I've hesitated from writing my success with managing my ADHD because I could tell that there was something that I was missing and I was right....and today i finally figured out what it was.

Quick synopsis:  My mother, who had been suffering from Alzheimer disease for almost 10 years recently passed away at age 89.  For her sake I was very relieved as the person that I knew had been gone for years.  The last real conversation I had  with her ( as it was )  was over 5 years ago so all the grieving that I needed to do was done long ago.  What came from her passing and the experience that I had with my entire family being together in one room again was short of a miracle for me in that I had one last chance to see my family together (my sisters) to relive the events of our lives growing up together. This time however......the stories all seemed different than I remembered them on my end even though the memories of my sisters accounts departed in many different directions.  I realized that many of the facts in these accounts appeared like they were coming from the wrong family or at least....not the one I grew up in?????  But then it hit me.......I had taken off the rose colored glasses year ago and was now seeing everything for the first time without them even though for my sisters.....theirs were still on and fully intact.  Wow....what an eye opener.

This lead me to a hunch that possibly the same thing might happen if I back tracked one more time with my new perspective and took one more look at the same ground I had covered countless times before to see I could find anything new......my hunch told me that this was likely to happen.

And sure enough....it did!!

Without going over all the bloody details....I arrived at this site thinking that I might find some more clues to my life and my own struggle with having ADHD.  As I've stated in several posts that I was on a mission to discover something setting my eye on the areas of my marriage that needed work specific to my past mistakes by listening to the wives of husbands who have ADHD.  Without realizing it exactly.......I was checking myself or rather....checking off the check list of mistakes I've made to make sure that I was still on target.  What I discovered was not what I thought but exactly what I needed t find

The analogy:  When I was in my twenties I decided to take up sky diving.  I had always wanted to try it at least once up to the point of free falling solo from as high as I could get.......which I did.......but that's besides the point.  The point....being one aspect of sky diving that most people might not consider, that being.........While on the way climbing up to altitude while sitting in a small plane, the experience is one most people could imagine but especially nervous/excited for the first time and nothing really interesting to report in just that.  When it gets really interesting is when the door inside the plane swings open and there you are.....looking down with nothing in between you and the opening but air.  Every molecule of every fiber in your being is screaming at you that...."this is a really bad idea."  But yet you know from all the rationalizing and training and observation that the chances are slim that you will actually die....even though, there is that chance.  And against your survival instincts screaming at you not to put your legs out that door......you do it anyway and jump.  You take the leap of faith against all odds that you may die if you do.  That's where I am right now....standing in the door looking down at the ground even though I didn't realize this until today.

All my past experience with having ADHD going back to earliest memories.....the trials and failures.....the things other people have said.....my own assumptions and rationalizations......the delusions and denial......they all have taught me at least one thing and that is........ you are apt to wrong even if you think you are right.  This much I do know for sure.  but because I am so sure of this one thing.......ths thing in itself is the the thing that is screaming at me "not to jump!".

For all good reasons....I have double checked my parachute and everything else that I needed to......gone back over and over it to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything and it would appear that I haven't......so where's the problem,  what have I missed????

What I have missed was my wife's bravery.  She was brave enough to be with me even though she knew about my ADHD and any other weakness that I might have and still she chose to be with me.  She stepped up to the door and took the plunge saying....I'll see you at the bottom....I love you....and yippeee...off she went.  She took the leap of faith and now here I am being held back by my past which is screaming at me not to jump again....remember last time....and the time before that....and the time before that?????  You know what happened then......don't do it!!!

But.....as I was when I jumped out of the plane......I knew there was no guarantee that I wouldn't' die and yet I did it anyway.  I've never been afraid of dying or much else for that matter.  I've prided myself of that in so many cases....but the fear of the past happening again despite everything that I have done to make sure it doesn't is still there keeping me from following my wife down the same path together as I said I would.  It's this fear that was the one I haven' been able to find until now and I'll be God Damned if I let this one be the reason for my marriage to fail this time. 

There is a chance that my marriage will not survive.....I have faced this fear and have overcome it long before I met my present wife as well as being upfront with her from the very beginning.  Her choice to be with me and the bravery she has shown me in the face of this deserves nothing but the same from me from my end and all I need to do now is to step through the door and let go.  I just had to see it to know what it was that was holding me back and after all my searching....it's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be.

Mark Twain wrote:  "I'm an old man, and have had many troubles in my life.....many of which never happened."   I GET IT!!

This sight has been an invaluable resource in helping make this discovery. 

IT'S A GOOD DAY TO DIE!    Thank You

JJ