That ended with me finally explaining to him how the way he and my mother treated me as a child, with undiagnosed (and really not even conceptually understood at the time) ADHD caused me lasting trauma that persists to this day. I’m a 45 year old man, and I cried.
I’m 43. I feel you. Lately I started processing what happened to me because of ADD. I’m lucky, fell on my feet and have a good life but I’ve lost so much time and was misunderstood for so long.
Keep rolling until you get to the feet! Lol if only it were that easy, but hope you can find some improvement
This is me, too. Undiagnosed ADD until my 50s. No H, probably like you. Misunderstood for decades. It was really hard for my parents, but they had no idea and are now passed.
Learning about it made everything click about my difficult life, but made me proud of what I had accomplished in spite of ADD. And now I have a toolbox of methods I can use to recognize my ADD as it is happening, and help counteract it. I also have medication to help.
I think one of the things I needed to know is, ADD / neurospiciness can also be an asset at the workplace. One of the marketable I excel at is learning new things. Whenever I am given a new skill to learn, I dive into it passionately. I love learning new stuff! So that fits perfectly with IT, which is constantly moving forward with new technology.
And with that I’m currently working on a late-life Masters degree in IT. So, happy ending, I guess. Find your niche!
Eventually the science will show ADHD and a slew of other ND psychoclassifications are entirely genetic. It’s very likely one of your parents are driving the same brain around as you, with all its faults and strengths. In their childhood psych didn’t have the labels and treatments, you didn’t really want to mess with those abusers. Society also found it ok to beat children that didn’t behave. The parent with the ND brain was probably beat by their parent until they figured out how to wear the right mask. And not just beaten by their parents, but every single authority figure, teachers, pastors, etc. The cycle of physical abuse was only recently broken. We still haven’t broken the cycle of emotional abuse this society forces on ND people. The majority of psych pseudoscience still ongoing considers ND to be subhuman, excluding us from studies, using derogatory language that only serves to dehumanize and not empathize, recognize, and accommodate. They fail to recognize the positive aspects that are unique and common amongst ND, so we end up not even realizing in ourselves. In your parent’s generation they’d treat perfectly capable ND people with a lobotomy. There are probably more psych professionals practicing today that were taught by books written by the same folks who practiced lobotomies, than those that learned the still incorrect (but at least more correct than a fucking lobotomy fixes everything) science from 10 years ago.
Sorry for the rant.
If you would, could you tell how you initiated that talk? I just turned 40 and I need to have the same talk…
I’m not OP, but I wanted to wish you good luck.
I was diagnosed in my 50s after my parents had passed, so I can’t do what you want to do. But one thing I’ve found with a neurospicy brain is - there are bad things and good things associated with it. For example, I am really good at learning new things, so I know a little bit about many subjects (and admittedly deep knowledge about some things that don’t matter very much). But that can be a marketable skill.
Finding techniques that work for you can help minimize the bad stuff, while maximizing the good stuff. For example, me making physical lists helps me to unburden my brain and concentrate on other tasks. Checking off tasks when complete is a physical reminder of doing stuff and gives me a feeling of accomplishment.
It’s the only brain you’ve got. You’ll need to find out what works for you, and write that shit down so you don’t forget! 😎 But on your talk to yourself and others, and to that, I think it’s important to frame both the bad and the good.
Best of luck to you!
The biggest issue was that when I was in a phase where I pursued something worthwhile, such as a science project, electronics, programming, they stopped me and said I obsessed too much over it, took it away, said I needed to focus more on something else. Which then did not stick, as it was forced, of course.
That’s exactly the kind of obsession that leads to success, though, and it took me years to recover after moving out. Wish I had those skills I wanted to get in all those areas, but I had to focus on one thing at that point, as the end of my 20s was approaching.
Also when they forced me to do something like “clean your room, immediately, until it is done”. With the tools at hand now, I know that I have to talk to myself like “in 20 minutes, set a 15 minute timer and get as much done as you can” or “pick one aspect (garbage, floor, desk) and do that immediately”. Or with homework: I know now that one tool I needed was to set everything up at the desk ready to start to get over that first step. An order like “all homework needs to be done immediately to perfection” does not work.
With my own child, the problem is that I don’t know who he really is down to the core. Is “10 minutes of cleaning on a stopwatch before dinner” just the right push, or too much sometimes, or too little?
I think a little push is right, to yourself and to your children, but it needs to be a “relative push”, depending on the person, the day etc. Some days, just staying in bed and crying is already the best you can do. At our best, we might be capable of doing 10 hours focussed tasks and just need a little “come on, do it”. Which of those is it? That’s the question. I find that meditation helps best to get a feeling for that. Sometimes, I just need a nap and didn’t realise, and that’s why it felt like the world is ending.
Hey brother, it fucking sucks and I can only imagine how teachers and folks around you responded to you out of ignorance when, with understanding, there are excellent ways to mitigate and control your expression and thought process in a healthy manner.
I’m glad you figured yourself out and I hope things get smoother from here on out. Much love from a fellow neurodivergent - if you need to vent or talk things through we’re always here and listening.
