From Evernote:

The answer to the question you frequently ask me

Yesterday, or maybe Sunday, you asked me why I frequently go on the defensive when something is asked of or said to me.  I meant to give you an answer yesterday and never got around to it.  

A good deal of people's actions and thinking patterns are formed within the first couple of decades of his/her life: a woman has weight issues in adulthood because of being taunted throughout childhood and adolescence; a serial killer has a hatred of women because of being tormented by his mother, or one filled with disdain is mean to the women he gets with; a man eats the same breakfast everyday because of his eating it in childhood (like in the current Cheerios commercial).  Because of questioning of peers and family that I've received through the years, I was more than frequently seen as being wrong about some subject or other (I have by now, by my maybe having remembered or done something incorrectly, or not at all, come to realize that some of those instances were probably justified, however it doesn't leave one feeling any better.  After all, who would feel good over say having to apologize to someone over not having paid that person back when in your mind you could have sworn you did.)  I'm sure it also explains why I get so adamant when I do happen to be right: I'd rather go through the 'pushiness' to prove myself right than to again be seen as wrong than to again have the disappointing feelings felt all around by everyone, most especially myself.

I've just learned to throw the reasons for the actions out there before despairing thoughts are formed by the others and statements are made to me, which would spurn on my sensitivity and anxiety.  Those actions are now a part of me, like having a love of pomegranates, that have to be mentally controlled by me (only the former, not the latter) and, at the same time, the actions are automatically turned to by my brain.  I guess you could say they have become a part of my 'fight or flight' processing and I don't know how easy it is supposed to be to override or change.

On another note, the article below covers things that have affected me through the years.  Maybe it is only ADHD with Bipolar attached to it.  Through the years, it seems that Lithium has had some effect on me, however not a lot.  If I were only ADHD, that may explain why.  

These are my comments to the six items from the article:

1) These conditions didn't start up at the end of my school years.  Instead, I've dealt with them all of my life.  

2) The symptoms plague me throughout my day.  

3) This is what I've been saying about how things can get into my brain: strong emotional events. This item also relates to the subject of this email.

4) Even though, according to the DSM, one can be only manic, as opposed to both manic and depressive (at least in the DSM IV that Brophy and I looked in), this describes what I've had happen all of my life.  Severely sad things can take hours to days for me to get over, and to add insult to injury, the OCD keeps me obsessing over said subject.  Minor fustrations can take far less time though.  

5) See #4. 

6) It's interesting that, of the three family members that live with this, I seem to be the only one that is affected by all of the six items listed.  For example, my mother has never known what to make of my leg bouncing.  I think that she thought that I did it on purpose.

http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/2511.html

From Evernote:

The answer to the question you frequently ask me

Yesterday, or maybe Sunday, you asked me why I frequently go on the defensive when something is asked of or said to me.  I meant to give you an answer yesterday and never got around to it.  

A good deal of people's actions and thinking patterns are formed within the first couple of decades of his/her life: a woman has weight issues in adulthood because of being taunted throughout childhood and adolescence; a serial killer has a hatred of women because of being tormented by his mother, or one filled with disdain is mean to the women he gets with; a man eats the same breakfast everyday because of his eating it in childhood (like in the current Cheerios commercial).  Because of questioning of peers and family that I've received through the years, I was more than frequently seen as being wrong about some subject or other (I have by now, by my maybe having remembered or done something incorrectly, or not at all, come to realize that some of those instances were probably justified, however it doesn't leave one feeling any better.  After all, who would feel good over say having to apologize to someone over not having paid that person back when in your mind you could have sworn you did.)  I'm sure it also explains why I get so adamant when I do happen to be right: I'd rather go through the 'pushiness' to prove myself right than to again be seen as wrong than to again have the disappointing feelings felt all around by everyone, most especially myself.

I've just learned to throw the reasons for the actions out there before despairing thoughts are formed by the others and statements are made to me, which would spurn on my sensitivity and anxiety.  Those actions are now a part of me, like having a love of pomegranates, that have to be mentally controlled by me (only the former, not the latter) and, at the same time, the actions are automatically turned to by my brain.  I guess you could say they have become a part of my 'fight or flight' processing and I don't know how easy it is supposed to be to override or change.

On another note, the article below covers things that have affected me through the years.  Maybe it is only ADHD with Bipolar attached to it.  Through the years, it seems that Lithium has had some effect on me, however not a lot.  If I were only ADHD, that may explain why.  

These are my comments to the six items from the article:

1) These conditions didn't start up at the end of my school years.  Instead, I've dealt with them all of my life.  

2) The symptoms plague me throughout my day.  

3) This is what I've been saying about how things can get into my brain: strong emotional events. This item also relates to the subject of this email.

4) Even though, according to the DSM, one can be only manic, as opposed to both manic and depressive (at least in the DSM IV that Brophy and I looked in), this describes what I've had happen all of my life.  Severely sad things can take hours to days for me to get over, and to add insult to injury, the OCD keeps me obsessing over said subject.  Minor fustrations can take far less time though.  

5) See #4. 

6) It's interesting that, of the three family members that live with this, I seem to be the only one that is affected by all of the six items listed.  For example, my mother has never known what to make of my leg bouncing.  I think that she thought that I did it on purpose.

http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/2511.html