Too much stress or ADD?

I'm a thrity-something entrepreneur who's life went haywire sometime in the last 3 years.

At the moment, I'm trying to figure out if I'm suffering through ADD or too much stress.  Right now I'm the classic can't-focus-long-enough, can't-follow-through, can't-remember, poor-time-organizer, procrastinator, etc.  I wasn't always like this.  I did well in school, had great focus, great friendships.  While working during the day I studied at night for 10 years and received an MBA and a masters in engineering.  I loved what I did for a career (still do).  I was the king of planning.  Feeling pumped, four years ago I chose to go out on my own and start a construction business.

Here's how it and I all unravelled:

1.  Our inexperience and the crimp on business that 9/11 produced put us in a position that we never recovered from (poor cash flow).

2.  I chose a business partner who put in less than half the effort I put in.  I ended up working 100-hour weeks for 2 years to cover for him.

3.  This same business partner fell off the wagon and sank back into alcoholism right when the company needed him most.  He also very publicly attempted suicide and put the company's image in the crapper.

4.  The company, not able to recover from its cash flow problems and the arrest of my partner for DUI, closed down operations last month.  I lost my shirt. 

5.  In all this time, I got married, bought a house, had 2 kids (number 3 on the way).

I never had problems with focus or procrastination or follow through until the last few years.  My executive coach is on the fence as to whether it's ADD or just stress.  He feels it's better to just start the process of developing coping mechanisms to get through it and move on.

My question is this: can stress produce the same symptoms as ADD, and if it is stress, can the treatments and coping mechanisms for ADD be helpful?  Where can I start?

As far as my career goes, I found two people who wanted to start a new company doing the same thing.  These guys are great.  They are the hard working go-getter partners I always dreamed of.  I have asked them to hold me accountable for "resharpening" my edge, and they have agreed.  I feel recharged, but I want to get my edge back quickly.

Any suggestions?

 I was the king of planning. 

I never had problems with focus or procrastination or follow through until the last few years. 

My question is this: can stress produce the same symptoms as ADD, and if it is stress, can the treatments and coping mechanisms for ADD be helpful?  Where can I start?

Any suggestions?

[/QUOTE]

Hello , I was told that ADD doesn't just  start in adulthood, that evidence of it must have been present from before the age of seven. There are lots of things that can cause attention problems, and stress is certainly one of them. Good luck with all your plans!!! Hope it all works out

It could also be a very really physical depression brought on by all the stress that you've been going through. 

Many symptoms of ADD, the inattentive type, are very similar to those of chemical imbalance deppression brought on by stress.  In fact, that's what I was diagnosed with for years, but none of the anti-depressants the Dr. proscribed worked for me.  I wasn't diagnosed with ADD until we went to family counseling and our therapist tested both me and one of our three sons for ADHD/ADD.

We haven't work the kinks out of our meds yet, but I did notice that the feeling I had every morning that the Dr.s said was depression was gone.

So, I was thinking that maybe it might be the way around for you .  Also, you sound just like my husband.  He gets depressed when is under a great deal of stress.  Many people benifit from short bouts of antidepressants (2-4 months) just enough to get their act back together and then then don't need them anymore.   Just a thought...

Thanks for the responses.

I have an issue.  The last thing in the world I feel is depressed.  I mean, I think I've felt depression before when you just don't want to get out of bed or do anything.  The last time I had that was when I had a really bad case of bronchitis and I was laid up off and on for over two weeks.  But unless depression feels like something other than lethargy and zero will to get up and do something, I don't think I'm suffering from a bout of depression.  I get up at 0500 raring to get to work.  I come home for lunch just to see the look on my daughter's face as she climbs onto the schoolbus.  I work 10 or 12 hour days and I love what I do.  I really think I have it good.  I just can't get over how in three short years, my planning, time management, and follow through went from superior to non-existant.  I literally caught myself last week thinking "man, all I do these days is show up to the office and react."  That's all my day feels like.  Now I have to be honest, it is a rush at times when you're running around putting out fires.  My executive coach once said I might be addicted to the fix-it mentality.  I set up projects half assed (due to poor planning, etc), then run around fixing them all when they're underway.  But I don't want to be that way anymore.  (Maybe I don't want it enough.)

