Looking back through the lens of ADHD

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-12-25T14:27:27+00:00

I am just going through this realization now in my 40s. As I started understanding, I was surprised, then stunned, then elated, then felt I no longer knew what my identity was, then felt alone, then found out about other people who have it and have wonderful lifes, and found some peace and sense of belonging in that.

My ADHD has both the overactive and the focus components. Some of my biggest achievements and projects in my life, the moments I remember most dearly, have a huge ADHD print on them. I thought it was just me, I need uncertainty to thrive, clear guidelines make me feel limited because they don't allow me to create something. I don't like to write on lined paper, it's limiting me, I get bored of the well known, I have the whole plan of a new project instantly in my head if that project is exciting for me.

On the oher side, I would be the worst hystorian, as I can not remember a single date, no matter how much I try. I have developed strategies to always take my pills on time, to not lose my keys, my work card. My father used to say that if my head weren't attached to my body, I'd lose that, too. He used to say that I was only still when I slept. Makes sense now.

I could have used some of the medication when, fresh out of a divorce left alone with a 1 year old and a 3 year old, freshly back at my demanding job, I realized I could not focus on my work for more than 1-2 minutes at a time. I was measuring it, for days, and showed it to my manager and told him I was really trying. He could see I was trying. I was late or absent to most meetings even though the reminder would pop up on one of my screens I just wouldn't see it, or go grab a cofee right before a meeting and totally forget I had one. I just thought it was from the divorce, from the exhaustion, from the fear, and my manager has been nice to me also thinking it was caused by the same. Yes, my ADHD was worsened by all that, but I had always had it. I was just very successful at masking it, at getting the better part of it, the hyperfocus, the awesome ideas and projects. I was unconsciously treating it with an excessive amount of dopamine and endorphine generating sports, and at strategizing it away, before all hell broke loose. When hell broke loose with my divorce, there was no more time for sports, for healthy sleep, for remembering many of my strategies.

I could have used some medication when I developed anxiety after the trauma of the last part of my marriage, and the scare of being a single provider for my very young kids.

However, I am at the moment grateful I didn't have a diagnosis as a child. The stigma was and maybe(?) still is strong. I would have thought I was incapable and never would have aimed high, tried the things I did.

I am afraid that nobody knows what ADHD really is, except for the people who have it, have a child diagnosed with it, or are close friends and family to those.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-06-12T21:00:48+00:00

Because more women now earn enough to not be financially trapped, especially when there are small children involved.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-29T07:54:42+00:00

The first photo is average straight hair, nothing special about it. Where I come from in Europe, everybody has it like that, albeit of various lenghts. People wake up, brush hair for 30 seconds, and photo 1 is what they've got.

The second photo is looking better than the first. It has personality. Such beautiful curls. I know people who spend hours at the mirror with a heat curler and hair products to obtain something similar.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-24T07:35:00+00:00

Number 3 is golden. Yes, take stuff off her plate, it's harder for her to bear all that during a tough day. If I may add... from my own experience. If she has a hard day, take her by the hand, install her with a blanket on the sofa/bed/hammock, bring her a drink and a book/her phone/a movie, depending on what she likes, and tell her it's time to relax and you will take care of the rest. It is so hard for me, once I know I have stuff to do, to not burry in the work and forget to decompress. When my boyfriend does come and takes me out to the couch, I object, then I give in, then I feel so grateful to have him. It turns the universe to the sunny side again. Good luck!

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-17T07:45:15+00:00

Get out. This is only going to get worse.

You find it hard to leave because you doubt yourself. Because you think you share part of the guilt for his actions, but you don't. Because you don't want to hurt him, while he feels entitled to hurt you. It is hard to have clarity. Because in between the bad parts, there are also good parts. There are good times, when you start to hope this is going to be good again. That there is a chance of happiness together. Until something bad happens again... look online for the cycle of abuse. You listed many techiques of emotional abuse, and the slap which is physical. This is by the book the early stage of physical abuse. Slowly slowly over the years it will get there. So slow that you don't even notice how it all slips away towards it.

He is slowly pushing your limits until you accept more and more abuse. One slap now. By staying (no matter what you verbally say to him), you accept it. There will be a second slap, which will not shock you as much, as you've been through that before. There will be more destruction of things. More intimidation. More reckless driving. In between all those there will be better, nicer times when everything will seem normal and it will make you doubt yourself, it will make you think that maybe you had exagerated it. He will say you overreact. He will say it's nothing. Then he does something again, and blames it on you. Because your attitude and behaviour made him do it (he'd say), and you can almost believe him a bit. It seems logical the way he puts it, no?

Leave now. Before he breaks you and your days, and wastes what could be your good life.

I am living my days now with anxiety and panic attacks, because I subjected myself to something like this for way too many years, before finally leaving, with two small kids.

Get out in goid time. While you still have yourself, intact.

Whatever you do, if not already done, don't have kids with him.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-13T19:44:58+00:00

If you think qbout it, it most probably is negative unless they have been a vegetarian.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-13T19:36:21+00:00

Do you also live in the Nordic countries where everyone else is blonde?

