Hey, just found this topic. I wonder if there are others like me?

TinaM

TinaM

Member
Were you recently diagnosed or misdiagnosed most of your life?

I will be 67 this month. I've had issues all my life with understanding others and trying to fit in. I was put on ADHD medication (Ritalin) during middle school and taken off during high school. Unfortunately, I never had support at home or at school and never had counseling or medical exams for my behaviors and difficulties. Luckily, in my 40s, I was prescribed an anti-anxiety for menopause and it seemed to help control some of my behaviors like constantly changing jobs, changing relationships, not applying myself constructively. Also in my 40s, I went back to school to become a special ed teacher and some of the assessments we practiced on each other while getting our degrees showed that I might be on the autism spectrum. So that explained a lot.

I'm retired now and stable medically but I don't socialize a lot and depend on my service dog and other pets for companionship. Sometimes I feel like I wasted a lot of potential, always working low paying jobs and not finishing my degree until my 50s. If I'd applied myself out of high school, I could have gotten a good college degree at a young age and worked toward a career rather than job hopping most of my life.

I did think about therapy and recently did a few online sessions with a counselor but at my age, I don't really know what it would accomplish. If I could take my current stable, mature self and go back 45 years, that would be awesome. Oh well.

Can anyone else relate or have a similar background?
 

It's great you went back to school and became a special ed teacher in your 40s.
I have a daughter I always thought was on the autism spectrum, a very gifted artist.
There are times I wonder if I am on the spectrum also as I do not socialize much, either. Sometimes I just think some people need others more than some other people. Some people enjoy being around social groups, some do not.

We all wish we could take our present wisdom and go back and have a do over. Life just isn't that way and we move on.
 
TinaM said:
Were you recently diagnosed or misdiagnosed most of your life?

I will be 67 this month. I've had issues all my life with understanding others and trying to fit in. I was put on ADHD medication (Ritalin) during middle school and taken off during high school. Unfortunately, I never had support at home or at school and never had counseling or medical exams for my behaviors and difficulties. Luckily, in my 40s, I was prescribed an anti-anxiety for menopause and it seemed to help control some of my behaviors like constantly changing jobs, changing relationships, not applying myself constructively. Also in my 40s, I went back to school to become a special ed teacher and some of the assessments we practiced on each other while getting our degrees showed that I might be on the autism spectrum. So that explained a lot.

I'm retired now and stable medically but I don't socialize a lot and depend on my service dog and other pets for companionship. Sometimes I feel like I wasted a lot of potential, always working low paying jobs and not finishing my degree until my 50s. If I'd applied myself out of high school, I could have gotten a good college degree at a young age and worked toward a career rather than job hopping most of my life.

I did think about therapy and recently did a few online sessions with a counselor but at my age, I don't really know what it would accomplish. If I could take my current stable, mature self and go back 45 years, that would be awesome. Oh well.

Can anyone else relate or have a similar background?
Click to expand...
Its taken me most of my life to bury the "if i had onlys"
I wish you contentment with what/who you are now.let go.jpg
 

I wonder just how many people who are diagnosed with a mental disorder simply have difficulty fitting in with the modern world? We are all expected to conform to someone else's concept of normality.
These days, if you are not a noisy extrovert, obsessed with celebs and addicted to your phone, you are not normal.
So long as a person is not a danger to themselves or others, they should be accepted as they are.
 
More and more i am coming to believe that neurdo-divergence may be actually be the statistical 'normal' for humans but familial and societal pressures produce a lot of 'masking' to 'fit in'. It doesn't hurt (edit: help? reduce amount of it) that here in America, Pharmaceutical, medical and Insurance companies can make profit from 'official' diagnoses.

While there are many things humans share with each other (watch some of the YouTube videos of 'Tribal people try/listen to/watch' to see how some things can emotionally move people of diverse backgrounds) we are also so individualized that the only things one can assume about any demographic are the things that put them in that demographic (race, relgion, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual preference having a diability). Their individual tastes in most everything, specific beliefs and how they feel about most anything including belonging to that demographic can vary widely.

Am currently watching an Australian series on Netflix called 'You Can't Ask That'. The hosts present a half dozen or so individuals belonging to a 'marginalized demographic' questions (that i think they asked people on line to submit) and they film the answers. Participants selected from around the country and it seems the film crew traveled to those places to talk to them--sometimes there'll be 2 people sitting together and answering, and some of them seem to know or be friends. Personally i don't see how any rational person could watch this and not realize how foolish it is to make sweeping assumptions about whole groups of people.
 
