When young - hyper now 33 and exhausted

I was so amazingly energised as a young person - not organised - energised,  Now I am so dead.  I feel flat, old, exhausted, uninterested, bored, sad, cant sleep at night but want to sleep all day.  I know it may be depression - but I wonder "what goes up must come down" - do you think that after many years of hyper I am now coming down?

Rae, What sort of things got you excited? What sort of job are you doing now, is it stimulating?

I can partially relate to how you are feeling (at 29), but am more physically than mentally tired (if that makes any sense), and still feel my stream of ideas is going to end up somewhere useful some of the time, if not all of the time!

I have experienced the same thing. What I THINK is that for many years my spontaneous bursts of energy started to be the cause of problems. If you were like me, most of this energy was very positive and joyful. I was almost always very excited.

As I got older (after my teens when I was supposed to act like a "normal" adult), my energetic outpourings were repeatedly repremanded, criticized, and ridiculed. Does this sound familiar: "get serious", "act your age", "life is not all about having fun", "there is more to life than having a good time", "answers are not that simple", "you always want to find a quick solution so you can get back to having fun", "you always talk too much at parties", "the world doesn't revolve around you", "you can't always be happy", etc.

So for me, I think I just put a lid on it and drug myself down in a semi-comotose depression. I have been doing this for at least the last 20 years.

I am almost 46 years old and I am coming back out of the closet! I am just going to turn my damned ADD (including my "H") loose and the hell with anyone who does not like it!

WOW y'all, this is all powerfull stuff. My mind is goung into ADD overload! I've started my own bussiness, but never could get it together other than "locally" I did parrot paintings. If i had been more organized, i might have gotten somewhere. I've these bursts of energy, got excited over a project but it never panned out.

And Chazinimo, I agree. I'm 47 and I'm thinking the same thing as you. Lets all come out of the closet. Woulden't it be a hoot if half the world turned out to be ADD/ADHD?

I think that if the homosexuals can do it so can we - it seems to be more embarrassing these days to have a mental disability than it is to be homosexual.  Perhaps we could contact the Maudi Gras organisation and ask if they could do a float for the ADHD Homosexual

YES! I am so tired all the time and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is due to learning to suppress the real me so that I could be more acceptable to society! There are times when I just want to go run and jump and make a lot of noise and I can't because A. I am an adult and B. even as a kid I was yelled at to quiet down, shut up for a minute, sit still, etc.

I do have more energy when I am doing something that really interests me, especially if its active.

Maybe we should have an ADHD march on Washington and let the world know that we are a large percent of the population and we are not going to stay quiet and hide our true selves from society anymore. Our kids will only be medicated if they have behavior problems which will result in harm to themselves and others and the educational system can either learn to educate them in an appropriate way or new school boards will be voted in, major staff changes will be made, etc. Employers can just give us room to do our jobs our way and the organized, quiet people can do the mundane stuff.

I am feeling less tired just thinking about being liberated from restraint on myself! I wonder how the country would react to see thousands of ADHDers marching! 3-7% sounds like such a small number until you consider that 3% of 1 million is 30,000. Multiply that times the millions of people in the US alone and it gets quite impressive. Double that amount and you really can't ignore us all in one group at one time. It is most likely closer to the 7% mark, so WOW! We can get some of the many celebrities who have it to jump on the band wagon and there we go!

Once the world sees all those numbers in the US, they will have to start looking at the numbers of dissatisfied ADHDers in their countries and how to deal with them before an uprising gets started there.

See what you started with a simple post about being tired Rae! A call for revolution! Thats what I love about the ADHD forums. You never know where a post is going until you get there and then it may not be over!

Now all we need is someone organized enough to put the plan in action.  Anyone with me on this?

Rae, what sort of business is it? Is it something you were really interested in when it started, and is now boring? Is it profitable? What is your position in the business?

My business is involved in running websites, one of which is fairly innovative in its field, and does generally hold my interest. I find it very difficult to work on any of the others.

idea spring: move to the u.s.a...you may be disorganized but you can run your internet business via computer right? plus your knock out (undoubtably) brit accent will have everyone drooling over you..and then you can pay for an american doc to give the diagnostic and meds...doesn't that sound great?

LOL, yeah yeah,i know, there are some problems probably in there..but it did occur to me as soon as you said that you uk adhders are 'advised' against getting the diagnosis apparently? which i find wierd.

perhaps b/c of my underlying assumption of how 'progressive' the brits are...that was always what i thought. it must be b/c i like bbc news..but it seems from my impression from yourself and mel17 that the uk is really dragging on the whole mental health front...

sorry,

sumi

Actually, you all may be interested in a link to this article:

Senate Resolution Declares September 7 th AD/HD Awareness Day

http://www.myadhd.com/august2004.html

I just read this today and then I found this topic here.  Coincidence?  I think not! 

I'm 52 now and very tired. I remember being a kid and younger adult when I had tons of energy. More hyper now just tired unless I'm working doing some kind of physical job, with the exception of house work which I hate. I'm not organized and very easily distracted which makes me tired. I don't sleep well at night but feel like I could fall asleep in the middle of the day. I thought it was depression. My husband on the other hand who is only 38 still has lots of energy but not as hyper as he used to be. He used to pace the floor with no direction. Now he's a lobsterman and just worn out from all the hard work. Do you think ADHD turns into ADD as we get older and tired? I had a good time reading all your posts. It's nice to see I'm not alone in the world.

Island Gypsy

Sumiah,

I think there are private doctors who I could see here, and I guess it would be a case of sticking the advice I've been given so far. There is a mental health charity here who I'm waiting to get back in touch. But I'm having to get much more pro-active now - I don't think this system is designed to help people who don't mkae exhaustive efforts to help themselves. I guess that's the American way!