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What its like living with ADHD and Dyslexia at 57....

fpgt72

Old Salt
Full Member
Minuteman
Mar 26, 2019
3,900
6,210
A comment made in the reloading section prompted me to bring this up, I usually do if I find I am going to be sticking with a forum for a while, but just had not done it yet. Good as time as any.

Just like the title says I am 57 and have these two....issues....well I have a great many issues, but these two are the ones talking about today.

My hope in this is a little education, perhaps you have a young one in your life that is having issues, this may really help them....and you....with some of the challenges.

And for a great many this is TLDNR, so for you folk that can't read the entire thing, short answer, brain damage....duh.

So here we go:

ADHD

ADHD is really not understood outside of the people that have to deal with it one way or the other. They think attention deficit hyper activity....well they can't sit still and can't concentrate.....well no. And this is where so much of the misunderstandings come from. Well little johnny can sit there all day long and read his book on WWII tank specs (me), the most stupid stuff and dull stuff in the world. Who cares about welds and armor thickness and that factory used these wheels and that factory cut the slits this way. So just smack him on the ass and he will get his butt in gear....again no. It also comes with the ability to hyper focus on specific tasks. And if you pull him away from that task he hyper focuses on he will loose his mind, and likely not know why.

Remember that really bad movie The Accountant, he had that ability with numbers, and if pulled away from the task it really messed him up. This is very accurate and why a guy I have known for 40 years told me to watch that movie he is just like you. You might like the movie as well as it is a "guy" movie.

Story time:

About a year ago we had the back tank on a toilet crack and flood the down stairs. Long story short need a new toilet, wife just says buy one, I go to lowes and look, and that little switch in my head went off. I need to learn more about this. So for three months I researched night and day toilets. I learned everything about them, finally the wife put her foot down and said you really need to pick, both upstairs bathrooms are out of action and I am getting sick and tired of going down stairs to pee. Yea that kinda does suck the floor is cold. So within a week I had one picked out. She knew better then to just go buy one, as it would be gone whenever I made my choice, put she gave just the little push I needed. Later that year the AC in the house went out. Did not care, could not force myself to learn anything about it. So I could learn everything about a couple hundred thing I needed but could not on the couple thousand thing I needed....yup just could not force myself to research it. She bought it, did everything.

This is also why video games are so good at keeping these peoples attn, and seems to "calm" them. It is something they are interested in, always changing, it keeps them going....and can spin you off into researching who knows what. Early in the year I was doing a deep dive into south african wars.....now I have read about 8 books on native american wars.....when the switch gets flipped to off I will stop, and I just can't force myself to read another page, my mind is everywhere.

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is really a pain, and also can take many forms. Can be so bad you can't read, to a level like mine where I read what I want to read. This is one reason I test so badly, and was the cause of more then a few beltings. They ask you a question. Why did the chicken not cross the road. Answer, to get to the other side. WRONG smack. You are rushing, go slower. No that is not it, my brain just does not see the not. It will read what it wants to read. A real issue when I took typing in high school, you had to in order to get into the computer classes. I could not find my typos, I was lazy.

Another issue I have is numbers change places, and change themselves. It is real hard for me to dial a phone number. It is hard to wright down a phone number. Where I work we all have numbers, three digits, I will transpose these all the time, or even put numbers that are not there in the guys DSN.

Had a guy working for me, What your number 123, I wrote 965, Where in the hell did you get that. No idea, but for that minute I saw 123.

Also in typing, I see what I want to see, so in making posts there is a great deal of corrections that go on. Things like which wich is witch really get me, just like too to and two, I know what one to use, but the short between my eyes and brain will see the correct one. It really sucks.

To the gun side of things, as well as other "hobbies", I have a great deal of them. I raced SCCA sports cars, and built my own car, I fly model airplanes, guns, cars in general, as well as other toys, slot cars, RC cars raced them at a step above club level, and I have all that stuff, I can't toss anything away....it is like cutting off my arm. I am lucky to have an understanding wife. With the guns I will get something, and be basically focused on that, working up loads, testing, making notes to the n'th degree, and when the switch in my mind flips to enough, well very hard to get me to do much more then just shoot it from time to time, I want that next gun, that next challenge.....and I start to go nuts if I don't have something to keep me going.

