing that this is about as good as it gets meaning....it's wonderful to feel that you are not burdening others but what you are left with at times is the feeling that once other people are no longer affected that the cycle many times begins to return....expectations start to go up and empathy diminishes. I watched this happen repeatedly and many times it feels like you are starting the process all over again....just when you think that you have it under control. What I've come to realize in a very sobering way is that there is no rest from it. I've read so many post about the relapses with ( us ) that say that as soon as the non spouse let their guards down the behavior returns. I can't say that this is not the tendency in human nature but that's not all there is here. If you feel that you have to do something against your will, beyond your means, out of coercion or a conditional means for anything else including love and affection it's the wrong motivation and is not conducive to intimacy. For me....this is the killer. - yep
To be with someone with ADHD I think you have to understand it's limits and accept their limits at times maybe more or differently than you would for yourself or other people. In my wife case.....it requires her to give me something she has trouble with even giving to herself and that's where we run into trouble. I'm not responsible for this aspect in her as it was there long before I met her ( most of her live I'm assuming for all the reasons there are) What I can be is empathetic to her which I am trying to do as much as possible. That being said.......it becomes very apparent when she is not doing this for me at the same time and I haven't been able to reconcile that yet in myself. If I am going to live by my own words then I need to live with this feeling and not let it change anything that I am doing right and give her the same time and opportunity to learn to take responsibility for this side of her as well. That and understanding when I put my hand out and say "No"...I'm not taking this part of you on and I'm not responsible for it when she tries to blame me or give me something that does not belong to me. This much I am sure about. ( not taking things others try and give you that don't belong to you and you are not responsible for) - yep
* by the way....I really don't mind getting called out for saying inappropriate things( actually appreciate it ) It's hard to know what circles people run in and I have run in some circles with some pretty hard edges! anyway....I'm used to it - not everybody does, it's not inappropriate but it is just a challenge to try something different from the same old, because I think quite honestly most people can see through it? so you may as well be yourself. \at least then you are judged on your own merits.
Keep Practicing! ( please :)
Submitted by kellyj on
not really it came across as trying to make a connection which I appreciated but I felt was not genuine on your part because you hid yourself away? and I thought that this was the point of authenticity, that you take a risk and so make a genuine connection, which is difficult. I thought it would be helpful to make you aware of what you were doing, though I may not have been correct in my assumption and also to reflect how it made me feel so I could give you that insight.
I just read Tim Lott's article......wow, I'm Fucked! But seriously, if you take away irony and sarcasm from me I won't be able to speak ! That's a problem. Better said....I really do have a problem in my communication style as I agree with everything he said. Sigh.....another form of self betrayal:( And I thought I had enough to worry about already. lol
Worded slightly differently in Tim Lott's article is one that I don't do and really hate when other people do this one. "Oh...I was just kidding" This is a way for people to insult you or put you down and then excuse "themselves" from any responsibility for doing it all in one sentence before you have a chance to utter a single word. This is where I don't use sarcasm back and simply say "no you weren't" and leave it right there.
And yet I do this all the time in different ways without seeing it the same....how does that work? Crap...there I go again! I guess humor at the expense of a third party is only one step away huh? ouch! And I hate practical jokes as well ...either direction. This is not good.....not good at all I tell you. Does this mean I have to give up satire too? Please ....not satire! I have to call bull shit on myself here. Would this qualify as being a "twit"? I'm thinking so. ouch again...... I hate when this happens! &*@#$%
Thank you for pointing this out.( sans sarcasm)
On a more serious note.....Lott identified contempt as the source and this really did make sense to me. If you look up Avoident Attachment which is really common with (us)....one of the core features is a "contempt" for sadness. Guilty again but now saying this in the past tense growing up. I understand myself under those circumstances and can forgive myself in that much.....and again, in reference to what I said about things being "habit" without anything to replace it with. I do see this too. I find this interesting in itself that some of the funniest comedians had troubled childhoods......I see the connection!
