The brilliant reality of ADHD is that you are not alone.
No, please, never think that you are alone, or, that you are the only one who has been through the suffering, the confusion and the pain. We are all in this together, connected in an interrelated manner which draws us to each other. Together, we are more.
It is quite common for those who have suffered to feel like they are alone, that nobody cares and we are simply wasted breath on the wind, which will eventually disappear into nothingness. I used to feel that way. I used to believe that nobody cared about me, that each day was just another day to live through the inner torments of my thoughts and the chastisements from others. When we suffer, we feel our woes very intensely and they resonate through every fiber of our being and this causes us to want to give up and give in, to let go and fall. We see every failure magnified to the point we can’t see anything else, but the failure, failure, failure.
I never realized how much I loved my father until the moment I stood before his open casket. I stood there and finally understood he was gone, gone forever, never to return, never to throw that baseball for me to hit again. His life was over and I treated him so badly, punished him for doing everything he could to raise a boy who was confusing, seemingly lazy and just as seemingly stupid. His ways were tough and perhaps even wrong, but his intent was to raise a man who could make it in this world. I repaid his toughness a thousand fold by ignoring him as I became an adult. I ignored him up until the point I was standing over him, he was gone, never to return. His body laid there still and calm, he was gone.
My family was not with me when I visited my father that last time. My mother and sisters waited at the burial site for the casket to be delivered. As if to magnify everything in my life I followed the hearse all the miles until we reached the site. So many thoughts filled my mind as we drove. What if I could just go back a year, or just a few months? What could I do to make thing right between us? I know there were times when he tried to reach out to me and I shunned him. Through the time of his illness and up until the point we reached my mother and sisters at the burial site, I had not cried, not a single tear, but the moment I saw my family it all came out, it came out as never before and I could no longer hold any of my emotions back. I never showed my emotions, I had trained myself over the years to never show them and I was good at it. People ridiculed me and took advantage of me when I showed vulnerability through my weak emotions. That’s what I had come to believe.
I learned the most important lesson of my life on that fateful day:
I had never been alone.
My family took me into their arms and held me closer than I had been held in such a long, very, very long time. I am loved and it was my father’s last effort to show me he loved me too. Somehow, in that moment, with my mother and my two sisters, I knew my father was there too. All of us were together, finally, at long last.
The brilliant reality is that none of us are alone, no matter how much we might think we are. There will be days when the rain is falling outside and we sit alone in our homes, just remembering the days gone by, but even then, yes, even then, we are not alone.
Thank you for reading my thoughts, in this book The Brilliant Reality of ADHD and being a part of my life.
I have learned that there is a better way to live life, a more positive and fulfilling way. I believe that when we share our dreams, our aspirations and our inner most feelings, our secret wishes, together we will achieve our heart’s desires, we will find abundance and prosperity. Of even more value, we will find that we are not alone. No, not ever, we are never alone.
You know what it is like to be chastised, ridiculed and have your entire being analyzed and criticized. Yes, there are those few who will seek to take advantage of your vulnerabilities and there are those who will try to put you down and we have to realize that it’s not just them, but we do it to ourselves too. It’s not worth it, it is as wrong as wrong can get.
You are a valuable human being; there is a wonderful, beautiful person inside of you. You care and by caring you are a person of significance to others, as well as yourself.
The human spirit resides within you and I cannot express enough how much I treasure the fact that you have taken this valuable time of yours to spend it with me.
I humbly thank you and I am honored.
This book has been my way to share my thoughts, feelings and aspirations with you. As you discovered while reading through these pages I credit many different things to my road to recovery and a more positive future. It all originated with finding my Special Feeling Inside. It is my ultimate hope and sincerest wish that you have found your Special Feeling Inside. It is there, I know it is, more valuable and special than anything else in the world.
A special thank you to all the wonderful people I have met since coming out into the open of the world by sharing my thoughts through my blog and my first book. Thanks for becoming a part of my life. I like to think I am a part of yours now too. Thank you to all the members of ADDer World past, present and future. Together we are building a wonderful community of caring people.
Thank you Joan, my beloved wife, my best friend, with all of my love, for all that you do.
Thanks to my family – Love you!
Together we are making things better for all of us. We are never alone, no, not ever.
You are The Brilliant Reality of ADHD!
We walk together, you and me…
Bryan L. Hutchinson
January, 1, 2009