Last edited:
feywon said:
More and more i am coming to believe that neurdo-divergence may be actually be the statistical 'normal' for humans but familial and societal pressures produce a lot of 'masking' to 'fit in'. It doesn't hurt (edit: help? reduce amount of it) that here in America, Pharmaceutical, medical and Insurance companies can make profit from 'official' diagnoses.

While there are many things humans share with each other (watch some of the YouTube videos of 'Tribal people try/listen to/watch' to see how some things can emotionally move people of diverse backgrounds) we are also so individualized that the only things one can assume about any demographic are the things that put them in that demographic (race, relgion, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual preference having a diability). Their individual tastes in most everything, specific beliefs and how they feel about most anything including belonging to that demographic can vary widely.

Am currently watching an Australian series on Netflix called 'You Can't Ask That'. The hosts present a half dozen or so individuals belonging to a 'marginalized demographic' questions (that i think they asked people on line to submit) and they film the answers. Participants selected from around the country and it seems the film crew traveled to those places to talk to them--sometimes there'll be 2 people sitting together and answering, and some of them seem to know or be friends. Personally i don't see how any rational person could watch this and no realize how foolish it is to make sweeping assumptions about whole groups of people.
Click to expand...
I saw that show also. If I was still in the classroom, I would have shown parts of that to my students. We had a lot of social skills lessons so they could function better in society, being more tolerant of others’ differences and understanding their own.

I am particularly fond of the term neurodivergent. I usually just tell people to think of me as a female Sheldon Cooper when there are clashes with my behavior. But actually, that happens very infrequently now that I’m retired.
 
TinaM said:
Were you recently diagnosed or misdiagnosed most of your life?

I will be 67 this month. I've had issues all my life with understanding others and trying to fit in. I was put on ADHD medication (Ritalin) during middle school and taken off during high school. Unfortunately, I never had support at home or at school and never had counseling or medical exams for my behaviors and difficulties. Luckily, in my 40s, I was prescribed an anti-anxiety for menopause and it seemed to help control some of my behaviors like constantly changing jobs, changing relationships, not applying myself constructively. Also in my 40s, I went back to school to become a special ed teacher and some of the assessments we practiced on each other while getting our degrees showed that I might be on the autism spectrum. So that explained a lot.

I'm retired now and stable medically but I don't socialize a lot and depend on my service dog and other pets for companionship. Sometimes I feel like I wasted a lot of potential, always working low paying jobs and not finishing my degree until my 50s. If I'd applied myself out of high school, I could have gotten a good college degree at a young age and worked toward a career rather than job hopping most of my life.

I did think about therapy and recently did a few online sessions with a counselor but at my age, I don't really know what it would accomplish. If I could take my current stable, mature self and go back 45 years, that would be awesome. Oh well.

Can anyone else relate or have a similar background?
Click to expand...
My daughter can. She is late diagnosed ADHD and finds the medications very beneficial.
 
@TinaM Oh can I relate. And there are a handful of members on this forum who endured very poor childhoods and absolute abuse. So there are people here who understand. Though everyone is different.

I doubt I have ADHD and I consider myself to be average intelligence. But I had a borderline mother. All of what I went through, it took me years and years to understand. I did poorly in school. My grades were not good. I even had to go to highschool an extra semester because I flunked so many classes. Something I find hard to state. I remember thinking "at least she (my mother) doesn't get on me about my bad grades." What I didn't realize, this is just what my mother wanted.

One of the generic things you read about borderline personality disorder is their "fear of abandonment." I'm not talking crazy ex girlfriend or boyfriend. Though they exist. Part of their fear of abandonment is not wanting to raise their children to become intact independent confident adults. They want to destroy their children. At least emotionally.

I graduated college at 32. My job is in demand. Prior to that I worked all kinds of menial low wage jobs. I worked in a small nursing home, where I started doing dishes. A cook left, so they trained me for that job. My mother thought that was just wonderful. College was never mentioned to us kids. I decided to try in my later 20's to at least try and go to college. I knew I'd fail. I didn't. I got really good grades.

I'm sorry for what you went through. It can stay with you for years and years, if not your entire life. I don't know what social media platforms you are on but two channels I really like are Dr. Kim Sage and Patrick Teahan. Both on YouTube and Patrick Teahan is on Instagram.

