Bloody Typical

[rayge]

I was talking to my son on the phone a while ago. As some of you may know, the older of my two grandsons has been diagnosed with ADHD and is also considered to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum. And then he told me that he had long suspected he may have suffered from ADHD since what was apparently a difficult childhood in terms of behaviour (a brief explanatory note: I did not have any contact at all with my son until he was in his thirties - he's now 53), or at least was, in his words, certainly not neuro-typical. And to back this up, when he told a doctor about this and was prescribed Ritalin or whatever the modern equivalent was, the fortnightly migraines from which he suffered from his teenage years have stopped - 40 years of being effectively disabled for a week out of every month seems to be over.

Anyways, this isn't really about them. They're both doing fine: son has beaten the migraines, while number one grandson, who counts among his obsessions aeroplanes, palaeontology and Lego (at which he is a master) recently celebrated his 13th birthday with his first flying lesson - son published a photo on facebook of him at the controls with the south Devon coast stretching away in the distance.

I used to suffer from headaches as a child and full-blown migraines for a while, although I later found that the great majority of them were triggered by alcohol or paraffin fumes, virtually any volatile hydrocarbon really: realising that, I could avoid the triggers, and haven't had one - nor even a headache, except with colds - for a quarter century. I was also famously focussed at times to the point of obsessions with various things (as was my father) then moved on, was shy and socially awkward, didn't make friends easily until my university years, and so on. There was always an exterior thing I could point to explain any single facet of this (sorry to be vague, but no time to write down all the things I've been thinking for weeks), but looking again, in the light of my son's phrase, and bearing in mind that all my life I seem to have come to different conclusions about most things than most people, that i have occasionally felt that I actually think - or, more accurately, my brain works - in a different way to most people's, and that I am the second of four generations that I know about who have shown some behaviours that are today seen as indicative, I can't help but feel that I am not neurotypical either.

It's a strange thing, at 73, having felt different, set apart, for most of my life, to realize that it might actually be 'true'.

[Deleted]

I had two migraines a week from a young child until the age of 32. They just stopped, years of trying to find a trigger to no avail and then ,nothing.
Migraines are a right bastard. You know when someone is at work or summat and they say , oh I have a migraine, they haven't. They would literally destroy me almost within a minute. When I was a kid if you gave me an electric drill and told me boring a hole in my head would stop it I would have done it. I would ( as a kid) literally pass out due to the pain. Strange feeling to wake up hours later. It was like a mini coma. I don't know why they stopped but I am so grateful they did.
Sorry Ray ,reading about migraine suffering brings it back and I feel for them that have them. Carry on x

[wobblie]

Psilocybin supposedly works wonders for migraines. Saw an excellent documentary on the subject on PBS, I believe.

Never had a headache in my life that wasn't caused by drinking too much.

I'd send you a PM, Ray, but I can't.

[Deleted]

I had one the other day. First one for about 25 years! I hope they don't come back.

[Deleted]

Dec 20, 2021 18:39:31 GMT @littlejimmyosmond said:

I had two migraines a week from a young child until the age of 32. They just stopped, years of trying to find a trigger to no avail and then ,nothing.
Migraines are a right bastard. You know when someone is at work or summat and they say , oh I have a migraine, they haven't. They would literally destroy me almost within a minute. When I was a kid if you gave me an electric drill and told me boring a hole in my head would stop it I would have done it. I would ( as a kid) literally pass out due to the pain. Strange feeling to wake up hours later. It was like a mini coma. I don't know why they stopped but I am so grateful they did.
Sorry Ray ,reading about migraine suffering brings it back and I feel for them that have them. Carry on x

They can vary enormously in strength I think.
Certainly the one I had the other day, whilst a bit unpleasant, was nothing as bad as what you describe there.

[Reactionary Rage]

My mate has ADHD and gets speed pills off the NHS. Just sayin'

Might be worth trying to get a diagnosis Ray.

[tory]

Adult ADHD diagnoses are very common nowadays. I've had at least 3 acquaintances diagnosed in the last year alone.

[sloopjohnc]

Dec 20, 2021 18:46:49 GMT wobblie said:

Psilocybin supposedly works wonders for migraines. Saw an excellent documentary on the subject on PBS, I believe.

I saw that too.

[sloopjohnc]

So, I'm wondering, Ray. Does knowing help or does it make you think something should have been diagnosed earlier and you could have gotten some help?

[fearlessfreap]

My son is on the autism spectrum. While we were visiting my mother about 10 years ago, she said I was exactly like him when I was his age. The scales fell from my eyes -- I always thought I was a weird kid, but this explained a lot. They didn't know about these things when I was a kid, so I just went along in my happy ignorance. I got tested soon after, and to nobody's surprise, ended up on the spectrum as well. My son gets some services in school, he is high functioning and lives a normal life, but I now wonder if I had gotten them, would I have been more successful?

[Half Machine Lipschitz]

I often wonder the same. My folks sent me to a child psychologist when I was 7 or 8 to see if they could figure out why I was doing so lousy in school. The only thing I remember was the IQ test, which I scored quite highly on, so I think they concluded that I was simply bored and not being challenged enough. I don't know what goes on in other peoples' heads, but I'd be very surprised if everyone had the same thought processes I do. I often feel like I stick out like a sore thumb, but I've learned to adapt, even though I feel as though I have to stifle myself somewhat in order to do so.

[rayge]

Dec 20, 2021 22:40:56 GMT sloopjohnc said:

So, I'm wondering, Ray. Does knowing help or does it make you think something should have been diagnosed earlier and you could have gotten some help?

Oh I've never needed help, John, really.

I always felt a bit apart, and somehow special or exceptional - something that was encouraged both by my teachers and other adult professionals I came into contact with, as well as being the only child of a mother who had several miscarriages - but it didn't occur to me that this was anything other than something everybody feels sometimes: I thought I might feel it more often than most, but it never occurred to me that it might actually be based in biological fact.

The idea that I might have an atypical brain function, something that has expressed itself in different ways in my closest male forebears and descendants, has shaken my head up, and revised my sense of identity and my personal history, but there's no way I'd categorise anything that has happened as a result of 'having' this abf, or of 'realising' that I might have it, as 'bad', and generally when I needed help with anything more specific, it turned up.