The Face In The Mirror
When you look in the mirror who do you see? Do you see you for who you are or is it still an open question? For most of my life it was an open question.
Sometime ago my wife and I were going through some difficulties and she posed the question, “Are you a good person that makes bad choices or a bad person trying to be good?” When she asked me that question, at the time, I didn’t know it was related to the first question I asked.
Over the last 20 years I have found myself looking in the mirror trying to identify who that person was. I knew that I was in there, and I recognized the face but time and time again I found myself looking in the mirror not sure who was the person that had got me into that position at the time.After I was recently diagnosed with AD/HD and started to do more research into the subject I began to understand that I was that person staring back but that unknowingly I had a part of me that could override my logic, reason, and moral processes. I also realized that while not beyond my control, the impulses that were brilliant and inspiring to others at times were also pushing me to do things I wouldn’t have done if the other processes had control.
For years I had been asking myself the question “Am I crazy?” Another question that I commonly asked was “What am I doing?” I had no answer for that. It has been so frustrating and debilitating to struggle with that. While I’ve been good at what I do by various means of self management I have often asked myself, “What if they find out I have no idea what I’m doing?” This self doubt even made it into my bathroom mirror.
Now that I know who that person is, me, I work to manage my emotions and strange impulses. I am taking notes during the day of things that I do that I shouldn’t have done and trying to identify how I could turn that impulse around. One of the things that I’ve started to do is when an idea pops into my head is record it somehow so that I get it out of my head. Before that impulse to take action kicks in. I don’t do it everytime but I’m still getting used to it.
The more I learn the more I realize that I have to learn. It’s not a simple fix but a constant evaluation and adjustment to harness the bad but release the good of AD/HD so that I see clearly the person looking back in the mirror.