I'm glad you have your pets. My cats are lifesavers.
 
I think I've posted some of this before, but it's been awhile.

I've been prescribed several of the anti-depressants / anti-anxiety medications that are available in this day and age, and none of them helped me whatsoever. All I felt was out of it and tired. I know one medication from past years that would work, but it's now prohibited by law for that purpose.

I've also had professional counseling. The doctor was about 30 years younger than me and had no clue what I was experiencing. A support group I participated in made me feel worse, listening to everyone else's troubles, when I had enough of my own - and telling the group my troubles didn't do anything for me at all, so I stopped going.

So now, I do nothing but deal with anxiety the best I can by purposefully directing bothersome thoughts elsewhere, or getting busy. I cannot afford to sit in a recliner and brood.

I don't recommend my approach for anyone else. I just got tired of thinking about it, so that's where I am.
 
When I was in my thirties I suffered from what they now call panic attacks. There was no name for it then at least not in my circles. It was very scary. I learned to avoid triggers such as some social situations and too much caffeine. Therapy helped in that I realized my need to be creative and I took art classes whenever I could. I also took up jogging which was popular at the time.

I still don't understand it and I feel it lurking just out of sight.
 
@MACKTEXAS I'm glad you have made the choice to not sit and brood. Some people do that. I'm determined to keep going as long as I can. Keep moving, keep doing things, keep caring about cats.

Once someone stops doing that, they decline mentally and physically.

Counseling didn't help me though one woman I went to was very good. It just won't re-wire my brain.
 
Remy said:
@TinaM Oh can I relate. And there are a handful of members on this forum who endured very poor childhoods and absolute abuse. So there are people here who understand. Though everyone is different.

I doubt I have ADHD and I consider myself to be average intelligence. But I had a borderline mother. All of what I went through, it took me years and years to understand. I did poorly in school. My grades were not good. I even had to go to highschool an extra semester because I flunked so many classes. Something I find hard to state. I remember thinking "at least she (my mother) doesn't get on me about my bad grades." What I didn't realize, this is just what my mother wanted.

One of the generic things you read about borderline personality disorder is their "fear of abandonment." I'm not talking crazy ex girlfriend or boyfriend. Though they exist. Part of their fear of abandonment is not wanting to raise their children to become intact independent confident adults. They want to destroy their children. At least emotionally.

I graduated college at 32. My job is in demand. Prior to that I worked all kinds of menial low wage jobs. I worked in a small nursing home, where I started doing dishes. A cook left, so they trained me for that job. My mother thought that was just wonderful. College was never mentioned to us kids. I decided to try in my later 20's to at least try and go to college. I knew I'd fail. I didn't. I got really good grades.

I'm sorry for what you went through. It can stay with you for years and years, if not your entire life. I don't know what social media platforms you are on but two channels I really like are Dr. Kim Sage and Patrick Teahan. Both on YouTube and Patrick Teahan is on Instagram.

I'm glad you have your pets. My cats are lifesavers.
Click to expand...
Hey, thanks for the channel recommendations. I will check those out. You sound really together in spite of it all. And I agree, the animals are life savers.
 
MACKTEXAS said:
I think I've posted some of this before, but it's been awhile.

I've been prescribed several of the anti-depressants / anti-anxiety medications that are available in this day and age, and none of them helped me whatsoever. All I felt was out of it and tired. I know one medication from past years that would work, but it's now prohibited by law for that purpose.

I've also had professional counseling. The doctor was about 30 years younger than me and had no clue what I was experiencing. A support group I participated in made me feel worse, listening to everyone else's troubles, when I had enough of my own - and telling the group my troubles didn't do anything for me at all, so I stopped going.

So now, I do nothing but deal with anxiety the best I can by purposefully directing bothersome thoughts elsewhere, or getting busy. I cannot afford to sit in a recliner and brood.

I don't recommend my approach for anyone else. I just got tired of thinking about it, so that's where I am.
Click to expand...
Not on medication any more either. I meditate and do tai chi everyday. There are free resources on YouTube and Senior Planet.
 
Who knows what I am or how to describe myself to other people? I am different than most people in background and self discovery. I am as I am and no one is exactly like me. I relish my independence and humor because not everyone is me therefore are objectively my source for creative comedy.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top