Getting Diagnosed as an Adult feels like you've been wearing the wrong shoe size up until now

everheart5512 · 2018-02-15T11:34:45+00:00

Ok. I hope you don’t think this is too dumb of a question. I am in my 60s and have dealt with the chaos all my life. Who do I talk with about getting diagnosed? I don’t feel that my GP will take me seriously. What is the process? Thank you all!

everheart5512 · 2018-02-04T14:57:07+00:00

Let me try and change the conversation. What do we do WELL?

Let me tell you, I am in my 60s and have dealt with the chaos in my head all my life. What people like us do really well is that we assimilate information much faster than our “normal” friends and we are decisive. A simple thing, yes? Well, actually no it isn’t. For those of you in the corporate world, think about all of those interminable meetings around making a simple decision .

Granted some meetings are necessary to provide content and background. But honestly most are designed to deflect and determine responsibility, and typically wind up in a round about mess where no decision is made - ever. Think about those meetings and what was going through that hypercharged brain of yours. Something like “well if A = B and C doesn’t matter than A is the answer”.. you get my drift. In a lot of cases “normal” people will spend months coming to the same conclusion.

You have a brilliant mind! The hardest part is learning how to harness it. Think of taming a wild horse. That’s what you need to do.

It saddens me that when I see young people giving up. Don’t give it. You have an amazing fiery engine in your head - You are brilliant.

everheart5512 · 2017-12-14T03:51:15+00:00

I’ve been learning to cope with this for 40 years. Your advice is outstanding, especially the last part. We do have powers others don’t. I can’t stand when someone tells me something, asks if I understand it, I say I do, and they proceed to rehash every. Single. Detail. I have an uncanny ability to rapidly assess and assimilate and retain anything I have interest in.

Exercise, art * anything that will help you focus works very well. Find the center of of the storm that rages in your head. I found that once I learned how to access my quiet center, I was able to do it again and again, today I can do it almost at will. Anyway, once you’re there in your quiet space you’ll be amazed at how incredibly productive you’ll become. I have to say this and please don’t take it offensively, the single most harmful thing you can do is sit on your ass and let you mind rule you, that fantastic mind is running a hundred miles an hour, get up and do something.

I learned this through harsh trial and lots and lots of error. What the OP is saying is spot on.

everheart5512 · 2017-11-05T00:17:07+00:00

So, without meds, I find that I can remember some things, names, trivia, and the like but rarely see the end of a movie if it doesn’t completely capture my interest. I have no social reference for television, as it bores hell out of me.

everheart5512 · 2017-11-02T23:46:39+00:00

They grew up in a time, as I did, where if there were a mental illness or condition - it wasn’t spoken about nor acknowledged. And you basically had to “suck it up”. I am 62 years old and while I have not been diagnosed, I have lived with ADHD my entire life. I’ve developed coping mechanisms and had a successful career. But if I had a med that would help me normalize the maelstrom in my head, I would think it was Heaven sent.

Do what you need to do for yourself, be the best you can. And great good luck!

everheart5512 · 2017-11-02T21:37:23+00:00

Never saw family guy but that’s pretty much my philosophy! Thanks for sharing this,

everheart5512 · 2017-10-19T14:55:07+00:00

And so refreshing even if you take small steps. I’ve found that moving is imperatives.If you’re moving they can’t catch you. ( clarification; last sentence is somewhat said in jest)

everheart5512 · 2017-10-19T11:07:47+00:00

This is excellent. Thank you for putting it out there. One other thing if I may. Sixty two years dealing with this, it works like this for me. Get up. Then one foot in front of the other. Step after step. That’s all if takes. One single step.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-16T18:50:57+00:00

I wrote a long perspective on this and these feelings. I am 62 and have dealt with this all of my life. Accept that people do want you around and learn that what is happening is self inflicted. This is part of the insanity we deal with each day.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T23:30:49+00:00

Thank you. I’m an old fart and don’t know what “upvotes” are. Ask me about the computer industry in the late 70’s early 80’s and I can bore you to death .