So now I'm thinking that I want to reciprocate but I'm not sure exactly what would help? I do have an interesting story in connection to OCD in context to the things you've mentioned that I will share...but please ask me something that is relevant to your situation and I will see what I can do to shed some light if I can...maybe yes...maybe no?
You asked if ADHD is comorbid with OCD? I'll answer this with my story.
In my late twenties as I mentioned is when it felt like everything was coming apart at the seems for me. At this time I knew absolutely nothing about OCD or ADHD. During this time I was doing work as a subcontractor as a diamond setter and had very expensive gems in my procession nearly all the time. If you can imagine a person with ADHD trying to keep track of very small extremely expensive items the size of a pea then you already can imagine one source of stress. The other one is a real concern in my industry and that is theft. It's a very real and potentially dangerous possibility to be robbed....robbed and beaten.....or robbed and killed. I have plenty of first hand and second hand stories to confirm this fact. So as I understand the fundamental aspect of OCD is that there is always a shred of truth beneath it...only that shred of truth gets blown way out of proportion and what you end up with is obsessive behavior. In this case....it was more than just a shred.What ended up happening was that every time I had to leave my work place ( I worked alone at the time)....I found myself behaving in what I called weird and kind of creepy ways. I found myself counting the number of times I locked the door. And the number would increase over time. Before I knew it...I couldn't leave without counting. Then.....I would have to go back after already driving away...turn around and go back and count some more. Then....I started checking all the windows, counting, returning, counting again......Then....I started double checking the burners on the stove, the iron, the windows, the doors...counting, counting, returning counting some more. Then I added double, triple, quadruple checking envelopes and packages to make sure I put the item inside before I sealed it It got to the point that I was beginning to be late for appointments just to leave. Pretty soon I would just avoid leaving at all to avoid the process of leaving! It was insane! I never told anyone because it was all just too weird and embarrassing I thought ( again...no idea what OCD was) Finally one day I just hit my limits and said to myself....this is ridiculous!!!!! You know you locked the door and you only need to turn the key once. So one day I just stopped...flat out. I forced myself to go back to simply walking out the door and locking it once behind me and would not allow myself to get pulled into doing something that I knew made me feel weird and embarrassed while I was all by myself.
A few years later is when something caught my attention and drew it to my behavior as being OCD. ( i can't remember now...on TV, a movie, magazine article???) Now I was concerned even though the behavior itself ( the one in question) had ceased. When I began researching OCD I found that what I had been doing was one of the most common forms....counting door locks and checking heating elements ( irons, stoves etc) Now I was really curious thinking I was OCD.....oh no! so I started to do more research and take self tests. The problem was that I didn't really fit the criteria very well outside of the short time that I had these behavior??? And the test scores didn't indicate that I seemed to have a very high results either?? Thinking this was still a mystery but that something was up? Then I ran across something at the bottom of a page in one book I was reading that said..." and commonly found coexisting with OCD......ADHD. That's when I looked up ADHD for the first time and as soon as I did went...uh oh. I fit the criteria with ADHD to the letter. Almost 10 out of 10 on any test score I took. That's how I found first found out about ADHD.
It wasn't until much later ( years) when I went into marriage counseling with my ex wife that this came up again...and the rest is history.
I do remember one important thing that I did realized at the time I was doing these behaviors. It occurred to me that all my stress was from not trusting myself. I had a lifetime of experience that told me so as far as remembering to shut things off or leaving doors open ...how could I not know this? I was constantly being yelled at or criticized for it when I was young....and for good reason because it was true. That was the shred of truth that really was real but in this case....I was put in a situation where I simply could not afford to make even one error or mistake. My entire lively hood depended on it and this also was very real including the very real possibility that someone could rob me or was staking me out waiting for the opportunity....all real....all true.
