How do you accept the rollar coaster that is ADHD?

[yellowflowers]

Hellos

Feeling guilty, because I haven't posted on the forum in a while. I am still on this rollar coaster. I just have this million mix of feelings about having adhd. I know the description fits, I;m not sure whats wrong with me, feel like I should be happy, empracing it and all that. I'm not. Feel devestated a lot.

I am back at college. Feel alone in the world. I know not a soul who has similar struggles to me. And I know people on here would probably understand, but then I avoid posting. Classic me, self-sabotage, if I think about the self-defeating crap I do too much again I'll just have to get back into bed here

Its depressing. I wish my could accept more the 'two steps forward and one step back' idea. Accept failure, accept returning to old habits, accept the improving, then failing again.

Its FRUSTRATING. Hard not to get extremeley angry with myself. How do people cope with it? How do they get their head around the good days and the bad? Like managing to do something - achieve something, like open a book and read for half and hour and get your hopes up that yes your changing, your making progress, its not going to be like before, and then the next day doing the opposite, like hiding in your bathroom smoking cigarettes instead of facing ANYTHING AT ALL on your to do list????

If I could accept more somehow. That this is the nature of things for me.

[sarahsweets]

I dont accept it.....I fight it.

[yellowflowers]

Hi Sarahsweets,

What do you mean? do you mean you keep trying to stop the cycle? I feel like me fighting it just leads to more frustration and hopelessness, cause I'm not going to change in some huge way, I never will, and hoping I will only seems to kind of torture myself

<3

[SquarePeg]

Originally Posted by yellowflowers

Hi Sarahsweets,

I feel like me fighting it just leads to more frustration and hopelessness, cause I'm not going to change in some huge way, I never will, and hoping I will only seems to kind of torture myself

<3

For me I fight for it not against it. I don´t have the energy to fight a losing battle. ADHD is what it is, there is nothing I can do to change it. If a road ahead is blocked I don´t continually bash my head against it to remove the obstacle, it´s not going to move, so I have to work around it or change direction. For me fighting against something that I can´t change is soul destroying and negative and led to me feeling a useless failure, whereas I find fighting towards something i.e ways to improve my life, to achieve some of the things I want to is empowering and allows me to get on with my life, however slowly it may seem to be.

I accept the things in my life that I cannot change, accept my limitations but this doesn´t mean I don´t strive to make the best use of what I have been dealt with. I can only play the hand I am dealt with.

As for the rollercoaster I just buckle up, I know I will have downward spirals but that I will have better times too (at least I am hoping).

[PoppnNSailinMan]

I just have this million mix of feelings about having adhd. I know the description fits, I;m not sure whats wrong with me, feel like I should be happy, empracing it and all that. I'm not. Feel devestated a lot.

Hi yellowflowers,

I know how you feel.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in August and the initial fascination with discovering this new fact about myself and the hopefulness I felt about the future are starting to ware off. Many of the negative feelings you describe about having ADHD and frustrations with not getting a handle on it more quickly are what I've been experiencing lately, too, so you are not alone.

[Thales]

Originally Posted by yellowflowers

Its depressing. I wish my could accept more the 'two steps forward and one step back' idea. Accept failure, accept returning to old habits, accept the improving, then failing again.

Its FRUSTRATING. Hard not to get extremeley angry with myself. How do people cope with it? How do they get their head around the good days and the bad? Like managing to do something - achieve something, like open a book and read for half and hour and get your hopes up that yes your changing, your making progress, its not going to be like before, and then the next day doing the opposite, like hiding in your bathroom smoking cigarettes instead of facing ANYTHING AT ALL on your to do list????

I want to share my way of coping with this. I strongly hope it will be of some use to you. The core of it is that I don't really fight it: I accept it and by accepting it I actually gain in the fight.

I noticed that my ADD would be WAY less troublesome at moments I was feeling well: feeling happy and peaceful rather than depressed and frustrated with myself. Therefore I have to be very cautious as to make sure I am happy, if I want to get anything done at all.

But as you say, it is frustrating not being able to read more than a sentence and not getting anything done. Nowadays if I notice that I cannot get anything done, I just stop trying and save myself the frustration of the effort. Instead I will do some other things I can get my mind to, useful or not. I DO NOT PLAN my work. Sometimes that means I won't be doing anything at all when I should.

But how do I get things done then, if I don't try hard? At any given moment in time I will try and do something I feel like I can manage. That includes reading stuff for a subject that is not discussed in class until next month while having other subjects due in shorter time. In this way, I get most of my work done in time, with the least possible frustration. Of course there are exceptions to this. Team work constrains this freedom somewhat.

BUT, the key to this is that I really like the courses I am taking. Liking the work, means that there will probably be a time I can hyperfocus on it and get it done. If I were to do things I cannot fully relate to, this strategy would not work at all.

[brollykat]

I hope answers come soon, because like yellowflowers I have lost hope.