First of all, everyone, sorry for the delay. I've been at my mother's these last few days, and haven't been on the computer.
Padma: Interesting.
Alexia6: Thanks for sharing your experiences, but I don't think I'm too similar to you. First of all, I'm not really restless. Actually, whilst many ADD patients are hyperactive, I can be described as hypoactive. I don't get restless and need to move all the time and thus get nothing done, no-- I sit and do nothing and obviously end up doing nothing. I have more of an internal type of ADD. The hyperactivity is inside my head. Issues go round and round and round in my head, and to stop them, I "hypnotise" myself with something that thinks in my place - watching a show for example. It's like constant alt-tabbing between windows that's out of my control.
As for making a journal or following a chart, I've tried that in the past. All it does is that it adds a task to the list, and an additional window to alt-tab to. It makes me more anxious, so I get even less stuff done, and I feel even more guilty for not doing this other assignment I'd given myself to do, and the vicious circle goes round even stronger. I wish - oh how I wish - my issues were as simple as writing things down.
As for going with confidence, well, first, it's quite hard to build self-confidence on nothing but failures. Second, looks like this approach just does not work with me. I've done that a lot in the past. I didn't allow myself to have those issues. I told myself, I'm so going to rock this, look at me. But then I failed, partly because of overestimating myself that way, and hated myself even more.
Isabelle: I know it's hard to understand quickly, especially without knowing me so well, and I know that's how it appears in a first impression, and I also know that's how it would be with almost everyone else having issues like mine. It took my mother years to stop telling me to"just" do things. And most professionals who've seen me never understood / are just starting to understand this.
The first psychiatrist I saw basically told me I was lazy, and that the only problem was that I was relying on my mother too much, and that I should almost be kicked out - then I would stop my teenager's act when confronted to "real" problems. My mother was similar for a long time. When I spoke of my issues with her, all of her solutions started with "just". Just do this, just do that. It's simple; it's easy. It's just a question of willpower. Many special educators thought I was looking for a magical solution from them and said they couldn't do anything in my place.
I feel people who's have it hard in life, or who've seen more extreme problems, have a lot of difficulty understanding that there can exist issues that seem little, or easy/straightforward to solve, but aren't. And what frustrates me the most is that because I do have motivation, do have the ability to speak intelligently, and do behave fine in public, people are pretty stubborn in not even looking for issues, saying "look, it's not that bad" or giving me "just do X" advice.
As you might or might not know from other threads, I suspect I might have Asperger's syndrome. An
article (<- link) I read enlightened me to this. Like others, I wasn't seeing the obvious, huge typical signs, so when my mother thought that maybe I had that, I brushed it off.
But then, I read the article. It says how evidence is starting to show that maybe girls with Asperger's tend to excel at, and to learn early to, imitate behaviours to "pretend to be normal", and thus the issues are left un- or misdiagnosed.
I'm beginning to think I may be like that. Be it Asperger's or whatever other issue I have (ADD/other similar issue that keeps me from functioning properly), I think I might have that almost innate ability, talent, to look like I'm fine, to look like I don't have an issue, to pretend without really wanting to, making my problems, however simple or complex to solve once identified, hard to catch.
But my problem is not motivation. I have plenty of that. Nor is it reliance upon others. I would love to manage without anyone, and I feel guilty when I feel like I don't. I happily set sail into a project and I'm really motivated to see it to its end successfully. I want to succeed, and do my best towards it, so much that it hurts. But I fail.
The reason I get up late and thus have to run after the bus in the morning isn't that I'm not motivated, that I don't want to go to school. I do want to go. I love school. It's because for some reason, until pushed by external factors, my brain feels like it's switched off.
After years of denying it with awful results, I now accept that there's something majorly flawed inside me, just that we haven't put the finger on it yet. It's not motivation or even concentration. I'm medicated for the ADD (Vyvanse) and it helps my concentration a ton. But the rest of the issues aren't fixed, and with me, uneffective but determined to make it better, and my mother, who pretty much tried everything a mother can try, I would be really surprised if this were something only motivation and hard work can solve.
PS: Lol, this is seriously getting derailed, but it's my thread, so it's fine, right?
