I don't know where to begin and exactly what I expect from this thread, and I also don't know where to post it, if on ADHD or Psychotherapy or Depression. English isn't my mother tongue thus my writing will sound a bit awkward. I was diagnosed a couple of months ago (I'm 53), ADHD and I was prescribed with medikinet 20 mg. I really relied on that drug to get my life on track and start having the quiet control of having grip and control on things, rather than feel always overwhelmed, sad, frustrated and depressed for a life that always goes in the direction of worse, and never for the better (I've developed a lot of resentment about my shortcoming and my inability to achieve a plan, any plan on my own I've always have to lean on someone else, feeling very humiliated about lack of autonomy, independence and adulthood). I don't know if I was born with ADHD, or some traits that verged toward this deficit or if this has been exacerbated by childhood, I have a very severe and cruel father, very cold, very rational very martial man and a mother that was using us, especially my the youngest brother as a surrogate husband. My father used to beat me and he was very demeaning and humiliating, I've developed a sense of shame (a toxic shame) and stress (I soon began to live in constant fear of being humiliated and basically of being profoundly defective and wrong). I was awkward and not very bright and in front of numbers, or procedure I felt dumb, very dumb and my father was merciless, I was getting angry and I was crying. Thus I never had a resource, a way out, something, an activity, a dimension that could make me feel good and where I functioned and did not feel wrong. It was horrible, I was scared of everything, even if I was a big boy. I've always seen as an alpha male (I swear) and I was acting as one, but I always feel profoundly wrong, scared. I began to hate myself, to swallow the constant tone of disappointment or rage of my mother and father. I still, when I am unable (it is as the brain stuck, as if it could not work, move, like a dog who watches the human with a lost gaze). I've cultivated a lot of rage and frustration, everyone else was able to create something, to do something, everything I did turned into a disaster, it was horrible, I was full of shame. Needless to say, I began to develop avoidance strategies, because in front of every confrontation I did not know what to say, what to do, and, again, my brain entered freeze mode. I wasn't an attractive guy until later in life, 18. I've developed a very arrogant attitude, people saw me as a very self-confident guy, but I inside I was feeling a nobody, a person with a very very low self-esteem. Very early I've discovered sex, eleven years old, masturbation and irresistible friskiness that later I've observed toward people who had developed and addiction (toward gambling, alcohol and drugs), feeling alive, frisky and bold. When I was in the bedroom I was very confident, very passionate and was the only thing I could understand how it worked, it was easy and it was also easy seduce women. Thus pornography in the very early adolescence and petting with a male friend from 12 to 16, 17. I was overwhelmingly frisky and it would have been good everything to empty and vent my own instincts. This trait that stuck, even today less often I still feel so frisky that I'd everything (within the law, obviously) to satisfy it. I grew up with a massive confusion in my head, incapability to catalogue and categorise things so I always lost my train of thought and struggled to follow an argument, often appearing as a not bright person. Obviously I internalised my father's idea of me, that I was not very quick-witted, that I was, in short, a disappointing person with no noteworthy qualities, and still today I have an ambivalent feeling toward my intelligence: I feel alive, so to speak, vivacious and at the same time stupid. I believe that I am stupid and I have tons of evidence almost every day and at the same time I am aware, with pain, that it can't be like that I feel a spark of smartness. I cannot stick to a plan, take decision, after a while when I am doing research and gathering information on something I feel blown away from confusion, indecisiveness (this feeling got worse during the years). Given these premises I am very unsuccessful at work, I work hard for meager results, I am constantly hammering my mind repeating me that I am a looser, a dumb person and I can show plenty of evidence about this. I have always perceived myself as a problem a problematic person that fucks up relationship, unreliable, that wears an extrovert mask but I'm scared to death that the truth about myself will come out. I teach to students I am too much, really too much, sensitive to criticism, I feel very fragile and every conflict in class makes me deeply insecure, like a child, and I don't sleep at night, I can't help brooding and when after a few conflicts I return to class I am not at all lucid, calm, I feel, always on the verge of falling into a chasm of shame and for others to see my true self. In and out I've been to therapy 30 years without any considerable effects and still I take sertraline (I used to take paroxetine for 2 years, it worked wonders, but when I quit it began hell, withdrawal syndrome, one of the most awful experience of my life) that turns me off and makes me not want to exercise or basically plan or dream or have a few coins of confidence. My wife, whom I cheat on, is a miracle, patient, very very smart, very practical and the one that has a crystal clear gaze toward things, the few thing we've accomplished were impossible if her would have not been around. Now, I feel old, I hate my job, that is paid very very low and I am scared, seen the results, of facing everything (medikinet 20 mg, was a disappointment): people, a plan. (Often, when someone is explaining me something I feel lost and I feel shame, embarrassment and hopelessness, I feel sentenced to life hostage to myself, my forgetfulness, my inability to plan anything and my stupidity).
I've done ( I know, more than a thousand words) a synthesis of me, there would be much much more else to say. I don't think someone reached the end, if yes: Hello! Thanks!
What would you do if you were me, I am really tired of living a life of such poor quality.
Is there any other community where I could post this? Any advice? Any support, anything that could help me because I am exhausted.
Addendum: (hopefully someone could mirror in questi esempi pratici).
The few times I had the impression something I was doing worked the anxiety was so fierce that I had to quit (as if I suffered of premature ejaculation of enthusiasm and determination).
Where I work my ass off on something (a lecture), when I am in class everything falls apart, all it takes is a little negative feedback (even the slightest sign of disinterest) from the class that I immediately change direction and run away and start improvising, or I feel the impossibility, when I have the classroom in front of me, to proceed from A to Z (as a simile this would be fitting: as if I suddenly felt I was in the middle of a lake and despaired of being able to reach the other spona and therefore had to get to safety as soon as possible). After sessions like these the frustration and the sadness is inordinate.
When I was young, with women was very easy to seduce the (three weeks, a night a evening), but I would have never allowed them to see the real me, because the real me was a mess, a very unintelligente mess, unable to provide to is own life. Thus, the power I had in the first encounters would have vanished very briefly and and it would come out that I was a blowhard.
I've tried mindfulness with no effective results (yes, Yuval Harari meditates 2 hours a day and I think it would improve my life if I'd meditate 2 hours a day, but I am unable to even conceive that amount of time, even if it could save my life); I've considered transcendental meditation because od David Lynch that I highly esteem, but it is too guruish; EMDR never worked, at least on me, so far.
I know it is very hard to empathize with me, but I hope someone will try