When I changed venues and went to work with other people all this stress completely disappeared but even before that as I said....I willed myself to stop and I did it all at once and never allowed myself to do it again out of the "creepy feeling" factor that I described
Anyway.....there's one accounting of OCD behaviors come and gone. This is not saying that somewhere inside doesn't exist the propensity but that's where my knowledge ends on the subject. I will say this much however.....I distinctly know the difference between the feeling of compulsion and the feeling of impulsivity. The OCD or the obsessive behaviors to more accurate, was definitely a compulsion which I understand from my experience. Impulsivity doesn't feel creepy or embarrassing even though it can be under the right circumstance as a result.....for sure some times and not at all at others. It's all the about the results not the feeling that's behind it with impulsivity. Compulsive feeling simply feels wrong all by itself ! To the point that it felt so wrong all by itself ....to motivate me to stop because it felt so weird and creepy.
And keep practicing authenticity with me.....I need it a lot more than you do from the looks of things! lol Oh ...by the way...I think you are right on with my wife even though she say's she has learned to manage the vicarious aspect of her job. I'm thinking far less than she thinks which is understandable when you are deep inside it. Good call! I'm proceeding under your suggestion whether she admits seeing this in herself or not. I thought about it for only a short time and there are too many points of evidence to this fact in her to ignore this. More ways to empathize with her can never hurt...know what I mean? :)
J
I'm practicing on everybody, don't worry!!
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
- However I have a meeting with my boss so i'm not sure how that will go!
I just read Tim Lott's article......wow, I'm Fucked! But seriously, if you take away irony and sarcasm from me I won't be able to speak ! That's a problem. Better said....I really do have a problem in my communication style as I agree with everything he said. Sigh.....another form of self betrayal:( And I thought I had enough to worry about already. lol - You are not fucked, just conditioned :) you just need to be unconditioned.
Worded slightly differently in Tim Lott's article is one that I don't do and really hate when other people do this one. "Oh...I was just kidding" This is a way for people to insult you or put you down and then excuse "themselves" from any responsibility for doing it all in one sentence before you have a chance to utter a single word. This is where I don't use sarcasm back and simply say "no you weren't" and leave it right there. - too right, exactly in the uk we have the excuse oh it's just office banter, I must say my boyfriend used to think like this but now he recognizes the more sinister undertones.
And yet I do this all the time in different ways without seeing it the same....how does that work? Crap...there I go again! I guess humor at the expense of a third party is only one step away huh? ouch! And I hate practical jokes as well ...either direction. This is not good.....not good at all I tell you. Does this mean I have to give up satire too? Please ....not satire! I have to call bull shit on myself here. Would this qualify as being a "twit"? I'm thinking so. ouch again...... I hate when this happens! &*@#$% - You sound pretty aware to me actually, it's just difficult to change but you care about changing which is much better than someone who doesn't want to change at all.
Thank you for pointing this out.( sans sarcasm) - lol
On a more serious note.....Lott identified contempt as the source and this really did make sense to me. If you look up Avoident Attachment which is really common with (us)....one of the core features is a "contempt" for sadness. Guilty again but now saying this in the past tense growing up. I understand myself under those circumstances and can forgive myself in that much.....and again, in reference to what I said about things being "habit" without anything to replace it with. I do see this too. I find this interesting in itself that some of the funniest comedians had troubled childhoods......I see the connection!- I have worked with people with attachment problems for nearly ten years. I agree with the self diagnosis, my boyfriend is definitely avoidant. Maybe I should have cut to the chase a bit though undoubtedly we do not actually know each other so we can be forgiven for that!
So now I'm thinking that I want to reciprocate but I'm not sure exactly what would help? I do have an interesting story in connection to OCD in context to the things you've mentioned that I will share...but please ask me something that is relevant to your situation and I will see what I can do to shed some light if I can...maybe yes...maybe no? - Thanks, I was considering the same question, I was thinking that just talking is helping, because I know how to help him, but he doesn't know how to help me, so I have to help him before he can help me and that leaves me hanging, so I just think I got to help myself and I do that by talking and writing and then things just seem to fall into place.
You asked if ADHD is comorbid with OCD? I'll answer this with my story.
