Have been pondering on what was lost when the ADD marriage dissolved.
Since I've been ill for quite some time now (it's not serious), I've been alone and incapable of most things I usually do. It hits me then, how an entire world is lost with divorce. The narrative. The stories we used to tell. The memories I'm not certain about anymore, since their meaning may have shifted.
I believe narrative is so important. When trying to communicate to the children what's important in life, I reach for the narratives I've lived with, only to find they've dissolved. What is loyalty. What is fairness. What is great and transcendent. What is the quality of a person we're drawn to.
My children still trust their father and are devoted to him. I don't trust him anymore. But does that mean all the conclusions I've drawn previously can retroactively be dismissed? Was I blind to love him? Or am I blind now, because I've made a final decision?
Is the truth about love and our relationships ever flowing, so that when we leave a person we lose all knowledge about what has happened and would have happened, had we stayed? Does our will to survive make us categorize and paint signal colors on what was really a million soft shades, changing with the light? Do I make things up?
I feel the loss of our union is a tragedy. We shared many thoughts. These are now unattached. Since I have no one to confirm any of it, I find myself disbelieving what used to be well known facts (things are done in certain ways, this is hazardous, this is bad for the environment, this has been disproved, this can be trusted). This, and the jokes and stories, and the family traditions, have all fallen into an abyss of distrust.
I will need to make myself a new set of beliefs. I don't want them hastily made, though. Sometimes I feel I'm surrounded by people who are certain of almost everything, while I feel the more I learn the less I know. One might need a companion, if nothing else, to make this bearable. I lost the companion.
If it were up to me, none of this would have happened.
Swedish....This sounds oh so familiar
Submitted by J on
It may sound funny coming from the "other side"...the nuerodivergent one with ADHD. But I can relate with everything you're saying. Mostly and simply because I've been there before. More than once!
And I'm not taking strictly about getting divorced which I have twice. I'm talking about the experience of learning you have ADHD, then it suddenly occurs to you that everything you thought you knew is wrong. Everything you thought you knew about yourself, your family, your friends and a lifetime of memories suddenly change and keep changing. Nothing is, as it was, and will never be that way again. All those memories are gone.
But are they really gone? In my case, I found that they don't go away ( of course they don't ) but they are no longer the same. Living in ignorant bliss does have its advantages because you don't need to see the truth ( and the parts you'd rather not look at ) in order to keep seeing things that way.
Seeing things the way they really are involves seeing the entire story in a more objective light... including all the parts you don't like...for good or for bad. Those memories change, they don't disappear...and that narrative or story changes with it...to something entirely new. It's neither bad or good...just different than before. On the positive side....the story is complete, making one cohesive narrative. That part actually feels good because a thousand answers are now answered. There's less confusion, and more clarity. At the very least, you can trust yourself more. ( when talking about trust )
This is exactly like learning you have ADHD at age 45 !! As well as getting divorced.
"the more I learn....the less I know."
Exactly!!! I feel far less smart than I ever use to feel.
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
Mark Twain
I’m smiling
Submitted by Swedish coast on
J, those are clever and also funny observations! Of course a diagnosis would mean reevaluating the past as well. And your impressions before and after diagnosis would both be true.
It's comforting to find you and I can share this. Thank you for answering.