This also leads to a great many half done things. I have a small early 80's two stroke motorcycle, needed a new piston, by the time it arrived I lost interest, that was roughly 7 years ago. I push that bike in and out of the shop every time I am out there. The half done engine sits in a bag on my bench. Same deal with the rail buggy, my fiat and fiero. For some reason my brain wanted to do cars again, so after years off (other health issues) I am VERY slowly working on cars again and doing a VW. I have already done the sand rail, fiat and fiero....good timing as I hit a deer last week and needed another car. My bad back has really slowed me down so what would take two hours now is several days, I just can't be on my feet that long so lots of sitting and looking at the world go by, then after about 15 minutes I am up again and putting that wheel bearing in that I sat down to pack.

I will gladly answer questions you may have, I have learned a great deal and have some good sources if you have a loved one that you think might have an issue.

So that is really a little bit about both of these "disorders" and they are real, little johnny will not get better no matter how often you spank him.

Hope this helps someone out there.....And if you choose to be a dick don't expect a reply.
 
I cant relate to the dyslexia, but I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD multiple times by multiple different doctors. I’m not big into psych meds, so I learned to adapt and live without them over the last 20 years.

I did, however, take about 15 10mg adderall over the course of the last two weeks of my busy season, and the effect was on par with Bradley Coopers experience in the movie Limitless. It was absolutely bonkers. I got more done in that two weeks than I normally do in two months. I was able to juggle 15 different things at once simultaneously with ease and a razor sharp focus I’ve never experienced before.

THAT. SHIT. WORKS.

Then again, it’s basically just amphetamine salts and may have that effect on everybody. Careful if you go the med route.
 
PWZhY2Vz
 
Then again, it’s basically just amphetamine salts and may have that effect on everybody. Careful if you go the med route.
ADHD here. I've talked with people that took Adderall that didn't have ADD/ADHD and they described it as though they were hyper-energetic but actually did the opposite and got them so hyped that they had issues focusing on tasks.

It did the opposite for me while I was on it in school. I was like you and could actually focus on tasks and get everything done, never felt more productive. I stopped taking it as soon as I was done with school. Sometimes I think how nice it would be to be back on it, but I'd rather not be taking stuff like that my whole life.
 
Dyscalculia big time. And a touch of dyslexia. Wasn't till my mid 30's that I started picking up on it, but it explained why I was so lost with math in school. Now I work with numbers all day long, and it causes me grief daily. The up side is I notice it a lot more and deal with it. Example, last night I was writing down load data and went to write ".289". I write the decimal point, the 8, go back and squeeze in the 2, then write the 9. I write numbers like this constantly. I'm thinking 289, I can even be saying "two..." out loud, while the pen makes an 8. Fun stuff.


Dyslexia wise, far less trouble for me, at least that I know of, but far more frightening.
Reading / seeing certain words (uncommon technical terms you wouldn't really run into in every day life) for years and years. Saying it to someone once and them being confused. They corrected me, we have a friendly argument, they got a book and showed me I was wrong, and me seeing it with the letters in the right order for the first time in my life. That's scary. What else am I seeing wrong?


The other "fun" (terrifying) example I give was this stencil. Made it, one of many, as stage decoration for a large USPSA match.

0.jpg

At the range by myself painting, taking a break, letting paint dry. I'm looking over the one's I'd done so far and that's when I notice I only put one "P" in the word "support". OMG! I'm mortified! How the hell did I do that? How could I spend all that time making the paper template, then cutting out the acetate stencil, looking at the thing for hours and never notice? How did I not notice while I was painting? What I'm I going to do? How embarrassing. Maybe I can tell people I did it on purpose as a joke? "There ARE two P's in support right? I'm pretty sure!" I look it up on my phone to double check. Yep. Oh man, I'm sick to my stomach. I sat there trying to figure out how I could fix it, or paint over it without ruining everything else. And not long after, the second "P" showed back up. Why I couldn't see the second P all the sudden, who knows. Let me tell you, that's fucking horrifying. Scary shit to realize that your eyes and your brain are lying to you and "reality" isn't.
 
The drugs are a hard decision. With me they work till they don't. It will be like you others talk about, then it will slowly revert back, larger dose, slowly get worse, again higher dose.....you are at the max this is not working and now you are starting to have side effects.

I went down that road and it was so nice when it lasted. You feel "normal".

My suggestion is if you have it this is a talk for you and your Dr.

And if you think you have it go get it looked at. Just knowing why you are the way you are helped so much. Well I am not just an idiot that can't do basic math unless I do it so slow I just don't see the world as you do.
 
Dyscalculia big time. And a touch of dyslexia. Wasn't till my mid 30's that I started picking up on it, but it explained why I was so lost with math in school. Now I work with numbers all day long, and it causes me grief daily. The up side is I notice it a lot more and deal with it. Example, last night I was writing down load data and went to write ".289". I write the decimal point, the 8, go back and squeeze in the 2, then write the 9. I write numbers like this constantly. I'm thinking 289, I can even be saying "two..." out loud, while the pen makes an 8. Fun stuff.