In my late twenties as I mentioned is when it felt like everything was coming apart at the seems for me. At this time I knew absolutely nothing about OCD or ADHD. During this time I was doing work as a subcontractor as a diamond setter and had very expensive gems in my procession nearly all the time. If you can imagine a person with ADHD trying to keep track of very small extremely expensive items the size of a pea then you already can imagine one source of stress. The other one is a real concern in my industry and that is theft. It's a very real and potentially dangerous possibility to be robbed....robbed and beaten.....or robbed and killed. I have plenty of first hand and second hand stories to confirm this fact. So as I understand the fundamental aspect of OCD is that there is always a shred of truth beneath it...only that shred of truth gets blown way out of proportion and what you end up with is obsessive behavior. In this case....it was more than just a shred.What ended up happening was that every time I had to leave my work place ( I worked alone at the time)....I found myself behaving in what I called weird and kind of creepy ways. I found myself counting the number of times I locked the door. And the number would increase over time. Before I knew it...I couldn't leave without counting. Then.....I would have to go back after already driving away...turn around and go back and count some more. Then....I started checking all the windows, counting, returning, counting again......Then....I started double checking the burners on the stove, the iron, the windows, the doors...counting, counting, returning counting some more. Then I added double, triple, quadruple checking envelopes and packages to make sure I put the item inside before I sealed it It got to the point that I was beginning to be late for appointments just to leave. Pretty soon I would just avoid leaving at all to avoid the process of leaving! It was insane! I never told anyone because it was all just too weird and embarrassing I thought ( again...no idea what OCD was) Finally one day I just hit my limits and said to myself....this is ridiculous!!!!! You know you locked the door and you only need to turn the key once. So one day I just stopped...flat out. I forced myself to go back to simply walking out the door and locking it once behind me and would not allow myself to get pulled into doing something that I knew made me feel weird and embarrassed while I was all by myself. - Sounds like a pretty normal reaction to a horrendous situation to me, I have also been there so I know exactly what you mean. Daniel Goleman does an excellent piece on stress and PTSD.
A few years later is when something caught my attention and drew it to my behavior as being OCD. ( i can't remember now...on TV, a movie, magazine article???) Now I was concerned even though the behavior itself ( the one in question) had ceased. When I began researching OCD I found that what I had been doing was one of the most common forms....counting door locks and checking heating elements ( irons, stoves etc) Now I was really curious thinking I was OCD.....oh no! so I started to do more research and take self tests. The problem was that I didn't really fit the criteria very well outside of the short time that I had these behavior??? And the test scores didn't indicate that I seemed to have a very high results either?? Thinking this was still a mystery but that something was up? Then I ran across something at the bottom of a page in one book I was reading that said..." and commonly found coexisting with OCD......ADHD. That's when I looked up ADHD for the first time and as soon as I did went...uh oh. I fit the criteria with ADHD to the letter. Almost 10 out of 10 on any test score I took. That's how I found first found out about ADHD. - see? stress and trauma, at least it led you some answers.
I do remember one important thing that I did realized at the time I was doing these behaviors. It occurred to me that all my stress was from not trusting myself. I had a lifetime of experience that told me so as far as remembering to shut things off or leaving doors open ...how could I not know this? I was constantly being yelled at or criticized for it when I was young....and for good reason because it was true. That was the shred of truth that really was real but in this case....I was put in a situation where I simply could not afford to make even one error or mistake. My entire lively hood depended on it and this also was very real including the very real possibility that someone could rob me or was staking me out waiting for the opportunity....all real....all true. - Highly stressful I would imagine.
And keep practicing authenticity with me.....I need it a lot more than you do from the looks of things! lol Oh ...by the way...I think you are right on with my wife even though she say's she has learned to manage the vicarious aspect of her job. I'm thinking far less than she thinks which is understandable when you are deep inside it. Good call! I'm proceeding under your suggestion whether she admits seeing this in herself or not. I thought about it for only a short time and there are too many points of evidence to this fact in her to ignore this. More ways to empathize with her can never hurt...know what I mean? :) - will do and good for you you can look to your own experience which I think was related to trauma and use that. Everyone in that industry is so affected, myself included and because we have to live it and cannot just leave because it is out livelihood then sometimes denial is the best option.
