who can ever tell what exactly is wrong with me?!

[whydoesthesky]

All my life i’ve had a battle with keeping positive/ motivated/ loving.
Have always ran from everyone and and everything. Always found reasons why I can’t live with parents/boyfriends for too long and the separation always gave me a big boost until the boost deflated again and felt like the walls are closing in on me and need to change/move on.
Now in my 40s with 4 children who are going into teenage years and menopausal is showing her face, i’m battling with various negative thoughts about leaving dh as the daily repeating habits, words, his calmness and sometimes passiveness drives me crazy.
I honestly feel the only 4 humans i don’t dislike, are my children.
Everyone else I can’t stand after a certain period of time.
I’ve self diagnosed myself millions times and come to a conclusion that all morbidities fit the bill with me. Anxiety, seasonal disorder, bipolar, asd, adhd
I have lived a very boring life always worrying about if i show the right example for my kids.
Don’t smoke, don’t drink, eat well, go to bed early. I just feel without all these i would be even more of a mess.
Most of the people around me laugh when i make jokes about how unstable I am as i’m clearly great at masking.
I enjoy being around people very much until something changes and I suddenly can’t stand it.
Dealing with myself constantly is exhausting and I’m sick of trying to find ways to soul search and feel better.
Currently struggling with the lengthy xmas holidays. The no structure or routine or any real purpose. The feeling of failure of not being able to find entertainment that all 4 kids would come off their devices.
The vicious circle or self loathing.
Thanks for reading this far ❤️

Possible ADHD?

I identify with a lot of what you’ve posted and I often suspect I’m adhd - not sure what the solution is although I’ve found as I’ve got older realising that there are ebbs and flows to this behaviour and I will always “come out” of it and have a more stable period helps. That and giving yourself a break 💐

Any difficult experiences growing up OP?

The focus on diagnosis is a red herring. You are describing a pervasive unhappiness that many people suffer from, and it is likely that there are multiple influences contributing to it. For one thing, everyone is neurologically distinct, and that contributes to our responses to life experiences; for another, we all have very different experiences growing up, and these shape our personalities and out responses to subsequent events.

Unless you have a very clearly extreme version of (say) ADHD, autism, PTSD, depression, etc., grasping hold of any of these labels isn't going to change anything. Much better to adopt one (or both) of two alternative strategies:

1. A 'talking cure', in which you try to understand yourself, as an individual, without any of the pre-conceived frameworks with which you have defended yourself from vulnerability in the past. And, critically, without adopting new inflexible frameworks as a new self-defensive identity.
2. Learning and practicing new habits and strategies to challenge the thoughts, feelings and lifestyles that are making you unhappy.

Thank you. I grew in a quite dysfunctional family. Mental health issue ran through it big time. Fathers brother ended his life in a hospital due to being schizophrenic.
My sibling committed suicide when i was 16. They never had a formal diagnosis but suspect being neurodivergent then issue with the sexuality then suicidal for the last year or so. Back then nobody knew how to talk about mental health.
I know these were huge things however i struggled with all my problems from an early age. I have a clear memory of being about 8-9 on a family vacation and everyone trying to cheer me up as i was so moody and angry for no apparent reasons.

Thanks my @MyThreeWords. Your and my post must have crossed.
I agree with you. There is absolutely no point in diagnosis.
I have most of my life felt proud despite of where i come from, I have managed to maintain a semi normal life with no big breakdown.
I have however spent most my life talking to myself reading up on things to try and understand myself. I feel adhd is the closest to me.
There is a definite cycle and as i grew older i have managed to learn that all the bad patches will pass and I come out ok on the other side.
As im getting older unfortunately my circle of enjoyable times/periods are getting smaller and smaller and end up finding myself wishing months and months away as things are hard or uninteresting.
I work with children and can honestly say that seeing smile on their faces is one thing that makes me happy. I’m desperately trying to aspire to be like them. Find happiness in small and simple things but it’s so hard.

That must have been so hard for you, @whydoesthesky , an uncle with schizophrenia and the suicide of a sibling. No wonder things are hard for you.

It resonates with me because my elder son killed himself after several years of struggling with psychosis, and I worry a lot about his brother who is now an only child. He was 21 when DS1 died.

I can ceetainly understand the quest for diagnosis. I've been down that road a lot, still travelling it a bit I guess. But ultimately I have given up the idea that there is anything to be gained by putting a name on things. I had a couple of years of psychotherapy recently and I know that part of me was yearning for the therapist to 'label' me - as if that would be a magic key to improvement.

Lots of love to you. Lovely to hear about your enjoyment xxx of children's happiness