Some times referred to as paradox, i really think other things are at work for me in my experience of ADHD.

I need structure and i need an escape mechanism.

It seems society will only let me have one or the other, not both!

So i get myself into a setting where I have the "freedom" I need, and i loose all the structure i need!

If I get into the structure I need, there is no freedom!

So i oscillate between settings... when all the while i know that what I need is BOTH, not either.

David

Perhaps as you get comfortable with one you start to long for the other - perception at play - not reality.

I know exactly what you mean, yet i dont have a job.
Being a SAHM i get both situations in turn. In term time i have structure, what with taking kids to school and clubs and swimming and all that kind of stuff. I spend the whole term looking forward to the holidays because i am not bound by their timetable.

Then five minutes into the holidays i am wishing for the structure. My hubby says "well make a holiday timetable" and i laugh. I have never in my whole life been able to creat a schedule on my own for me or the family.
I just flounded about spend too much time hyper focused on some stupid thing and then have huge battles with attention needy children.

I have never been great with jobs (not any i tried anyway) but always feal a yearning for that kind of structure and know that, while my free spirit would hate being trapped like that, i tend to be higher functioning when confined to a timetable.

Originally posted by why
Perhaps as you get comfortable with one you start to long for the other - perception at play - not reality.

I would have said so if that were the case.

This is my opportunity to reiterate:

I say "literally" what I need to succeed, and instead, I get arguments over the facts and assumptions of my statement.


I get to the point that I cannot "bear"

(I had to look up "tolerate" to see how to spell "bear" and not be meaning the furry animal!)

the restrictions and monotony of structure.

In the absence of "lack of structure" that I create for myself, I get unhitched from all normal cycles, and miss every "restart" mechanism built into a normal life. I end up doing "nothing" productive.

These are measurable, detectible items, not "misperceptions!"

Thank you very much. (Said like Elvis)

Ok.

So here i am. I even rewrote part of that post to make it "softer."

It still is a real put off, isn't it?

So it is stil more brutal than I wish since i really want interaction and even the expression of ideas not my own and in contradiction to them.

But i am also really ticked with a particular pattern that keeps circling my experience. SSDD.

I don't "blame" Why, but who else is there ready at hand to shoot for this?

Why, my past experience is not YOUR fault. I just honestly don't think it is honest to respond to the present without inclusion of my past, and once I do include my past, then what?

Argh (said to self)

You know what i think (I'm gonna be blunt so just scroll through if you dont want to hear it) .

When i have no comitments i just cant myself up in the morning. I lie there trying to pretend i am asleep getting more and more frustrated about the mess and fighting i can hear from my children. Untill at last i almost fall out of bed and throw on some clothes as i just cant get the energy or will for a shower. Then grouch my way through the few jobs i absolutly have to do and then sit at the pc and try hard to forget the world exists.
I could slouch my way through a whole day sometimes and get absolutly nothing done at all, not even cook a meal.
I can see all the work around me that needs to be done.

If i am forced to comply to a routine i absolutly hate and loath every single step of the job. I take my frustration and anger out on those around me and then use my unreasonable behavour to beat myself with.

That is a state of mind!!!!! Sadly i lived like this for years, till Concerta. Even now i have this kind of problem sometimes.

I havent actually had a paid job for nearly 4 years now because the whole getting to work and being at work thing is almost enough to drive me to suicide.

You have a job and you go to work and that in itself is a victory over this problem. My hat is off to you for managing it. I get a pain in my chest at the mere thought of a job.

Maybe one day you will find a job that gives you freedom and constraint. I cant actually think of any job that would accomodate that. Most jobs either provide the structure and cage me in, or give me free reign and then I would flounder.

Are you sure that you are the best "judge" of what it is that you need to succeed or for that matter to determine what is "success"? If what you're saying is that you don't "feel" like you've success then this is a different animal all together and in this case I don't know what would help you... There are multi-millionaires out there who don't have enough. There are "serial monogamists" who can never find love. There are people for whom "enough" doesn't exist. Perhaps, you should stop being so committed to the outcome of a thing and just see what comes... success is meaningless to someone whose goal is the "journey" and not the "destination".

P.S. as for the message - I read nothing in it other than a correction of my "misconception". Which, in itself, illustrates that what you saw as a "real put off" was in fact that, which you intended in the first place. You saw failure when there wasn't any...

Capri,
You just described my weekend.
And to add to it, I felt guilty the whole time while doing nothing, yet my need to do nothing was overwhelming.

