What is ADHD?? This stands for
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. There is also
ADID which is Attention Deficit Inattentive Disorder.
I am the Hyper kind :-)
ADHD is a long term that means
essentially I have a chemical imbalance in the brain
which makes my thinking slightly to the side of everyone
else, my attention span is limited, I have hyperactive
tendencies (never sitting still, fidgeting, always moving
and an internal engine that compels me forward at full
speed) and can quite often have impulsive actions (I
often say things before I have thought about them, or
blurt out what I am feeling, and am really good at
interrupting people, oh and I talk at a million miles an
hour!!). What can I say- its a gift :-)
Try and picture this if you can.
You are standing at the side of the road and a train
comes racing past you. You look into the windows but you
see nothing but a blur because the train is moving too
fast, you can't focus in the one spot long enough to make
sense out of what you see. I am that person - and that
train is my life - and that is what life is like for me
with ADHD. If I slow down or stop my life becomes blurred
and I can't focus on what is happening. The only way I
know I am going to be able to look through those windows
on the train and be able to see what is happening is if I
am travelling at the same speed as that train. So I race
along beside the train at full speed, trying to do
everything at once because I have no time to stop. If I
stop I will lose sight of that train. It's not something
I do consciously, it is like there is an internal engine
that drives me, compells me to move forward, keep going,
try to catch that train.
What are the symptoms of ADHD? The
following is a list that I "lifted" from a website on
ADHD, that describes what ADDults (Adult's who live with
ADD) feel. Now not all people with ADHD behave in the
same way (of course we don't, we are all individual
people) so the commentary under the symptoms is my own
personal experience of how they manifest in my
life.
1. A sense of
underachievement, of not meeting one's goals (regardless
of how much one has accomplished). We put this symptom
first because it is the most common reason an adult seeks
help. "I just can't get my act together," is the frequent
refrain. The person may be highly accomplished by
objective standards, or may be floundering, stuck with a
sense of being lost in a maze, unable to capitalize on
innate potential.
I run my own arts
and crafts store, and although things are going well, I
always feel that if I could just get it together a little
more, work a little harder, focus that tiny bit more,
things would be better.
2. Difficulty
getting organized. A major problem for most adults with
ADD. Without the structure of school, without parents
around to get things organized for him or her, the adult
may stagger under the organizational demands of everyday
life. The supposed "little things" may mount up to create
huge obstacles. For the want of a proverbial nail--a
missed appointment, a lost check, a forgotten deadline
--their kingdom may be lost.
My husband used to
do that for me, although he didn't "schedule my life" in
that sense, I could run around his time clock - when he
came home it was dinner time, so I cooked a meal. Now
that I am on my own I have no one else's clock to live
by, so meals get skipped, I have problems remembering
what day of the week it is etc etc
3. Chronic
procrastination or trouble getting started. Adults with
ADD associate so much anxiety with beginning a task, due
to their fears that they won't do it right, that they put
it off, and off, which, of course, only adds to the
anxiety around the task.
Why do today what
you can put off until tomorrow?? Seriously though this is
one of THE major problems, I just never seem to get round
to "it", whatever that may be, especially legal and
health issues, I kinda just hope they will go
away.
4. Many projects
going simultaneously; trouble with follow-through. A
corollary of #3. As one task is put off, another is taken
up. By the end of the day, or week, or year, countless
projects have been undertaken, while few have found
completion.
As I said I run an
arts and crafts store, and my students think I am
hiliarious. I must have at least 20 projects on the go,
all at different stages of being finished.
5. Tendency to say
what comes to mind without necessarily considering the
timing or appropriateness of the remark. Like the child
with ADD in the classroom, the adult with ADD gets
carries away in enthusiasm. An idea comes and it must be
spoken, tact or guile yielding to child-like
exuberance.
My Toy could tell
you all about this one. I get an idea in my head that
excites me and before you know it I am rattling away at a
million miles an hour. What he doesn't know is how many
times I have bitten into my tongue REAL hard in an effort
to stop myself from saying inappropriate things. Doesn't
always work.
6. An ongoing
search for high stimulation. The adult with ADD is always
on the lookout for something novel, something in the
outside world that can catch up with the whirlwind that's
rushing inside.
Anyone for skydiving? Actually I
am not so much into the physical thrill as the mental
one, I love a good debate, I love new ideas and
innovative thinkers, I love the adreniline rush that
comes with being in love.
7. A tendency to
be easily bored. A corollary of #6. Boredom surrounds the
adult with ADD like a sinkhole, ever ready to drain off
energy and leave the individual hungry for more
stimulation. This can easily be misinterpreted as a lack
of interest; actually it is a relative inability to
sustain interest over time. As much as the person cares,
his battery pack runs low quickly.
Two minutes alone in a room with
myself and I am bored. Getting my computer was a godsend,
it allowed me to stave the boredom and keep the mind
running. This is also one of the reasons I have so many
projects on the go at once, I got bored with the first so
started a second ad infinitum.
8. Easy
distractibility, trouble focusing attention, tendency to
tune out or drift away in the middle of a page or a
conversation, often coupled with an ability to hyperfocus
at times. The hallmark symptom of ADD. The "tuning out"
is quite involuntary. It happens when the person isn't
looking, so to speak, and the next thing you know, he or
she isn't there. The often extraordinary ability to
hyperfocus is also usually present, emphasizing the fact
that this is a syndrome not of attention deficit but of
attention inconsistency.
Hyperfocused - you should have
seem me when I went to buy a mobile phone. They needed a
driver's licence for ID - of which I didn't have a
current one - I did not rest that day until I got a new
drivers licence and went back to the store for my mobile
phone. I was going to get it no matter what!! It's funny
when I hyperfocus, when I first started setting up this
website I was so into it I forgot to eat and sleep for a
while. Now I have days where I can get updates done and
others where I would rather click that little button over
there and see where it takes me.
