[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
236 for me on this checklist.
One of the things that keeps coming up in these things is inability to focus on reading, but I focus so hard on reading that a bomb could go off next to my head and I’d never notice.
[/QUOTE]
It’s not necessarily a certainty that someone who has ADD will have trouble reading, only that it’s a common symptom, just like smoking is a common cause of lung cancer. Not everybody who get’s lung cancer is a smoker and not every smoker get’s lung cancer.
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
It’s not necessarily a certainty that someone who has ADD will have trouble reading, only that it’s a common symptom, just like smoking is a common cause of lung cancer. Not everybody who get’s lung cancer is a smoker and not every smoker get’s lung cancer.
[/QUOTE]
I think I was kinda hoping you’d say that the reading thing was an absolute tell-tale sign that I don’t have ADD. 
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
It’s not necessarily a certainty that someone who has ADD will have trouble reading, only that it’s a common symptom, just like smoking is a common cause of lung cancer. Not everybody who get’s lung cancer is a smoker and not every smoker get’s lung cancer.
[/QUOTE]
It’s truly unfortunate, as I am a bibliovore who loves to gobble up as many books as I can. Since being off medication, it is not easy for me to gobble them up as I am used to. It stresses my wife to no end, as she sees me looking for outlets that I used to love and crave, and those are slipping away. I still like climbing trees though! 
In all seriousness, these threads tend to go down hill quickly when people come along and sh*t on the parade. Sucks, but it happens quite a bit!
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
It’s not necessarily a certainty that someone who has ADD will have trouble reading, only that it’s a common symptom, just like smoking is a common cause of lung cancer. Not everybody who get’s lung cancer is a smoker and not every smoker get’s lung cancer.
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. I didn’t learn to comprehend what I read until I was in 8th grade. I found that I had to block out all outside sitimus, including the lines printed above and below the line I was reading. It took about three years before I could read without a white paper on the page above and below.
I got a 276 on the test referenced. It comes as no surprise, because everything went down the tube in first grade, when I got Sydenhams Chorea. I’ve had the ADD symptoms since, and stinking vocal ticks that made my life Hell. One good thing about this stuff that hit me in 1999, and made my immune system hyper. I lost the vocal ticks about 4 years ago, when controlling the immune response. Which begs were all my vocal ticks symptoms of a messed up immune system, for 35 years. The vocal tics are lying in wait and start to surface, when I start swelling with an immune response. The ADD is much better controlled also.
Any voice in a room will get my attention, and I can’t work further, until the voice is blocked.
[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
The people who suffer the most in my opinion are my wife and family. They [especially my wife] see me as forgetful and sometimes downright arrogant when it comes to performing the most mundane of tasks e.g. cleaning up, vaccuming, mailing bills.
[/QUOTE]
Not trying to pick on you here, but the wording of this caught my eye and I think it is part of the reason why there’s so much frustration in unafflicted people. You say that your wife and family see you as forgetful and arrogant as a result of the condition. In my opinion there’s a little bit of denial there. You probably are forgetful and arrogant. It’s true that you have a specific cause for those symptoms, but having ADD doesn’t transform those, and many of the other interpersonal issues, into something else. It just means there’s a reason for it.
A few of the other posters have described themselves as having various problems in dealing with relationships and workplaces due to the disease. There ought to be a level of accountability for those problems, it’s the way many afflicted people dismiss them as mere symptoms seems to imply that they are magically solved or erased. I sympathize with you, but it’s your responsibility to manage and overcome these symptoms.
We don’t ask employers to accommodate alcoholics by letting them show up late and drink on the job. It’s the person with the disease who is expected to seek treatment and manage their illness responsibly. Thats not to say some leeway isn’t warranted when one has an episode, but its unfair to expect an employer or a friend to accommodate you unconditionally.
That’s not to imply that anyone here is asking for that, but it conveys part of the reason there’s resistance to accepting it as an excuse.
Part of the problem is that it seems to have been overdiagnosed. Doctors and the pharmaceutical industry have a motivation to identify diseases, and chronic, non-specific ones like ADD can be very profitable. It greatly complicates matters when parents will take under-achieving children for evaluation hoping to find a condition to take responsibility for that.
It becomes pretty clear why the waters are poisoned surrounding discussion of this topic. It, unlike almost all other diseases, can be a magic bullet which explains away all kinds of negative personality traits. This gets quickly wrapped up into personal responsibility or the lack there of. In the end, all it does is hurt the people with a serious condition who are interested in proactively managing it.
