The crippling depression that’s completely stopped me from functioning in any meaningful way. That’s definitely the big one.
Executive dysfunction. I have a horrible time with completing tasks that I’ve built up stress over, my brain just won’t let me start because it feels hopeless. It’s a constant struggle to get things done. And nobody understands. I don’t really expect them to, because “oh sorry that task stressed me out so much that I’ve just completely avoided it” isn’t a valid excuse. ADHD drugs helped but I don’t want to be on them, and a prescription to them bars me from doing other things that I actually enjoy. So I’ll probably just struggle with it the rest of my life.
ADHD drugs helped but I don’t want to be on them, and a prescription to them bars me from doing other things that I actually enjoy.
I’m curious, could you elaborate on this?
I want to be a recreational pilot. I’m quite good at it, very committed to and interested in the procedural aspects of it, and religiously adhere to the safety guidelines. According to FAA rules you cannot have an ADHD diagnosis and be prescribed drugs for it and fly, point blank. I’ve never been officially diagnosed with ADHD, but the FAA reached out and grounded me because I didn’t lie on the medical application and said I’d dealt with depression in the past. Despite the medical examiner clearing me and issuing my certification.
The long, tedious process of trying to be cleared again stressed me out more than flying was fun, and now I’m just sort of in a limbo, after thousands of dollars spent on training.
This is all to say that the process taught me that the stigma around mental illness is alive and well in the USA, and I just don’t want any of it on my medical record anymore. I can deal with it. Mental health support isn’t good enough yet to actually significantly improve my life, or at least it’s never worked well enough for me. So the consequences of having any hint on an official document somewhere of not being 100% mentally stable and content 100% of the time aren’t worth it. Who knows if a new opportunity or new-found passion comes along and I get fucked out of it because I felt sad for a long time and wanted to talk to someone about it, or I wanted some help trying to make my brain work more like everyone else’s. I’ll do what I should’ve done from the start, and suck it up.
Sorry for the rant, definitely more than you were looking for, it’s just been weighing on me.
Holy shit… who hasn’t struggled with depression at some point? I’m so sorry that interfered with your certification. I guess I get why depression is a red flag but it’s just so common, you’d think if you’re cleared by a medical examiner should be enough. And ADD is so common too, but I get why you wouldn’t want it on your record. What a bummer :(
Yeah, it’s a federal agency, and one that’s obsessed with the process of slowly and iteratively improving safety standards. So I understand. It just sucks. 50 years ago mental health wasn’t something the FAA had to think about. Now, so many more prospective pilots have at least something on their record. So they need to catch up. The biggest issue, I think, is that career pilots hide the problems they have in order to keep their jobs. Because they don’t have much of a choice. Suck it up, or jump through a bunch of hoops to seek treatment and still possibly lose your income. Lotta closeted alcoholics in aviation, I’m positive.
I’m going with my inability to think about anything that isn’t currently in range of my senses.
That bill that needs paid, that doctors appointment, the fact that there’s half a gallon of gas in my car, NONE of it exists until I get an email, calendar alert, or I hop in the car and need to be somewhere in 5 minutes.
I have ability to ignore pain, stressful situation and/or things I don’t want , it has helped me immensely but also is a problem when I have to understand people’s nature , what type they are, it also does not help me control my emotions, when I am excited to meet some one, I will just talk truth to them.
I believe it’s kind of like autism, cause I know I should control myself but I really can’t it’s like I am on cliff and falling down but I can’t find the rock to hold onto , I just talk.
Sometimes I feel like I can’t clean up because if I put something away I won’t remember about it anymore. Imagine the chaos.
My desk at work is scattered with sticky notes and scratch paper. If I clear them before they are resolved EVERYTHING would fall apart.
As much as I dislike diagnosing strangers on the internet… this is classic ADHD. The brain doesn’t really form working memory so short-term things just don’t exist unless you see them. Meds help but even still I rely on a lot of those same tools you described. I can’t live without my calendar with everything written down. I have daily alarms for set things in my schedule so I don’t forget. Notes around my workspace that don’t go until the task is 100% resolved. I’ve also learned to organize my house so that as many things as possible are visible. If it’s away in a cabinet then it may as well not be there so I have a ton of nice-looking baskets and things all around for organization. I think the only things in my house that are really tucked away are dishes and cleaning supplies, mostly out of necessity for space/safety. And even those I’ll remember because they a separate task will drive me to need them and seek them out.
