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ADHD Support Group: Anger Management and ADHD


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Anger Management and ADHD

Anger Management and ADHD

For anyone living with anger-management issues and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

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Group Message Board: ADHD Questions and Answers

  • Awink32276
    Another destroyed relationship ...

    I am in the process now of packing my things and leaving my heart and the life I have lived for the past 2 1/2 years. It has been the most stable relationship I”Ēve had and as usual I screwed it up by expressing uncontrolled emotions and hurting the one I loved. It”Ēs so exhausting repeating the same failures. I am 35 have struggled since 18 as a single mom. I have never been married. I can”Ēt pay bills in time,have bad credit and a messy house and car all the time. I try so hard that I don”Ēt think I can try any harder but can barely get to a level of minimal functioning for survival. I know I”Ēm smart and I know what I am supposed to do but I can never do it the right way. I have never thought about or planned my future. I live for the moment and am full of emotion and passion. I do not have any friends or social skills. Being alone is all I”Ēve known until this relationship. Now I am Back to starting on my own. It”Ēs going to be much harder this time since I gave up my job to do school online which I have not been able to complete due to lack of concentration. He paid off my car that we sold to buy a truck which is in his name for me. I live in his house which I have never done in the past so I am starting at ground zero. The meds helped but only been in them 2 weeks and the side effects caused depression and aggression that was unfamiliar to me so I stopped them. My mind is Back to overload and I have to be able to function tomorrow to try and start over. I am so tired of trying my best yet constantly failing and hurting my loved ones. Can anyone relate to these feelings or am I just crazy?

    - Posted by Awink32276 to Anger Management and ADHD on Jan 23, 2012 at 11:45am | 4 Comments | Post a reply
  • OSU Mike
    Help my "support" group killing me

