Dear Lisa:

I re-read some of your first Thread, Alone, a fitting title to your ongoing life experience.

I asked you above if you were diagnosed by a professional, and I found at least part of the answer in your May 2017 share: “My parents were teenagers when I was born. They were possibly involved in drugs and drinking of some kind in the late 60s… I remember all through childhood I had to take a pill everyday supposedly to calm me down… I was described as a hyperactive child. I was put on a pill daily. When I was around 14-15 a doctor ho took over the practice of my other doctor refused to  prescribe the pill for me.. that it was ‘speed’… my ocd became worse. I obsess a lot and constantly wash my hands. My obsessions for example was worrying that if I didn’t pick the right cup something bad was going to happen. I also thought I could prevent bad things from happening by whatever shirt I put on that day. I have tortured myself over that nearly my whole life.  Those are just examples of my ocd”-

-You were born to a teenage mother who possibly drank alcohol and used other drugs. Here is what a study in www. ncbi. nlm. nih. gov states: “Studies on children prenatally exposed to maternal opioid and poly- substance abuse show an increased risk of regulatory problems, such as behavioral and emotional problems, aggression, attention deficits, and ADHD symptoms”. Wikipedia on ADHD states: “Alcohol intake during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorders which can include ADHD or symptoms like it”. It also states: “Exposure to tobacco smoke during pregnancy can cause problems with central nervous system development and can increase the risk of ADHD”, and that “extreme neglect, abuse, or social deprivation also increase the risk”.

If your mother drank alcohol, and/ or smoked tobacco, and/ or took opioids or other powerful drugs while she was a teenager, not planning on getting pregnant, not knowing she was pregnant for a while, then maybe not knowing that she wasn’t supposed to drink, smoke, etc., then to top that, she did what you certainly know that she did: give you away to a foster home in another state, and maybe there you suffered extreme neglect and social deprivation (I don’t know)- then this was a very, very unfortunate start of your life, leading to neurological damage expressed in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

* One ongoing compulsion you have is to edit your posts, correcting mistyped or misspelled words, and when you  run out of edits, you feel the compulsion to post an apology. Your first apology was on May 2, 2017: “Sorry for spelling mistakes or typos rather in my post. I was very tried and should have checked”, and the most recent apology is two years and nine months later, Feb 16, 2020: “I apologize for the poor wording and typos above. I had just woke  up… I am just not the best typist”.

Similar to you, I was also described as a hyperactive child who couldn’t sit still. I did have trouble paying attention throughout my years in school and beyond. I too had OCD, having been diagnosed with the latter, performing hundreds of rituals, or compulsions, such as the few you described.

In May 2017, at 48 years old, you shared: “I can barely take care of myself because of emotional problems. Most of my energy has been spent keeping a roof over my head.. I have worked long and hard doing many jobs I do not like.. I am always in a survival mode with little bursts of ambition that fizzle out and then I just remain in survival mode… I had two tiring but somewhat fulfilling jobs in my life that I spent many years at. I could have moved up but lost both to my mood problems and crying… for not being able to control my emotions”-

-that neurological damage of childhood led to dysfunction in the employment context, as well as not being able to afford your own comfortable apartment: “I rent a room. I am 48. I have a low paying job”. The dysfunction extends to your social life as well, leading to the title of your first thread, Alone.

You are welcome to keep posting here anytime you’d like. You can respond to what I wrote to you, or not. It is your choice here, on your thread, to do as you please.

anita