Dyslexia wise, far less trouble for me, at least that I know of, but far more frightening.
Reading / seeing certain words (uncommon technical terms you wouldn't really run into in every day life) for years and years. Saying it to someone once and them being confused. They corrected me, we have a friendly argument, they got a book and showed me I was wrong, and me seeing it with the letters in the right order for the first time in my life. That's scary. What else am I seeing wrong?


The other "fun" (terrifying) example I give was this stencil. Made it, one of many, as stage decoration for a large USPSA match.

View attachment 7981042

At the range by myself painting, taking a break, letting paint dry. I'm looking over the one's I'd done so far and that's when I notice I only put one "P" in the word "support". OMG! I'm mortified! How the hell did I do that? How could I spend all that time making the paper template, then cutting out the acetate stencil, looking at the thing for hours and never notice? How did I not notice while I was painting? What I'm I going to do? How embarrassing. Maybe I can tell people I did it on purpose as a joke? "There ARE two P's in support right? I'm pretty sure!" I look it up on my phone to double check. Yep. Oh man, I'm sick to my stomach. I sat there trying to figure out how I could fix it, or paint over it without ruining everything else. And not long after, the second "P" showed back up. Why I couldn't see the second P all the sudden, who knows. Let me tell you, that's fucking horrifying. Scary shit to realize that your eyes and your brain are lying to you and "reality" isn't.


I deal with numbers all day long as well.

I need report 2223332, and you gave me 2233322.

Damn it, and I even put the video in the wrong report.....I will fix it.....crap.
 

Shit I screw up writing 17.

I've often theorized with ones like that it's because the word starts with "seven..." so part of my brain jumps to the seven. But that doesn't explain all the other ones, I think 17 and 18 were just the first ones I started to catch myself on.
 
I would be scared as hell to reload. You write down the wrong numbers, and BOOM!
 
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Numeric dyslexia here. It was a bitch getting through Algebra with an intro to Calc. to get a bachelors.
 
ADHD, Autistic (Asperger's) and moderately severe OCD. Yeah, I know the struggle and it is real...
 
55 with both and its been tough.
Army basic helped me a bunch and I don't think I would have survived without it.
Still cant write and reading is tough.
And its going on a year for me with a broken toilet because I am still looking for the best answer SAA. Luckily I married well and we have 4 bathrooms.
Adderall helps some.
 
ADHD here. I've talked with people that took Adderall that didn't have ADD/ADHD and they described it as though they were hyper-energetic but actually did the opposite and got them so hyped that they had issues focusing on tasks.

It did the opposite for me while I was on it in school. I was like you and could actually focus on tasks and get everything done, never felt more productive. I stopped taking it as soon as I was done with school. Sometimes I think how nice it would be to be back on it, but I'd rather not be taking stuff like that my whole life.
Just checked your website,Great products!
 
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I would be scared as hell to reload. You write down the wrong numbers, and BOOM!

I was really worried about reloading as well, so was my wife, she just knew I was going to blow my face off. She (and I know she does this) will have an "interest" in whatever she thinks is going to get me hurt. So she will be right there with me in doing it. How does this work, where did you get that number, so you put the caliper to that......you know.

Reloading is the most odd thing. I can do it without thinking, it is just one of those things that is automatic.....it just clicks and I have no way to tell you why, but they think because that is an area for "hyper focus" for me.

When I was in school there was this company that made war games Avalon Hill. All kinds of table top type war games, and the rules for the games and working up the odds on a specific outcome is a bit complicated. Ok you are in the open, and attacking me up hill and in the forest.....ok that is a 1.5 modifier for being on a hill, and a 2 for the woods, I have 10 you have 3 the odds are X. And I could calculate the odds in a blink of an eye, and be correct. But math in school.....in the "dummy" classes. My brain just also "got" chemistry no idea why it was just automatic like breathing. And this is another thing that really screws with people. He gets straight A's in chemistry, but a D- in the rest of science, he is just not trying in the other subjects.

Reloading is for some reason a moment of calm, the world just slows down, it relaxes. And for some reason the rest of my life is a "wing it", with reloading it is so different. I weigh everything.....everything, and sort them. It is really OCD where this goes and it is just one of those things. And some of the things I do I think make so little difference, but it is just the way I am wired. Why bother weighing and sorting each bit of brass, and every bullet, it really does not matter if you are banging steel at 30 yards with a 9mm. But I do it anyway.

