Oh fer Pete’s sakes . . . I just read that list of symptoms, and they all apply to everyone I’ve ever known—me included—at least sometime during life. I’m not saying that ADD doesn’t exist or isn’t a real syndrome. But those people at Akron have just made up a list of perfectly normal day-to-day feelings or personality quirks that effect EVERYONE and are using 'em to worry you into joining their program.
Who the hell ever told you that you’re supposed to be happy and contented and well-adjusted 24 hours a day, 365 days a year?
Then why do OTHER people not complain when someone is talking while they’re trying to read? I’m usually the only person who makes a complaint. If I’m trying to read, and someone talks, even if they are on the other side of the room, my attention focuses onto what they’re saying whether I want it to or not,even if I can’t really make out what they are saying! You call THAT normal?
What you don’t seem to understand, Eve, is that a person could have a small number of these traits and still be considered healthy. But ALL of them apply to ME! If I had the time, I could give you the details of how I exhibit each and every one of those symptoms.
Keep this up, and I’m gonna open a Pit thread on you.
A close friend of mine has been recently diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.
He’s probably one of the most intelligent people I know (I can’t have a conversation with him for more than 20 minutes before my brain starts to ache from trying to keep up with him at his pace (and i’m no Captain Numbnut myself, IMHO - although feel free to challenge me on this statement :)).
All of those symptoms are true. The thing that has me buggered is that he was able to get his Honours Degree in Accounting and is now training Chartered Accountants on legal issues.
I think that shows a combination of the wonders of hard work and psychoactive drugs.
The ADD diagnosis makes a lot of sense. It’s just a pity (for his sake) he wasn’t diagnosed 20 years ago. He’d probably be splitting atoms instead of incomes if he had been.
JAB, I am not quarrelling with your self-diagnosis – I am not a doctor and don’t know you at all – but I think EVE has a point. I mean, just looking at the symptoms they list, I would say that the following apply to LOTS of people (including me): Daydreaming; procrastination; messiness and/or clutter; impulsiveness; indecision; low self-esteem; a sense of being different; restlessness; difficulty “waking up alert” (who wakes up alert?); sensitivity to teasing; active mind; easily bored; impatience; dislike of frustration; senstitivity; personal or family history of anxiety; changing jobs/ interests/ activities; and the desire to have things your own way.
Heck, I’d probably be listed as ADD under such criteria, even though I pretty clearly am not. It bugs the shit out of me when people whisper when I’m reading or concentrating, too, and I can’t sleep with ANY noise or ANY light. That hardly makes me ADD. If you’re concerned about it, by all means see a doctor, but, really, that list could apply to anyone.
An ordinary quirk that is extreme in its severity is no longer just a quirk, it’s a symtom of a mental disorder. Does it or they prevent you from having a healthy, happy life? If so, something needs to be done.
I’d have to say that as a general proposition, not speaking your situation at all, but in general, I think that it’s very dangerous to corrollate “extreme quirkiness” with a mental disorder. There are lots of things that interfere with all of us having healthy, happy lives all the time. At the moment, my life is not happy because the guy in the next office is talking very loudly into the phone (=easily distracted) and I have a project to do that I’m not working on (=procrastination) and what I should really do this weekend is clean the house (=cluttered) but I’d rather play outside (=procrastination; new activities). Difficulty negotiating the potholes and boulders on life’s highway doesn’t mean one necessarily, or even probably, has a mental disorder.
But like I said, go talk to a doctor. You certainly would know better than I if you have one.
Eve - that is exactly why I felt the list was too vague. Yes, everyone does exhibit those behaviors occasionally. This is one of the frustrations of dealing with ADD, that this kind of non-specific list tends to reinforce the public perception that people with ADD are malingering or whining. Now try adding “to the point where it causes problems in everyday life” to the symptoms on the list. Everyone daydreams; have you ever been in a meeting where you realize you missed the last few minutes of the meeting because your mind wandered? Does this happen in nearly every meeting you go to? Does it happen even in one-on-one conversations in a subject that is important to you?
Also realize that you work in a creative field and that people with ADD tend to be creative. It’s quite possible that you work with a number of people who are borderline or undiagnosed ADD.
jab - I realize this type of reaction is frustrating; more so because you are dealing IRL with people who could help you and aren’t because of this type of reaction. Try to understand that the problem is that people don’t have a good grasp on how you are different (and that lists like this don’t help) and try to find ways to communicate that difference to them.
Sound isn’t a distraction to me; in fact I do better when I am listening to music. However, I have a real problem with visual stimuli. I have been talking to people and had their screen saver hypnotize me. I almost always have to read anything that is in front of me.
I don’t think anyone expects to be happy all the time, but when a problem is making someone unhappy almost all of the time, then it is a problem.
Would he be distracting you if he was talking in a normal tone of voice? Whispering? Loud noises are supposed to distract us, we are wired that way. But we should be able to acclimatize to normal levels of noise and be able to do our work without being distracted by a conversation that is nearly out of our range of hearing.
You’re not working on it now, but do you think are capable of getting it finished before it is due? Do you need a deadline to finish a project? Have you ever risked your job because you nearly didn’t get a project done? Better yet, if you have two projects of equal importance, do you have a hard time choosing one or the other to work on; or will the necessity of doing one project make you so anxious that you have a hard time working on the other one, and find yourself with the same problem if you switch projects?
