[Scattered]

I find that I need to have a very stable environment where everything is known and there is either a clear goal or at the least a general understanding of my place within that environment. When the smallest thing enters my very well defined perceptions of a situation the entire world and my feelings toward it seems to change. Now Im in a situation and a mental place where there is no clear defined goal, there is no clear understanding of my place or purpose. When this happens it seems as if my identity is being engulfed. I'm so dependent on a stable environment and a clear idea of the meaning of that environment that when a variable changes, my identity and purpose are left in question.

In these situations it sometimes goes further and meaning itself begins to break down. I begin to get that feeling where I believe that I have no place and was not meant to have been born. I don't know how I can roll with the punches and adapt to changing conditions. The end result is the same, its one where my identity is lost and existence is a strange and unnatural concept.

 

[Ben]

Yes, I know exactly what you're coming from. My theory on it basically has a lot do with my own experiences with it and ADHD. Basically there is a very severe lack of grounding that you experience throughout your life: where you spend a lot of time in your head - almost as if you simply have expected, your whole life, the world to be stable and therefore allowed yourself the ability to flitter away and daydream, or space out, or just be completely inattentive to the world around you. It's kind of like you have a contract or expectation about the world, and its comfortable this way and has allowed you to be you.

When something changes, the contract breaks, and suddenly you have to engage again. It's like a roller coaster where you're going pretty level for a while, and you're used to everything (nothing is jostling about or bouncing or what-have-you), and then suddenly WHAM, the world just drops out from underneath you and you're off on the dive again. Suddenly you grab ahold of anything as you're kind of "awoke".

It's inconsistencies in your interaction with the world, or marked difficiences (in my opinion) with how successfully you engage or filter out the world and the experiences it gives you. Many people have simply gained a better filter, but (at least with me and my ADHD) I really don't have a filter - and so I strive for - pray for - hope for - consistency and a level environment. If it doesn't exist around me, I try to make it exist in my head and in the world - and, well, it doesn't and so it's kind of like a constant rolling effect.