Mental Health About me, any thoughts?

[sudz]

I'm having a very emotional night (i'm not drunk and have not smoked anything) and felt like writing down some of my deepest thoughts that i don't think i've ever told anyone before.
I'm starting to believe i may had ADHD-PI and have undertaken many on line tests and read up on plenty of articles and am seeing my GP this Friday.

I'm wondering if any of the things i have written below seem odd, different or completely normal to you.
I guess i'm simply feeling quizzical

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Things about me
I am a 17 year old Australian male who finished high school in 2012

I had OCD

From yr 5 or 6 to yr 7 I had full blown OCD that mainly included doing everything 3 times,
looking at objects exactly 3 times, reading a sign on the street 3 times. Then to feel better
i would do these things another 3 times making the total times I've done the thing 9.
I would then continue on doing this as many times as i could until i did the thing a ludicrous
amount of times (sometimes over 1000) that it gave me a headache and i had to stop.
After a little over a year of doing this it got increasingly on my nerves and I tried all
i could to stop it, eventually i managed to hinder myself from doing it by counting too or doing
an action 4 times. When it was done 4 times i felt terrible about it and felt so strange i forgot
about it. Eventually after doing this for several months i stopped doing everything 3 times
and managed to get on with my life. I stopped this behaviour mid way to late yr 7. I also
had to have everything perfectly squares such as remote controls on desks food items on plates
and any small general item on a flat surface. As well as when i walked i felt much better
walking on the square pavement blocks and not stepping on the lines in-between them.I still
do this to a lesser extent today. I try to stop it immediately if i notice myself doing so.

I have NEVER told anyone about my OCD problem, the closest i got was when my father, brother
and I were having a conversation and the word OCD popped up and I told my brother
"you know i used to have ocd" he just replied saying no you didn't.

I was recently talking to some friends and we happened to talk about ADHD and told stories of kids
doing dumb things because of their hyperactivity disorder. After 2 or 3 weeks i looked it up again
and read a couple articles about ADHD, eventually i ended up taking some tests that were supposed
to identify cases of adhd in individuals. I ended up with very high numbers in every single test i
took which led me to think i could possibly have a from of innatentive adhd or ADHD-PI.
I had often experienced the symptoms explained in each article or test and have done so since about
year 5.
I find it much easier to type to people quickly and coherently and can actually tell an
entire story without fucking up my speech or forgetting what i was thinking about halfway through

I have always been very fidgety especially in class where i would play with thing in my pencil
case throughout the entire class. Even when i'm going for a simple stroll i find it very hard not
to pick up a leaf or stick and fiddle around with it while i walk.
When in classes i would sit at my desk (which was directly in front of the teachers desk)
and daydream away like i was the only person in the room. I would sometimes daydream so
heavily that i would have to be spoken to by a friend or the teacher to snap me out of it.
When this happened i could not recall a single word anyone had said for the last 10-15 minutes.
Neither could i recall what i was looking at or had seen during that same time period.

I do not like my father, he is a nice person and i have never argued with him or had other such
problems. He left us when i was 7 and went off to do his own things then popped up again wanting to do counseling when i was 12.
I do not like him (maybe even hate him) because of how incredibly weird he is
and the fact that all he cares about it having a perfect relationship with someone
whereby both individuals have to agree and stand by a set or social engagement rules for
the individual and my father to have any sort of connection. I've always said i agree with
the philosophies on life he comes up with but now realise i only ever did that because I
wanted to have a dad. He left when i was 7 when i was just starting to realise things around me
(I can actually remember stuff from when i was this age). I don't remember much if anything
from being 6 years old or younger. My mother was always the tolerant type and let me do
as i pleased, i was not a mean person and i did not do any crimes or acts of violence.
I have never been in a fight before and don't plan on it, although boxing would be fun at times.
Just to let out that natural male instinct every once in a while. Since the beginning of high school
neither of my parents ever helped me in my school work or bothered to ask me about it.
They accepted it when i said it was fine and they did not question me any further.
My brother was the only outside (apart from classmates and friends) person that helped me
with school items. Even though he only helped a few times. When he helped me, even if it
wasn't much at all I felt extremely happy and thankful to him for trying.