Success, Listening and Denial
Submitted by kellyj on
Everyone in that industry is so affected, myself included and because we have to live it and cannot just leave because it is out livelihood then sometimes denial is the best option. We all do this as a means to survive....anything. There is healthy forms of denial and this is just one of them. If we couldn't do this ( as I described in my wife) we wouldn't be able to function or do things that we don't like, unpleasant or stressful. The breaking point is where you become overwhelmed. From that point is where all the fun begins....facticiously speaking. Authentically speaking ( ha ha).....this is where behaviors that appear out of the norm meaning....out of the norm when you are not overwhelmed start to emerge. Just like me in my example of my OCD looking behaviors. I'm pretty sure in saying this...that this is why it does not qualify as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and why it didn't fit me. This is (or was) a "default" in extreme circumstances for me. It might be different for someone else under the same ones. I think this gets right down to the core of brain function and somewhere in the process...you get similar results as you do for other issues or disorders. I think this might have been another way to explain comorbidity? But to qualify for a disorder like OCD I think I'm right in saying that someone who suffers from this diagnosis will experience or exhibit these behaviors with little or no external input or stressors like I was experiencing at the time .......literally all the time all over the place ( daily ) under what would be considered "normal" conditions. For someone like this.....getting out of bed in the morning could be equivalent to running a Marathon for everyone else. the end result is that they are "dysfunctional" to varying degrees. In my example....it became dysfunctional when I started to become late to appointments because of the behaviors. That's the breaking point I think.
Remember the young man with Asberger's was saying:....first comes being overwhelmed...then stress...then anxiety. For them...mearly sitting in a chair with road construction going on down the street can be overwhelming where everyone else might not even notice? Everyday live is a series of overwhelming situations ( or potential ones ) and like he was saying...you have to get them out of that situation before they can even begin to think about anything else.......... only once you do this ( or they do this for themselves ) they can progress and move forward quite well, no problem.
The problem ( and the mistake as he referred to it ) that every makes or forgets is this simple fact since it's not our experience so it's not even a consideration.
"C'mon boy...shake a leg. What's wrong with you?" (everyone else ).............the answer is he has Asbergers, duh!)
"No.....what's wrong with YOU! Don't you get it??????" ( boy with Asberger's )...............the answer is no. They don't)
The disconnect between these two statements is for everyone else who cannot conceptualize or begin to understand this (an experience or something that they themselves do not have in their repertoire of experience) and cannot or will not come to see this fact. It is a fact or else there would be no such things as Asberger's....that's the first clue.
This is exactly the same concept with ADHD. Exactly. Different criteria...same concept. Exactly.
The success I mentioned was related to my wife and I and the conversation that started with your input about her knowing what I'm capable of which for the first time in our relationship as of this morning.....I saw the light bulb go on in her and she saw this ( all the things I just said ) as a concept...together. Instead of isolating each annoyance and complaint she had with me as if they were unconnected things floating out in space. And for the first time ever because of this......she actually gave me two really good constructive ideas in ways that will actually help me and therefore...help her. She joined me in finding creative solutions to fix the problem for the first time. By doing this she became an active participant in the process instead of sitting in the peanut gallery hurling complaints and insults at the other team. I think about that scenario ( maybe Cricket for you??). What do you do when you want the other team to lose?? You yell insults to rattle their cages in hope that this will make them fail at succeeding...succeding in winning and beating you in this adversarial relationship.
"hey....batta batta batta.....swing!" "Pitchers's got a Weinee arm" "He likes it rough....just like his mother!" and so on and so forth.
If you read all the post made on this forum as a whole and stand back and look at them as a collective....this is what you read. Compare this to my example I just made ( speaking to the forum here I'll reconnect with you after this example...trying to stay authentic!! ha ha)
"this thing causes me pain... so just stop doing this thing"........"and this other thing causes me pain too...so stop doing that one too"...."and while your at it..........." Isolated compartmentalized thinking here. It doesn't work and only makes you frustrated.
more....
