First real thread in a while...

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I am a fucked up human being. I can't do anything that I'm supposed to do, I can't do anything I want to do. I seem to only do stuff that my body/mind tells me to do. I almost failed my final exams last year cause I never studied once and that is in no way an exaggeration. Everything I wrote in my exams was from what I could remember in class. And thats when I wrote stuff, I spent the first hour of nearly every exam just sitting around doing fuck all. I get distracted by everything and anything! I can never concentrate! I can almost never bring myself to sit down and do work, but when I do get myself in front of a book it will go unopened for hours! I will sit there and stare around the room thinking of stupid shit, I'll get up and have a weird little crazy dance around the room or I'll walk around the room. I'm terrible for my walks, I once went on a 5 hour walk around my kitchen!!! The only thing that stopped me was my mum coming downstairs and giving out to me for being up at 6am, but I got away with it by just making her breakfast. I just think of everything from my imaginary conversations with the people I would never talk to, debate whats wrong or right with the world or just try to figure out why I wasn't sitting down doing the stuff I knew I should be doing. In school I was never able to work, I'd be sitting in a class and just staring blankly around the room thinking of stuff, chatting to anyone who will talk with me even if it was the teacher! I found the classes so hard to handle that I'd skip every second class!! I'd just sit outside the classroom or go out to the football pitch and sit there. And it was never cause the classes were too hard, I don't have a problem with what they're teaching, I pick things up quicker than anyone I know. I just can't learn in a class environment, I get no attention from the teacher, no supervision so my head just wanders with nothing to stop me. The only way I could ever do stuff was when the teacher was beside me making me do it. And this is a stupid method cause no teacher would ever be able to do that for me all the time, its not a healthy way to work cause later in life I would never have that. At the moment I'm in an art portfolio course, something I like, yet I still do fuck all!! I have people producing shit loads of work all day, every day and I honestly haven't lifted a finger!! I sit around doing nothing. I chat to everyone, I go outside for a smoke!! I don't smoke!!!! I just do it to get out of there!! When the teacher comes around to see how I'm doing, I just bullshit my way out of it just like I did in school. Nothing is different here except I have a nice new friend who gets me high every once in a while. My head is far too busy all the time, its so fucking full that I've stopped even thinking before I talk!!! The words just fuck out of my mouth!! The stuff that comes out of me is utter bullshit, I'm pretty sure I said something about a fallopian tube today and I have no idea why!!! The only thing that ever calms me down is music. When I listen to some great calm music I just completely mellow out, its a great feeling. But I would never try to get into music, I'll never try to learn an instrument or anything like that. The more I know about something the less effective it is. Its what happened to me with movies, I'm big into movies and the post production side of it but my interest has fucked up my enjoyment of big movies! When I watch movies now with big special effects I no longer enjoy it, I just see what methods and programs were used to make it and the movie loses all meaning! Its why I love simple movies, like my favourite film American Beauty. Everytime I see it, it just calms me down so much and I feel happy. Just pure, simple happiness. Its fucking great. But I've no idea why I think like this, why I have so much shit in my head all the time. Why I can never do the stuff that I want to do, or that I should do. I feel like I have ADD or ADHD or something like that but its easy to just pass it all off as some illness or something. Its probably just my fucked up head, I've been like this for as long as I can remember and I never talk to anyone about it. I hate talking about myself to others, I feel like such a selfish bastard loving myself and seeking attention and as I'm saying this I can't help think that I've done a post like this before. I probably have so I'm gonna shut up before I repeat myself even more.Why am I even posting this? What possible help is it gonna provide? Does anybody have a magical cure for being retarded????

This is such a horribley structured post, I wouldn't even bother reading this crap, nevermind replying.

I don't think your retarded.I do wonder about ADHD though. Your smart and quick witted as far as I can tell. BUT I have played with you more on the boards than anything. Rarely see a serious thing out of you.Forgive me if I am wrong bout the serious, because I have been gone a while again.ADHD doesn't mean your retarded...just means that you can't slow down long enough to focus.squeeze Good luck hon!

