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  30 something father, husband, co-worker, friend, individual learning to live and manage AD/HD.  Using tools, techniques, routines, vitamins, and medications to get through every day.  Making sure I learn, love, play, and grow a little each day.

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Impulse Control and Other Traits I Got From My Dad

Do you have good impulse control? Do you see something that interests you, zero in on it like a laser beam, and then keep on it until it’s done? Like new appliances, or maybe furnace appliances? Does this drive your spouse crazy?

The answer to those questions for myself are No, Yes, Yes, and Yes.
That sequence of responses may be wrong for others in your life, but for those taking the test there is no wrong answer.

I wish I did, but I don’t. It seems like when I get into a pattern I can’t get myself out until I come headlong into reality. Like a visit with my dad and listening to him piddle away every dime he ever made for the last 50 years of his life on the next new thing. It’s that stark look into a possible future self that brings home all that awaits you as you see yourself and all of the traits you inherited from him.

That sounds terrible. For most of my life I thought that my impulsiveness was mine alone. My Dad wasn’t really around and it was probably for the better really. I knew about his infamous brainstorms only after I was an adult. He’d have a far fetched idea and without considering his family, he’d be off. Well at least when he was younger. After he married my step mother OkJun he toned it down quite a bit because she would kick his arse all over town.

But it still exists. He goes in cycles like all people do. The funny thing is I see in him what I see in myself or vice versa as it is. There are good traits. Persistence, optimism, hope, faith, trust, and imagination. But the impulse control - man it blows. The difference now is that I know. I know what A.D.D. is. I know what I can do about it. I am doing it. I’m still working on impulse control.

Unfortunately my Dad doesn’t and he probably won’t. While I don’t listen as well as others, the last people he will listen to are his children. While his perception is that others may do things out of friendship and the like, his children on some level are obligated. Which we are, on some level. It’s too bad he doesn’t see that if he treated us as well as he treated his friends, we could be his friends too, instead of his obligated children he’s ignored for the better part of 40 years until he’s exhausted every avenue and has to ask for help.

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