It turns out I'm mental

I've got ADHD. 

To be more specific I've been very recently diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder - Predominantly Inattentive. I'm 33 years old by the way.

I don't know what exactly to say about this condition.

I wanted to share it and I know some folks read the blog here.

I want to tell you what it's like for me. Both to live like this so far and to learn the news; which was shocking, expectable, relieving and infuriating.

You can read wherever you like about the condition and the symptoms but on a more personal level I wanted to tell you how it feels.

It feels like you're floating through life with nothing to hold on; being constantly and violently thrown around a tumultuous ocean scape catching fleeting glimpses of things to hold on to, touching them for a moment and they disappear again.

Things don't make sense, there's no order to what's happening. No plan you make ever takes hold. Everything evaporates, disintegrates and vanishes. You don't know why, where has time gone, why all your potential and ability never coalesce and manifest in any meaningful way.

You are always a stranger, a strange person, a weirdo. My social skills are severely lacking. Always an outsider. Even among the outsiders. Friends, with whom you've shared a strong bond of love, float away and disappear. I can't even maintain a close relation with my immediate relatives. I just forget, I get distracted. I can't mobilise the mental energy to maintain the relationships. Social interaction is exhausting and confusing.

You lose things. You neglect things. You avoid things.

It's disappointment after disappointment. Failure follows failure. You don't know why. The only thing that keeps you going is sheer dogged determination. Faith, or belief, that despite it all you must make something of yourself. Even when I win a battle, I learned to prepare myself for inevitably losing the war.

I can't afford to allow myself to feel hope.

A mental health professional, an expert in the field, has advised me that I have a severe case of ADHD-PI. I've went home in an emotional turmoil. I had expected, or wanted to learn, that something really was wrong with me. That it wasn't who I am, that it wasn't my fault; and it really wasn't.

I've got a condition, a dysfunction.

Now perhaps, there is another way for me to be. A different sort of way for me to live, to be able to keep track of things, to organize myself, to mobilize my abilities, to focus, to attend to things. I suspect that it is nothing short of being actually present in my own life rather than simply hanging on a raging beast.
I desperately want to believe that. I hope for it, intellectually.

I can't say that I regret not having found about it sooner. The course of my life has shaped who I am. Being like myself is an essentially good thing, a growing experience. I've learned humility, for sure.
I'm also incredibly frustrated.
I'm full of blind rage.
I'm sad and afraid, dejected, despondent.
Then again, I do regret it. What have I lost? Some things I've gained, sure, but so much has been lost.

It's futile though, to dig into what might have been.

Things might have been worse, couldn't they?
I'm so thankful for what I have. My family, the people in my life (even though they've been carried away by the waves) my work, my skills and abilities. I'm looking forward, as I ever have. I'm still determined. Still dogged; persevering.

I'm so grateful to have been diagnosed. Better late, than never.

Now I understand myself a bit better, maybe. I can have compassion for my self.

I can start to get better?