“Watching the horizon – Sardegna & Corsica 2008” by drivoit is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
I have to admit, I’m a bit of a dreamer. Escape has always been a tempting option for me as a lot of things in my life aren’t ideal.
Learning to daydream doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Dreams expand horizons and it’s all part of the “learning to put up with things” bit of growing up.
The problem comes when you start being absent from everyday life. Neighbours, siblings, school, workmates, the people we talk to every day – this is where life happens.
Now, I know that a large number of people with ASD Level 1 also have ADHD. I don’t have an ADHD diagnosis. But I can relate to being the quiet, dreamy girl who can’t concentrate.
Of course, concentration issues come in all shapes and sizes. When we talk about concentration we maybe tend to think of the “mischievous little boy” type ADHD. But problems with attention don’t always look like this. They’re not always highly visible to others either.
I didn’t have any real problems with concentration as a kid. In fact, I was the perfect child in many ways. Quiet, well-behaved, obedient, sensible, an achiever.
There were few other children on my street growing up. My relationship with my brother was defined by torment rather than by playing together. All this meant that living in my head was always pretty natural to a point.
What happened for me was that when my friendships went bad in high school, daydreaming became an escape.
This is when the excruciating time that is adolescence hit me. A lot of ASD Level 1 women run into problems at this point. At the time I wasn’t to know that.
I was the sober, quiet one in the middle of a bunch of giggling hyperactive teens. When they told me I was boring I knew it was true. I didn’t understand their mucking around and silliness.
Interacting with my environment at that point sort of became virtually impossible. It’s a stage when you move to having minimal contact with adults and it’s all about your peer group. When you’re pretty much ignored by them, it makes everyday life hard to be present for.
So the obvious thing is to escape into fantasies. (My obsession at the time was rock music). It was either that or stewing about what was wrong with me and how to fix it.
This was when I also began to have major concentration issues with schoolwork.
Basically my differently wired brain had found a negative coping mechanism. Living off with the pixies helped me to deal with a less than ideal present but I began to miss things that teachers told us. Not listening in class became a pattern. My school marks began to drop. My poor exasperated parents tried to tell me “you’ll just HAVE to pay more attention”.
The up and down of adolescence that everybody talks about was never really something I related to. For me it was more a constant state of agitation with my mind going at 1000 revolutions a minute. Sitting and studying was impossible. I had to be up listening to music and dancing around the room. They could have diagnosed me with mania except that I knew better than to do it when anyone was watching!
Also, hormones may have had something to do with it. I’m not a scientist, I really don’t know anything about the effect of hormones on the brain during adolescence. What I do know is that during my thirties it gradually became easier to control my mind and my emotions.
When I got my first job I found myself making all sorts of stupid, thoughtless mistakes. Even when I thought I was concentrating I would make them. Having always thought I would make a competent employee, that rattled my confidence badly.
The struggle concentration has continued for me over the years. I’ve managed to control it to an extent. I’ve worked in positions where it’s been possible for me to zone out and then zone in when required. I’ve tried various forms of meditation as well but haven’t been able to make anything stick.
Unfortunately, certain things in my life have conspired to keep dreaming my life away attractive. There was a guy who was sort of half right for me and half not who would make eyes at me and drop hints, but wouldn’t speak to me directly. This was a big one. When the reality’s not pursuable a fantasy is fairly hard to escape.
The problems also extended into studying. I couldn’t concentration for 45 minutes straight. Even if I managed to do this I needed the next hour off.
Nor could I study practical things, like business, that I wasn’t really interested in. I tried a few different courses over the years that I ended up quitting before I finally completed my degree.
Looking back, I think I can spot the difference between the harmless daydreaming I did as a kid and the insidious absentmindedness I’ve struggled with since.
A healthy daydreamer has the ability to choose when they do it. To tune out at appropriate times and then tune back in as soon as something’s going on. This is fantasising that’s done for pleasure or mere escape from boredom. It’s not done to escape from a situation where you’re not coping.
In my case a switch had been flicked that I couldn’t flick back.
It was really a bit sad. Never having been popular, when I lost my ability to achieve, I lost the only thing that could really make me proud of myself.
I’m still having concentration issues at work on and off. It could be that a diagnosis of ADHD is in my future, I don’t know.
Right now my goal is to practice mindfulness and make living in the present a priority. It’s important for my personal development, my ability to express myself and particularly my ability to achieve goals. I guess I should just keep reminding myself of this.
Dealing with neurodevelopment conditions is a lifelong struggle. A lot of it for me has been about keeping my eyes and ears open and picking up tips and tricks through the years as I hear them.
Sometimes you’re walking a tightrope between coping with living with an issue and being on the lookout for treatments that will make a difference. The most important thing is you need to keep looking for solutions and not give up.
One thing life has taught me. The near future may be tough, but the distant future has miraculous things yet to reveal.
Invisible Light 