ADHD, FA, HSP, anxiety, depression

B had ADHD and it was at times difficult to know if he was checking out or hyper focused due to his attachment wounds or his ADHD.  He told me he had been diagnosed as a child….but was homeschooled for many years.  I remember doing a lot of research and found a board (which I now cannot find) with spouses and partners of individuals who had ADHD speaking to how challenging it was…from basic tidiness issues, to time spent on hobbies, concerns about maintaining long term jobs, concerns over addictions etc etc.  There are a lot of good articles if you think you may have ADHD.  There is a also medication….B wasn’t on any medication when I dated him.

I think there is a thread here somewhere, where I’m confused about something, and I think anne12 pointed out that I may be neurodivergent. I don’t know why after all my treatment, diagnoses and therapy it still came as a surprise to me. It was one of those breakthrough moments - confusion/ defensiveness/ lightbulb moments. I don’t usually bring it up in conversation or even my therapy or with my psychiatrist, but having that label applied was truly liberating and really helped. Even though at first I felt shame for whatever reason, it’s helped me see myself more compassionately and also it’s made me see why I get along with a colleague of mine, who is autistic.

Because there we are chatting about nonsense with coworkers, mostly neurotypicals and we are bored out of our minds trying to keep up with the small talk. And we can, we are both bubbly and nice to other people. But once it’s just the two of us the conversations are completely different. We talk about important things and things that are happening in the company, things that are happening with us, software, issues, how to do something better, how to hack something, we are completely transparent with each other and we get each other immediately, we talk in shorthand. These conversations and work is on a completely different level and yes it’s an IQ thing (as arrogant as it sounds) I’m not gonna lie. And honestly we wouldn’t have it any other way, we like our IQs where they are.

Researching ADHD for me is one of several other things I'v looked into in order to try help explain why I'm struggling so badly at life in general. I have always just been able to tell I'm different. And I don't mean in a narcassistic 'I'm special' positive kind of way. I mean in a very unhealthy way. like I don't fit in and I'm somehow inadequate.

At school I was mostly disinterested, despite being told by teachers I had great potential. My report cards would often read things like "Intelligent young man if he could stop daydreaming" etc. But there were one or 2 really specfic subjects which I became hyper focused on. And ended up scoring 100% on all 6 of my papers in one subject. Which had never been done before at the school.

As an adult I can't keep a steady job, can't maintain a relationship, can't even stay in the same country for more than a couple years. I have no property, few savings and no pension. I am estranged from my family, childhood friends, and tend toward isolating myself at least somewhat from humanity at large. I'm also very often confused and lonely in life. And prone to addictions. My memory is also absurdly poor. I'm the sort of guy you'll talk to about one really specific thing and I seem intelligent, eloquent and active. But then small talk, I'm basically a redundant vegetable.

Even before knowing anything about possible ADHD symptoms I was ashamed how clumsy and absent minded I can be. How 'distant' I can be when interacting with people in certain situations, especially LTR's. But then conversely I can notice the exact colour pallete of my date' s eyes the first time we go out from 6 feet away. it's like all or nothing in terms of attention. The same goes for motivation. I have trained for and ran ultra marathons, but feel like crying when it comes to filling out some paperwork. Dual citizens comment about having a narrow band of tolerance really resonated with me. And there is where I tie in the HSP traits.

My boss was laughing at me the other week because I carry a notebook round with me. When she asked me about it I said "if I don't write down the instructions you give me in bullet point I will have forgotten them within 5 minutes of walking out of this room no matter how hard I concentrate. There's too much going on in my head. I can't remember names or dates to save the life of me. I'm ALWAYS late, no matter how organized I seem to be....And then I'm terribly ashamed of that.

Even my message and post history on this forum. I go on some grand theoretical adventure, starting a post or writing to one of you personally. Get wonderful insightful responses. Then mid conversation just start new topics and posts. I have 5 PM's in my inbox unresponded to from posters, some of you guys who I really care about and appreciate conversing with......And I just spent 2 hours writing this unrelated post because it's of more immediate interest to me......sigh....more shame.