Like Waylon Jennings said, I have always been crazy but it has kept me from going insane.
 
A comment made in the reloading section prompted me to bring this up, I usually do if I find I am going to be sticking with a forum for a while, but just had not done it yet. Good as time as any.

Just like the title says I am 57 and have these two....issues....well I have a great many issues, but these two are the ones talking about today.

My hope in this is a little education, perhaps you have a young one in your life that is having issues, this may really help them....and you....with some of the challenges.

And for a great many this is TLDNR, so for you folk that can't read the entire thing, short answer, brain damage....duh.

So here we go:

ADHD

ADHD is really not understood outside of the people that have to deal with it one way or the other. They think attention deficit hyper activity....well they can't sit still and can't concentrate.....well no. And this is where so much of the misunderstandings come from. Well little johnny can sit there all day long and read his book on WWII tank specs (me), the most stupid stuff and dull stuff in the world. Who cares about welds and armor thickness and that factory used these wheels and that factory cut the slits this way. So just smack him on the ass and he will get his butt in gear....again no. It also comes with the ability to hyper focus on specific tasks. And if you pull him away from that task he hyper focuses on he will loose his mind, and likely not know why.

Remember that really bad movie The Accountant, he had that ability with numbers, and if pulled away from the task it really messed him up. This is very accurate and why a guy I have known for 40 years told me to watch that movie he is just like you. You might like the movie as well as it is a "guy" movie.

Story time:

About a year ago we had the back tank on a toilet crack and flood the down stairs. Long story short need a new toilet, wife just says buy one, I go to lowes and look, and that little switch in my head went off. I need to learn more about this. So for three months I researched night and day toilets. I learned everything about them, finally the wife put her foot down and said you really need to pick, both upstairs bathrooms are out of action and I am getting sick and tired of going down stairs to pee. Yea that kinda does suck the floor is cold. So within a week I had one picked out. She knew better then to just go buy one, as it would be gone whenever I made my choice, put she gave just the little push I needed. Later that year the AC in the house went out. Did not care, could not force myself to learn anything about it. So I could learn everything about a couple hundred thing I needed but could not on the couple thousand thing I needed....yup just could not force myself to research it. She bought it, did everything.

This is also why video games are so good at keeping these peoples attn, and seems to "calm" them. It is something they are interested in, always changing, it keeps them going....and can spin you off into researching who knows what. Early in the year I was doing a deep dive into south african wars.....now I have read about 8 books on native american wars.....when the switch gets flipped to off I will stop, and I just can't force myself to read another page, my mind is everywhere.

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is really a pain, and also can take many forms. Can be so bad you can't read, to a level like mine where I read what I want to read. This is one reason I test so badly, and was the cause of more then a few beltings. They ask you a question. Why did the chicken not cross the road. Answer, to get to the other side. WRONG smack. You are rushing, go slower. No that is not it, my brain just does not see the not. It will read what it wants to read. A real issue when I took typing in high school, you had to in order to get into the computer classes. I could not find my typos, I was lazy.

Another issue I have is numbers change places, and change themselves. It is real hard for me to dial a phone number. It is hard to wright down a phone number. Where I work we all have numbers, three digits, I will transpose these all the time, or even put numbers that are not there in the guys DSN.

Had a guy working for me, What your number 123, I wrote 965, Where in the hell did you get that. No idea, but for that minute I saw 123.

Also in typing, I see what I want to see, so in making posts there is a great deal of corrections that go on. Things like which wich is witch really get me, just like too to and two, I know what one to use, but the short between my eyes and brain will see the correct one. It really sucks.

To the gun side of things, as well as other "hobbies", I have a great deal of them. I raced SCCA sports cars, and built my own car, I fly model airplanes, guns, cars in general, as well as other toys, slot cars, RC cars raced them at a step above club level, and I have all that stuff, I can't toss anything away....it is like cutting off my arm. I am lucky to have an understanding wife. With the guns I will get something, and be basically focused on that, working up loads, testing, making notes to the n'th degree, and when the switch in my mind flips to enough, well very hard to get me to do much more then just shoot it from time to time, I want that next gun, that next challenge.....and I start to go nuts if I don't have something to keep me going.