I spent years thinking I had a serious memory problem. A partner once said my memory was worse than her ex who had brain damage. I accepted it as just a part of me. Turns out, I have severe ADHD and the Adderall does wonders for my day-to-day functioning.
I think your diagnosis is spot on. A few years ago I decided to learn more about ADHD to help me understand my new stepson, and as I’m reading “Unlike a neurotypical brain, someone with ADHD will…” and I realized that I couldnt relate to the “normal” descriptions at all.
I asked my Doctor about my discovery (nearly 40 years into my life) and he said a lot of people thought they developed mental disorders over the pandemic and since I currently had a job, (he didn’t bother to learn it was my fourth one in the last 6 years) that I seemed “to be doing alright enough”.
Fucking asshole.
Some doctors can be real shitty like that sometimes. The medical community’s understanding of ADHD has really evolved a lot over the past couple decades, but a lot of people are still stuck in the mindset that it’s mostly in kids or that if you’re managing your life then it’s not worth worrying about. The good news is you can bypass them! Typically a good doctor will send you to a therapist for an eval, so you can just find your own to do the test. It usually takes longer to get an appointment, but if you can get with a psychiatrist and not a psychologist you don’t even need to go back to a doc for meds. Psychology today’s website is a pretty good starting point to find someone in your area that focuses on ADHA, and possibly even adults with ADHD. The diagnosis takes some time and often finding the right meds can be a long journey sometimes, but when you find what works it can be life changing.
Not knowing what I want out of life. Including whether to break off the nine-year, kind of dysfunctional relationship I’ve been in (neither option feels good).
I don’t trust anyone. I have a total of two friends.
Heh, one more than me.
The longer I know someone/the closer they are with me, the harder time I have acting like myself around them. It gives me anxiety trying to just act like a normal person, I’m suddenly monotone and so muted people can’t hear me.
My family, most longest/closest friends…it’s like they actually don’t know who I am. And my parents are getting older and I can’t act remotely happy or even awake around them. Been this way my whole life.
Sounds like you need some self love! Don’t beat yourself up if you think someone isn’t going to like you because you’re goofy.
At the end of the day, the people you surround yourself with should be people who love you for who you are, not who you pretend to be.
You’re probably the most normal person in this thread lol
Maybe I didn’t explain myself. The people I should be most comfortable around, i can’t bring myself to talk to them or be myself. But newer friends/girlfriends see me as however I am. But my family, long term partners and oldest friends? Just see me sanded down, zero personality. I feel like that’s the opposite of normal, from everything ive seen. It’s destroyed all of my long term relationships.
Maybe it’s sort of like an addiction to the honeymoon phase? When the excitement wears off, you equate it with the relationship dying. Just guessing.
But my family, long term partners and oldest friends? Just see me sanded down, zero personality
I’m not sure I follow entirely. Is it possible you’re calling the high of adrenaline/new relationship energy “the real you” and once that wears off you’re not “yourself?”
Couldn’t it be that you, like all people, are more outgoing at some times than others? And it’s all the real you?
Holy shit… is there a name for this?? I see myself in your comment
I wish. Because it’d help me get a therapist or help them help me. My old therapist, when I was trying to explain, “the closer I get to someone, the less I can be myself around them,” said something like, “that’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?”
Or it was some shitty, offhand comment like that and then just moved on. Though this is the same guy who, the last time I ever saw him, when I was explaining how sad I felt all the time, how I’d lost all my close friendships because I turned into a shut-in, said “well maybe youre just a melancholy guy.”
I was crying at the time. He never actually helped me with anything. Never pushed me to talk about anything at all except my day to day, like, nothing-important-happened stuff. Fuck that guy.
I do need to find a new therapist, though. I’ve put it off for too long.
I can be insufferably insistent at times. If someone says they’ll do X with me, or for me, I will pester them until they do, “playfully” jabbing at them the longer they don’t do whatever they said.
Honestly doesn’t sound too bad. If I had a friend who both reached out, and then pestered me, I might actually feel valued lol
Small talk. Not sure why but it’s incredibly difficult for me to initiate a small talk or make it flow nicely from one topic to another. It’s a reason i find myself resisting the idea of dating or simply went out to socialise, or even talk to my neighbours. The anxiety always there.
I was at the dentist office around Halloween, and there was an old lady in the waiting room with me. She was a small talker and I learned something from this exchange.
“Oh, don’t their decorations look cute!”
“Yes, I love Halloween!”
“Oh, yes, all the kids in their cute costumes. Do you have children?”
