Category Archives: auDHD

May9

the devastating effects of OPD

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Last month was a blur. I spent the month in bed with pneumonia. Last week I had a clear chest exam. This week my OPD has flared up. No rest for the weary I guess. For those of you who don’t know, OPD is a spectrum disorder. Most of us have some degree of it. You might be surprised to learn that it is only slightly less prevalent in women than men, and that your risk is 37% higher if you live in the United States.

The symptoms of OPD (Obnoxious Personality Disorder) cause more harm than previously recognized here in the states, and are more easily identified in European countries frequented by American tourists. The expat population is currently being studied for their seeming immunity. Although one must wonder, if they didn’t somehow suffer the adverse affects of living around OPD, would they have moved abroad in the first place?

Symptoms often include an inflamed sense of entitlement, frequently followed by “the Karen effect.” One of my first clues of the flareup came around the need to wash dishes. Housework is often a trigger for me. I shouldn’t have to do it. Then there is the dilemma of having to cook for myself, but recent improvements in meal delivery options have helped with that.

The biggest trigger for me is the lack of high quality entertainment on the television. I subscribe to a dozen or more self-help streaming services and have thousands of movies and television series available to watch. Yet I am so picky that I can seldom find anything satisfying to quell the symptoms. I am frequently irritated, even at inanimate objects.

If you, too, suffer from the crippling effects of this disorder, know that there are resources available. Dial 1-800-I-BLAME-U, or try pulling your head out of your behind after a long, warm bath. This Netflix series will also help:

Feb2

what if the dreams are ours to keep?

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We did it! We did it! We survived January! Woohoo…let’s celebrate already. It is still brutally cold outside, but I do sense the days getting a bit longer, and we have had some intermittent sunshine the past few days. It makes such a dramatic difference in the way I feel. Apparently I have terrible seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and I think I always have had it, since childhood.

I’ve had a lot of things since childhood…ha! Autism and ADHD and anxiety and…and…a great big open musical heart and a pretty good mind and some artistic talent…and best of all, an innate curiosity about how life works and a sense of wonder about the world. I wouldn’t want me any other way.

And in my deep and endless curiosity I have always asked, myself and you: what if? What if, in fact, we are right where we need to be doing exactly what we need to be doing? What if, as Einstein posed, everything is a miracle? I’ve always known the truth of it – as have you – somewhere deep inside. And the 238 days of January just reminded me. I need reminding, seemingly constantly.

I need reminding that the world was made to be free in. I need reminding that all life is precious. I need reminding that I am enough – just right, in fact. Not too big, too small, too smart, too stupid, too much. And most especially, I all too often need reminding – SO ARE YOU. You’re just right.

I’ve left far too many people behind. They silently disappeared in the rear view mirror when I moved away. They ghosted me out of anger and frustration. They threw up their hands in defeat and walked away. They drank themselves into oblivion. I told them off and never looked back. They died of cancer. Their heart gave out. Some I didn’t really know. And some I didn’t know how to lose and I still haven’t caught my breath. All just right, right where they needed to be, doing exactly what they needed to be doing. It’s hard to trust, but it has to be. It has to all be sacred. Nothing else makes any sense.

What if…what if we wake in the afterlife, in the many mansions prepared for us, and find we brought all our dreams with us? What if, as I hope, we get to meet everyone again under different circumstances, in peace? Without expectations or need. Just love…

…just love. These are wild historical times we are living in. Everything gets overwhelming every day. And yet something inside us recognizes the moment as a choice. Love or fear. Trust or doubt. Yes or no. If every choice, every thought, every action boils down to yes or no it suddenly becomes straightforward. Yes to love. No to everything else. That doesn’t always mean it is easy, but it is simple. What if…we were made for a time such as this? What if it is all just right right now? What if…we didn’t know we were ready?

Jan12

elephants on parade

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Okay. Let’s address the elephant in the room. Actually, there is an entire herd gathering. It’s getting crowded in here…the most recent elephant is my ADHD diagnosis. I’ve been gonna talk about it, but I’m still figuring it out. When the doctor and I talked I had just started back on an antidepressant and was in for a three week consult. I was not feeling a whole lot better, which is to say that I was still having trouble functioning. Just that morning I had made a pot of coffee and forgot to put the carafe under the spout; coffee poured out everywhere before I noticed. My doctor was adamant that I give the ADHD medication a try, but suggested we postpone the start of that another three weeks. That way I was not introducing two new medications in less than a six week span. Sounded wise to me.

So I had my first dose of generic Adderall yesterday. I didn’t feel any different. Perhaps a tiny bit more able to focus – I am writing here, after all. That hasn’t been happening easily for weeks now. I will have to keep you posted on progress. I will say that the ADHD diagnosis has been a huge thing to come to terms with. I don’t want it. It feels like something that I would associate with children or young adults, and it’s embarrassing. But man oh man…it rather explains a lot. Like, my whole life. I think the hardest part to accept is how profoundly different my life might have been if this had come to light sooner.