Throughout years 7-10 (not sure if it was in yr 7) I was very outdoorsy and enjoyed an
outdoor setting such as a forest or farm. I was in the scouts and often went on
weekend holidays with my father going to climb a mountain, go for a bike ride, kyaking ect.

I find it very hard to learn the words of a song and even if i hear it several times
one time after the other the words of the song pass me and i can't remember them
even if i really try to.
I have never read a book or more than 300 pages. The longest and only book i ever completed
was 'rifts through quantaris' which was 150 pages or so and i only read the book because
we had to choose a book from the school library and read for 30 minutes every day
otherwise we'd have to do some sort of hard homework problem. I got through 5-10 pages every
time we read then spent the rest of the lesson with head in arms simply daydreaming
about random things.

When i try to go to sleep my mind becomes extremely active and i think about things
i normally wouldn't throughout the day such as loss of family, adhd and other more serious
things. I've also dreamt (or at least remembered my dream) EVERY SINGLE night for the past year.
I don't want to dream every single night and often wish for nights without a dream where
i can just wake up without having to think or remember anything. I also have as long as i can remember
had extreme troubles waking up early. On holidays i would sleep in until 1pm every day even if i went
to sleep at an early time such as 9pm.

I rarely shower, it just passes my mind and i never think about them. I enjoy showers but only
have one maybe once every 2-3 weeks. It's beginning to disgust me more and more yet i
change nothing about my hygiene.

I used to never listen to music either, i only recently started listening to it (past 6 months)
and really enjoy having something to listen too when going for solo walks or when travelling
around.

I often become extremely anxious if put in a position that i do not want to be in such as
doing a speech in front of the class. that was one thing i absolutely dreaded and hated doing.
Whilst i did my speeches one of my knees would always tremble and no matter what i did i
could not stop it. I would stand as still as a plank with trembling knees and just read through
the incoherent shit i wrote an hour before class.

 

[footscrazy]

I don't think you sound abnormal. I don't think there is any point in labelling yourself with disorders either - putting a name on your behaviours can pathologise them - make you think they're all problematic, and confine yourself to a simple 'set' of behaviours that you think come along with the disorder. I don't think defining yourself by a disorder, or analysing all of your behaviours to see if they 'fit' in that diagnosis, is helpful. Sometimes things just are, and figuring out the reason for them, or the cause, doesn't matter as much as figuring out whether those behaviours are actually concerning to you.

What is it particularly that is actually worrying you? Are any of the things you men tioned negatively affecting your life? Where would you like to improve? I get the sense that much of your worry stems from concern that there's something wrong with you, rather than the behaviours themselves causing problems for you. Though, I only have your post to read, so it's impossible to make any real judgement.

I think it will be worthwhile to see your GP. Before then, maybe it's worth thinking about what you actually want to achieve from that. Perhaps it's worth picking out some particular areas that you want to see improvement in, and have specific examples to give your doc. All the best.

 

[bronson]

Moving this SO --> TDS

 

[Black Rabbit of Inle]

There is no such thing as normal IMO. Everyone has their own quirks and habits and no two people are the same.

There have been increasing numbers of studies that have shown that your memories, no matter how clearly you remember them, are not always true.

Example:

Do you remember where you were on 9/11?


Of course you do.

Well, research has used that very example to demonstrate how memories work and how they can deceive us (i.e. how your memories can change!)

Researchers (1) asked people to recall their memories of the 9/11 events at regular intervals, making note every time of what was said (where they were, who they were with, what they were wearing, the facts about the events itself…).

They noticed that over time, details were changed without people even realizing it.

After a while, it turned out that many people thought they were somewhere that day when it fact they were somewhere else. Yet, they were convinced their memories were accurate.

Why?

Because every time you retrieve a memory, replay it in your mind or retell it to someone then store it back again, you have the potential to alter it.

It’s almost as though your mind recreates that memory rather than just putting it back as it was where it was.

The worst part of it is that you will believe in the alteration as though it did happen. The alteration will become your new reality within this memory.

How Your Memories Can Trick You

Diagnosing yourself often leads to misattribution and correlating your symptoms to what you have just read. Even trained professionals will avoid diagnosing themselves. If you truly feel like you have a problem, please seek professional help.