Whilst thinking about these things it made me really muse on the possible link between fearful avoidant behaviour. At least as it manifests in me. I realised I havent actually been looking for a relationship all this time. I have just been subconsciously looking for my latest neurochemical fix (but I suppose you could say that about a lot of people). One minute I'm obsesses with someone and act very AP. Shortly after I'm completely turned off by them and can become dismissive and emotionally absent. I get my honeymoon neurochemical hit, said person gets a huge amount of attention from me, then as the neurochemical high wears off, it seems like a chore just to text them back once a day, and this oscillation happens much quicker abd more extreme than the normal graduated extinction of the honeymoon phase. And they end up heartbroken ....The shame of it...😶. I think this thought process may offer some explanation to the sudden and infuriating deactivation of FA's. Especially after a period of emotional closeness.

Now, although I'm aware of feeling these things internally, of course I'm a people pleaser and a martyr so I don't take heed of these feelings. Im an unlikely type to ghost someone, but I bury these feelings for the "good" of the relationship. And to do "right" by my partner. But the disinterest simmers into subconscious deactivating behaviours which eventually erode the relationship.

The main question in terms of improving the potential for a happy LTR then, is how does one allow their brain to reward them for being with one person for the long term? commuting to one thing rather than constantly chasing novelty? Is it even possible for someone with attention problems in today's tinder/Instagram/ millions of opportunity dating environment?

As usual with my posts, I realise how narrow minded I can be when running with a theory. And invite people to poke holes in my thinking.

And I also offer apologies to those people who have sent me wonderfully insightful private messages or posts and are yet to receive a reply. In case I didn't make it clear in this post, I'm terribly ashamed of that..........I will reply eventually.....promise.

My answer to that is, don't be boring so you don't get bored. Figure out how to keep experiencing and learning and doing novel things and challenging yourself to that that are completely unrelated to switching partners. Don't put that on someone else, if you don't want to be bored, then keep finding ways to explore and entertain yourself. And then find someone who shares some of those interests and will go explore with you, or is also curious and interested in learning about different things, and you both pick activities to do together. Then you get the novelty from the interesting life you live together instead of from switching partners and needing them to provide you with the stimulation. There's still a balance, sometimes we have to sit down and work and deal with responsibilities, and it's just part of adulting. And I think you're on to something in exploring you may not be neurotypical if you've struggled with some of that so much. Some of what you're writing does sound like FA and PTSD dissociative responses, but not only would I buy there's other things going on if certain "simpler" things like paperwork can be a struggle, FA and ADD and anxiety and depression and all that have been shown in research to be potential tied together.

It is a bit of a shame you can't afford a therapist right now because I wonder if someone more knowledgeable could assess what may be underlying within you more quickly, keeping the focus narrow enough for you to not tangent tooooo much. There's also such things as processing delays and mood disorders that I know exist and mess with functioning but I don't know much about. But at least wading through it yourself means you'll get thoroughly familiar with all this stuff!

I do wonder why your go to feeling about not completing something is shame? You have nothing to be ashamed about around here. Your process is yours, if you need to jump around, then you need to jump around, no worries.

Just to bring some humor to this post…pen holderness of the holderness family has ADHD and he pokes a bit of fun at himself…

fb.watch/7EDCHOHZ-J/

fb.watch/7EDLmYMb0p/

fb.watch/7EDW276-Rv/

I tend to be pretty unorganized…..and I have some “squirrel type attention span issues….B once suggested I had ADD but I have been checked and I don’t….but I definitely have time management issues in my personal Liffey (because I can get easily overwhelmed)..so I came up with the 1 task a day mentality. Outside of work…I determine 1 task I want to accomplish…could be grocery shopping, could be cleaning an area, could be working on my physical therapy goals. I find that 1 task is manageable and it gives me a sense of accomplishment.