Everyone has ADHD symptoms from time to time, some more than others. The question is whether the symptoms are causing serious and persistent problems with normal functioning, and whether the symptoms occur in more than one setting.
To compare it to depression–I get down from time to time. Pretty often, really. But when I’m down I’m usually able to get myself back up, and I wouldn’t say bouts of sadness interfere with my life or keep me from my potential. So I don’t have clinical depression, and it’s unlikely that antidepressants are going to make my life any better.
On the other hand, my ADHD symptoms are severe enough to get in the way of my everyday life, and all the “trying really hard” in the world lead to minimal improvement at best. Accepting the diagnosis of ADHD has been very beneficial, not just from medication but as a framework for understanding myself, how I work, and how I learn.
Of course, this just raises the question of what constitutes “normal”, and what our expectations are. To me, it’s all about fulfilling potential. If I’m able to do more with my life because I’ve been diagnosed and treated for ADHD, why should I reject that?
[QUOTE=DoctorJ]
To compare it to depression–I get down from time to time. Pretty often, really. But when I’m down I’m usually able to get myself back up, and I wouldn’t say bouts of sadness interfere with my life or keep me from my potential. So I don’t have clinical depression, and it’s unlikely that antidepressants are going to make my life any better.
[/QUOTE]
I was diagnosed with depression because of mindbending fatigue and inability to concentrate rather than depressed mood.
Though, to be frank, I was diagnosed with depression after I went to the doctor and said, “I’m so tired I could cry. Could I be depressed?” And he agreed that it sounded like depression and gave me a prescription. Anti-depressants just put me to sleep.
Maybe this is the question I should be asking: If the same thing were to happen with ADD, would my reaction to a prescription prove my diagnosis?
I haven’t considered it an aberration, just a normal human variance. It doesn’t make since that I saw it that way either. I never used it as an excuse at work. I did finally tell personnel at work that the head phones stayed on unless they provided an office without people distracting me. There was absolutely no reason for me not to use them to block outside noise, just a bug up her ass.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
Maybe this is the question I should be asking: If the same thing were to happen with ADD, would my reaction to a prescription prove my diagnosis?
[/QUOTE]
Possibly, but not everyone responds, or at least responds with dramatic improvement, to medication for ADD. In round numbers, about 1/3 receive significant relief, about 1/3 have measurable but partial relief, and 1/3 get no noticable benefit from any of the available medications. And like anti-depressants, the effect and dosage of medications varies from person to person. On the plus side, the methylphenidate-based stimulant-type medications only take a short trial period (a few days to a couple of weeks) to take effect, and dosage can be modified from there. (The dosage is typically 10-20% of the nominal stimulant application, so concerns about addiction or overstimulation are largely unfounded.) The anti-depressant-based meds take longer, as they do with depressive disorders, but are ultimately more effective for some people. You might consider having diagnostic testing done first to determine if and to what degree you exhibit characteristic features of ADD; this isn’t definitive, but it should indicate whether you display true attentional focus problems, or whether there are other problems that may just seem like ADD.
Talk to a doctor who specializes in treatment of ADD; most typically, these are child psychiatrists (who, despite the name, often see adults in their practice); however, there are a growing number of general practice psychs and even GP/MDs who have training or experience with ADD. Unless you don’t have other alternatives, I wouldn’t just go to an MD and get a prescription for Adderall or Strattera from someone unqualified to pathologize the disorder and effects of treatment.
Stranger
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Possibly, but not everyone responds, or at least responds with dramatic improvement, to medication for ADD. In round numbers, about 1/3 receive significant relief, about 1/3 have measurable but partial relief, and 1/3 get no noticable benefit from any of the available medications.
[/QUOTE]
I know this is a difficult question to answer, but if someone who ultimately does not have ADD is given a prescription to treat it, what happens?
(One of the doctors who gave me antidepressants gave me a two-week supply. After that time, I didn’t feel better, only sleepier, and he said that proved I wasn’t really depressed. Later doctors were horrified.)
Edited to add: I don’t know what sort of doctors I will be able to find since, unlike everyone else on the planet it seems, I don’t know of anyone who has ever been diagnosed with ADD.
