Attachment, AD(H)D, and Confessional Non-fiction · 12:58am Aug 2nd, 2018
There are days that the five minute drive home from work is not long enough. Usually those days have been especially frustrating, emotionally taxing, draining, and/or all of the above. Those are the days that I am highly tempted to drive anywhere but home so that maybe at some point on the drive I can at least pull over somewhere pretty to just sob my eyes out and sit doubled over until my stomach decides to stop hurting. Otherwise I don't want to eat, I don't want to do anything but curl up and hide away from the world for a while.
Today was one of those days.
Normally I try to hold off on having blogs like these until I'm at least emotionally stable enough to put things together, but... to be honest, writing is one of my very few vents that I have. I spend a lot of time trying to be strong for my roommate, my friends, my team at work, my clients that I don't get a lot of times to just... not be strong.
Or maybe it's that I don't give myself a lot of the space to not be. I'm still working that one out.
Realistically though, I've been finding more and more that these blogposts are like long-form, somewhat informative confessional non-fiction pieces for me. I get to write about my crap in this interestingly worded way that hopefully someone finds either interesting or informative to their writing. And I can at least tell myself for a few minutes that the way I presented it was such that it really wasn't burdensome, it was just amusingly worded enough that it was more infotainment than actual emotional vomiting.
To be honest, what often sucks about days like today is that I can't talk about them. I have like, about 8 people I can talk to about it, and honestly I don't want to talk to 7 of them. Those 7 are on my team. The other one is my therapist, but I don't get to start seeing her again till the 16th. My roommate, who inspired Bubblegum in Speak, often tells me that it's not soon enough. I do honestly try to not drive him completely bonkers.
But, luckily, I have lived my life with this amazing superpower where I'm able to use every word in the English language to never get to the point. I know that these blogs often come across in a somewhat rambling, flow-y, and often disjointed mess of ideas that are somehow coherent, and the reason behind that often is my ADHD.
Now, I don't like blaming things on this disorder. To be completely frank, the only reason I own it is to give a bit of context to the rambling, periphrastic manner of speech that I have, the fact that those who have met me have commented that either my leg never stops shaking (and will watch me crumble to pieces in frustration and shame when this is pointed out) or I seem to be constantly about ready to take flight, or the fact that I have this aggravating propensity for absentmindedly picking something up, putting it down later somewhere else, and somehow managing to lose common objects in a 5x5' room without ever having left it. I think that I come across as semi coherent behind the mask of text and written word because 1. my editors are goddess sent to put up with me, and 2. because it requires me to slow the fuck down enough to actually think about what I'm saying before I say it. Mostly. Usually. Almost always.
Except when I don't and then I impulsively speak my mind and end up looking some sort of mix of depressingly naive or endearingly stupid.
Or at least that's what I tell myself. The truth is probably closer to the fact that most folks think I vacillate between being boorishly obtuse or frighteningly oversensitive, but also capable of great empathy. Or at least that's how I'm afraid that I come across. I'm... honestly extremely good at reading emotions and facial expressions and moods of people. I can make amazingly educated guesses about what exactly is causing an individual's brokenness. But give me a group of normal people and I shut down, miss social cues, talk too much, or paradoxically hide in the corner, watching the room around me. Or I frustrate people because I am constantly making eye contact with everyone but the person I am talking to.
And there's a reason behind that. ADHD, or AD(H)D - because not everyone has the hyperactivity component that makes it seem like I am constantly on crack - has a lot of roots in development and attachment trauma. Now, yeah, you could argue that because I'm an attachment therapist I see attachment and developmental trauma, but luckily there's research that has gone into this. There's a strong genetic component as well, but to be real, most of the time disorders are a complex mess of issues. It's development, it's genes, it's environment, it's your parents, it's your school, it's you, and it's not you. I think in the US and many Western cultures we like to play the blame game and find blame for something. If I can blame it on something, I can be held blameless!
Except that's not how the world works. I can express to you that I have ADHD, but I still am expected (and fucking expect myself) to show up to work on time, not make boneheaded mistakes made because I zoned out mid work, and I'm expected to handle my emotions so I don't have childish outbursts when I'm frustrated or presented with a list of instructions that is longer than 2 items long. So when I say that I have ADHD, I'm not looking for an excuse or pity. I'm... explaining that this is what is going on with me, and occasionally I'm going to fuck up. Like the poor person that realised I wrote dildo instead of didn't in one of the chapters of Speak. I'm not sure how to explain that particular mistake, but I do stupid shit like this all the time. It's annoying, but I always hold myself to a high standard to try to prevent it from happening.