    This is a letter I sent to my family today.  Can anyone else identify with this sort of thing ? The fact that I am wondering if this is an exercise in futility is about the only thing that is making me realize that I have not lost touch with reality.  Look, without a doubt, much of this is going to be upsetting to you and I did not take the decision to send it lightly.  I have made every effort in writing and editing this to not make it a personal attack on you as people.  Trust me, I found it difficult to tone down the language but ultimately realized I had to take the high road. My intentions here are not to hurt you, nor to cause you guilt or pain.  My intentions are to try to educate you on some things regarding my situation which I have failed in previous efforts to get you to realize.  I need you to understand these things so that you can change and I can avoid having to sever ties with you.  Because at this point, unfortunately I”Ēve come to realize it would almost be better for me to be homeless, than to continue to endure the status quo.  Where to start ?  Well lets get the immediate concerns out of the way.  Sorry, but I cannot and will not go to any doctor or treatment facility that you recommend or have any association with.  I do not trust your intentions, it will not in any way make the problem better, and will almost certainly guarantee it worsening. It is very hard for me to say this but so far as the difficulties I have had to wrestle with regard to stress management over the past six months, the problem is not me.  It is with you.  Until you see that you are to blame, not PLAN, not Adam, not Al, not Dr. Martin, YOU; this situation does not go away.  Additionally, while I’m grateful it happened because it resulted in me getting better treatment, you are very much responsible for the events which lead to me being pushed to the brink two years ago and we are nearly at that point again.  It is that serious. HOW ? Again, lets start with the immediate situation.  Since January it appears to me you have been on a mission to control almost every single aspect of my life and to a level of detail that has both shocked and appalled me.  I have absolutely no idea where all of this came from, I have practically begged you to explain the justification for many of them and have received no credible answers. Back in January when you showed me the letter you sent to PLAN, I was taken back.  It STILL puzzles me.  Back in January while I was having some stress at work, overall I was doing fine in managing my life.  Additionally, regardless of how you felt I should have handled that current situation with my employer, the way I handled it ultimately proved successful. However, over the course your utilization of PLAN, my stress levels and my frustration levels began to increase.  I could not and cannot still understand why you were requesting explanations of things like why I spent much time on the internet, the cleanliness of my apartment, what I was doing in my free time.  In early spring there was no justification for this and again I still scratch my head on why a 30 year old man had to justify such stuff to his parents.  The apt was clean, my finances were on the rebound, and I had not had a major anxiety attack since just prior to Diane’s wedding.  I keep pounding on this because you keep pounding on me about this conviction that I need a different treatment and that Dr. Martin”Ēs diagnosis is wrong.  I have been pretty forthright with him about what has been going on for the last six months and he has repeatedly given me clean bills of health.  For 1.5 years of my recovery, you had never tried to become so controlling of my life, never insisted I justify such stuff as my internet usage and physical whereabouts.  I don’t know what happened in January that changed this, I truly wish you would tell me the truth, instead of the sketchy answers you have tried but I’m sick of asking and getting weak and inconsistent answers. By summer your actions had become a constant source of stress and frustration for me.  I was very hurt by the implications of your actions.  Every time I tried to talk to you about this, the answer that came back was ALWAYS “well you have to realize you have a disability and can’t understand the reason” and even now its hard not to cry and not to become angry when I think about it.  I’d become completely marginalized by you and what I had to say no longer counted. So I tried to deal with is as best I could.  I did not and still do not know how I’ll ever get out of the margin with you and smart intelligent people whose guidance I have sought on this have all been stumped cold.  You clearly did not believe the reports PLAN was sending you indicating things were fine, nor did Adam’s assurance that all was okay, find listening ears and open minds.  So I did the only other rational thing I could think of and tried to keep you at arm’s length.  I quit calling you so many times a week, quit responding to your emails so quickly, and deliberately kept the details about what was going on in my life vague. Apparently this only made things worse because in spite of the situation, my mother’s actions and reactions to Dr. Martin when I invited her to accompany me to a routine appointment shocked me.  A man with 30 years of experience treating ADD in adults explains to you that with treatment people with the condition have no limits in terms of ability to function and your response was that he has no clue what he was talking about.  He tries to explain that it would be good for both you and me if you would become less involved in the details of my life, yet you only become more aggressive and petty in your efforts to inject yourself into controlling my life. Here”Ēs the thing.  I do not feel you understand the reasons for my apartment not being as clean as you would keep your house.  I will try to explain to you again.  At that moment in time, I had been working 6 days a week, often 10-12 hours a day, outside in during a summer that was unusually hot and much more humid that most summers.  It was the first time since 05 that I was in a job that required me to work outside and was much more physically demanding than everything I had done the previous several years. It was a situation where it was almost impossible for me to do much more than lay on the couch on my day off and it is not like I have a spouse to share the domestic chores with.  Maybe I should have hired a house cleaning service, I don”Ēt know.  