Originally posted by why
Are you sure that you are the best "judge" of what it is that you need to succeed or for that matter to determine what is "success"? If what you're saying is that you don't "feel" like you've success then this is a different animal all together and in this case I don't know what would help you... There are multi-millionaires out there who don't have enough. There are "serial monogamists" who can never find love. There are people for whom "enough" doesn't exist. Perhaps, you should stop being so committed to the outcome of a thing and just see what comes... success is meaningless to someone whose goal is the "journey" and not the "destination".

P.S. as for the message - I read nothing in it other than a correction of my "misconception". Which, in itself, illustrates that what you saw as a "real put off" was in fact that, which you intended in the first place. You saw failure when there wasn't any...

I think I understand that you were not put off by what I said in my statement. If not i am glad. Let me tell you. I interact with people who are offend for no reason i can tell, and who are not.. I am lost there and simply accept it and apologize when I get intense and can remember, because being intense is an affront to many. So i hope i understand correctly that you were not "put off."


Why, my strongest tested feature is my ability to take disjoint pieces and put them into the shape they made before they were torn asunder.

If I were running under "feeling" I'd be susceptible to your analysis of feeling and admit it.

But working with objective elements is my strength, and it matters little to me whether i am the object of scrutiny or someone else. I am very analytical and "detached" in that way, and very engaged in the pursuit of the completed picture.

My original statement is very much more like the inferences drawn from sub atomic particle bubble chamber paths, and much less from "soft data" like what i think I'd 'like."

In fact, "what I think I'd like" is the unstructured polar opposite that gets me in trouble. Any thing you've said would be appropriate to my defense of that state. But not for the recognition of the need for the synthesis of the two to obtain a working and functioning balance.

Am I the best judge of what I need to succeed? In fact, yes. but only because when others ejaculate their characterizations at me in the intensity of frustration of their attempts, i don't pass out from the experience, but stay with it and remember what they said and that it was actually accurate, as far as it went. That ""survival" of the blast or eruption or what ever, gives me more valid information to work with than the people who generate it and then discount it because they were "excited" when they said it, and it doesn't fit in normal patterns. I don't fit in normal patterns either...

I "feel" discouraged that I have to fight so hard to have myself heard, when I have already explicitly SAID what I need.

I continue in this otherwise pathological conversation because it isn't the first time for me, it is the millionth, and I am sure others have been here too, and I am hoping that someone observing will add the tiny element that is a missing piece that makes it go!

Again, i am genuinely thankful that you continue to be genuine to your understanding and position, and I appreciate your willingness to be public about your participation.

You are, however, on the wrong footing exploring my "feelings" or even "analysis" I think. I think the best use of effort in this situation is to attempt to enunciate how to achieve "both" instead of one or the other.

But, alas, that is my opinion. :)

I am particularly paused by your statement:
'Perhaps, you should stop being so committed to the outcome of a thing and just see what comes... success is meaningless to someone whose goal is the "journey" and not the "destination". '

I hold that that is truer than many other statements, for most of life's situations.

When I was first born I was rapidly frustrated. As my mother told the story, she put me to her breast to nurse and I did my part and no milk came. There were many reasons, not the least of which people present that made her tense. eventually, I made little new born fists and arched off the nipple, and squealed and dove back on the nipple and worked like crazy. This had been going on for some time, and she cried, splashing me with her tears.

Being laid back is optional for survival. Getting milk is required for survival.

I'm not arguing that being laid back isn't the better way to be when one can chose.

I'm not saying there is only one way to get milk.

By analogy, I'm saying "I need milk, and this is what milk is."

And rather than an argument about what milk is, or whether I need it, I'd like help getting it.

And rather than an argument about what milk is, or whether I need it, I'd like help getting it.

Now I understand you! Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that if in my efforts to get at the milk - something, anything else comes my way that sustains me then that is success.

Sometime ago we had a conversation (re ADD of course)where you or I said something to the effect that to move forward one have to stop trying as our efforts or "thrashing" is the main impediment. I took that advice. It has bourne fruit. It isn't a fix-all but things are better today than yesterday and that's ok by me.

By the way if neither milk nor anything else has come my way then natural selection has made a choice and I wasn't it. I'm ok with that too.

Yep.

Well I want structure with an escape hatch.

I got close when i had some time that was heavily scheduled, and some time that wasn't.

It is just hard for me to arrange that for myself some how.