But... again, I am getting off topic. I was talking about where ADHD comes from because it has so many roots in attachment and development. There's a super high correlation between anxious and depressed mothers and children with ADHD. (I should probably note that I'm calling it ADHD, but it could be ADD. Just... gets annoying writing both and to be honest I have the hyperactivity component and I'm too lazy to actually change the acronym.) Children who are adopted tend to have higher rates of ADHD than other kids, and if you don't think adoptees have attachment wounds, boy howdy.
I was adopted at about 19 days old. Now, normally, infants use the early 9 months post-birth to continue to develop. Our biological systems are designed so that we can adapt to a new caregiver should our mothers die, but it usually works best if we're allowed to spend time bonding with our birthmothers. I got 2 days with her, then 17 days with a couple of foster families. I don't remember this, of course, but I know this from talking to my adoptive mom about it. Which... isn't to say that my mom was bad. She did what she needed to do. But... as a baby I missed out on those bonding things. I talked about it in another blog a while back about the fact that I didn't want to look at my adoptive mother and she thought it was 'cute', whereas now as a therapist it makes something in my hindbrain rear up and REEE like a particularly irate batpony. This... is sort of what happened a lot in my home. Something would be slightly off, it would be written off as 'cute and precocious things that Heartshine does', when really it was a sign of not good things happening.
Honestly it's part of the reason why I do not understand what the phrase "I love you" means. I learned at a young age not to cop to this because apparently it upsets people? But to be real, I don't get it. Yeah, it was something that was said to me, but it was always said with these fucking rules and regulations and terms and conditions may apply. "I love you" and "I love you unconditionally" were said a lot, but they were always used as tools of manipulation to get me to do what my mom and dad wanted. Actually... scratch that. What my mom wanted me to do, not my dad.
My dad worked a lot, so he played 'sir not appearing in this movie' quite a bit, except to show up like Chevy Chase in the Family Vacation movies that usually meant we got into dangerous shenanigans like nearly dying on a canoe trip or wandering through the backstreets of Nogales on the Mexican side of the border in the tourist off season while several well armed gentlemen who were definitely not with the local police force eyed us hungrily before my mother decided to finally remind him how fucking dumb he was being. He's a great guy, I guess, and a very dedicated physician to his patients. Just... sometimes didn't make the wisest life choices and dragged us along with him.
But... realistically, I tried my best to do what my mom wanted. But that's why I sort of look at people with this puzzled look when they talk about telling each other that they love each other because it's just... something weird people say. To me, it's what my mom would say right after berating me for getting upset at my sister for some childish thing that she did. "Don't be mean to your little sister, words hurt so much. I'm going to put you in time out until you learn." Yes, thank you mother. Take away the parental relationship that I was looking for as a child to alter my behaviour. Never mind that I had anxiously requested help dealing with my sister's frequently disruptive behaviours as a child. Never mind that I would only yell at my sister after she had pushed every single button I had at least five times before I finally snapped.
Honestly, it's why sometimes I get frustrated watching parenting. Not that I can fault parents who are trying to set limits, but there are ways to do it without jeopardizing the attachment relationship. Corporal punishment and time out, however, are not it. Not unless the parent needs the space to collect themselves.
I don't know. I just... I get extremely frustrated with a lot of things. But I spend most of my time trying to not show it. I remember at one point in 8th grade my parents being very confused in a parent teacher conference when my history teacher told them he thought I had an anger problem. Of course, they thought he was nuts, but agreed that I was probably my own worst enemy. Never mind the fact that at the time, I was enduring semi-regular verbal abuse from my mother who was struggling with severe depression, and was informed that my little sister had depression as well, and that because I was the only one home with her, I needed to sit in the kitchen until my mom got home so my sister wouldn't cut herself with the butcher knives. Which usually put me in the line of fire of my mom when she got home from her depressing job that wasn't a teacher (which was her dream), which meant I got unloaded upon. Usually after spending an hour and a half of telling my sister, who didn't want to listen to me, that no, she couldn't get in the knife drawer.
The thing is, like Threnody, I am a consummate liar. Or I like to think myself one. I'm probably terrible at it, to be honest, but I like to think I am because I learned at a young age how to please literally everyone.
Which is why days like these suck.