This also leads to a great many half done things. I have a small early 80's two stroke motorcycle, needed a new piston, by the time it arrived I lost interest, that was roughly 7 years ago. I push that bike in and out of the shop every time I am out there. The half done engine sits in a bag on my bench. Same deal with the rail buggy, my fiat and fiero. For some reason my brain wanted to do cars again, so after years off (other health issues) I am VERY slowly working on cars again and doing a VW. I have already done the sand rail, fiat and fiero....good timing as I hit a deer last week and needed another car. My bad back has really slowed me down so what would take two hours now is several days, I just can't be on my feet that long so lots of sitting and looking at the world go by, then after about 15 minutes I am up again and putting that wheel bearing in that I sat down to pack.

I will gladly answer questions you may have, I have learned a great deal and have some good sources if you have a loved one that you think might have an issue.

So that is really a little bit about both of these "disorders" and they are real, little johnny will not get better no matter how often you spank him.

Hope this helps someone out there.....And if you choose to be a dick don't expect a reply.
Damn, it’s like you know me. I appear to have both. I knew about the dyslexia, for years I have misspelled words and misread numbers.
and then there’s the hobbies. I have a bunch, scuba, modeling, guns, diy, 3d computer animation, woodworking. I tend to get really into things and then after I reach a certain level of skill, I move to the next.
I got a new scope and will start shooting longer distances and all I’ve done is watch videos on scope mounting, ELD shooting, Etc……
I’ve always been like this and decided that most folks don’t understand and just got on with my life…..
but now, I have a brother from another mother…….. 😎
 
Damn, it’s like you know me. I appear to have both. I knew about the dyslexia, for years I have misspelled words and misread numbers.
and then there’s the hobbies. I have a bunch, scuba, modeling, guns, diy, 3d computer animation, woodworking. I tend to get really into things and then after I reach a certain level of skill, I move to the next.
I got a new scope and will start shooting longer distances and all I’ve done is watch videos on scope mounting, ELD shooting, Etc……
I’ve always been like this and decided that most folks don’t understand and just got on with my life…..
but now, I have a brother from another mother…….. 😎
I’m the same way. Bad adhd my entire life. When I’m into something, I’m 1000% in… until the switch flips and I’m done. That’s half the reasons I go through the amount of guns I do.. get one, take it apart, build it, find a load for it and once I’ve got it exactly how I want and shooting great, I’m done….no more interest in it. I built computers as well. That’s the interesting stuff to me, but no one else gets it… why did you sell that gun you just sunk money into and got shooting good??!!??
My job is horrible for my adhd too. I run heavy equipment and usually on a giant compactor, going back and forth for 8.5-9 hours a day… talk about torture to me. I get bored on that quick and then getting distracted, sleepy… it sucks
 
are you sure it's adhd ? could it be early onset some timers that affects hundreds of thousand husband across the world maybe more as most cases of this disease go unreported or even ignored . Cause a mind is a terrible thing to waste and for some reason so is a wife's time with this stupid excuse .
 
Shit I screw up writing 17.

I've often theorized with ones like that it's because the word starts with "seven..." so part of my brain jumps to the seven. But that doesn't explain all the other ones, I think 17 and 18 were just the first ones I started to catch myself on.
Happens all the time for me. Pharma drugs are not for me. Vit D and caffeine.
 
are you sure it's adhd ? could it be early onset some timers that affects hundreds of thousand husband across the world maybe more as most cases of this disease go unreported or even ignored . Cause a mind is a terrible thing to waste and for some reason so is a wife's time with this stupid excuse .

This is why I think getting diagnosed is critical. I did not find out "what was wrong with me" till I was halfway through life. And it was like a weight was lifted. There are a few things that the docs can do, nothing painful, really just an endless series of questions, both talking and on "paper" and they come back saying you have this.

Personally I can't "get rid" of anything. In (I think) the bolt action section I brought up a Mosin Nagant question on the barrel. I bought that rifle in 2019. I shot it for the first time last weekend, and now it is all I think about. I shot other guns I got at the same time, Remington 8 and 81, but for some reason I could not make myself pick up this old Russian war horse....really it is american, but not really the point.

I am not sure how to take your "stupid excuse"

Watch this little video, it is on another issue, if you want to watch the entire thing fine, but the part that is related to this post starts at 5:40 and goes to 7:55 and it really goes into how "getting that paper" that says you have X is so freeing. You don't know why you screw up, you know better and you really doubt yourself and are VERY hard on yourself. I screw everything up, all my fault, can't do anything right....on and on. But if you know and others know you have these issues then there is a real reason behind why you do what you do. Why you talk a good game and sometimes you are just amazing at doing things, but other times looks like a 3rd grader did it.



 
Still have that shit at age 60. I didn't like the way the meds made me feel. Through trial and error I found that a low carb, sugar restrictive diet helps. Also found before a test or study time a good run and a workout also helped.