Living with ADHD is not always easy!
Me and my life with ADHD | chaos, chaos, chaos!
I am a mother of two and 32 years old. I have a good job as a social worker, counselling families. As an outpatient worker, I am on the road a lot and in my car I always make some phone calls, look outside, and drive way too fast, park my car somewhere, get a parking ticket but when I arrive I am too late and have a fine. When someone tells me we have to turn right I always look at my writing hand. I am also happy with spell check on phones, computers etc.
My car is a mess, my workplace is a mess, my bag is a mess? During conversations, I regularly blurt something out; I am confrontational but do not judge. At the office, I talk a little here, a little there and my administration time also flies by. If meetings take too long, I get restless and start wobbling, have to go to the loo or want to get to the point! I don't like wasting my time.... I make a lot of jokes, am very quick and I am not easily talked down to! I am enthusiastic and have many interests, if something needs to be done, a training course, coaching a trainee, implementing a methodology, they come to me. I am always enthusiastic and know how to get things done. Sometimes I leave a whole coffee trail because I always spill and mess. Colleagues find me fun, driven and passionate and sometimes a bit crazy but definitely not boring. Clients find me reliable, funny, human, committed and honest. They accept my lateness and chaoticness because I discuss it. I go 100 no 1000 per cent for my families and they know it.
I also go for my friends, I need variety, need to be able to go crazy with people and have a good time, climbing into things and shitting on everything. I need to feel alive! So far, nothing wrong. These are bits of ADHD which I just knew belonged to me and I had deployed it as skills.
But so for six months now, I've known that I have ADHD and many pieces are falling into place....
Because since I have a family with two children, I have been running into my own chaos and over-stimulation. More and more and more and with some deaths added, I suddenly found myself at home overworked.
I live like a spear and experience my emotions intensely. I can feel terribly excited, down, soulful. But home was the place for me to land. To clean up the chaos around me and in my head? I don't clean up spot by spot but the whole house at once, everywhere and at once. I put on music and go with it, removing all stimuli to create chaos again from zero point. I do home the way it feels, I wake up when I want, go to sleep when I want, eat when I want. IK pound myself all over the garden, lose track of time and unwind. I have hundreds of ideas, some I start up and get totally absorbed in and some I release just as quickly.
But now that I have children, I have to follow their structure, they have no room for me to spend a whole day running around in the garden. And tidying up the whole house doesn't work so well either. Constantly there are things, stimuli, noises and others to consider. I get stuck I have to go to bed on time, get up on time, feed the children and that takes a lot of effort. Besides, I have my husband who I have to work with and who asks me what my plans are. *&^$* short-circuits because me head is too full. Still have to go to the shop, to the library, kids to school, call agencies, pay bills?
Well and so then you run into yourself and your own chaos and the other people around me against me. My daughter is also so busy, doesn't sit still, talks a lot and doesn't have the patience to listen, and reacts immediately to stimuli. A light gradually went on for me and during my overstrain I asked for an ADHD test and indeed everything fell into place.
Why structure is so important, why routine is so important, why making choices and taking knots is so important, how important lists for me, how important goals are to me because that's what I hold on to? Yes I still have a lot to do!!!
I am finally learning to cook, am still a fun and crazy person!
Karin.
Want to respond to Karin's story? Then be sure to let us hear from you in the comments below....
In 1 word.... Hilarious! Recognisable!
Tjah it's not easy to have ADHD but what qualities we have. Spontaneous, creative, solution-oriented, funny, a dose of self-mockery, working under pressure... All fine, until the bucket is full. Then it's bad. But it always works out, you learn from it.
And so it is Tamara!
How recognisable.... pffff
I am also a family worker for a neighbourhood team! Plus 2 other jobs on the side to kill time and 10,000 hobbies :)
omg i totally recognise myself in your story, where can i do such a test? And if it turns out that you have it, what should you actually do with that result...seek help, learn to live with it, medication, what are you doing about it now that you know you have it?
Hi hi,
The question is to what extent does it bother you? I started taking a test because I was stuck. It's enlightening to know what's going on, it gives language...For myself and my partner...Although a diagnosis is also confronting...Suddenly you have a diagnosis and how easy I think about it myself for some you suddenly have something anyway. In addition, I am now much more aware of what I do and sometimes manage to avoid certain agitations. I take lto 3 and this does something. Furthermore, I do watch my diet but I already did that...lots of vitamins ed and no products with e numbers ed.... I try to go to bed early and get up early so that I am awake before the house wakes up...then I still have an hour to myself. I try to dose resting and seeking stimuli and tension much better.
Hope it's of some use to you
How well written and described
it's like it's about me
From start to finish
Hai
How funny, this story of yours, looks exactly like mine.
Of course nIet everything, but a lot of it.
Funny.
I always feel touched by stories like this. I myself was once diagnosed with ADHD. It turned my life upside down. However, when I found out that you can better manage most symptoms with nutrition, a world opened up for me. I got in touch with a Flemish man who alerted me to the term 'exorphins'. Now I eat virtually exorphin-free and am also virtually ADHD-free. In fact, I now coach people on nutrition and lifestyle in relation to ADHD.
Incredibly recognisable.