From what I understand, which could not be totally correct, for the stimulant brand of ADD meds (e.g. adderall, ritalin), if someone without the condition takes them, it doesn’t abbate any of the symtoms. People without ADD who take stimulants experience classic effects of stimulants, like hyperactivity.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
For those who were diagnosed as adults, how did that diagnosis happen?
[/QUOTE]
For me, it was the realization that considering suicide as an alternative to washing dishes was a little out of proportion.
See, if I wasn’t IN the kitchen with the dishes in the sink, I forgot they even existed, until I’d go to make dinner for my family and realize that not only did I have no clean pots or pans in which to cook, but washing the dirty ones was going to take time, making dinner late YET AGAIN. This led to minor criticism from m husband about my lack of time management skills, which made me feel like a complete loser, and made me vow sincerely to stay on top of things from now on. The next day, crisis behind me, it shifted out of focus until dinnertime, when I realized I’d done it again. A couple months of this, interspersed with occasional cleaning frenzies in which every thing in the entire kitchen was scrubbed to within an inch of its life, and I realized there was a big problem. I was seriously miserabl and pretty sure I was worthless at being a wife and Mom. An article in the paper described the symptoms of depression, and I thought, “That sounds familiar, but I don’t really have these symptoms…” A sidebar article mentioned ADD, and I went to a doctor and had it checked out.
After scoring way high on the ADD assessment, I went on Ritalin and into therapy. Explored a lot of the not-so-great coping behaviors I’d built through a lifetime of untreated ADD (lying, procrastination, OCD-like rituals, etc.) and learning some positive ones. After about three years, I weaned off the meds and managed with the mo’ better coping skills. It’s still work, but I think I’m doing OK for the most part.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
I know this is a difficult question to answer, but if someone who ultimately does not have ADD is given a prescription to treat it, what happens?
[/quote]
LifeOnWry already posted an excellent response to your question, but just to reinforce, you have to learn useful coping behaviors. You have to, anyway; the medication relieves you of the attentional focus problem (if it works) but you’ve likely developed habits and coping mechanisms–like blaming everything on “being lazy” and giving up–that need to be unlearned. I believe someone already referenced Driven To Distraction, which is an excellent starting point, and while Hallowell doesn’t disdain medication by any means, he also talks to alternative and supplementary methods and therapies.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
(One of the doctors who gave me antidepressants gave me a two-week supply. After that time, I didn’t feel better, only sleepier, and he said that proved I wasn’t really depressed. Later doctors were horrified.)
[/quote]
This is utterly absurd, and a good reason not to get mental health advice from GPs who are unschooled in it or the specialty of psychopharmacology.
[QUOTE=jsgoddess]
Edited to add: I don’t know what sort of doctors I will be able to find since, unlike everyone else on the planet it seems, I don’t know of anyone who has ever been diagnosed with ADD.
[/QUOTE]
Try and see if you can get in with a child psychiatrist first, as they’re the specialists, as a group, that have the most knowledge and experience with ADD. You should be able to notice differences in your own behavior, though, and the stimulant meds, if they work, should offer some relief rather quickly. The anti-depressant based meds, on the other hand, may require time–a couple of months or perhaps longer–to show effect. Try this site as a starting point for contact information and evaluation of a physician or therapist.
Good luck to you.
Stranger
What ever happened to someone just being strange, now everyone must be diagnosed and pumped with pills, or given leave to avoid work their coworkers must do.
[QUOTE=Sitnam]
What ever happened to someone just being strange, now everyone must be diagnosed and pumped with pills, or given leave to avoid work their coworkers must do.
[/QUOTE]
Whatever happened to keeping your ill-informed, judgemental, non-value-added opinions to yourself?
Stranger
[QUOTE=Omniscient]
In my opinion there’s a little bit of denial there. You probably are forgetful and arrogant. It’s true that you have a specific cause for those symptoms, but having ADD doesn’t transform those, and many of the other interpersonal issues, into something else. It just means there’s a reason for it.
[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily. For example, if you were speaking about me, I’d definitely give you the “forgetful” part, but “arrogant”? I wouldn’t say that, but others might. This is because I rarely look people in the eye when talking or listening to them, I tend to interrupt or finish sentences, and often I lose track of what they’re saying and ask them to repeat. That kind of behavior could easily paint me as an ass, but really it has to do with the condition.
See, I do this because looking at the face is a major distraction that makes me lose focus - I start thinking about their face, their teeth, their skin, their eyes, then I wonder if they think I’m staring too much, and then I start to panic because I’ve lost focus.
