Just More Rambling

So much of my days consist of me trying to figure out my own brain. That and I have to also do my job, keep my cat alive, keep up with my family and friends, keep my apartment looking like an adult lives in it, finish paintings, start paintings, and remember to feed myself. Oh and drink water. 

Lately though my attention has been very focused and drilled in on (some would call it hyper-focused) the fact that I am ADHD. I don’t have ADHD and I don’t suffer from ADHD. I just am. I was also diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Odds are the last two are a result of not being diagnosed with ADHD until the 11th hour. 

Anyway! Some of the things that I’ve learned about this new situation is that my lack of emotional control, emotional manipulation, need for constant attention, missing self esteem, staunch fear of rejection and people leaving or “abandoning me” are all a direct result of ADHD. Well maybe not all, but because I have a differently wired brain I am less likely to know the appropriate ways to respond to things. 

I have a tendency to be passive aggressive. I get bothered by tiny cues and vibes I think I am feeling off someone and I don’t think before I react and speak and I end up sounding like a child. Things I think are going to come off playful and funny end up turning into a form of emotional manipulation to try and make someone feel bad for not reacting in the way I found it to be appropriate. This is a harmful reaction. This is where I run the risk of actually pushing important people away. I’ve always dealt with my assumptions of hurt with humor. 

Just ask my dad! It was funny when I was younger to threaten to go back to therapy if he didn’t do what I asked of him. Now, I’m 33 and it’s just flat manipulative. 

I do the same thing in most other relationships in my life when things aren’t going according to my assumed plan. “I’ll say this.. they’ll say this.. and THEN I’ll be happy”. What actually happens is I’ll say _________ then they don’t respond in the way I imagined and I react to the hurt so I try to hurt right back. Emotionally. Rarely does this work in my favor. Mostly I end up looking like a lot of work. 

What is actually a lot of work is thinking before I speak. When I started down the path of the supposed ADHD diagnoses I was mostly concerned with my lack of focus and memory. I can’t find anything and I get explosively frustrated because of it. I forget to do tasks at work all the time and I beat myself up for it for days. All of a sudden though this whole world opened up to me. A world of living with a brain that misfires from time to time. I am not going to sit here and say my irrational overreacting is entirely ADHD... although odds are a very large portion of my tendencies is due to that very thing. 

I do not want to rely on this diagnosis as an explanation for everything I do and say and just rest there. I am happy to see that I’m not just crazy and emotionally imbalanced.. I just am actively focused on not letting it rule my every whim. 

I am trying. 

Not such a shocking diagnosis though...

My Brain is so jumbled.

All the time. Constantly pinging between thoughts. I forget easy words and misplace my debit card more than any human should. I struggle with self-acceptance to the point where I have turned every person in my life into some kind of a demon who can turn against me at any moment. All in my mind of course! I don’t feel like I’m worthy of love or the friendships I have been given. As a matter of fact, I bounce between friendship struggles from time to time. Always feeling like I’m being picked over. Not good enough. Probably annoying to this person or that person. I am certain 76% of the people in my life see me as a child. I can’t prove that they think this. Only that I get a vibe from everyone…

The vibe I’m referring to is the one that sinks deep into my chest. A feeling of a physical rock chilling somewhere near my breastbone. It’s a hard thing to describe. It’s both an empty space and a dull ache. Like a rock shaped hollow. Like a geode. So at least it’s pretty…

I have never had a normal intimate relationship because of this. I’ve spent most relationships assuming I’m not good enough anyway and they will eventually just leave. I used to think this was because of things that happened when I was younger. I always blamed outwardly on this one.

The classic “my parents got divorced so everyone leaves” mentality left me basically deciding that eventually every guy will see I am not worth any(more) time or effort and ditch out. I constantly hold on tight to people for fear they’ll just bust out. Leave. Ghost. Disappear. Cease to exist. I try to play it cool. Like I’m the calm cool and collected type. Please. I am constantly panicked. My heart always racing and my head swimming. Thoughts of abandonment which quickly turn to the self-blame and hatred.

I’ve been seeing a therapist since January. She is a doll. To say the least. She has made me so much more self-aware it’s almost uncanny. I can see my exact train of though rolling through like it’s on schedule. “Right on time! Here comes the bullshit... Choo-Choo”. During a few of the sessions she mentioned the letters ADHD to me. The first time she mentioned it I was denying it through damn near gritted teeth. “No, not a chance. That was never in my childhood and that isn’t me… Nope”. The second time she brought it up it was brief, and we didn’t even really discuss it being “me”. Mostly just used in context of … honestly, I can’t even remember now. But it wasn’t me.

The 3^rd time, as they say, was the charm though. I don’t remember what we were talking about when she brought it up this most recent time, but I do remember it felt like someone was tapping me in the center of the forehead. She suggested I kick the caffeine for a few days and see how I feel. I almost sought out a different therapist with that thought alone. NO COFFEE?! How ... in the actual… Alright well I tried it. For roughly 5 hours… I know I need the flavor of coffee at the very least, so I switched to decaf to compromise with myself (honestly, I was trying to trick myself and it was so beyond hopeless.)

I’m not sure you can even call what happened at work that day actually “work”. It was more like I was temporarily transformed into Derek Zoolander dressed like a monkey trying to get the files off the brightly colored Mac computer. I couldn’t even think straight. I can’t even recall all the details but around noon I was over feeling like a zombie and I gave in to the sweet sweet caffeine in the breakroom. And maybe placebo effect is to blame but I felt instant satisfaction and my brain re-focused and I was able to stumble through the last few hours of the day. It was really at that moment though I decided this ADHD thing might be holding some water. I never really realized how much I lacked focus at work. Mind you, a few reviews/conversations with my boss led to me writing every. single. thing. down that she assigned to me. I have lists to complete lists to complete tasks to complete processes to set reminders to create a list.

I cannot function without a good list. Everything gets written down. If it’s even the least bit important I jot it down.

So, I knew I needed to get an actual evaluation before I could really get things in motion. Real frustrating and long story short on this part… I found a psychiatrist that specializes in mood disorders and learned just last night that combined type ADHD is my God given right. Or mood disorder. Or whatever. In finding this out I’ve learned that there are a lot of things (see all the above) that have basically been controlled by my mis-wired brain. I’m not going to say my brain is bad… or that it is wrong… but it’s just wired differently. There are all these things that are related to it… Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, Emotional Dysregulation, Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, etc. (Look at all those ‘dys’!)

Now all I can do is hope the treatment plan is at least on the right path to some normalcy. I sincerely hope people in my life know that I’m going to try not to use this as a crutch, but I do want you all to know (those who have stuck by and those who have taken steps back) I am working on something that is bigger than me. I just really need you all to be in my corner about this if I do start crutching. There will be some things that come up in my day to day that are part of the ADHD. My insecurities aren’t going to just go away. My need to hold on to people tightly isn’t going to dip lightly either. Would’ve been a lot cooler to have a handle on this sooner!

Standby though, ya’ll.

I fully plan on learning all I can about this disorder and doing what I can to make it my bitch.