Dealing with Disassociation, and The Dark Sides of ADD in Adulthood
Disassociation again. I came across a description of Disassociation, as if anyone want to read the lovely signs of acting like a zombie dead person without control over it. Lol I am joking here in case you didn't pick up on it. I have a dark sense of humor sometimes.
But I realized I am disassociated more often than not. I fall into these dreaded thoughts of forgetting who I am, and not seeing myself as any good. Some of the descriptions include: feeling like you are not quite real and are in a dream, suddenly cover your face in embarrassment as if your hurt for no reason and cannot remember important information about yourself, forget important information, become very preoccupied with a trivial object or event. This happened to me just the other day, my husband and I stopped in a pizza store for lunch and he was telling me about his school experience. I agreed with his take on teachers not caring about teaching useful information to kids, and just trying to get them to memorize vast knowledge, and I tried to add my two sense of when it had occurred to me, and my mind blanked. Now, I can blame this on my lack of sufficient sleep. but deep down I know what it is. The monster of forgetfulness of major information because it is shrouded by clouds of uncertainty about my standing in the world. Many times I just feel like a child trying to fake my way of living normally. As for being focused on trivial things, I experienced this a lot where I would focus on small points, and get caught up in making every thing perfect... My husband does this too at times, and we can have a whole discussion based on one insignificant item when we have many other things to attend to. It is downright awkward in public too, when we are left standing in middle of a crowd, trying to figure out if we should get one small item or not. I watch our faces look bewildered as we snap back to the reality that the time space is not big enough to contemplate so much. It is funny, because this is a symptom of ADD as well, as Gabor Mate writes in Scattered that the ADD person has the concept of time never ending from a child view and gets caught up in little things too much. I used to do this when I had places to be, and I may have been watching a movie that I just had to finish and the times seemed to go on forever, and before I knew it I was an hour late. It was so embarrassing, but I blamed it on my fault with time, and excused myself out of inability to acknowledge the shame.
Another one is losing the plot of the conversation you are part of. Yes, all the way, I just forget the whole point of conversations as my mind wanders to what is going on inside the other person or myself, or random feelings or hurt or anger that I am trying to work out where they came from. Completely forgetting what you were thinking a minute ago- always, as I described in the passage above.
I used to be soo ashamed of these things about myself, and felt myself unworthy of growing up and being an adult, so I let myself stay in the feeling that I am a child. I pushed them away, thinking it was just too embarrassing to admit to. But now I do not care, knowing where it comes from and not wanting to reject any part of me anymore. As Teal Swan says, in order to not disconnect from yourself, accept every part of you so you do not feel pain and inner isolation.
The more I can accept this about myself, the more I can accept my husband as well, because he has a lot of these traits to. He is not always willing to own up to it, but I need to show him that it is okay to feel them, and embrace his fragmented parts in love as well. It is not easy having ADD together, and every day is a struggle to stay afloat (figuratively with our emotions), but knowledge of them and their whereabouts can only help us. Giving up on each other will not help either of us, because we need to see our faults in ourselves instead of projecting it on each other,
Love,
Disassociated Adoptee with ADD :)
But I realized I am disassociated more often than not. I fall into these dreaded thoughts of forgetting who I am, and not seeing myself as any good. Some of the descriptions include: feeling like you are not quite real and are in a dream, suddenly cover your face in embarrassment as if your hurt for no reason and cannot remember important information about yourself, forget important information, become very preoccupied with a trivial object or event. This happened to me just the other day, my husband and I stopped in a pizza store for lunch and he was telling me about his school experience. I agreed with his take on teachers not caring about teaching useful information to kids, and just trying to get them to memorize vast knowledge, and I tried to add my two sense of when it had occurred to me, and my mind blanked. Now, I can blame this on my lack of sufficient sleep. but deep down I know what it is. The monster of forgetfulness of major information because it is shrouded by clouds of uncertainty about my standing in the world. Many times I just feel like a child trying to fake my way of living normally. As for being focused on trivial things, I experienced this a lot where I would focus on small points, and get caught up in making every thing perfect... My husband does this too at times, and we can have a whole discussion based on one insignificant item when we have many other things to attend to. It is downright awkward in public too, when we are left standing in middle of a crowd, trying to figure out if we should get one small item or not. I watch our faces look bewildered as we snap back to the reality that the time space is not big enough to contemplate so much. It is funny, because this is a symptom of ADD as well, as Gabor Mate writes in Scattered that the ADD person has the concept of time never ending from a child view and gets caught up in little things too much. I used to do this when I had places to be, and I may have been watching a movie that I just had to finish and the times seemed to go on forever, and before I knew it I was an hour late. It was so embarrassing, but I blamed it on my fault with time, and excused myself out of inability to acknowledge the shame.
Another one is losing the plot of the conversation you are part of. Yes, all the way, I just forget the whole point of conversations as my mind wanders to what is going on inside the other person or myself, or random feelings or hurt or anger that I am trying to work out where they came from. Completely forgetting what you were thinking a minute ago- always, as I described in the passage above.
I used to be soo ashamed of these things about myself, and felt myself unworthy of growing up and being an adult, so I let myself stay in the feeling that I am a child. I pushed them away, thinking it was just too embarrassing to admit to. But now I do not care, knowing where it comes from and not wanting to reject any part of me anymore. As Teal Swan says, in order to not disconnect from yourself, accept every part of you so you do not feel pain and inner isolation.
The more I can accept this about myself, the more I can accept my husband as well, because he has a lot of these traits to. He is not always willing to own up to it, but I need to show him that it is okay to feel them, and embrace his fragmented parts in love as well. It is not easy having ADD together, and every day is a struggle to stay afloat (figuratively with our emotions), but knowledge of them and their whereabouts can only help us. Giving up on each other will not help either of us, because we need to see our faults in ourselves instead of projecting it on each other,
Love,
Disassociated Adoptee with ADD :)
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