I have spent most of my life trying to find ways to adapt around problems I have (like the ADHD) in order please everyone (which is literally impossible), that when I try to help someone else who I see with similar attachment wounds as myself, getting rejected by that person and not being able to help them just... just kills me.
Honestly like... I know that the reason the client bugs me so much is that I carry within myself this quiet desperation for meaningful relationships that it makes me super available for my clients, but when that gets rejected outright, I just... Am like "hi attachment trauma, nice to see you today. Kindly fuck off."
So... while this probably wasn't super insightful into how the ADHD mind works... I just... here's my confessional creative non-fiction to try to get the dark thing in the day off of my chest. Maybe now my stomach will stop hurting.
Thanks for pouring out your heart to us anonymous masses. Hope tomorrow is a better day!
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...Was your father Blackjack?
I'm glad that these do seem to be helping; good luck.
Right there with ya. ADHD/ADD is so much fun. Sometimes I think we get lost in our own heads too much. I think being alone isn't as good for us as we think. I don't know.
We each suffer through it differently.
If ya need to talk more just post. I think a lot of us here understand some of what you're going through.
Or you know PM. Sometimes talking with strangers helps.
Thanks for sharing Heartshine, it's always good to let it out sometimes. If we hold things in all out lives, we break down and can't handle it anymore. Just remember; we're always here to listen if you need us.
It's okay. Breathe, Shine. I'm always available to talk if you need it.
Also
I can't write insect half the time. It comes out incest.
I feel all of this so much. Preach till the end of your days, sister, and I will be your choir. Never really thought about ADHD as an attachment disorder, but that totally makes sense... scarily so, even. I'm the biggest hypocrite in the world for saying this but don't be afraid to let go and just melt. Nobody can be strong forever.
eHug
There's so much in here I can identify with too. You're not alone. And thank you for sharing; you've reminded me that I'm not alone too.
These days I can't ever be sure if my ADD was correctly or misdiagnosed (or both!), but there's at least a few things I can identify with here, especially this:
When I get in a situation where people start telling me, you need to do this, this, this, and this, don't forget this, I literally shut down and can't do any of them. My brain... I guess it can't deal with the logistics or something? My brain goes 'there is no fuckin way all this is getting done. People need to prioritize what they want done because I can't do that for them' and then everything gets sabotaged. I start needing space to breathe and digest, and then my productivity tanks as a result.
Also:
Hit me up anytime. I've missed being able to talk to you as often as we used to. I'm still Silver Wing on discord! Sadly I don't really go on IRC anymore. Maybe I should... hmm.
And... I think I might actually share a similar relationship seeking thing, judging by how I tend to always perk up and 'get social' when I meet someone who looks like they share something with me that is something deep and close in my heart. Whether that be my favorite interests, past experiences, what have you. If there's literally anything that I can truly say "I'm the same way" about with someone, it makes me want to get to know them.
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Another guy with ADHD here, and i want to sign under your words.
In fact, i almost never think about it being there. I was diagnosed early in school, which was about 15 years ago. There was time when people around thought that it's not really a disease, just a label to be put on naughty kids. So i kinda striked it out of my mind until recently, when i started to analyse myself. Also haven't seen a doctor for about 7 years already to remind me about it. Russian medical system sucks, so we heal ourselves when we can. Thank you Google!
I haven't thought that there are people who have no trouble with long lists, really. Thought that it's kind of normal. Now that's a revelation.
I wonder if it's hyperactivity that also makes me stronger in a way. I can be very energetic, and very concentrated in achieving a single target when i feel that i really want to achieve it. Just like flying in a tunnel. While it's normal for me, people often see it as kind of a strange feat, since they can't keep pace.
Heh, i built my own house when i was 23, that's still a shock when i tell it most of the time.
To think about, when i was born, there were funny times in our country, you know, USSR falling down. I'm not adopted, but my parents had to work a lot and were in stress for most of my childhood. Maybe that was the reason. But then strangely my younger brother seems not to have same condition as me.
Heart, you're not alone in all this. Don't know if my language barrier will get in the way, but if you want to, we can always try to chat. I'd like that. I feel there is so much in common that i can't stop to empathise. Like reading your posts as always =)
If you ever need me to talk, just let me know.
I see my freedom in visions
Get up to speed of livin'
I superseded defeat
Like a teacher speakin' wisdom
Get down to business
And handle this shit we trample
Everyone just tryin' to manage
But then comes that evil twin a-preachin'...
