ADD dopers - make me feel less stupid; share your stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I got one that’s kind of the opposite of ADD, but no less stupid for it.

I’m taking a class on object-oriented programming. An assignment I had last week was to write a program that would take numbers given to it by the user, and display them as lines and rectangles on a grid.

First part of the assignment, the user enters in two sets of coordinates, and the program creates a line between them, and returns the length of that line. Not too hard - the formula for calculating the length of a line is a bit complicated, but nothing terribly difficult. The tricky part is that we’re supposed to be doing this using classes: that’s the point of the exercise, learning how to use classes.

Next, the user enters in a starting coordinate, a height, and a width: I have to write a class that will create a rectangle of those dimensions. Okay, easy enough. The starting coordinates are the lower left corner, you can use the height and length to determine the other four corners, and wallah!* A rectangle!

Part three, the program is supposed to return the area of the rectangle. Well, this requires a bit of cleverness! I’ve got a line class that will determine the length of a line. I need my rectangle class to use the line class to get the length of each side, which I can multiply together to get the area. We hadn’t actually covered how to reference classes within other classes, but it seems like it should work. After about twenty minutes of tinkering, I’ve got an elegant bit of code that takes information from one class, and uses it in a different class to calculate the area of a rectangle.

Which is when I realize that the area of a rectangle is it’s height, times its width. Which is directly supplied by the user when he creates the rectangle. I had maybe a dozen lines of code, when all I needed was “area = x * y.”

:smack:

I ended up changing it, so as not to look like a total dumbass when I turned it in. But, goddammit, my way was more fun!

[sub]*Yes, I know.[/sub]

22

Have all of you been diagnosed, or using the term ADD in a humorous way? I have things like this happen all of the time.

[I have just tried three times to type out a coherent synopsis of my morning, but I can’t even get that done due to distractions]

Anyway, I always chalked this up to my modern life being busier than my ancestors, and not to a brain disorder. Most of my coworkers and friends seem to be the same way.

23

I’ve taken to looking at the pills in my hand, and saying out loud, Today is <Mon-Tues-Weds-Thus-Fri-satur-Sun-day> and I’m taking my pills. My So who eoverhears this ritual, occasionally corrects me on what day it is, but it helps me remember.

I meant to empty the dishwasher this morning, but I didn’t get t it. On the other hand, I got the laundry out of the dryer, pulled a bunch of snails off the plants in the yard and rescued two forgotten washed-but-now-dry throw rugs from back poarch. Am I ahead or behind?

24

I got a handy app for my phone that reminds me every day, and also counts down the number of pills I have remaining, so that I can count if i’m not sure. Man, I love that thing.

25

I cured that issue (pills, did I or didn’t I?) with a simple old fashioned pill dispenser, the kind marked with the days of the week. Many of them. Enough to put all my pills in for up to two months in advance.

26

I used the pill dispenser solution as well but only a weeks worth. Every Sunday I fill it up and at the end of the week I hope there is no more than 1 or 2 unused days :slight_smile:

27

Everybody has moments like these sometimes. Thats why we ADD’rs blend in so well most of the time. The difference is that these symptoms become so pervasive and constant that they interfere with work, relationships, and everyday home life. Sometimes the symptoms can be tied to some other comorbid disorder and sometimes not.

As for me, yes, I have a diagnosis. I take medication for the ADD as well as see a cognitive therapist to help me get control of what my meds don’t. He also tells me my appointments begin 20 minutes earlier than what he acutally schedules them for so when I show up 20 minutes late, I’m on time. What kills me is that I FALL FOR IT EVERY FUCKING TIME! That my friend, is ADD.

28

I was also diagnosed, and mine is rock solid: when I told a new psychotherapist I was diagnosed with ADD, he repeated it back to me a little later with air quotes, because so many people claim it without really having it.

But then I described to him how the first time it was brought to my attention was years before my official diagnosis, when I stopped smoking (in other words, stopped self-medicating with the stimulant nicotine) and overnight lost the ability to read fiction, after a lifetime of reading multiple novels every month, and my then-therapist said it sounded like ADD.

He looked at me with a grave look and nodded, then said, yes, you have ADD.

(I had been diagnosed not long prior by a psychiatrist and was on meds, as I am now. Have been medicated now for six years)

I have also educated myself about it extensively, and there’s not the slightest doubt in my mind, since I exhibit almost every possible symptom to the maximum degree imagainable. I am significantly impaired, even with meds. It’s exacerbated by the conditions of my life, starting with the fact that I live alone and work at home without supervision. This is incredibly difficult and unsupportive for someone with ADD but I don’t really have any choice.

29

I got my diagnosis back when they still called it “Hyperactivity Disorder.” It was considered rarer in girls, but it was also terribly obvious from the moment I learned to walk.

I already told the story about the first doctor to think that I was a bit hyper, but here’s another tale:
I was an only child until I was six, and most of my cousins are several years older than me and all on my dad’s side, so I was my mother’s first real experience with dealing with a baby/todder/preschooler. When I was four or so, one of her college classmates begged her to watch her two or three year old son, and she did.

My dad was working at the time, and when he got home, she was all upset. He asked her why, and she told him that she was really worried about the kid she just babysat, and she didn’t know if she should tell his mother that she suspected that there was something wrong with him developmentally. Now Dad was getting worried too, and he asked her to explain what she thought was wrong.

Mom’s list (approximately) of what was wrong:
[ul]
[li]He didn’t get into everything[/li][li]He didn’t seem very inquisitive, and spent a long time doing the same things[/li][li]He seemed very lethargic[/li][li]He got tired and took a nap![/li][/ul]So…Dad started laughing at her, and she demanded to know what he thought was so funny. He explained that the little boy sounded just like all his nieces and nephews did at that age…and that I was the one who was atypical. It hadn’t occurred to her that a little kid who wasn’t out of control could be normal!

30

How could anyone forget to check the freezer for the car keys?