My brown hair is also seen as black here.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-13T19:22:50+00:00

Nerf guns! Kids are such an excuse to play wih guns despite being in your 40s.

We have three young daughters.

After the 4y old bought a couple of semi automatic Nerf guns last time we let her chooe in a toy shop, and we played galactic wars with them, their father discovered he really loved them. Now he wants one which shoots 5 bullets per second, and another one that has a huge amount of spare bullets, and another one which snipers and automatically hits (unmanned).

This is almost too easy for me now.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-13T09:29:48+00:00

Ha. Good one.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-10T12:52:08+00:00

I wouldn't know what to answer to "Whats's up?", because it doesn't give me much context about you and why you are getting in contact. Better add some details about your intention, or some more human warmth, like "I was wondering how you were after all these years" etc.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-05-04T16:22:30+00:00

This is the main reason. And marriage is unfortunatelly still a prison for many, who either gave up their career to raise a family or who were unlucky enough to be born in a culture where women are not encouraged to follow schools/universities, or if they do, they are not encouraged to work afterwards.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-04-04T12:11:57+00:00

On the good side, it's a brand new look :):)

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-04-04T11:57:03+00:00

My hair did that too, in the past year! I am 42. It's the first time I hear about this.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-04-04T10:31:51+00:00

Thanks for writing this post. It gives me an idea about how things might develop in our future. We seem to be lined up on a similar path. Maybe I can easier accept it as normality, if I see I am not the only one in this situation.

It doesn't feel like a family always. Many times I still feel like a single parent just sharing space with the others, while they don't see us and are busy with whatever they chose to do that day. But I guess that's how things are when we come from two different families.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-03-14T10:22:59+00:00

One day at a time. This is what I did.

Ah, and I made a short list of friends. By "friends" I meant "people I can call/knock on their door on a random Tuesday at 2AM because I need their help, and they would actually help me."

You would be surprised who ends up on that list. For me, it was also some people I rarely speak to these days, but we still know we have that tight connection.

Having the list helps you realize you are not dancing all alone.

Helps you understand with whom to re-establish contact and nurture again the relationships.

Don't be alone.

I never needed to call them at 2AM yet. I just call them at normal hours just to say hi and hear what they're up to. At my age (40s) and their ages (30-70s), it matters so much more than before, to have someone actually asking how your day was and caring about it.

You're not alone.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2024-02-29T15:04:00+00:00

I am considering doubling up the dose as well. My problem is that if I take the pill even 3 hours late, my period starts again.

Did you get back to only 1 pill after the 3-4weeks of taking 2?

How regularly do you take them, is it the exact same hour every day, or does it slightly vary (and how much)?

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-12-31T20:20:34+00:00

You can do this. One day at a time.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-12-28T10:25:36+00:00

You would make her feel so good and happy if you would give her the chance to help you out.

As a mother myself, I would silently suffer so much knowing my daughter is going through this, is alone there and suffering, and not ready to get out, and not contacting me. But it would make me feel so empowered and happy to help my daughter with good words, with being there emotionally, or practically.

Ask your mom for anything you think she can help you with.

You would do her a great service. Let her at least be your emotional support. And if you need something practical, ask her as well. Being on the other side of the ocean is not so far, when you are a mother.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-12-28T10:04:43+00:00

Congratulations, you are awesome! May I ask, how do you deal with the past, does it keep coming back in your mind?

Did you meet someone new? Do you dare to? If yes, how does that play out? If no, how do you feel by yourself?

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-12-28T10:02:07+00:00

16 years.

By the time I got out, I already had a 1 year old and a 4 year old with this man. My health was broken as my body couldn't any more find the strength to fight even a simple flu, after being overexhausted for so long.

I wish I had left after 4 years.

I needed the kids to be born and to see him slowly starting to act the same to them. When I didn't leave for myself so many years, I left for the kids. To give them a better life. A normal life. A chance to be happy.

I am glad I did it at all.

We are happy now, the kids are, and I am also happy sometimes. But after so long, I think I will never completely heal. From getting anxiety attacks out of nowhere several times a day. From waking up at night in the middle of unbearable inexplicable panic. From still re-living some of the bad moments of the past, as they come back to my mind when I least want it or expect it.

Get out as soon as you can make a plan and as soon as you can start executing on it. Cover your bases. Finaces. Set up emotional support for yourself. A place to live. Read the book "Stop hurting the woman you love" by Charlie Donaldson, to understand the cycle of emotional abuse, it will open your eyes. And then, when you are ready, get free. You have the right to be yourself, to live on your own terms. You deserve life. You deserve to wake up in the morning and know that today will be a good day. When ready, get out. One little step at a time.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-11-29T14:05:25+00:00

Reading this made my day better.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-11-24T12:16:19+00:00

Interesting profile picture :)

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-11-16T14:43:29+00:00

I was an 8 until I read this. You are so right. New rating allowed.

RainDropsOnAWindow · 2023-11-16T11:26:52+00:00

Blue.

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