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Someone showed me this the other day and it makes me giggle far more than it should. XD
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I regularly find myself telling people, "Stop. Write it in an email and send it to me. It does not exist for me unless it's in an email. I won't remember it and you'll have wasted my time and yours." Often they say "Yes, but let me just finish..." and continue anyway. Then I tell them again to write it down.
I don't know if most people have stupidly high expectations of other peoples' memories, or if most people have what would seem to me like superhuman memories. If it's more than 2 things, it needs to be written down. Even if it's 1 thing, and I have to do something else first, it still needs to be written down. And I'll probably forget that I wrote something down anyway, so I won't read it.
Not that writing things down is the magic bullet other people think it is! Questions like "How can you forget to shave?" are regularly followed by "Why don't you just make a list?" I've given up trying to explain that the regular daily activity of any human is too complex and variable to manage with lists. I'd have so many lists that I'd need a list of lists. If a list involves doing things in multiple locations, I'd have to take the list along with me as I move about, and then either I'd lose it along the way or forget to look at it again. If I could remember to read the lists, I wouldn't need the lists.
I have a strange inability to form routines. Like: get up, shave, take pills, shower, get dressed, eat, brush teeth. After decades you'd think I could manage to remember all these and do them in the same order, but I can't. I have to reason out the order de novo each time.
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I made lists once. Then I lost the list. Despite not moving from the kitchen table where I made the list. I still had the pad of paper I wrote the list on. Just the list is gone.
This happens. All. The. Time.
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For me it's not a matter of memory, but of logistics. I start freaking out about my ability to complete the list if it's too big, and that makes it even less likely for me to be able to concentrate on completing even one part of it. Whereas if you give me one task, I can complete it with great efficiency.
4917078 How about memory in general?
I have some memory deficits that I've been able to identify specifically:
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So my first question with some of those symptoms that you just gave me was 'do you have a history of head injuries?' I ask that because a few of those can be developmentally linked to one another, others explained by the typical distractability of disorders like ADHD, but some of them have me scratching my head.
Starting from the bottom, the thing that struck me was that you mentioned that you have what sounds like 'face blindness' or prosopagnosia. It's also interesting because the only other person I've met with it is in the brony community. Prosopagnosia is usually either acquired from a head injury, or it is congential. It can make it really difficult to remember faces. Which, in the case of my friend, made our first interaction after meeting at EFNW hilarious as I was like 'you don't remember me', and he was all 'nope, but I am bad with faces.' Which did a little bit to at least soften the ego blow of not being memorable despite being one of the few females that hung out in the writer's room all con. XD
Names and Numbers tend to be a little more related to attention difficulties. I share that issue. I can't remember names of ED docs to save my life, which can get highly embarrassing when I can give you all the info on a client they are seeing, but I just know the doc is the doc by face alone. Same thing with numbers. Unless it is the registry number for a random ship from Star Trek, numbers go in my ear and out the other. It took me about 4 years to memories my SSN, and it was a source of constant frustration as a child for friends of parents that I didn't know my own phone number or street address.
One of the more common complaints I have seen with others is the time issues. Like, if it weren't for the fact that I HATE being late to things, I would be constantly running behind. And... to be honest, it's not unusual for me to be at least 5 minutes late to work, no matter how much I've planned around it. I'd honestly have to look up again what causes that, but it has something to do with the fact that, developmentally, folks who have ADHD and some forms of other developmental disorders don't develop a sense of time correctly. I can know that I have a meeting in like, say 24 minutes. But I also could probably spend 45 minutes typing up a response if it weren't for the fact that I've compensated by a lack of temporal awareness by constantly clock checking. So that sort of memory gapping is sort of 'normal', but also tends to be related to attention and underactivation of the prefrontal cortex. It's also linked to the reasons why like, if I have a project due 4 months from now, it will be completed the night before because it was 'in the future' and 'not now'. It's horribly frustrating, as it's something that normally we grow out of as kids. But with certain developmental disorders, that... part of the brain never develops fully.
I'm not sure what to make of the routines thing, other than to mirror you and note that I struggle with that as well. It's probably the same reason why every diet i've tried has failed, and I can't seem to remember to actually walk some days. Even though I try to do it every day. At around the same time. ^^;
The blank spots in memory can be explained in one of two ways: either your brain decided that was not necessary information, and during the normal neuronal pruning process decided to dump those memories like an overly aggressive disk defragmentation process, or you were checked out.