"My husband does XXXXX...I hate this.".....yes
"Yes....my husband does this too" .....yes
"Mine too!" ....yes
"Don't they understand that this is causing us so much pain?.....yes
"he acts just like a child when he's like this"...........yes
"I'm overwhelmed!"..........yes
"I'm stressed out and full of anxiety!"......yes
"I can't deal with this any more. I give up!"........yes
"I'm hurt and lonely"..............yes
"I'm so frustrated and disheartened".......yes
" I hate his ADHD!!!"..................yes
"I hate my life and everything in it!"............yes
"I hate him...he's such an asshole"..........yes
"why won't they just stop?" ......we can't or we would. that's an easy one to understand.( the word "just"....it's loaded and dismissive)
"Why won't they just listen?" ......we are. but listening and understanding doesn't change the facts. The facts remain the same, You cannot not have ADHD or undo do this fact. The fact is we have ADHD and it needs to be approached accordingly and seen differently than the same things that you experience. There is simply no getting around this for anyone so the only way you (on the other side) are going to get what you want out of this deal is to have this concept in mind and deal with the facts that are...not what you want them to be. Us too. It require BOTH people to approach the problem as it exists instead of wishing the problem would simply not exist in the first place. Nothing happens when you do this. All of these statements are only reiterating the problem ....that's it. Nothing new there....what's new or different? Nothing.
"I don't understand this".............yes or course, it's not in your repertoire of experience. You don't have ADHD.
" what's wrong with them!!!!"...................we have ADHD???????????????
****I'm back with you now. lol
This is an example of denial from the non side of things I think. But if you can't move forward from the problem to the solution (like I started out saying about healthy denial......that it's a healthy coping mechanism that we all do in the short term to manage stress and keep from becoming overwhelmed) and it persists for whatever reason too long then it stands in the way of getting to a solution. I think this is the point where blaming begins.....the inability to take initiative or responsibility for yourself and start looking for answers and solutions. It's a way to keep yourself in denial and not move forward for all the reason people do this.
I think my wife finally realized this.....in order for her to get what she wants...she needed to start being part of the solution instead of being part of the problem. Even if this is for her own self serving motivation.........I say yes!! That's wonderful. Do it for yourself first....that's not being selfish it's changing denial into motivation!!! Awesome!!! You go girl!! It's a win/win scenario. Perfect!!
This is also my own approach by the way....the part about things not being contingent on my wife. I'm doing this for myself regardless and it also serves my wife too. Win/win.
I've been working on her for a long time to get her to see this ( also with the help of our/therapist...she listen to him. hey, whatever it takes right. if she won't listen to me and he says basically the same thing and she does...what the hell? It's all good!)
I think this too from the sound of some of the experiences with therapy and the comments made like " the therapist was taking my husbands side in everything...what about me?!!" I've come to learn from years of therapy that this is probably not what's actually happening. What's happening is probably a version of the things I just said and the person on the receiving end doesn't like it because it does not favor them 100% so it feels like they are siding with the husband saying that's the perception. That's also the perception if you are thinking that you have done nothing wrong here and you're the victim to the other person. This is the surest way to fail I know if you can't get out of this mind set. ( compartmentalized thinking ) I'm saying this as universal to everyone and can easily be flipped to one side or the other. No one is immune to this.
The last part of what I wanted to tell you is that the net result to all of this was that my wife really started to listen. I could see the gears turning...so cool.
And yes....I've found all of this writing has actually served another unpredicted benefit for me too. It gives me some practice ahead of time with organizing my thoughts so I can present them to my wife in a complete and understandable way. This is a problem I have with my ADHD....trying to process and speak at the same time. What happens more often than not is that I say the next best thing that comes to mind which many times causes me to have to go back and say.."no ...that's really not what I meant to say. What I meant to say was......." I don't know if this is actually part of being authentic ( more of a precessing speech issue related to ADHD).........irrelvant I think. Writing ahead of time works and that's all that counts. So yes....I feel the same way. Practicing communicating here with you has been a great benefit including your input.
