frustration

Sometimes I hate being me. It's so frustrating not being able to figure things out easily, or miss things that I should know, or realize that Nobody is Listening to Me! My care group from LH hosted a send-off party for me on Sunday evening. I was rather pleased, because it was nice to be acknowledged and appreciated. I never got that at West Portal. Part of the reason I love LH is the people accept me with all my faults (of which there are many) and never make me feel like my gifts and talents are unnoticed. There were lots of my LH friends there, all telling me how much they'd miss me and they wished me well in the Hat. So you'd think that would make me, the upstaging comedian, thrilled to be the center of attention, right? Wrong. I came home feeling totally anxious, just because I couldn't handle all the conversations and the people. I missed parts of things people said to me, and answered with really dumb, nonsensical things. At one point, I was telling the story of the student loans, and I realized that I'd been talking for five minutes, and only one person was listening...and I immediately beat myself up for being boring, too talkative, not tuning in to the signals. How come I didn't realize four minutes earlier that the story was way too long? I don't know. That's part of ADHD...just no social awareness at all. And with multiple conversations going on, I couldn't keep track of a single thread. And when I looked at my loving husband, he had fallen asleep. At my party! I was so angry at him for doing that...which really shouldn't have mattered, should it? After all, the party was for me, and no one else seemed to mind. But it bugged the hell outta me. For no other reason than I thought he should have stayed awake and at least pretended to be interested in me! I came home feeling anxious, paranoid, angry, and afraid. I am glad my friends did that for me, it was sweet, but I can't help freaking out about my own shortcomings in those situations. Lavern apologized for telling me ahead of time about the party...the group had wanted to make it a surprise. That would not have been a good idea. I've always hated surprises...now I know why. It's because my inner life is in such turmoil every day...I have no way to prepare myself for surprises. It throws me into a totally paranoid, stressful state, and I retreat. How many times Brian has had to change plans, or tell me about them, because I was getting so worked up about not knowing anything. Most people can handle surprises, and enjoy them...for me, it just means I will do something wrong, or say something stupid, or not even show up because I can't handle crowds. I hate movie theatres, surprises, malls on a sale day, and hordes of little children. I feel bad that I feel this way, because I know my friends put on a great party, and they were very considerate. So why don't I feel happy and grateful, and enjoy the attention?
I'm going to totally screw up on my first day of school, I know it.