Most people have regular housework to do. Is your house so cluttered that you can’t find things, or spend money working around the clutter (eat out instead of washing dishes) or causes you to spend excess time working around the clutter (have to move the junk from the dining room to eat; then back to the dining room so you can sit on the couch) Does this happen often? Is it cluttered enough that the thought of trying to get it clean overwhelms you?
No one wants to work; nor are we required to work constantly or not allowed to play until our chores are done. The question is can you balance work and play without a problem? Can you play without feeling that you should be working instead? Can you work when something has to be done (make supper, or wash dishes so you can make supper, when you would rather be outside) It’s not procrastination when you do something you want to when there is still something you have to do. It only becomes procrastination when you let a chore go so long undone that your are causing yourself problems.
ZYADA, since you yourself admit the list is not great, and for essentially the same reason (it is too generalized to be much good as a diagnostic tool, since it could diagnose anyone without regard to their actual condition), you have made the same precise point I have made. Beyond that, I have had no particular “reaction” to JAB’s assertion; indeed, I have carefully said repeatedly that I don’t know if he’s ADD or not (how could I?) and if he thinks he is, he should see a doctor. My point is that there is a difference between a “quirk” and a mental defect, and it is facile to diagnose the latter on the basis of the former. This is not to say that a “quirk” cannot be a problem, but surely neither of us is arguing that anyone without a perfect life must have a mental defect, or that a mental defect means you cannot have a good life nonetheless. You don’t have to prove to me that I’m not ADD; I know I’m not. My point – my only point – is that I might conclude I am using that list, which is precisely why IMO it is too broad to be a useful diagnostic tool. I don’t think you disagree. Do you?
Zyada said this was a better list. Jodi, please notice how every symptom description begins with the word often. You’re right, everyone has these things happen to them occaisionally; but people with ADD/ADHD experience them OFTEN, even daily.
You’re also right that I ought to see a doctor. But I have enormous difficulty getting myself to do something that is not routine, and going to a doctor is not routine.
I also have no idea who to see. How can you tell the quacks from the good ones?
Here’s what’s working for me, at least in ruling out the yokels who aren’t interested in treating me (for some other stuff, but the technique is the same).
Tell them that you experience symptoms A, B, C, etc. and emphasize that these symptoms or behaviors are keeping you from living your life. Tell them that you really don’t care if these symptoms are caused by ADHD or something else, but that you NEED treatment and “get over it” is NOT an option. You have tried getting over it for X number of years and that has not worked.
Ask around among your friends for some that have sympathetic doctors, and start from there. The really good ones, if they aren’t familiar with ADHD or any other things that might cause whatever issues you have, will REFER you to someone good.
In the meantime, don’t be afraid to tape a reminder to your alarm clock to call the doctor in the morning.
Ok, Jodi, I see where you’re coming from now. And I do agree with you. Sorry I got on you; please realize that I have spent much of my adult life arguing with people who don’t think ADD exists in almost the same manner that your post read - “I get bored but I just grit my teeth and keep on going” :rolleyes: I even had a therapist that I otherwise trusted and valued tell me that ADD did not exist in adults.
I never even heard of ADD until after I graduated from college (and I had a degree in psychology!) But I always knew that there was something wrong with me. It’s not that I read a list and decided that I was sick; it’s that I read a list and said “This matches what feels wrong with me”
With all the above quarreling, I highly recommend (again for the third time) that if jab feels that jab is ADD or ADHD then jab get off the Straight Dope and get in to see a psychiatrist…
If you came in here and complained that you think you have diabetes because the symptoms of some erroneous website cause you to think you have diabetes, then get off the damn pot and make a doctor’s appointment.
It’s really that simple or you make it harder than it is.
Hey if you think you have cancer of the colon, then see a doc. If you think you are pregnant, then take a pregnancy test. But it’s far more productive to just pick up the damn phone and call your GP and get the name of a well respected psychiatrist than it is to hash out whether some stupid website is valid or not…
This coming from an ADDer…one that can’t stand that people are arguing such a minor issue. It’s one of my ADD issues, I get frustrated very easily and tend to take it out on the closest of those around me.
Oh and my ADD goes untreated and my life is okay. It aint perfect but it’s okay. I personally am prefering not to treat my ADD anymore because of restrictions on who I can see to get my damn medication and the frequency in which I have to see a doc to get my medication. Taboo issues about ADD have helped me decide that dealing with most doctors is not worth the anger or the pain. I would rather drink my frickin beer and keep self medicating than put myself in the position of becoming depressed because of some doctor that has to be an ass about it.
How’s that for thought?
I was diagnosed 3 times for ADD, so either call the doc or go to the Pit and start a thread jab…it’s up to you. Do you want to live a more normal (whatever normal is) or do you want to continue to live with the wondering?
It’s listed in the LAPL catalogue, but most copies are listed as “Checked Out”. The ones that are not checked out are in branches all located a long way from me. I can place a hold on it and they’ll tell me when a copy is available in the nearest branch. (I think they may even mail it to me.)