FY: I'm actually quite a Luddite in real life off the internet. I have a smart phone and almost never text...rarely! I hate chat rooms and I refuse to do Facebook or twitter and video games in general bore me to tears. My only real internet vise is listening to music or watching live performances on You Tube or doing research. I still have to watch the time but in reference to the things you said about your boyfriend so I thought I would mention that in the time I'm spending here. I do see this differently as I see the positive overall effect it has with my relationship with my wife. Also, I try and do this when she's not around mostly anyway so it doesn't impinge on our available time together. Lately....I've used up my a lotted time to do this but it's serving a better use of time than listening to music right now. Obviously!!!
J
Rest
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Hi,
I just got to the point where I need a rest. I've been through some other traumatic crap recently and just need to shut off, but I didn't just want to cut you off without telling you that as I thought it would be rude. I'm also having some other nasty effects such as depersonalization but I'm not sure if this is a side effect to the meds that I am on, I am sort of at the point now where I just need to stop and consolidate as I have too much other processing to do. I'm glad you have managed to open up the lines of communication with your wife and I have always found writing to be cathartic, especially creative writing as it is the best therapy that I have found a it just allows stuff to flow with no interruption, it evolves.
Your last comment about being a luddite made me laugh as this was what was also on my mind :)
No Problem, I'm the Same Way
Submitted by kellyj on
I can't stay immersed in all this stuff too long either without it taking it's toll sometimes....in turn, I wanted to make sure I had something to offer you too. Adding to what you just said.....I feel a little guilty sometimes of going off with my thoughts here ( the creative writing part ) without considering if they are relevant or not...or simply not knowing what anyone needs to hear vs wanting information It's easy to do when you are not in front of a "real live person" to gage this from ( and without the non verbal cues).......back to being a Luddite and not texting or communicating this way as part of my normal day to day experience. I also don't spend a lot of time talking on the phone either.....I'd rather talk to someone "live" and also suffer from depersonalization I think in the way you described. I'll share one thing that my therapist told me years ago that I really liked and seemed to make a lot of sense to this. He said that communicating and connecting to people through the internet or electronically is like getting only one slice of the pie sometimes when what people really need is the whole thing. Meaning...............you will never get there from here but people never stop to consider this fact and still try.... it leaves a lot to be desired and always leaves you wanting ( still hungry) for more because of it. I thought about this in connection to what you said when I first read about your boyfriend being off in cyber space while you were there wondering and observing him doing this.
It has it's place I guess. thanks for that ( letting me know). Also.....I just went through the same thing a short time back where I was really going through some personal shit that I wan not discussing here at the time and I could see that I was not dealing well with things on all accounts. I do understand.
Hoping all went well with your boss too...that and your meds. I know what that's like as well:) So without continuing this for now...I'll say that my goal in a lot of the things I wrote were simply to throw out my thoughts as randomly and unedited as they were with the hope that something in all of it might be useful....hopefully that it did without knowing any more.
Also saying.....the things that you brought to my attention did this very thing for me and I really appreciate you taking the time and effort ( and considered thought) to do it. Thanks again.
J
contact
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Some Integrated Thoughts Here
Submitted by kellyj on
Thanks, I was considering the same question, I was thinking that just talking is helping, because I know how to help him, but he doesn't know how to help me, so I have to help him before he can help me and that leaves me hanging, so I just think I got to help myself and I do that by talking and writing and then things just seem to fall into place. Thinking...maybe there is a way to show him HOW to help you first and then he can do this for you? Playing devil's advocate here.....are you absolutely sure about everything you just said? I'll reword it differently. "I know exactly what he needs and exactly how to help him. He doesn't know what he needs and he doesn't know how to help me." See what I mean? I know what you mean in context to what your saying and to a certain degree...I've had to do this with my wife too so I understand so I'm not saying your wrong...what I'm saying is that you might be missing something from looking at it this way. Just a thought.
