Laura finds out after years of rollercoasting that she has ADHD

Laura's life with ADHD

I am 15 years old and sitting in class. I feel like I have to vomit and leave class to go to the toilet. Once there, the feeling subsides, so back to class I go. When I sit in the school desk again, the same feeling hits me again, what is going on? Am I getting sick? Damn, to the loo again. What will they think of me? This is a start of a period of a few weeks where the same feeling comes and goes. My god, I seem crazy???. Will it be tension then?

I had a serious motorbike accident with my boyfriend, who is 10 years older. I still live with my parents, but not long after, I move in with him. Fifteen years? Weeks, months, years go by. I don't remember much, only highlights. And those are usually intense, not such fun events. Friday evening, out on the town, having dinner with a friend. In the restaurant, I get a huge feeling that I am going to vomit, no, not again. I panic and immediately go home, thinking she'll think I'm really crazy. It is the beginning of 4 years of street fear, hyperventilation and a spitting phobia. As if by coincidence (although I don't believe in coincidence), I find out through articles that I hyperventilate, which gives me the spitting sensation.

But? What do you do about it? I get relaxants from the GP. Result: addiction. 8 to 10 oxazepam a day, but still I don't calm down. Eventually I stop overnight, because the desired effect is no longer there. Therapy here, therapy there, nothing helps. Eventually I get ? "over it" on my own.

Relationships come and go. They quickly bore me. I want to be stimulated, don't like boring. I wind people around my finger with my spontaneity and enthusiasm. Men fall for me like bunches but long-term relationships are not for me. I behave abominably after weeks, months, but I don't know why I do it. Whoever does what, I never approve, always have comments. Severe mood swings and tantrums. I know I am not this person. I know what I do is not right. So why am I doing it? Why do I feel so different. Why do I feel like I am made up of two people? That someone regularly takes me over and makes me do things I don't support at all? Relationships don't work out, I do want children, always wanted them.

Through a friend I get pregnant, very subconsciously consciously. I am 28 years old. Meet another man. Don't know I'm pregnant yet and get into a relationship. As soon as I know I'm expecting I tell him and he chooses to do this with me. I wanted to become a BOM mother, but am actually too scared to do it alone and cling to this man. He raises my eldest child as his own and we have another daughter. After 9 years of 'holding on', I leave him. Literally sick with unhappiness. Immediately I dive into another relationship, dragging my children along. Another child I gain. My children also have a hard time with me. On the one hand such a loving mother, on the other their terror, I feel terrible. I am not good enough, my children deserve so much better???. This relationship also ends. He can no longer cope with my behaviour. I don't get it, it's not because of me, is it? HE can't communicate! I can!

I am applying to Psyq. Over the years I have read a lot and for a long time I thought I had borderline, but because I had also read once that there were no medications for it, I didn't deal with it. I am fed up, I don't want to be this person. At a telephone consultation, a lady asks me: have you ever thought about ADHD thought? I start laughing hard. No, this had never crossed my mind before. ADHD is busy bouncing around, right? After several tests, which also involve my parents and two girlfriends, the diagnosis is ADHD and then the most annoying form. They think there is something else, but they want to try to find out during coaching sessions. I feel relieved, I'm not crazy, I just have ADHD. Ok, big deal, let's get to work.

I start with an information meeting. Useful information and the contact with other ADHD?ers is a relief. Then comes the blow. This is something that won't go away. Which could have prevented so much misery if I had known about it earlier???. But I can't turn it back, so I choose not to stay in the well. Fierce as I always was against chemical junk, I start lexapro and concerta anyway. Wow what a peace???... no more songs in my head, no 100 things in my head at once, no more distractions and for the first time I can concentrate very well at work. The depressions are less intense, the mood swings are gone. No more anger attacks.

Two months after examination, my eldest child is also found to have ADHD and also ODD. This is going to be tough, but precisely because I understand him so well, because I have it myself, I think he is in the right place with me. Because love and patience for my children I have in abundance. For the rest, patience is not in my vocabulary. He mainly suffers from concentration disorders and is regularly at odds with teachers. Can't take responsibility for his own behaviour, it's always someone else's fault. But oh such a wonderfully clever boy with a sense of humour!

My eldest daughter has nothing, but seems (after investigation) to be in a disturbed relationship with me, thanks to my behaviour and thanks to the divorce between her father and me. We will work on this too. I don't feel guilty. It happened, I can't change what has been, I can change the future for her. The youngest of 5????? can be so in her own world??? but you know, that's allowed and it's okay.

We are a special family, with us it is never boring. We can bounce around together and we love each other. I am not crazy, I just have ADHD.

Laura

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