9. Often creative,
intuitive, highly intelligent. Not a symptom, but a trait
deserving of mention. Adults with ADD often have
unusually creative minds. In the midst of their
disorganization and distractibility, they show flashes of
brilliance. Capturing this "special something" is one of
the goals of treatment.
What can I say??
It's a gift :-)
10. Trouble going
through established channels, following proper procedure.
Contrary to what one might think, this is not due to some
unresolved problem with authority figures. Rather it is a
manifestation of boredom and frustration: boredom with
routine ways of doing things and excitement around novel
approaches, and frustration with being unable to do
things the way they're supposed to be done.
Ummmm...won't go too into depth on
that one save to say I drove without a licence for quite
a while (yes I know slap me on the hand, but between the
procrastination of doing the test, and the fear of
failure and getting bored with it all.....ummm am I
copping out now....I think so!!)
11. Impatient; low
tolerance for frustration. Frustration of any sort
reminds the adult with ADD of all the failures in the
past. "Oh no," he thinks, "here we go again." So he gets
angry or withdraws. The impatience has to do with the
need for stimulation and can lead others to think of the
individual as immature or insatiable.
I am a very impatient person, but
I have become so good at hiding the more negative traits ADHD from others
that only those people closest to me would know
it. This means that impatience gets internalized and becomes frustration.
12. Impulsive,
either verbally or in action, as in impulsive spending of
money, changing plans, enacting new schemes or career
plans, and the like. This is one of the more dangerous of
the adult symptoms, or, depending on the impulse, one of
the more advantageous.
I mentioned the mobile phone
didn't I?? Just got it in my head one day that I needed a
new mobile phone, and I HAD to have it.
13. tendency to
worry needlessly, endlessly; tendency to scan the horizon
looking for something to worry about alternating with
inattention to or disregard for actual dangers. Worry
becomes what attention turns into when it isn't focused
on some task.
I describe my mind like a radio
that is tuned into all the stations at once. One is tuned
into typing this page, another is listening to the heater
whirring, another is thinking about my kids, about my Toy
etc etc - and then there is the ever present worry
channel. Now if I take the stimulus away from one of the
stations (ie I turn the heater off and there is no noise)
it has nothing to focus on so it tunes into the worry
channel. If I am devoid of enough stimulus all channels
tune into the worry channel and I become
obsessive.
14. Sense of
impending doom, insecurity, alternating with
high-risk-taking. This symptom is related to both the
tendency to worry needlessly and the tendency to be
impulsive.
I worry that I am going to make a
mistake, what if I do it wrong, what will happen if I
make the wrong choice etc etc
15. Mood swings,
depression, especially when disengaged from a person or a
project. Adults with ADD, more than children, are given
to unstable moods. Much of this is due to their
experience of frustration and/or failure, while some of
it is due to the biology of the disorder.
Another one that, unfortunately,
my Toy is intimately acquainted with. Because I am not
able to be with him at present this leads to swings
between periods of acceptance and believing I can be
patient - to downright depression where I miss him so bad
it ends up hurting us both. It was different when I was
married, because I was with my partner everyday mood
swings weren't as severe.
16. Restlessness.
One usually does not see, in an adult, the full-blown
hyperactivity one may see in a child. Instead one sees
what looks like "nervous energy": pacing, drumming of
fingers, shifting position while sitting, leaving a table
or room frequently, feeling edgy while at
rest.
Another one Toy would recognize.
When we are out for dinner I fidget and move in my seat,
play with the cutlery, twiddle my glass etc. The number
of times he has asked "Are you OK?" because until
recently he has not known what the problem
was.
17.Tendency toward
addicitive behavior. The addiction may be to a substance
such as alcohol or cocaine, or to an activity, such as
gambling, or shopping, or eating, or overwork.
Without going into detail I will
just put my hand up and admit to this.
18. Chronic
problems with self-esteem. These are the direct and
unhappy result of years of conditioning: years of being
told one is a klutz, a spaceshot, an underachiever, lazy,
weird, different, out of it, and the like. Years of
frustration, failure, or of just not getting it right to
do lead to problems with self-esteem. What is impressive
is how resilient most adults are, despite all the
setbacks.
I thought I was crazy, for years I
really thought I was loony tunes - and no one ever knew
I thought this way about myself. I would joke about
it - tell others I was nuts, but no one ever knew how
much I doubted my own sanity until I discovered I was an
ADDult - and then finally the monster in my head had a
name, and I knew I wasn't crazy.
19. Inaccurate
self-observation. People with ADD are poor
self-observers. They do not accurately gauge the impact
they have on other people. This can often lead to big
misunderstandings and deeply hurt feelings.
It is hard for me to comment on
this one as I truly have no concept of the importance or
irrelevance (as the case may be) of myself in the lives
of others. you would have to ask them I guess. I do know
that I constantly challenge Toy about his feelings for
me, which is unfair on him, but it goes back to the self
esteem thing too.
WANT to learn more about ADHD??
Well rather than put a really big list of links here I
will only put one - to Jeffrey's ADHD page, at the bottom
of his list there is over 130 links to different sites
that deal with ADHD - and to his credit he looks at both
sides, there are also sites there that challenge the
validity of ADHD, and there are other sites like mine,
personal insights as to what it is like to live with
ADHD.
Click here to visit Jeffrey's Page
Liz was the artist who designed the ADD logo, and she also runs a page dedicated to those of us who are members of the ADDult List - a support forum for those of us blessed with ADD or those lucky enough to live with us. You can visit her site for more information.