The thought had crossed my mind but the reason for working all the hours I was working was to try to make extra money to ease my finical burdens, so the idea was not one I was overly fond of.  It was at this point that in all honesty I started backsliding and backsliding drastically.  Because I realized that if you were not going to listen to the people of PLAN and you were not going to believe anything Dr. Martin told you, I lost all hope that the situation would change.  It was clear then and remains that way now, you will not rest in your efforts to control me and apparently you will not accept that control under any condition except that of me being under the physical control of a government institution.  Because I have asked and begged you to define the correct responses to the things you complained about.  I have pleaded for explanations on what the rational for things like my concern with mildew were such a concern.  I wanted to know this information so I could change my responses to ones you want and get you to stop with the letters to PLAN or Dr. Martin.  Even now, you have refused to give your honest responses to them. So a month ago when I went in to talk to Dr. Martin and was blindsided by yet another letter covering things what I would never have guessed would show-up in a letter as a concern to my physiatrist, I gave up.  I quit cleaning my apartment, ceased all efforts and managing my finances, quit exercising, became so depressed that at one moment I was sleeping 22 hrs of the day.  I seen very very little reason to get up and while I was never suicidal, I wished I could die.  This onslaught on my life by you guys wasn’t going to stop until I was hospitalized or imprisoned is how I felt.  These days I doubt that would stop you.  NOT ONE TIME EVER SINCE JANUARY HAVE YOU EVEN ASKED ME IF I WAS HAPPY !!!  MY HAPPINESS WAS ABSOLUTELY NOT A FACTOR IN YOUR ACTIONS !!  You have not asked me about my satisfaction with my life at any point in this. Other than my issues with you, I was okay with how things were going until my job loss.  NO I wasn”Ēt happy and dancing around like an over caffeinated clown but I was okay with where I was at.  Money was not abundant but with all the overtime I was getting, I was making enough to get by and figured that if I was able to put up with the work situation for 1-2 years until the economy stabilized, better opportunities would eventually come my way.  I”Ēd watched my father start off as a packager in a steel mill with the idea of toughing it out long enough to earn an opportunity more suiting of his credentials.  It wasn”Ēt the most enjoyable situation but it was MUCH better than anything I”Ēd been in while working in call centers so I felt things were okay. I had a big trip planned for August, my first solo vacation ever and knowing that kept me positive and motivated to work all the overtime I was working.  I did not and do not understand where all these issues you kept contacting PLAN about and contacting Dr. Martin about were such a big deal ? I have no idea why my efforts to control a serious mildew problem in an apartment building where mildew was an ongoing issue for all the residences, would be considered a problem.  You were so concerned with my apartment staying clean and part of that effort involved constant cleaning of my residence.  So what if I decided I would rather caulk and seal areas in need of it, instead of fighting with the office to get it done ?  Again, was I endangering you ?  Was I endangering myself ?  Is the fact that until I got so busy working overtime, I had fun doing it an indication of serious mental illness ? Why on EARTH would me sending emails at 4am be a justified reason to contact my physiatrist?  Was I sending you hundreds of emails written in a manner which indicated I was intoxicated or in the midst of a hallucination?  How on earth was that hurting anyone?  So what if I had to be to work in 6 hours, tell me my father has never stayed out late partying on a work night ?  Frankly, so what if it was 3 hours before I had to be into work, have I ever been in trouble with an employer because of a consistent pattern of being late to work or calling off ?  NO and MY ATTENDENCE AND PUNCTUALITY WAS NOT AN ISSUE OF CONCERN IN THIS SITUATION EITHER!! Why was I wrong to label my tools and various electronic components?  Why was that an issue ?  How was I hurting anyone ?  Was I staying up labeling things for 7 days without sleep or going to work ?  Was I using ink in such unprecedented amounts that I was poisoning myself ?  I need an explanation as to exactly why it such a serious problem that you wrote to my doctor about it. I did not even know that I was so super unhappy this summer until my father said that all he wanted was for me to be happy.  I mean, WOW.  I enjoyed my job and was looking forward to the vacation I had planned.  Frustrated with the lack of opportunities for a social life ? Yeah somewhat but I wasn”Ēt letting me get too down.  Sure I had a few weak moments and vented to you but that is not an indication of mental illness !  Getting really tired of working so many hours ?  Yeah a little bit but again I tried to keep in mind that I was fortunate to have the opportunity for overtime and wasn”Ēt about to let it get me too down either. As things stand now, I am having anxiety attacks which are of a severity that rivals the ones I was dealing with in the time just prior to Diane”Ēs wedding because I am living in fear that anything I do which you determine to be unusual, you will use as an opportunity to try to get me involuntarily admitted into a hospital where you will convince the doctors to tranquilize me into submission.  That note this morning convinced me, this never ends.  Will it be the fact that I miss understood that the mower deck had broken a support bracket, instead thinking it was the tractor, which caused me to stop picking up walnuts when the cart was full and nearly resulted in the lawn not getting completely mowed Saturday ?  Will it be the fact that I was annoyed when you told me to get the drying peppers when I was in route to take a shower?  I do not know but I have good reason to believe one of them could end-up on a note to Dr. Martin or in some kind of testimony before a court to try to get me admitted to a facility.  Not knowing which makes me worry and eats at me.  I do not know where this ends, I have flat out asked you where you want it to end and you do not give me answers.  I ask you one more time, if it is on your terms, where does this end for you ?  