Not in space aliens!  I'm talking about ADHD!

I too, didn't believe.

Well ... maybe it's more like I didn't want to believe.  I've had a number of struggles all my life.  Struggles with myself more than anything ... but I certainly didn't think my wiring was mixed up.

So I worked on myself ... quietly ... alone ... not wanting anyone to know what I struggled with ... embarrassed ... but day in and day out, year in and year out ... the struggles continued.

I struggled with people.  I rarely (if ever) felt understood.  My sense of humor always seemed to be a little off.  My eye contact misplaced.  Mannerisms wrong ... For the life of me!  I never even knew how to make friends!

Conversations can be tough for me, however, I now see how tough it can be for others to communicate with me.  We could be talking about going to a restaurant, and somehow my mind will connect that with a song I like, and I'll picture myself listening to it in my new Mustang GT, which somehow reminds me of the space shuttle, so when the person asks, "what restaurant do you want to go to", I reply "I really want to buy a new snowmobile this year".

What?

I've had some great friends in my life, but lost them somewhere along the way ... adhd can make you volatile, especially when you don't even know you have it.  And not necessarily in a violent or bad way, but just with weird miscommunications.

I struggled with homework.  The homework struggle was partially because I hated it!  It was time-consuming and repetitive.  It also took forever! School in general was miserable.  In elementary I was the class clown, so I had friends (and decent grades), but by junior high ... I was sitting alone everyday at lunch ... for 3 years.  High school wasn't much better.

I played piano and trombone.  I enjoyed playing music and I was good at it!  But the strict time schedule of practice, and the monotony of the bland music I had to play for "lessons", drove me nuts!  I couldn't ever seem to explain properly that I wanted to go in a different direction musically.  I thought I was communicating that clearly, but then again, I didn't know I had adhd.

It would be 20 more years before the discovery was made.

Communication with the family was horrible.  I didn't understand, nor did anyone else.  I went to counseling and therapy, but ... it would all just anger me.  I hated it!  To me, therapy was nothing but adults telling me I have be somebody other than me!  I agreed there may be something wrong here, but it's not me.  "I'm not this bad person everyone seems to perceive" I would think.  Besides, nobody was tougher on me than myself.  More people piling on wasn't the answer.

Girls ...  what?  Are you kidding me?  LOVE THEM! Can't communicate with them to save my life.  Or should I say I COULDN'T (in the past) communicate with them.  I'm certainly better, anyways.  I mean ... I understand everyone has struggles in communication between the sexes, but I never got my social cues right in the first place, so imagine how hard communicating with the opposite sex becomes under this circumstance.

They might as well be SPACE ALIENS!

I went away to college after high school.  I got lucky!  I quickly became friends with my roommate and suite mates (suite is an awfully kind word for the small space where 4 boys lived).  I even met some girls!  Whew-hoo! Funny thing is ... of course, I went for the one's who were certainly wrong for me, and not for the one's who were good for me.  Heck ... it's not even that I didn't try, I just was completely MISSING THE CUES!

Go figure.  Flirtation is tough as it is ... but when it takes you until months later to catch on ... not so good.

I was invited to pledge a fraternity.  I loved it!  A total blast!  More girls too!  Yee-haaa! Good thing I had the almighty Sigma Alpha Epsilon credibility ... it instantly reduced my communication issues with those of the female persuasion.  Nice!!!

Weirdest thing though ... I always had a minor fear, and it's kinda funny when you think about it ... but it got worse as my college years progressed.  I had like this phobia of using people's names.  No, I HAD A PHOBIA!  I thought if I used someone's name, I'd get it wrong, and everybody would hate me and I'd go back to being the junior high school kid who ate lunch alone.

The weird name phobia stuck with me for a long time.  It's gone.  It's hard for even ME ... to imagine something like that being real.

I sought counseling in college, and during my adult life too.  I tried medication, hypnosis, supplements, you name it!  I've worked on countless self-help programs, communication programs ... I even took the Dale Carnegie Class!  I did well too.

My professional career has been a roller-coaster.  Up and down, up and down ... the problem is ... that the down streaks have always been too severe for the up streaks to balance things out.  It's been frustrating to say the least.

My life has always been this way though ... a roller-coaster.  Flashes of brilliance, mired in fumbles and interceptions ...  So back to the psychologist office I went.

This time I found a good one.  She eventually sent me to a psychiatrist out of concern about adhd.  At this point, I was open to anything!  Acupuncture, drugs, electroshock ... I needed HELP! I started taking medication, reading and learning about adhd, and doing my best to compensate for it.  Internally, I've grown more in the past 10 months than I did my prior 37 years.  I'm calmer, more focused, more confident, more assertive, and while I'm not perfect, I'm communicating with others better than I have at any time in my life!

The medication doesn't turn me into a zombie like some people claim it will ... it's quite the opposite!  I'm much more myself ... much more comfortable as myself than I've ever been.  I always felt like I lived in a bubble.  Always kicking and screaming to get out!  But I couldn't.  The walls would simply stretch, and no one could hear my cries.

I'm out of the bubble now!  I feel much better.  Life brightens a little more each day.

I'm MORE creative than ever before, because I can follow through on my wild ideas.  My relationships are improving too, because I'm more comfortable in my own skin, and can communicate better.

I've worked my ass off all my life on everything I've done, especially in regards to "improving" myself.  I've experienced all the hard-nosed, buckle-down authority that exists ... But looking at it all through the lens of adhd, gearing my therapy and adding little medication towards from that point of view ... I've made some of the greatest strides in my life, particularly my inner life.

We all have our flaws, we're human.  We have not the ability to be perfect ... but all THOSE character flaws ... nothing but adhd.

Do you believe?

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