I am seventy years old. Relationships have been hard all of my life. I am a classic under-achiever, often procrastinating important deadlines until the last minute and then exhausting myself to meet them. Anxiety has been a lifelong companion. It was my Mother’s lifelong companion, and all four of my siblings. Out of seven people in my biological family I am the only one without substance addictions, and the only one who never smoked cigarettes. I have a son, a niece and two nephews. They all have it, I’m sure; the younger two were treated with Ritalin in grade school, which was a new treatment 20 years ago.

All of us, all four generations if I include my grandparents, exhibit the symptoms. And it is debilitating. I have seen counselors all of my adult life, so for the better part of fifty years. I have gone on and off antidepressants with mediocre results. It is entirely possible that all of this dysfunction and struggle could have been alleviated to some degree with the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. But it’s relatively new for doctors and therapists, especially to address in older women.

There will be follow up with a specialist I must wait to see, and I will explore all the options for treatment and hopefully find something natural that will help. But I will seek help. I will always seek to be ever-increasingly healthier mentally and physically. Regardless of age, I will always seek to improve myself, my life skills, and my quality of life. That’s a given. I hope the same is true for you. Let’s get well and then let’s get better!

Dec22

my magical mystery tour

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There is a part of me that thinks I must be really stupid. How on earth could I get to be seventy years of age and just now be figuring myself out?! It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood, into my thirties certainly, before I began to realize that my life wasn’t all light and love. I thought I had a magical childhood. And there is much truth in that. In many ways it was.

And there was trauma. I wouldn’t even catch a glimpse of that until the lives of my siblings began to unravel. In my twenties I divorced my son’s father. He was a drunk, and a mean and ornery one. But in my mind, I had made a bad choice. He was a bad guy. It was all his fault. None of that had anything to do with me. But it did, of course.

I stayed single for many years. Not because I wanted to; I just kept meeting losers. In that time I began to look at alcoholism. It was pervasive in my family, and seemingly in my friends as well. My siblings were drinking and drugging and they couldn’t seem to keep jobs or housing. They were all struggling to function. I understood there was a problem. I wanted to understand the common denominator. Alcohol became the scapegoat, the cause of all their difficulties. I didn’t drink, so I didn’t have a problem. I was alright; the world was all wrong.

When yet another of my romantic relationships went south, I sought out a therapist. There seemed to be a pattern emerging here. And that brilliant woman kicked me out at the end of the first session. She told me to get my butt to some ACOA meetings before I made another appointment with any counselor. What the heck was ACOA?

Days later I walked into a church to attend a free meeting, just to see what it was about. ACOA. Adult Children of Alcoholics. There were a few people bustling about, setting flyers on each of the seats. I picked one up as I sat and looked at it. “Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is.” That first sentence was a gut punch. And my first clue.

But over the next decade or so, as my self awareness began to be explored and expanded, I would come to see that alcoholism was not the problem, but a symptom. A symptom of a deep psychosis that had been passed down from generation to generation, likely for centuries.

It was only the first symptom I would see. I would learn about fetal alcohol syndrome, and see evidence of that throughout my family. There was some sort of actual brain damage. Then I learned about autism, and saw it everywhere I looked. In my 60’s a counselor diagnosed me with Complex PTSD. And then I learned about narcissism – and narcissistic abuse became a huge piece of the puzzle. And most recently being diagnosed with ADHD. That’s enlightening. The dominoes fall, one by one.

If I continue to be lucky and stay healthy, I presume that I will likely run out of life before the puzzle is complete. This is a lifelong discovery. And it is coming full circle. I wasn’t wrong about having had a wonderful childhood; it was just not the full picture. I want the full picture.

What I now hope for more than anything is that I recover the magic of my childhood. Because I now understand that my magical childhood wasn’t an imaginary construct. It wasn’t fragile. It wasn’t fleeting. It was me. I was the magic.

You are the magic in your life. Let’s explore how we know this, and how this works in the days and weeks to come…

Oct12

how to not get murdered

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How to drive me to contemplate murder? Talk to me. It’s just about that simple. Okay…not really. Although, I wouldn’t risk it first thing in the morning if I were you. Dear Jen, who I consider a kindred spirit, explains how her introvert-ness works. She is right on. But I must differ on a couple of points. I went through a nervous breakdown (or breakthrough?) about a decade ago. I’ve written about it here in previous posts. I slowly and painfully extricated myself from Manville, where I was being held hostage in the House of Curmedgeons. I divorced my husband, my father, and my brother all at once. I didn’t want to. But they were killing me.