The famous ADHD check out is really a form of dissociation, which means that we really aren't there for the conversation. Well, physically we are, but mentally we're usually somewhere else. This usually shows up during times of stress or pain. The system itself is actually normally engaged in order to help us survive in dangerous situations where we need to ignore pain in order to save ourselves. The example that is frequently given is someone skiing alone can break their leg and try to hobble down the mountain to prevent themselves from freezing to death. They know they're in pain, but they'll check out from it in order to survive.
Well, that process gets activated at a young age with folks with attention difficulties, and unfortunately is usually why we're sometimes considered to be 'space cadets' as kids.
I personally find that amusing because when I check out, I'm frequently daydreaming about some sci-fi universe or anotherUnfortunately, it also means that we're not connected enough to reality that our already under-developed hypocampus is not registering that we need to keep that information and commit it to memory.Typically, this shows up during times of stress. For example, I don't have a lot of memory from Monday because I know that I checked out around 10-ish because of something that happened at work. We ended up getting into this extremely frustrating debate about the processes and paperwork involved with civilly committing someone to the hospital, and, to be honest, if something has more than 4 steps, I end up screaming internally with frustration. I got to the point that I wanted to scream at my boss "JUST TELL ME YES, NO, OR I DON'T KNOW I'LL ASK!", but given that it's considered unwise to do so in polite, adult society, I didn't. So instead I kind of checked out as he did his normal rambling lecture-style talking out of the process, but as a consequence, I don't remember most of the morning. Like, at all. I'm aware that Monday morning existed, and I am pretty sure I made follow up phone calls. Actually, chart notes indicate that I did. But for the life of me I can't remember what it was.
Not to say those are the exclusive causes of these issues, but from my perspective and from the context of what this blog/rant was about, I'm answering that it may be caused by those things. That said, I don't have eyes on you personally, and I am unfortunately very good
and also bad attaking very little information and extrapolating conclusions or possibilities from it. So... I have no idea if that was actually helpful or if I just wrote up about 1k words of babbling this morning.Tbh I'm just dumb enough to do that on some days when coffee is not sufficient.
4917205 No history of head injuries. If I have prosopagnosia, it's a mild case, and I'm not aware that it's the kind of disease that has mild cases. The cases I've heard of have been spectacular ones.
I have made some pretty spectacular memory fails, though, like the time I had a break-up talk with a woman who was not in fact the woman I was dating at the time. I did know her and recognized her face; I just mistakenly mapped it to the wrong person... I'm not normally that bad. A couple of weeks ago, I didn't recognize a woman who I've spent hours with several days a week for the past 4 years until she spoke and I heard her voice.
For me, part of the problem is that I know that any time I head out the door, there's maybe a 1 in 4 chance that I've forgotten some critical thing I'm supposed to take with me and will have to come back for it. So I go back into the house at the last minute and search it looking for anything unusual that I might need to take with me. And I have a hard time remembering what I've already searched, so maybe then I go back in and do it again.
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I have some memory issues, mostly related to aging, but mostly my problem is exactly the opposite: I remember things too well, and have a hard time getting past bad memories since they recur so vividly (so do the good ones, but that doesn't make it easier to deal with the bad), and I have a hard time breaking out of routines. I like to break routines, but doing so I inevitably encounter anxiety issues when I do. I have to plan things out thoroughly and have a hard time coping if the plans are disrupted too much.
Part of the reason that I identified with Twilight Sparkle so closely when I first started watching MLP (pre-princess Twilight is still my favorite character). I generally react either by becoming panicky, or by abandoning everything and retreating into unproductive indolence. I can't do what I had planned, so I do nothing but sit and entertain myself with something mindless (playing simple casual games while listening to music or watching TV, mostly).
Hell, just transitioning from weekday to weekend is a minor anxiety trigger, because I'm no longer in my work routine. I even have difficulty going to bed, because it's not part of my work routine, being that I spend the majority of my waking time at work, that's pretty much defined my life routine.
Being on the Autistic spectrum likely has quite a lot to do with that.
When I do have a failure of memory, even small lapses feel devastating, and can cause gross overreactions. My poor wife has to put up with these on a fairly regular basis.
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There's a lot of fascinating overlap then like... complete opposites for ASD and ADHD. I think my favourite part was working with someone with ASD, and sitting there like "THE FOREST OF YOUR LIFE IS ON FIRE!" but they were hyperfocussed on the tiniest vein in a leaf on one tree. It was... frustrating, but kind of neat trying to work around that particular barrier.