"Yes but they are older now, youngest in high school "
It was like she had practiced for a long time, wasn’t like she was intrusive or pushy, just light conversation, and it is a SKILL not a talent. You can do it. Look around and comment on something. Practice. ETA: you don’t have kids so the dance move would be “No, do you have kids or grandkids?” It can keep going without you sharing, it’s sort of a game I think.
Also find people who don’t need the silence filled, people who like to just sit with you and not talk, not everyone needs that small talk - I think it’s fun but don’t need it, am comfortable with silence too. Just remember it’s a skill you can learn, like cooking. You can even learn to enjoy it if you don’t feel like it’s mandatory.
My inability to both talk to new people, and stop talking once I start. It’s like I have to mentally burst through a brick wall, and then can’t figure out how to stop.
I feel awkward as fuck.
It’s OK to not talk…it is also OK to talk too much
My immediate problem is I have an extremely hard time asking for help, in any context. I think it stems from trust issues. My immediate thought when something needs to be done is “I will do it, or it won’t be done and I will deal with that outcome”, because I think the chances someone else will actually do it when asked, the way I want it done, are pretty low.
Makes you a rock star at work until you break under that expectation you set. Makes for weird relationship dynamics when you help all the time and never ask/expect that it will be reciprocated. It’s just not a great position for fostering healthy interpersonal dynamics in general. I’d argue that it might also sap energy from working towards some things you want done, and are unhappy, deep down, are left undone.
I think there’s even a name for it - helper syndrome or something. It’s a weird “It actually works pretty well, until it doesn’t” position.
Oh hey you’re me? I am working on this with my therapist right now and we’ve been thinking it’s a trauma response from a mix of my mother being a leech, being constantly abandoned as a kid, and the subsequent need for control with a dozen or two little side dishes in there to flesh out the ‘I will never ask for help’ dinner.
It’s difficult for me too sometimes. I was sick so I was trying to figure out who should I ask to bring me some medicine from pharmacy or whether to not ask anyone. Maybe I could go there myself even though I was very sick or maybe I could be without medicine. Finally I asked a friend. I almost didn’t ask her because I didn’t want to bother her and I would’ve hated it if she said no.
My codependency. I completely rely on others for my own validity. If people are busy/don’t want to hang, it really upsets me.
I know it burns out my closest friends. I talk to most of them daily and over analyze the fuck out of our friendship if they get busy/distracted.
I’m honestly lucky I still have the ones I do. I’m also starting my first therapy session on 31 Jan so I don’t lose the people I have in my life.
The fact you’re aware of that is huge! You’re on your way!
Bruh Lemmy is so fucking supportive and wholesome. Thank you!
I will admit tho, it’s taken me until my mid-thirties to hit this point, and there are many relationships from my past that I wish I could have saved. Can’t dwell there though, gotta save the ones I have now and be the best wife I can be for my husband (and the best me I can be for myself!)
I 100% believe you’ve got this. You’re 90% of the way there already. You have identified a problem, determined the source of the problem, determined the problem’s current and probable effects in your lives and the lives of others, identified several solutions, and have a plan in place. All you need is the methodology for solving this problem (which you already have on the calendar).
You’re so close!
ADHD. I blurt shit out. My emotions are about 6 steps ahead of the rest of my brain. Uninteresting things are death. Time is either too fast or too slow. Sitting still for long periods of time is torture
You can make a virtue out of it.
I also can’t sit still. Not even for two minutes. But I have a job at the computer. Requires sitting most of the time.
I think that I’m never going to get spinal disc problems like all the other people who sit all day long. Spinal discs need motion to stay healthy. Trouble comes from sitting motionless.
My spine stays in motion all the time and now I feel good about it.
I’m a complete recluse. My own family never sees me for days on end, because leaving my room for almost any reason gives me extreme anxiety. My parents always fought a lot growing up and it became my safe space to escape from it, but now it’s a problem. They’re divorced, but I still can’t make myself come out more than a few times a week, besides going to work. I always feel ashamed never being able to come out, but the anxiety is paralyzing. My ADHD also makes my life hell, as well as depression.
I’ve recently noticed how often I say “Part of me thinks,” and now it bothers me. I don’t even know when it started, or where it came from.
For example, I’ll say something like: “Part of me thinks I should put a plant on that shelf.”
I noticed this with myself saying things are “concerning” when they’re really just amusing. I also say “Oh, really?” superfluously, way too often. I really should stop noticing these things, for my own good, but at least the initial noticing of them was somewhat fun and interesting.
Angry and frustrated at everything I do,I dont do, could be doing, mix in a good helping of not having done enough of the thing I actually sid
