very odd question...regarding the mind

[kat_77]

Does anyone every feel like they have a split mind. Not sure how to form this thought for a post....

Kind of like your rational mind knows you are smart, or feels a certain way but your emotional mind disagrees. This is also extremely difficult to explain to a NT.

Self esteem is a good example.....I know I am smart, and caring in my intent but my emotional mind at times says I can'taccomplish anything and/or I am not caring enough.


Personal example.....I have wanted to go to college forever, my rational mind knows how to handle it and what to do.....my emotional mind worries and stops me from acting. Trying to explain this to my husband always makes me sound like I am crazy. (Since diagnosis, this is a goal of mine)

This aspect of my mind plays a roll in confrontations and near every part of my life.

I am really hoping someone here understands because this is an aspect of my mind that I normally hide because I can't explain it well and when I try I seem crazy.

[mimes74]

I do. I often feel like I can't do college or care. I feel like i'm passive aggressive. I am in a cloud of emotions too.

[Gilthranon]

OP - yes absolutely. Often feel like two different people in me. Then again I have an uncommon brain-function combination (left front and right back) making me indeed both intellectual AND emotional/creative. I sometimes tend to look at each subject from at least two different (if not complete oppositional) points of views and this often makes it difficult for others to understand, or for me to follow through with principles or an attitude/decision, because I think in multiple ways on the same subject.

[Fionagrape]

Sounds like ADD if you think of how we develop a fractured self image. For example, if people ask me "how do you see yourself?" and I have no answer, because in some situations I'm a grown up, in others I'm like a child. I feel good enough in some instances, and retarded in others. I never know when I'm going to make an *** of myself, because I'm not aware of the parameters of my disability. (have you read Sorri Soldens book-about women and ADD?)

[Am I? I Am]

Originally Posted by Fionagrape

if people ask me "how do you see yourself?" and I have no answer,

Oh I dread that question, especially in job interviews and meeting new people. You put it perfectly and now I understand why. My life has been one huge puzzle of totally different sceneries all together. One piece can fit in many different places, but doesn't necessarily make sense.

[daveddd]

I'm definitely fragmented

i feel adhd is definitely the axis 1 version of the disordered self

http://books.google.com/books?id=CjN...20self&f=false

[Drogheda]

human/lizard mind.

it's one of the primary causes of Anxiety, the two are not aligned.

[eclectic beagle]

Instant gratification now, life shattering consequences later. It sounds so sweet in the moment.

[kat_77]

Originally Posted by Shockwaeve

OP - yes absolutely. Often feel like two different people in me. Then again I have an uncommon brain-function combination (left front and right back) making me indeed both intellectual AND emotional/creative. I sometimes tend to look at each subject from at least two different (if not complete oppositional) points of views and this often makes it difficult for others to understand, or for me to follow through with principles or an attitude/decision, because I think in multiple ways on the same subject.

I loved how you explained this. I am also extremely analytical/logical and at the same time creative/emotional. On subjects with multiple points of view such as current events, politics, social issues....I will have my view but at the same time can argue either side of an issue.....sometimes if it is a topic that I don't have a strong personal opinion on, I can actually argue both sides so well that I confuse myself as to what my original stance was. My husband jokes that the only one that could win a debate against me is myself.


Fionagrape

I have not read that book, but will add it to my list. Thank you

[HADDaball]

I can relate.

I wouldn't say split but there seems to be different parts dominating at different times.

I guess its human experience.

[Tmoney]

No question about it. We do have the intelligence to get through difficult tasks and to tackle confrontation and difficulty, but then the emotion interferes and anxiety is created and before you know it we have convinced ourselves that we can't do it or that it isn't worth the struggle.

In my opinion NT people feel the same way but they take the risk and jump in and fight. They conquer the anxiety and fear and although some may fail, most of them succeed.

We look at them and think, "how nice would it be to be more like them" When really they feel the same feelings we do, but they move forward regardless of the obstacle.

I know with me I have the "make a mountain out of a mole hill" syndrome.

I alway make things worse in my mind then they may ever be in real life. The problem with this is more times I talk myself out of taking chances and risks outside my comfort zone, ie.. isolating myself which can be more damaging then helpful.

That's why I always tell people just starting out with medication not to think once you take the pill it just transforms into this productive confident person. It doesn't work that way.