I gave this some thought and I had some ideas. I think I can directly relate what I was saying in my last post to this and also following through with my own words. I did look up the article by Daniel Goleman on stress and PTSD (I've read E I and Mind Whisperings by his wife previously...I like his work) which is part of my thinking here. I think it becomes too easy to see yourself everywhere in diagnosis and disorders but at the same time is you don't at least stop and consider these classifications you miss things that might apply to you that will be helpful and useful too. I think both are true and not true at the same time which makes it difficult to do sometimes.
Instead of doing this, I've adopted a different approach on this topic which simplifies this a bit and kind of eliminates the need to be 100% accurate or even self diagnosing yourself in the first place. I think this allows a person to absorb more info instead of worrying about the labels or stigmas that might come along with thinking "there's something wrong with you." It's kind of like getting the first scratch in a new car.....after that, subsequent scratches mean less and less as time goes on....the ideal of perfection is gone so to speak which takes all the pressure off trying to keep it perfect anymore.
Edit: I realized I didn't follow through with my thought, sorry..........my approach is thinking that we all share some form of all behaviors including the ones listed as disorders. Instead of looking at these classifications as if they "DON"T apply to me".... I try and think about this by doing just the opposite and applying everything to myself ( without going over board) since somewhere in there might be something that will help me explain something that I either don't understand or can't see in myself. I think it's too easy to see someone who is diagnosed with a disorder as if they are from a different planet than you are. In reality I think...everyone behaves in ways at times that might fit any number of diagnosis simply because we are all fundamentally made the same. In light of what I'm saying at least.....I try and do this with myself which allows me to consider something about myself that I might not see otherwise even if it's not a problem or even a blip on the radar screen. It also keeps me from making the mistake of seeing others as "different" ..... instead of what's actually closer to the truth with far less variations than you might believe is true.
I'll come back to my thoughts after I read the PTSD article which has me thinking about this too...bottom line here all things considered including the things I said in my last post and considering the Asberger's video. Is what's needed with your boyfriend your need to help him first? Or is it his need to feel safe ( free of stress, fear and anxiety) before anything you do will make any difference?
I say this because I see where my wife and I miss the boat thinking that we both think we know what the other one wants assuming it's the same thing that we want for ourselves. Even our goal are the same including all the things contained within it as the bottom line....I see the order and how we prioritize things can be vastly different and thinking for myself here........I can see why this is important to me from my end and there is really no way for anyone including my wife to know why this is. When she makes assumptions as if she is sure she knows what's best for me or even what's wrong with me at times I see how far off the mark she is when she does this most of the time. More than anything....I want her to stop thinking and clear her mind so she can listen to what I need instead of her thinking she knows what I need. And in order to do this I need to feel safe. If I don't feel safe then I'm not going to risk it with her sometimes and part of that is to start with a clean piece of paper instead of one that is all scribbled to death with notes and past notions and thoughts...mostly the same ones rewritten over and over. on top of each other. That's an example of not feeling safe or at least...feeling a high risk of failure and repeating history again. Not the history I want to repeat anyway! lol
J
Post Note
Submitted by kellyj on
I just realized you're from the UK or there bouts? I missed the pounds symbol in your first post but caught "mummy" in your last one. Feeling a little dim now.......well, Happy November 27th anyway. lol
J
Dim?
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Authenicity
Submitted by Hysterical37 (not verified) on
Cool
Submitted by kellyj on
ditto
The Art of Being Yourself
Submitted by kellyj on
The Art of Being Yourself: Caroline McHugh at TEDxMiltonKeynesWomen
I just watched Mike Robbins and am still absorbing it.......awsome stuff. I ran across this one by Caroline McHugh that I really liked as well...it resonated! Thought you might like it too.
J
Thank you JJamieson, very
Submitted by dweeb on
Thank you JJamieson, very insightful video. Puts new perspectives on things!