Life and ADHD
A conversation with myself
I cannot justify the ways that I deal with the world.
I ignore many ‘important’ things and get involved with things that probably don’t really matter. This is not because I don’t want to do the important stuff. It’s really because, like some crows, I get distracted by shiny things. A thought or idea that wafts across my mind's eye can lead to hours of doing things that are, for some reason, less ‘valuable’. (But not less important in the moment.)
My mind is always running 10 seconds in the future, it seems. And the consequences of what has to be done in 20 seconds are forgotten.
This has gotten worse with age. I used to be able to ‘fake’ responsibility, at least for a while. Now though, I can’t seem to get things done on time. Bills don’t get paid, things don’t get fixed often, clutter and dirt get left undealt with, finances go to hell. I hate this about myself.
~“So why do you do it?”
Because I can’t help myself. I don’t understand why. Getting diagnosed with ADHD explained a lot of it. But I haven’t figured out a workaround. And I haven’t figured out how to accept myself as what many would consider incompetent.
Age is a factor. I would rather write than take care of the important things, and so I do. Someday there might be enough income from writing to hire help.
It’s not that I am stupid. I think that I write well. sometimes even poetically. I love to go to the places that writing takes me in my mind. Even when they are less than nice places.
I have had ADHD all of my life. And it has provided adventures with mixed results but hasn’t destroyed me (yet). Sometimes I feel that I am subconsciously looking for a situation that can’t be dealt with by overcoming or escaping.
~”How do you feel about that?”
I admit that I have felt that I was created as a damned soul. Anxiety, depression, panic, and PTSD-like symptoms have been with me and gotten worse with age. I have also discovered that I am resilient beyond anything that my early ‘educators’ would have considered possible.
I am the overwhelmed superhero who, though close to death, rises to defeat the villain. But, even that, leaves scars on the soul and mind as well as a degree of self-confidence.
~“I guess that I don’t really understand.”
Well, neither do I or even the doctors. It deals with the Executive Functions in the brain. The EF is how we navigate the world and with a disorder, we navigate with an astrolabe in a fog on a stormy sea in a wooden boat. But as humans, we are compelled to move forward anyway.
My life path is a bit of a shambles with highs and lows often closely spaced. It has made me distrustful of myself and my decisions. And so, makes me slower to decide and act.
I have some sort of computation that this is ‘just the way that I am’. A troubling computation from early in life. Maybe I can change, knowing the reason to some extent.
~“Well, if I was more than a voice in your head, I’d try to help.”
Thank you for listening. I’ll get back to you.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Dana Sanford ~ 2/25/2019