The medicine only helps assist us in getting into the right mind frame so that we can start making better decisions during these difficult and challenging times in our life. even with something as simple as completing a task.

You still need discipline and structure, you still need to force yourself to do things you don't necessarily want to do, and you still have to take leaps of faith every now and then!

Don't let that negative scared person take over the other confident smart person. That's why people see me talking to myself. I"m arguing with that other person inside. I'm telling him to sit down and shut up!

I know, I'm working on it!

"This who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music!" ~George Carlin

[someothertime]

Your phrase it very well... i call it duality / contradictions sometimes....

I belive the medico's put these things down to recall / set switching or something like that....

Driving home today ( very confronting day at college - teacher said he was going to have to take 30% off my drawing for being late and i poured out my heart in front of the class... how much effort i'm puting into it.... it's really hard cause it's an exacting thing etc. etc. )

So driving home I said to myself..... I'm missing the middle..... concept -> CHECK end -> CHECK..... middle....... ( scribbles with 50 crayons on a newspaper ).......

Back to your point tho' it seems the multitude of this phenomenon across ones "outputting"...... social, tasks, etc. etc....... this...... i think really, REALLY compounds definition / abatement.......

I can see how to make small advances with minor parts of these things in isolation....... i have even began to accept a few ( social moslty ) that i can become comfortable and not see so much as some sort of deficiencey anymore to a large extent......

So, in answer to your question.... yes, yes, yes........ two, almost concurrently..... constantly arm wrestling or switching places when the other one needs to be there......

[Pentax]

Originally Posted by Tmoney

No question about it. We do have the intelligence to get through difficult tasks and to tackle confrontation and difficulty, but then the emotion interferes and anxiety is created and before you know it we have convinced ourselves that we can't do it or that it isn't worth the struggle.

In my opinion NT people feel the same way but they take the risk and jump in and fight. They conquer the anxiety and fear and although some may fail, most of them succeed.

We look at them and think, "how nice would it be to be more like them" When really they feel the same feelings we do, but they move forward regardless of the obstacle.

...I wish we non ADHD people did...

I can vouch that we have intelligence and feelings switched on all the time. We don't get the mind flood from new attention challenges coming in that you do. That affects our feelings management

As I was reading remarks here about being able to observe the mind thinking while observe the feelings feeling, a couple of posters reminded me of William James' claim from listening to different people, made at the beginning of the twentieth century that people fall into the once born, who perceive that they live in a world that makes sense and seems to them to hang together and be familiar to them, and the twice born, which until that second mental birth of re-understanding, live in a situation of dissatisfaction and knowing that you don't fit in with people around you, knowing that their ways, and even the physical world are strange to you and don't suit you, that somehow there are other possibilities, now beyond your grasp.

I can vouch from my own life, and from knowing lots of so called NTs over time that there are plenty of us who are twice borners. Some of us "NT" twice borners never have that second birth of insight into a new grasp of our intensely ironic lives, that allows us to live with less stress and more confidence that we know what's going on in ourself and what's around us.

Living with an intense thought world that is in tension with an intense emotional world is one of the ironies of the twice born, whether or not she's been able to break through to new understanding and so more effective and peaceable interaction with life. Meaning that the tensions and ironies persist, you just make your way better, living with them, because you act based on insight into the second world of possibility you see out in front of you now...although at times dimly

From what I've read from ADHDers on this board, you must all be twice borners!

It sounds like it comes with having ADHD

William James, a chapter in his Varieties of RelIgious Experience, if you're interested. Go to him, not to his net interpreters.

[stef]

This is interesting!
I don't consider myself "fragmented", it's more the opposite, as if my mind were "all fused together", but confusingly.
Also I have synesthesia.

[imnotkuku]

Originally Posted by Fionagrape

Sounds like ADD if you think of how we develop a fractured self image. For example, if people ask me "how do you see yourself?" and I have no answer, because in some situations I'm a grown up, in others I'm like a child. I feel good enough in some instances, and retarded in others. I never know when I'm going to make an *** of myself, because I'm not aware of the parameters of my disability. (have you read Sorri Soldens book-about women and ADD?)

You just explained how I feel!! And I will have to pick up that book! Being newly diagnosed, I never understood why that question stumped me. But you just described why, to a T.