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.
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.
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.
It’s interesting that you mention sleep. I have awful sleep apnea, and i wonder how much it is affecting my mood and divergence. I got the Inspire surgery though, so hopefully when this ramp up period is over, i can finally get some real sleep and see if there’s any improvement.
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.
Am 44. Masked nearly all of my childhood to avoid beatings. Understand 100%.
Meanwhile I have done my best with my kid. My best obviously wasn’t good enough. Even a psych degree did not prepare me, and I still feel like that talk is headed my way in a decade or two. ADHD is a fucking nightmare.
I have started to mentally replace “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” with “every hurt you heal makes you stronger”. I am sorry you got hurt, I wish you the best on your journey to heal.
Been there, had that talk. Thankfully, my parents are mature, capable of introspection and have worked on becoming better people throughout their lives. So it went quite well, although I will say it doesn’t make much of a difference with regard to the past. That’s for me to sort out now.
If you would, could you tell how you initiated that talk? I just turned 40 and I need to have the same talk…
Unfortunately it happened at the tail end of a much longer conversation that just started up spontaneously. It was a pretty unusual occurrence.
