I’m back in college, I’m learning a new language, I’m writing again, I’m back in rehab. Ever since I got diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, life has just been so much easier and it makes me wanna cry sometimes. I really thought the struggle before meds was just how Life worked and that it was always gonna be hard. But now that it’s not, and because I’m so used to putting 200% into my work just to keep up, I’m killing it now. I feel like I’m finally on an even playing field.
And I’m upset. I’m upset that I threw away my entire adult life up until age 25 to mental illness and addiction. I didn’t deserve that. I deserve better for myself. I deserve to be happy and god damn it I’m finally working on getting there
@kaijuno You didn't throw your life away. The system failed you. The education system, the mental health system. You kept moving forward in whatever ways you could try. They might not have been good ways, but you were trying what you could. You can't blame yourself for not functioning better, for not making better choices, because of another untreated illness that made you prone to succumbing to bad habits.
That's not your fault. Not knowing how to try to try to control something that hasn't been given a name for you, or isn't being treated, or something you haven't found coping mechanisms for yet is. Not. Your. Fault.
You have to forgive your past self for not knowing how to deal with illness. Many people have to forgive their past selves for that. And it definitely is possible to forgive the younger version of yourself for making mistakes. You didn't deserve the suffering, but the suffering wasn't because of your younger self. It was because of the untreated symptoms of a significant version of an illness and how others handled it.
You're young, you have plenty of time to make your life what you want it to be. I promise. Getting diagnosed and medicated is the first step in so many things falling in line.
You can take some time to be angry things didn't change sooner, but know that it isn't the fault of your past self. Things happen in life that make living difficult, especially for people with neurodivergence. Trauma. Abuse. The way people treat you for having a mental illness and/or learning disability, especially when they don't know or understand that something is effecting you. The way you treat yourself for being different, for feeling like a failure because you didn't have the help you needed.
None of that is on you. None of the things that caused your suffering because of your ADHD is your fault. You can't make proper choices when you don't understand your mind well enough to combat bullshit. And there are many people with ADHD that greatly suffer before they can get on track and get medicated. Who they were before that, the limitations they had, the days they just had to cry in frustration, should ever be seen as a personal flaw. It's a symptom of an illness. Of a disability.
So many of us with ADHD don't see it as the disability it needs to be seen as. If we did, I think we'd be more forgiving of ourselves and our actions caused by ADHD.
You're headed in the right direction. I hope you can one day forgive you past self, because I get that right now you blame them for so much. But please don't. They were a victim of their symptom, and they did the best they could. I hope you come to realize that.