They were so dysfunctional and I had tried absolutely everything I could think of to try to make that household work for all of us. And one day something snapped inside me, and I was done. Done. In many ways I think of it as a near death experience; at least that’s a great metaphor. Subconsciously I knew it was them or me, and I chose to live. I chose me.

I was actually rescued by a friend who bought a house for me to live in, in her heroic effort to save my life and entice me away from my family. It worked. I literally credit her with saving my life, and she knows this. She was watching me struggle to find a place to rent with my 2 dogs, very little money, and an insatiably needy family of addicts who were sucking the life out of me.

It broke me. At least, my nervous system. I thought that some time to heal would result in my becoming “nice” again. All I needed was some uninterrupted rest and I’d bounce back. It hasn’t happened. I had stayed far too long.

And when I recently admitted that, yes, I am autistic, and yes, I am ADHD, that changed me also. It has served to explain my entire life. I’ve been burnt out on caretaking and people pleasing – probably since high school. Maybe earlier. I became the parent in my childhood home around the age of 10. I often tucked my drunken parents into bed around 2:30 a.m. after loosening their clothes. And then I got back up a few hours later to help dress my younger siblings for school. I was in survival mode, and I would live in survival mode until….well, I’ll have to keep you posted.

As wise woman Jen of Silver and Solo alludes to here, there is not enough solitude. There just isn’t. There never will be in this lifetime. I overdid it. Big, noisy family growing up. Big, noisy retail and service careers. I was on duty every waking moment. I’m off duty now. It was hell getting here, and I have remorse about how it was accomplished. It was not pretty, or nice. I have no use for nice. I’m a good person, but nice won’t be happening.

You always know where you stand with me. If you are in my life, know that you are invited, cherished, respected. Without any patience left in my energy reserve, I am asking for your patience. And sometimes there will be months where I disappear. When I was younger I’d laugh naively about this, telling people I’d “gone south for the winter…” Know that I’m doing the best I can. Please take a number.

Sep18

I hear the band playin’…

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Please remember, always click on the blog heading for the updated version as I often edit after hitting publish…

The cat woke me around six a.m. His bowl was empty. This is my favorite time of day, just as the sun is coming up. But I hadn’t slept well and I really didn’t want to get up. My son was already in the kitchen getting ready for his work day. He’s been staying here since his relationship broke up. Feeling he had no other choice, he left her with the house they bought together, her teenagers, the dogs they adopted, his dreams, and oh yeah, much of his self worth stayed behind, too. He has continued to be as supportive of them as he possibly can be, physically, emotionally, and financially. This has required considerable patience on my part (let alone my friends and therapist) – but then, I don’t want to be the mother-in-law who thinks her son can do no wrong. I’ve had one of those.

The day he called and asked if he could come here I felt a huge sense of relief. Finally. Watching the abuse he seemed determined to cope with was nothing short of painful. He was mimicking the scapegoat role I had so effectively demonstrated for him my entire life. Everything about us must be wrong because God knows we never did anything right. But perhaps some healing could finally happen. We are a multi-generational family of survivors – survivors of alcoholism, physical and verbal abuse, and blatant narcissism. Our awareness continues to grow as our healing unfolds.

He’s been here longer than either of us expected; the better part of two years now. It has not been easy. But most days I am grateful for this time to get to know him as an adult, to spend time together investigating family history, to address our mental and emotional dysfunction, to have the opportunity to do the healing work we both need and deserve. I’m in my seventies, he’s in his forties, and for the first time in our lives we are safe. We have a safe place. I wonder where that will lead us.

Most mornings I am up hours before him or any hint of daylight. I feed the cat first (the boss of me), make coffee and head back to my cosy room with a book. If I haven’t fallen back to sleep, I hear him in the kitchen but leave him in peace. Well, I leave me in peace, because let’s be honest – I am far too easily irritated when my thoughts are disrupted before I’m ready to talk. But this morning I wandered out and made us both coffee. Here’s why he is one of the few people (okay, maybe the only person so far in this life) I’ve ever been able to live with: he is funny. He is blessed with my mother’s sense of humor. My brother had it, too. I was not so blessed. He is funny right from the get go when his feet hit the floor. Wow that is impressive!

My auDHD does not allow me to think that fast. So when I caught myself scowling this morning, I circumvented my crabbiness by saying, “Help me out here, please. My face is stuck,” revealing my frown. I had just sat down at my laptop. He simply replied with a directive: “Hello, Dolly by Louis Armstrong.”

Little did he know it would bring tears. I was ten years old the year my mother took me to see the musical at the Fisher Theatre. It starred Angela Lansbury. God, growing up in Detroit in the 1960’s was magical. As a privileged white child, of course. But back then what did I know…