Relationships help: I have so much trouble paying attention, I always have ever since I was a kid. - Help.com

I have so much trouble paying attention, I always have ever since I was a kid.

I was homeschooled so the only treatment I ever got was my Mom yelling at me for not paying attention, it was never looked into at all and so I’ve never been diagnosed with anything.
The last few years I think I’ve been getting worse and its very soon going to end the relationship I’ve had for the last 4 1/2 years if I can’t do something about it. I get lost in thought SO easily, and in the middle of conversations, or I won’t listen and think things through before I say something. Like the other day my fiance asked the directions to somewhere, and its somewhere I’ve been before, and he asked “you just go out this way and its a straight shot, right?” and I’ll answer yes, well we go down the road and we almost miss a turn I forgot about, and then I remember another turn up ahead that I also forgot about, making it definitely not a straight shot. It seems like its no big deal but I do SO many of these little mistakes, just constantly, because I don’t pay enough attention. And they add up, and they’ve added up over the last 4 1/2 years to the point where these little things cause HUGE blowups from my fiance, which he has had sever anger issues in his childhood, but these had pretty much gone away until the last couple years. Now they’re getting bad again, and its because of me.
He thinks that because I can’t pay attention, I’m saying I don’t care about him, that I don’t love him. And that totally isn’t the case, I want to change, I HATE that I can’t pay attention, that I can’t stay focused on one thing, like he’ll ask me to put away the peanut butter and I’ll forget and when I remember I’ll think “man I forgot to put away the peanut butter, I’m so stupid I can’t even remember to put away the peanut butter…. I don’t even like peanut butter, why do we have peanut butter?…. of course I do like peanut butter cups…. I should get some peanut butter cups when I go to work….”, and in all that I’ve completely lost the whole point of why I was thinking about the peanut butter in the first place, hell its so bad I had to go back and read what I had just typed because I had completely forgotten where I was going with all that!!!
I don’t know what to do, I can’t even pay attention enough to pay attention, I won’t be paying attention to the room and so when someone starts talking to me or about something that I should be paying attention to, I don’t even realize its happening so I’m not paying attention to what they’re saying. I get SO lost in my own little world SO much and SO deeply that the house I’m sitting in could be on fire and the flames would have to be right next to me before I even realized it. Even more scary is I’m trying to get my drivers license right now (this problem being why I’m almost 25 and still unlicensed), I’m not that bad a driver, but that’s because that’s all I’m paying attention to, but then I’m not paying attention to what’s going on in the car, like the passenger giving me directions or whatever.
This has become a huge problem and I’m going to see a psychiatrist about it, but the only one in my town or anywhere nearby that I can afford (I don’t have insurance) has about a 3 month waiting list, and I need help now. If anyone knows anything that can help please tell me or post a link, anything, I’m desperate at this point.

This open post was written 2 years, 8 months ago | V/U/S: 728, 3, 4 | Edit Post | Leave a reply | Report Post

Peanut butter, Attention, Remember, Peanut, Butter, Point, lost, Put, paying attention, Listening, Relationships (How Tags Affect Reciprocity)

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