Gifts! What gifts?

Recently I received the following response on one of the posts that I left on About.Com.

Hi Shane

Thankyou for sharing and my journey has been very slimular.

At the age of forty I went back to shool for one year for my grade 12 diploma. Then off to college for 3 years.

This is when I was labeled ADHD, relief i say because now there's a name . Now I can start somewhere to gather information .

This is life long and has to be manage every day,with humor

*nutrient eating certain food, mediation, working out is a must, behavior techniques. accepting you are brillant special gifts, I am blessed to be born with a positive attitude and sense of humor. Humor is strong !

I really love the gifts and accept who I am. Understanding -it is a combination of resources that works

It was a struggle, re inventing myself every day.

Learning to step back shake emotions and see the learning in all things. The negative and positive .)

Once I understood all the behaviour etc. I started Orgainizing my life,what hell this was. I tried many diffrent techneques because it was a combination of things that clicked for me. You have to mix it up until you come up with receipe.

Now my life has structure, creativity, work is stimulating .

My Volunteering is helping young people with adhd develope positive attitude , use thier gifts for strengths behaviors and devloping humor for life. Adhd people are so much fun to be around

Why do I do this? because this would have made my life so complete to have a adhd life coach.

The following was how I responded.

Gifts? What gifts? I do not think that I received the memo on that one. Sure I can take on many projects at once and I think faster than most my peers. However that does not mean I complete any those projects or that I would retain any of the information that is traversing through my mind at 100 MPH. My symptoms are like watching a TV and the channels are switching constantly and I have half a second to absorb the information before the next channel comes on. And the worst part about all of that is that somebody is controlling my TV by remote control.

Now if that is not bad enough, what little information that I can retain I think that it's so important that I have to share it with people while we're conversing. I'll interrupt them at times because I am afraid that I will forget what I was going to say. Of course this behavior is not understood by some people in my social circle. So they do not wish to be more than a than casual acquaintance because I am looked upon as a person that has bullying attributes.

Now if that is not bad enough at times I want to share or do something that I think is a good idea and in reality that which I wish to act upon is not socially acceptable. I am incapable of thinking about these impulses long to determine if it was actually a good idea or not. Inevitably I end up embarrassing myself or somebody else that I care about and I regret that which I had said or done. In those circumstances my guilt would be compounded if I hurt somebodys feelings that I deeply care about or I love.

Now isn't all of that a smoking resume on how to win friends and influence people? So honestly if there are any gifts that I can take advantage of in all of that I would like to be educated as to what they are.

Good news is that because I am medicated I am empowered to modify my behavior and socially evolve. I am also capable of adopting good habits and the negative ones I had come accustomed to are being eliminated. Retaining information while conversing is much more easier for me now. Which negates my need to interrupt individuals while we're sharing dialog. My mental faculties are not being overwhelmed by my sensory information which allows me to have the extra thinking room long enough to amend my behavior. As a result of all of this empowerment I haven't regretted my actions in a very long time now.

My only problem now is that I do not feel the need to add to dinner conversation while my wife and me are out with our friends. I am content on sitting back and listening to everybody else talk. Which is looked upon as uncharacteristic of me. I am receiving emails from my close friends and family if I am alright, I was very quiet that night. I have to explain to them that for the first time in my life I am very happy to listen to everybody else and I do not feel the need to interject or interrupt. If I feel like I have something worth sharing I can hang onto the thought long enough until the appropriate time avails itself. I've discovered that a lot things I thought were appropriate or important aren't. So I keep my actions and thoughts to myself.

So if there are any gifts that I am ignorant of, I'd certainly like to know what they are?