That was the longest paragraph in history, but holy shit dude, you just described a specific case of the general symptoms of ADD or ADHD.> I feel like I have ADD or ADHD or something like thatOK, so you agree with that.> but its easy to just pass it all off as some illness or something.Do I have to trot out my broken leg analogy again? Maybe it's an "illness", maybe it's not. In any case, it sounds like you're life is pretty screwed up w.r.t. school and career. Are you expecting that one day you'll wake up and everything will magically be better?What would you tell someone else who put up that post?

I don't see having ADHD as being retarded, far from it. Its just that it would be so easy for me to just say "oh, I have ADHD" and then I could get help with it. Or atleast try, I read an article in the paper a few months ago that I posted here about the awful state of mental healthcare in Ireland, it'd pretty much leave me in the same position as I am in now. But as I was saying, I could just throw the blame at some dissorder or illness but its probably just me, my head, my screwed up way of thinking and reacting and the way my head does shit. Thats what i find retarded.

I think he's learned the U.S. Federal Tax code, and its legislative and constitutional basis. If we could focus that energy, a cure for cancer would soon be found.

OK, did that really make any sense?

In reply to:Are you expecting that one day you'll wake up and everything will magically be better? I have been hearing that from people my entire life, especially my parents. The truth is I have no fucking clue what I expect. I have no clue what I want to do with my life or in the future. People say "go do something you're interested in" but I am not interested enough in anything to imagine a career in it. I'm going for art at the moment cause its the last thing I remember ever wanting to do and that was several years ago. In reply to: What would you tell someone else who put up that post? As I said, from the piss poor structure of the post I probably wouldn't have read it myself. But if by chance I did, I don't know what I'd say. Everything that comes to mind just seems like bullshit cause its been said to me before and it did nothing.

It did in my head, and that seems to be another problem. Everything fits into place in my head when I think of stuff, I solve solutions really quickly but I'm absolutley shite when it comes to explaining it.

I'm not asking you what you're going to do with your life. I'm asking you about the issue with your head. Do you expect that maybe one day you'll be able to focus like a laser?OK, here goes. Suppose your leg is broken. Would you consider it some kind of weakness to seek medical help in fixing it? You put a splint on it, and you're able to function again. It's no big deal. If there's some chemical imbalance in your brian, it's the same thing. (I'm not saying that there is, but if you don't get it checked out, you'll never know.)What you describe sounds like it goes way beyond someone who's just afraid of succeeding. What is the loss of getting it checked out, no matter how crappy the system is in Ireland? And what is the gain of doing nothing and continuing to run in circles?

What I was trying to say was that it didn't make sense. The fact that you can't explain it is besides the point.

Well during my last year of school we had a new counsellor, a young girl in her 20s who was fun to talk to. I went to see her a good few times about career stuff but we never really talked about how I'm feeling at the moment. When she brought it up I'd avoid it, pass it off as just a bad mood. I just never felt comfortable talking about it.

In school tho they had reason to be worried about me. I was unstable sometimes, usually I am an incredibley nice guy, I will never say a bad thing about anyone. But at times I shift into a very different person, I told the odd teacher to fuck off every now and then and I just ignored people most of the time. And I never got into serious trouble about it and I never really new why until my mum told me that the school called. She was talking to the counsellor and apparently a lot of the teachers were afraid of me. They didn't want to give out to me too much cause they were afraid that I'd snap or something, hurt someone or myself.

See, now I'm just waffling about all the stupid crap. I can't think straight at all tonight!!

Natasha said what I was trying to say, without being a douchebag...so let me re-emphasize what she said, while trying not to be a...you know: seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness. You need to address the problems, sooner rather than later. If you delay, it's just going to cause more problems in your education and career.You do seem a bit depressed, and it may be a result of what you're going through, which would be completely reasonable.Also, if I slept as little as you do, within a couple of weeks or so I'd be institutionialized. I would not be able to function at all. That's another thing that you ought to look into.

