I’ve been thinking a lot about The Old Guy I used to work with today. He had an adult ADHD diagnosis and later developed dementia, a lot of the people at the nursing home were very surprised that he wasn’t more distressed by the dementia. It was because he was used to the idea that his brain sometimes processed things wrong. I’m pretty smart about a number of things and I’m used to thinking that I can’t rely on my memory but that everything else is pretty solid.
I think in situation normal that’s probably more the case, but I was stressed enough over the past couple of years to have a mental break and I’m still at the point where add a couple of other stressors and I’m not following or processing info. The only way I can be sure I don’t screw over other people with this is to remember that this is the case. I’ve got to remind myself not to try and keep things in my head, I’ve already been unknowingly externalising a lot of what my brain isn’t doing and I knew enough to externalise my memory. Now I’ve got to think consciously about that to retain awareness of it.
The old guy was estranged from a lot of friends and family, he didn’t receive his diagnosis until he was retired. I’ve got a time and awareness advantage to use here. But gods it’s frustrating to be so close to medication and treatment and to screw up in ways that are in hindsight somewhat predictable. Or maybe not predictable but in ways that I can trace the how’s and why’s after the fact.
It’s cold comfort to know the how’s and why’s – I know for a fact that in my twenties I’d have been questioning myself looking for subconscious motivations and assigning myself psychological blames that weren’t there. The Swamp is trying to do that at the moment, it’s nice to have facts to fight that with and confidence in my self-awareness which I also used to lack. Self forgiveness isn’t coming easily though, I know I need to but I’m so angry that I can trace my how’s and why’s and yet I didn’t see it coming.