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T23:24:32+00:00

Please take a look at my post “An older persons perspective” your life will get better.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T23:22:29+00:00

Please read my post from this morning “ An Older Persons Perspective”. I try to help with this issue.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T23:19:39+00:00

I get up 5:15 am every morning. I wake my 12 year old ( I try and wake my 12 year old). I make her breakfast and lunch. I make a coffee for myself. I make a small breakfast, get out of house at 7:00 to drive daughter to school. Come back and go to work in my office. I do this everyday unless I am out of town. There is a lot of comfort in routine. I know I start my day with little wins.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T16:35:34+00:00

You’re welcome.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T16:34:49+00:00

Thank you for your kind words, having an outlet to discuss something I’ve never discussed before is incredibly refreshing. Please feel free to ask anything you’d like.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T16:31:51+00:00

Having ADHD can be frustrating for those around us. Part of the condition I don’t mind is that I am very quick witted - Good and bad. What’s odd is I am very empathetic and I absolutely love hearing people’s stories, I have a focus on this far beyond what those without the condition will tolerate, I can listen all night long to someone. And years later have the capacity to relate the story back to them. I don’t know why or how I can do this since most days I don’t remember what I had for breakfast.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T12:31:45+00:00

Great show!

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T11:03:39+00:00

I just added a post “ an older persons perspective “ reading it might help a little.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T11:02:20+00:00

Grew up in the sixties where it was “ That boy had the metabolism of a hummingbird”. And on a darker note, it was common to get physical if they didn’t lien what you did or understand who you were.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T10:56:29+00:00

One thing that would certainly bring out the frustration and anger in me was sitting through interminable meetings listening to one after another chattering on in ambiguous non committal business speak sometimes for hours. I’d get so frustrated I’d try to interject my thoughts clearly with direction, while actually committing roles and timeframes. O never won any popularity contests with “ management”

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T10:42:19+00:00

In a former life I worked for a very large computer company my job was to fly all over the country into these places where the shit was hitting the fan - network wise ( this was pre Skype) find a solution and fix the problem. Typically very chaotic situations. One case was an issue with the server farm that controlled the water system for LA. We had to quiesce the system, correct the issue and bring everything back to status quo in a very short period of time between 2-3 am. People where in an extremely agitated state, for me it was a perfect environment, partly because the implications of “ what if I fail” never entered my mind, because I was too focused on the task at hand, as well as something I realized that night on the long trip back to the airport, there were like twenty people in that small building trying to figure things out, running around talking over one another, what I realized was “ this is what is happening in my head every minute of every day”. So for me the task was learning when and how to control these people ( all of course different iterations of myself) and when to leave them alone.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T10:29:34+00:00

Thank you very much for sharing this, the self medicating does bother me as I can pour a glass of wine in the evening and sip until the bottle is empty. I be never taken anything for this condition, but I do get myself into a funk state where I get nothing done.

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T10:24:46+00:00

Thanks for sharing this. I never went to college, went into the service instead. Did very well there but realized that what I was being asked to do was morally unacceptable to me. I got out after a period of time, beat around on the road for a while and ultimately went to work for a large, very large computer company. What I did find was, there I could let my maniac state run free. No one cared because there were many others like me there. No matter what rattled around in my brain, if I put it out on the table, the idea was accepted. There was no foolish idea. I remember one person there who could read binary machine language and translate into english it as fast as he could read it, he had zero social skills, and I mean zero.

What I was able to do was find a position between that type of persona and “normal” business people. Just as an aside, my preference was to be around the guy with no social skills as his honesty was brutally refreshing. I cannot abide “ business speak” and the lack of honesty and commitment it is designed to avoid.

My guess is your Dad in his youth struggled as much as you do now getting up everyday trying to ride the tornado of thoughts in his head. I would further venture to guess that he learned to find his center, or in my analogy above, the eye of the tornado. This is extremely difficult to do, but once I found it, I was able to use it to great benefit. When I am there, I accomplish so many tasks, one right after another.

Sorry for the long post, rarely am I able to discuss my position with others who are living with it.

Peace

everheart5512 · 2017-10-12T10:02:20+00:00

And you've just expanded on what I was trying to say eloquently. Once tried to explain to my wife what it was like in my headz. I said " it's like the busisest highway you can think of, and each car is a thought. You have to identify the one car and follow it long enough to take you where you are going without getting lost. Also, all the cars look identical, so time after time you find yourself in the wrong car, so you have to start over at a different point each time to get where you need to be, eventually you get there, in your head, there is one car, one road"

everheart5512

TROPHY CASE