Bob, I DO know what it is like to be "off" I went undiagnosed for almost 10 years. Mine was thyroid related.BUT, I went through times of lostness, and still do. My parents thought I was on speed or something, and kept hauling me to the dr, to find nothing.At 21 AFTER I screwed up my life.. they found it, and I have been adjusting ever since. But I deal better because I know what is going on, and because there is treatment to utilize.It is truly worth looking into.

Im just like you, So are 50% of the teens. The thing is, you just need to learn to control it. I know you probably think im bullshitting you but im not. 1s grade to 7th grade i used to study all the time, once eighth grade started, i got off on a good start and was on top of my homework and studied all the time, but during the middle of the year i lost that good habbit and its beeen like that ever since. I will get off on a good start for a little bit, then just stop. Sometimes when i am working on homework, or taking a test, i will just stare at a problem for 5 minutes and not do shit. It is really hard for me to concentrate no matter what unless i am listening to music. I am a huge hippocrit, if i dont like you i will tell you to fuck off. I dont think you have ADD or ADHD, i think you are just going through a phase that im sure every teen including me goes through...

You got your situation under control? Good. Good for you. Not everyone is you. You are not just like him. I don't think you should compare your situation to his. Sometimes a broken bone will set fine on its own. Sometimes it will set wrong and leave you crippled.Really, there are situtations that need a consultation. How long would a phase be anyway? Would most of one's life still be a phase?I realize your just trying to be helpful, but I don't think your advice was very helpful for him.

Bob, I have to agree with Steve here. I think it is ADHD/ADD and I think you are a bit depressed. Many times depression goes along with ADD/ADHD. I also think you are absolutely brilliant. What Steve said about the cure for cancer...I could totally picture you being the guy to do that. You, and many people with ADD, have all this information swirling around in your head, but you do not know how to sort it out. That is when medication comes into play. It really does help you focus and sort out all those thoughts. And there are people that can overcome it without meds, but it takes alot of time. But in your case, like I said, I think you have some depression. And I think it would really benefit you to take meds and sort out all these thoughts and emotions.

albeitmyself > That is exactly it, I am well capable of doing work but I still just never do it. I find it almost impossible to sit down and do the work that I'm supposed to do. I don't like seeing myself as smart tho, I've had my friends, teachers and my parents calling me smart for years and it just annoys the hell out of me. I have a big enough ego without thinking I'm super intelligent or even above average. Its come to the point where I just associate the word "smart" with "lazy" cause they are the two words people use to describe me. "Gregarious" is a third.Steve > I've been playing with the thought of depression for quite a while, when I first came to A2A I was pointed towards the possibility of Cyclothymia. When I read the symptoms it seemed to fit. But I just don't understand why I'm like this. I can't see anything in my life to bring something like this on. I have a great life, I have great friends, my family is always there and they have never abused me or excessively punished me. I was sent to a top quality school with a great learning environment and everyone did well in their exams cause they studied hard. Everything thats wrong with my life comes from my head, I am the reason I can't study/work. I am the reason I have problems with my friends. I am the reason why I don't involve myself in my family. I am the reason that I see my relationship falling apart while my girlfriend seems to be fine with everything. I can't figure out why I am the way I am.Pepsi > My parents don't seem to notice anything wrong with me, they see me as being so smart but so lazy. I once tried to explain to my mum how hard I find it to study and she just said that I need to try harder.FrankD > Thanks for the thoughts, but if 50% of teens think and act the way I do then our future is fucked. Whats going through my head seems to be a lot more than just the teenage condition, its almost impossible to control. And it has been going on since before my teen years, I was the same way in primary school but since that period of time was such a joke I was able to get away with it.Lisa > Thanks for the nice words but I honestly do not take compliments well. But I am gonna try to sort this all out, if I'm up to it I'm gonna see if I can book an appointment with my GP tomorrow afternoon. Thanks to everyone for the advice.

Good luck babes, let us know how it goes.