And, often I interject because my mind wanders randomly and very quickly around the conversation, such that I can’t help but either anticipate their response and blurt it out, or focus on some tangent - much like how I might focus on their face - to the exclusion of the actual conversation.
[QUOTE=Sitnam]
What ever happened to someone just being strange, now everyone must be diagnosed and pumped with pills, or given leave to avoid work their coworkers must do.
[/QUOTE]
There’s nothing wrong with getting diagnosed and treated for something like this. Last I checked, it’s optional, and it’s really none one’s business what a person is diagnosed with or what medications they take.
The second part - that would be the result of irresponsible management. And really, your other remark-
[QUOTE=Sitnam]
I don’t believe management should have to accommodate the employee. It is the employee that must full fill the requirements of his/her job, handicap or not.
[/QUOTE]
Trust me - I have little sympathy for someone that would constantly force their responsibilities onto others because they have a condition. But that’s because it’s irresponsible - not because they have a condition.
[QUOTE=Lust4Life]
I believe ADD to be one of those BS psychological conditions labels that people use to abrogate personal responsibility for their behaviour.
[/quote]
Right, because your average kindergarten student is so mentally cognitive of concepts like pretending one has a psychological disorder so that they may abrogate personal responsibility. :rolleyes:
My daughter, who is now 27, was diagnosed with ADHD in grade school after many frustrating years of she and I suffering from what we thought was a personality conflict (it happens), turns out, she had ADHD. Counseling, medication and time helped calm down a lot of her odd and distracted behaviours. I can’t tell you how grateful I was to discover that there was a reason we had so much trouble during her early years.
Gosh, and to think I never suspected that she’d made it all up (what a brilliant 4 year old she was!) and was just faking the symptoms of ADD. (not enough rollie eyes).
You obviously know very little about the disorder. The problem, at least in my case, is quite the opposite of lazy. There is TOO much going on inside their heads and in some cases (not my daughter’s luckily for us) too much physical activity as well.
Right, because people with ADD don’t do their jobs because they’re bored. If you knew anything at all beyond what’s stored in your hind end, you’d know that it’s not that “they” can’t overcome boredom, or do their jobs, it’s the way their brains fire that make for distractions and too much going on, so that they have a very difficult time proceeding in an organized manner.
My Pediatrician explained it to me as in there are billions of thoughts floating around, like standing in a field of butterflies constantly flitting by, and none landing. Luckily for my daughter, she has a great handle on her symptoms and doesn’t suffer unduly as an adult, and was pretty much able to handle it by the end grade school.
(PS, this was almost 30 years ago, and they were still just calling it all ADHD, they added the ADD part in later).
[QUOTE=TonyF]
Trust me - I have little sympathy for someone that would constantly force their responsibilities onto others because they have a condition. But that’s because it’s irresponsible - not because they have a condition.
[/QUOTE]
The American’s with Disabilities Act is a shield for both.
You know, long before there WAS an Americans With Disabilities Act under which employers are required to make REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION (not complete policy overhauls), people with ADD and ADHD held down jobs. A good manager can determine a person’s strengths and weaknesses and figure out how to work best with them. I’m a horrible team player, because there’s just too much input from too many sources for me, but give me a fussy, detailed research project and a firm deadline and I will research the ever-lovin’ daylights out of it, print it up in triplicate with pretty fonts and have the whole thing bound and on your desk tomorrow.
The implication that we’re just lazy, spoiled or stubborn is what has driven so many of us to suicidal tendencies. A diagnosis for ADD or ADHD is not a “oh good, now I can be an ass with an EXCUSE” for most of us - it’s a “thanks heavens, this can be fixed and I don’t have to seem like an ass anymore!”
To answer the OP (which I got distracted and forgot to do in my earlier post 
) – it’s not easy to live with an ADD person. You kind of have to get used to piles of things, because in general we’re more organized internally than externally. Don’t assume you’ve been lied to when something is promised then forgotten… but don’t let them off the hook for what they promised either. Learn a little about the coping strategies, both negative and positive, that are common in ADD people, and recognize them for what they are. If “your” ADD person copes with confrontation by lying or making impulsive promises they’re not likely to keep, CALL THEM ON IT. Remind them that they’re using a default reaction negative strategy and you’re aware of it and it won’t work. Don’t be condescending, just say something like “nope - that one’s not gonna work, try again.”