Sudden bounds of guilt/sadness?

I’m no doctor but several of my ADD friends have those same issues. Only people close to them even know those times they do feel bad.

Just remember the past is in the past, we cant live there as we arent the same people. Try to forgive yourself and let it go.

Your question might have been written by me. I frequently find myself experiencing memories of mistakes I made in my past (none of any real significance) and the emotions that accompanied them. Since I am just short of being eighty-one, there are many. Of course, when I was your age ADD and ADHD were not recognized.

I’m sorry your mother does not understand that you do not choose to have these thoughts and feelings, which are not ridiculous, but I am not surprised. Only people who have problems like these can fully empathize. The same thing is true for those suffering from PTSD, whether their trauma is from war experiences or childhood trauma (which I have).

I think some people are especially sensitive and feel their emotions more strongly than most do. I know I am one. We feel the need to be at least accepted by others, if not actually liked. It seems no matter how hard we try we feel like we have failed. Somehow, though we have friends including one or two close ones we still feel as though we were outcasts (at least this was true for me).

When I was twenty, someone told me that despite my intelligence I lacked common sense. I struggled for many years trying to understand what common sense was so I could acquire it. Common sense is the ability to automatically understand what everyone else understands even when the context is obscure. Clearly, this was something one either has or does not. I discussed this with a friend who happened to be a psychiatrist. He said that I had uncommon sense. It’s true. I see things from a perspective different from most. It is actually a gift. I suspect you have this gift as well.

While I wish I could tell you how to stop the unwanted recollections from arising, but given the fact that mine still happens multiple times a day, it’s obvious I don’t have a clue how to accomplish this. On second thought, if this mental activity is a byproduct of uncommon sense then I am willing to live with it rather than lose my unique perspectives. I think that I survived the frustration, anger, and depression that being different produces by learning to not fight it but instead to embrace it. It is who I am, and I have learned to like who I am. I hope you can too.

I think we all have things in our lives we’d redo if we had the chance, but no need to be eaten up by guilt. Only time that happens to me is when I run across some one who happens to know a woman that I had a relationship or connection to from way back in the day, and I’ll say something dismissive like, ” I doubt she even remembers me”. And they invariably come back with, “Oh, she remembers you.” I’ll say “Ouch”, and then they ask me why I said that. Lol – well, that’s not really what I wanted to hear. I never mistreated any women I wasn’t abusive, I was just fickle, flighty, and had a short attention span. But as Willie Nelson says, “I know just what I’d change, if I went back in time somehow, but there’s nothing I can do about now”. And I’m not going to beat myself up over crap that happened decades ago.

i would suggest talking to a counselor or therapist. Therapy can give you tools to deal with the sad and guilty times even if you can’t banish them completely.

@KNOWITALL thanks, it’s nice to know other people with ADD are feeling the same way

@bruh I have a very close friend with ADD and he’s a great guy, but he gets really deep, emo bouts at times and comes to talk it out. Usually doesn’t seem to last long, only a few days at a time.
Just watch yourself not become an addict to anything, some people with ADD love alcohol and mj, things that chill them out, often to an unhealthy degree.

@Bill1939 thank you for making me see this in a different light. I am indeed an artistic person who sees the world a little different than most. Thank you for sharing :)

@KNOWITALL yeah I hear that. Luckily I tend to get really hung over if I drink too much, so that’s usually enough to keep my drinking at a minimum haha

Bounds? Do you mean bouts?