What were your intentions of all this? So far as future conversations about treatment and doctors is concerned please understand this. UNTIL YOU CAN GIVE ME A RATIONAL EXPLANATION AS TO WHY EACH AN EVERY BEHAVIOR OF MINE THAT YOU COMPLAINED TO DOCTOR MARTIN ABOUT WAS INDICATION OF A DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR, I AM SORRY BUT I CANNOT TRUST YOU. I told that guy you sent to talk to me this is on par with where we were at prior to Diane”Ēs wedding and you need to know it was something like this which pushed me to the breaking point then. While I wish I could let the past go, really I do.  If you really want to help me, you need to understand that the anxiety attacks I was having prior to my sister”Ēs wedding were due to frustration over this fact.  I could not understand why given the volatile history of my sister and I”Ēs relationship, why was I the one who was being IRRATIONAL AND UNREASONABLE for not wanting to attend?  Why was I being irrational to feel as if I was being treated like a wedding prop by you guys?  Why did you only stop when it became blatantly obvious that you had me so stressed out and questioning my grasp of reality, that my health was being seriously jeopardized?  You know what is irrational?  The fact that I hated myself for not wanting to go to the wedding of a sibling whom I had not spoken to in over a year because we always argued; that was irrational.  Because, at the risk of another attempt at having me involuntarily admitted to the hospital again, MY FEELINGS THEN WERE REASONABLE. For as aggressively as you have sought to become involved in my treatment; even after I have repeatedly explained the status of my meds to you, when announcing a trip out west for a job, you immediately ask me about them AGAIN !!!  That is beyond frightening to me.  You trying to inject yourself into my mental health treatment and you can”Ēt even remember the status of my meds after repeated explanations ?  Yet another reason why I”Ēm begging you to back off on it. I thought we had handled this last week but clearly I was wrong.  I had told you I would consider another evaluation but only when I am good and ready to consider it.  I need to get a job first.  That is and will remain my priority.  I will go to a doctor whom I am comfortable with, and with whom you have no affiliation.  I have to get a job and health insurance first ! If you really want to help me, what I need is your encouragement right now.  Please, stop second guessing everything I”Ēm trying to do with the job search.  Hey, as of today I”Ēve received a 4th interview invitation so I must be doing something right !!  YEAH ME !!  Why are you not even happy for me ?  Why the day before the most important interview of my life, do you try to derail things like this ?  Why did you have to do this NOW and not wait until I got back from the interview ? Please do not volunteer your opinion unless I ask.  If I want your advice I definitely will ask for it.  I don”Ēt ask for it anywhere near as much as I once did because I”Ēm a 32 year old, college educated, military veteran, and I”Ēve enough life experience that I can figure things out a lot more than I once did.  I don”Ēt run into as many situations where I am second guessing myself. My plan right now is that I want to go out West, put a lot of whole lot of gone between myself and Ohio.  Much as we discussed at length back in August when I was considering driving out of ND.  I need a fresh start.  The oil and natural gas industry is in another boom right now, projections are that it could last 50 years.  Starting pay for entry level positions is between $40,000-$65,000 a year and it is reasonable to expect to earn upwards of $85,000 a year within short order.  It is hard dam work for sure, no doubt it requires a lot of sacrifice and travel, outside in the harsh weather, and as dirty as it gets.  I want to work outside, we”Ēve agreed repeatedly and Dr. Martin has also encouraged me to find outside work with my hands.  This is about as prime as an opportunity gets !! My thought process has been to get a job making that kind of good money and presumably good benefits along with it, get past my 90 days and look into treatment options or getting reevaluated.  The Amen clinics are mostly out west as are the vast majority of Adult ADD specialists in the USA.  Figure it out from there. As for the bigger picture, here”Ēs the deal.  Assuming I get into this line of work and can hack it, I”Ēm looking to funnel as much $ to Steve Fireoven as I can, with the intention of building a nest egg over the course of 5-10 years but probably 10.  The idea being that this is a hard line of work, dangerous, and heavy in terms of time sacrifices, also those 50 year oil boom predictions could change in 3 years, you never know !!  So I”Ēm planning on going into this thing with a mindset to live like a Spartan for 10 years, and invest as much $$ as I can into 401k, stocks, bonds, mutual funds and whatever.  You get the idea, invest aggressively yet wisely so that by the time I reach my early 40”Ēs; if I want to leave the business and start a second career, I will have the option to do so. I even know what I would like to do as a second career.  Independent writing and I even had some thoughts on how to pursue that goal already.  Because while I intend to live on the cheap, I also plan to budget enough $ to do some travel, not to mention the traveling involved with the job, journaling about my discoveries and building a portfolio of articles and maybe even a book or two.  Poverty stricken writers are about as common as out of work actors, so I”Ēm not so na«Įve as to think it would be a sure thing.  Hence the importance of building a nest egg that will give me options !!  But to get there, I need you to please give me a whole lot of room to deal with my mental health, stop being SO intrusive into it.  Again, I”Ēm fully aware of ADD, what it is, what it is not, how it holds me back and how it moves me forward.  Its something that is on my mind (pun unintended) every waking hour of every day, its something I”Ēm constantly seeking to master, and I do not take it lightly.  Things have gotten out of control and its moving me backwards not forward.  I need you to see that and to stop pushing me on it.  I”Ēll evaluate things when I am in a better position.  I have so many other things I want to tell you but again, I”Ēm allowing nothing to derail this interview and already I”Ēve spend all afternoon on this instead of preparing.

    - Posted by OSU Mike to Anger Management and ADHD on Oct 25, 2011 at 9:40pm | 9 Comments | Post a reply

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