1st Support Group Meeting

Tonight I attended a support group for the first time. I also experienced what it’s like to be truly alone.

While I was attending the meeting tonight I could not help but to fidget in my seat and tap my foot continually. I knew that I had this meeting tonight; I had marked it in my daily planner, my Outlook calendar, and on my online calendar as well. However for all my planning I did not prepare directions or medication. (sigh) I really get discouraged with myself at times.

Paying attention to everybody that was sharing their personal experiences coping with their symptoms was a challenge for me. However I managed well enough and I noticed that every that was in attendance at the meeting had one thing in common with each other. That is with everybody but me. The discoursed that they were sharing dealt with the challenges they have met maintaining active employment. Some of them have kept their jobs for two years, five years, and one guy even managed to keep his job for nineteen years. NINETEEN YEARS! He felt that he was underemployed.

I can’t even remain employed for four months, let alone two years. I realized that I was a minority in that room. I finally spoke up and said “I do not mean to be a negative asshole about myself. But I’ve finally realized just how ****** I am.” I added that I’ve gone through one marriage. The one person who was supposed to love me the most said that I was stupid and asked why I was the way I am. I continued on and said since 1992 I’ve been incapable of holding a job for longer than four months. That I would go through five to six jobs a year. I would be happy with just keeping one of those jobs, even if it meant being underemployed. I said a lot of other things that I’ve already mentioned on this blog before.

The defining aspect of that meeting was so glaringly obvious to me tonight. I was not like them, I am singularly different then all of them. In a room full of people who are afflicted with AD/HD and ADD I was still different than my peers. I stood out. I took a moment just now staring at all the words on this Outlook page before I cut and paste it too my blog. I was not reading anything I had written; I was merely staring and thinking. My contemplations are filled with negative sentiments about myself.

My entire life I have always been different then other people because of my disability. Tonight I was in a room full of people who all have AD/HD and how sad is it that I am still different then all of them. How pathetic is my state of affairs that I still stood out.