Also worked in (youth) services and found out at 31 that I have ADHD. Found that my strength is sometimes my weakness. Suck everything up more intensely than most people around me. Had a son at 26 and realised that my running and multitasking (sometimes it seemed like chaos to others in which I saw order) was sometimes a bit intense for my son. Got overworked and needed to give things from the past a place and asked for a diagnostic test. Wanted to offer my son more peace, cleanliness and regularity (a more stable me?!). When I was diagnosed with ADHD, I suddenly understood so much more about myself. But also lost a bit of myself. I thrived on my ADHD. My hyperfocus on college caused good results. My ADHD caused me to take over other people's work and sometimes study until three in the morning to perfect the group assignment on my own. After all, everything has to be as perfect as possible. To have some kind of "control" over my ADHD, my coping is that there must be order at home, assignments must be done as well as possible and I am rarely satisfied with that neatness because it could have been even more precise and perfect.
This was just me. But there appeared to be a diagnosis behind it.
Structure is important. But there should also be room for unexpected things and change of schedule.
I almost always arrived late. Now, after several years of therapy, I have managed to learn to be on time. Or at least to let people know I'm going to be late ;)
People who find me fun and active and enterprising and sweet and crazy. I want to keep that Jasmin. But I also don't want to suck everything up anymore, not let things lying around determine my day. Because I myself notice that, because of my ADHD, I don't rest enough and my emotions go in all directions too much. Which can be incredibly tiring.
And while I'm at it, I want you to be able to ask me something too without getting overexcited.
This goes with ups and downs.
I now have two children and they provide me with a different kind of peace of mind. And that I am more aware of my own behaviour and the effect on others.
I do take 3 times 10mg of ritalin three times a day. And I'm fortunately still really Jasmin but a bit nicer to myself and things can also be done tomorrow or even by someone else. (Still difficult, but I feel less responsible).
Are you taking medication?
Greetings Jasmin
Gosh Jasmin, what recognition in what you write exactly me! Also 26 my first child and done great in college.
I don't take any medication.... Don't you dare... Only have lto3.... Indeed control and perfectionist others think the mess is not too bad but I am running into it.
Hi Jasmin...
I'd like to add you on Fb... Got news avid after the similarities. If you like it you can add me see Karin Jurriaans
It sounds familiar to me as a mother of five as I have three such children where the second eldest has more than add I recognise my eldest in your story and that is a girl of 13.Glad to have read your story gives me as a mum a bit of strength again
Hi Evelien,
I hope your daughter will like herself as much as I like myself! And of course, what saves again is that you already know and can anticipate it. As long as you never lose sight of what a strength and power and fantastic traits come right along with it. As you read, I have accpeted myself as I was and have come very far with that. Now it's up to me to pick up the last bits to make my levn a little finer.
Beautifully said Karin!
ADD/ADHD has super good qualities that you can actually achieve so much with. It is certainly not always easy but, as you say, with acceptance you will eventually get there! And to get to that powerful/powerful/fantastic ADHD traits :D into it. Here you can read 10 of those benefits of ADD and ADHD > http://www.addkenmerken.net/10-voordelen-van-add-en-adhd/
Thanks for your story Karin, super nicely written and you can see how nice this is for people. What a recognition!
Hi Jochem, Also recognise myself in all the positives and it is my strength. Probably these very qualities made it all work out just fine! I am still appreciated for these skills and am good at what I do. It certainly compensates at work for the other " inconveniences".
That's also why it took me so long to realise that I might have adhd. And that others say, you and adhd.... Because I am well-educated and very calm during interesting one-on-one conversations. It was precisely my hyperfocus that made me pass my studies and I still devour books. Indeed very nice to read all those reactions. Very special
Hi all...
I am a 49-year-old woman and have known since 3 years that I have adhd..today my daughter was diagnosed with add.
I just laughed heartily at Ellen's piece...it goes the same way here at home too.
Having 4e we are finding our way in the world called "being different ". I am beginning to wonder if gradually those who consider themselves normal...are not the "other are!!!!
I am so incredibly happy with that huge sticker on my forehead adhd'er
Cried cried and cried again for understanding myself finally I understood how it was and how hard I always had it,in my youth
And how incredibly nice I am!!!!
Top colleagues saying ..oh that's really on his Sandra again
A family where we laugh a lot and talk about everything.
When yet another one screams through the house in full panic in the morning that his or her bike has been stolen!!!
After which comes a message in the afternoon "Oh no it's still in town " the forgotten one
Invariably arriving late because 4 men need to shower and change clothes but have no clue about timekeeping...and so everyone around us puts in a Brabant half-hour.
I opted for medication..with concerta I experienced how it so "Can be!!!!!!
Energy again instead of being keilapot every few days...sleep...1 thought or two instead of 3 televisions and 6 radios in my head on full blast and all on a different channel.!!!!!!
Unfortunately allergic to that but together with treasures of people from psy-q found others..to manage the chaos a little better.
Now I am who I am....
I am sandra with ADHD...I am sweet supersocial happy with my job with demented elderly people .impulsive and creative
And also like the alone ...this afternoon instead of cleaning and tidying, go for a walk in the woods with friend and dog...allow myself moments of rest now.
Because I have earned it.!!!!!!
It sounds familiar to me. I rather experience myself as highly sensitive. In periods of stress and too much stimuli, it resembles ADD/HD. After a lot of self-study, I honestly think that all AD/HDers are highly sensitive and their brains get overloaded quickly. Neurons are over-stimulated so emotions and concentration regulation are no longer filtered properly. Everything comes in, resulting in chaos inside and out. Some people become restless because of this chaos in the head, others become paralysed and passive, more the ADD type. Neurofeedback, mindfulness or good coaching can bring some balance back into life.