On a different note to my medication, I feel like I've found a new found confidence in my coaching. As I've learned more about the traits and challenges that I have and as I've recognised the things that I didn't realise were my ADHD, I felt that I've been able to understand those that I'm talking to on a much deeper level because I see those behaviours that we tend to think are quite normal behaviours for everyone.
My awareness has been massively increased and I feel like I've benefited from that lived experience of many years of living with undiagnosed ADHD. I have to be honest and say that if I could wave a wand and didn't have ADHD and then I would certainly do that, however, I now feel in a better position to understand myself. For the first time in my life I feel like I can talk about my feelings and my fears and the challenges that I'm having because I now understand that they're coming from a place of "that's how my brain works". I'm not ashamed of how I feel, the things that upset my equilibrium, because I understand that contrary to how I felt for many years, I'm not a bad person; my brain just works things out differently and means that I react differently. I've realised that in many situations my emotional response has overridden my intellectual response or what my intellectual response should/could have been. And those emotional responses have made me feel overwhelmed, out of control and oftentimes a little ashamed of how I have responded to certain situations. The important lesson I have learned here is that ‘this too shall pass’. Whatever that emotional response is, it will pass! The emotion may be joy, sadness anger, frustration but… this too shall pass!
If only I’d been more aware of this over the last 30/40 years.
NOW or NOT NOW
Another interesting thing I've learned about myself is my an inability to cope with booking weekends away, trips to see relatives and any number of social activities when they're being booked too far in the future. My husband is a great planner and I only need to mention that I'd like to do something and oftentimes he's already booked the train tickets or booked the hotel in a bid to do something that he knows would make me happy. This is wonderful trait, but that lovely act of kindness is often met with a panic from me because I feel like I can't control what's happening, and an inexplicable frustration and sometimes bordering on anger that he has gone ahead and booked something without me being part of the process or having detailed conversation about it.
I've since discovered that this is often common with adults with ADHD and now understand that this is known as temporal discounting and it's described as when we discount the value of something just because it's in the future and not now. We predominantly focus on instant reward and for me that's certainly true when I think about my impulsiveness when it comes to either food or shopping or impromptu visits or trips to places. I find it much harder to plan things in the future because there's no joy in that for me. The tendency is to choose behaviours with positive short term consequences rather than waiting for possibly larger rewards in the future. As ADHDers our brains are so focused on the present moment that it's hard to imagine or feel the way of our future selves or experiences. It can be described as a now or not now perception of time.
This new and better understanding of myself is helping me to come to terms with who I am and being kinder to myself. It also makes it easier for my husband to see the reasons behind some of my reactions, even if it doesn't make it any less frustrating for him! Oh! The patience of that man!
My next blog will be taking a look at my continued journey with medication.