Here's the contrast I'm talking about:

Throughout the early nineties I worked at a job where you always had four or five projects running at once, each with strict time constraints.  I was good at it.  Good at time management, good at shifting focus from one project to the next in a heartbeat and still getting everything done.  I liked accomplishing the task and getting the pat on the back.  But I wanted a bigger challenge and I wanted to learn more.  So I got a job in the late nineties in manufacturing.  All project work, with heavy time and cost constriants.  Again, I loved it.  Lot's of preplanning, because when you shut a line down, you only had a fixed amount of time to get work done.  And I was good at it and I got positive feedback.

But in the last three years, everything went to hell.  It's the same field, same design methods, same equipment, same people in some cases.  But somehow I lost my ability to sit down and concentrate on preplanning.  I lost my ability to recall a promise I made.  I thought it might be burnout, but I still like what I do and I still like coming to work.  I know for a fact that my workload has easily doubled in 3 years, and for a time I thought I was a serious workaholic.  But I've got some life balance now.  Every Saturday I'm at my daughter's soccer games.  Every night I play with my son and his toys.  And I enjoy it all.  Could it just be bad habits?  Could it be that I let my professional habits go south for so long (while working for and being held accountable by only myself) that I've lost that rigor I once had (while working for and being held accountable by others)?  But if that's all it is, why can't I get this ship pointed in the right direction anymore?  I spend more time reading books on time management and planning how I'm going to implement things, but then the plans never get implemented because of my follow through.   It's really frustrating. 

This just popped into my head.  Without the input from anyone else on ADHD or depression or burnout, I could swear the crappy planning and time management woes I have right now boil down to a very basic need:  positive feedback from someone in authority.  Back when I worked for someone else, I always worked hard and got noticed.  It was hand in hand.  The more kudos I got, the better I became.  Heck, I was a parent's wet dream:  did great in school, and every degree I got (BS, MS, MBA) I got practically for free on academic scholarship or employer tuition reimbursement.   Only when I started working for myself, with no one else above me to hold me accountable or say good job, did I start going south.  Could my lapse from a heavy preplanning mode under some authority figure with lots of accountability to a highly reactionary mode with zero accountability somehow be satiating some need to get recognition?  I ride to the rescue a lot these days.  I hear a lot of "I can't get any farther until you get down here and explain this."  And when I get there and explain it, I hear "thanks, couldn't have done it without you."

But that still doesn't explain the missed promises.  Or, does the lack of a time management and planning method have a guaranteed result of missed promises. 

Time will tell.  I started a few initiatives this weekend.  I started carrying around a digital recorder two days ago, and I set my cell phone up with about half a dozen daily reminders (spend time on planner, check priorites, call the wife, etc).  I also asked my partners to hold me accountable for a running schedule of my time (deliverables I'm responsible for).  I also finally put down on paper my project execution process for them.  That's something I should have done 3 years ago.  (There you go, running a $3 million company from the seat of your pants for 3 years.  In my prior positions, I had rigorous procedures to follow.) 

Any feedback is always appreciated.  I'll try to check in every now and then.

Hi Engineer

Having read all your posts and being a coach myself. Two things came up for me.

1. Read E-Myth (Entrepreneural Myth) for small business by Micheal Gerber, I think this will answer alot of your questions, and help you restructure your business. I hear what your saying and I am curious as to whether you can't see the trees through the forest. Are you forcing yourself to do tasks that you just don't enjoy, now you are an entrepreneur. What if you were to outsource these tasks and concentrate on what you do do well.

2. "I question my need for positive feedback from authority." Now I know your coach isn't your authority, however as a coach myself these are some of the benefits I claim when working with me, someone on your side, working toward your goals in synergy, championing, motivating, challenging and keeping you accountable.

My suggestion would be to talk with your coach about what you need from him/her. Your coach must be what you need them to be, for you to achieve your goals. Give them some feedback and restructure your sessions to meet these needs.

Hope this helps

Shelly

Dear Engineer,

I'll begin with saying this all sounds pretty normal & standard for an adder. And even though you've never received an official diagnosis let's assume that you are for now and address it as such and see how it looks to you.

1st thing is stress exacerbates ADD. It is very common for high functioning Adders to manage and even excel in life until a major life change or onset of a stressful situation. Career change, birth of a 1st or 2cd child, etc. etc. High functioning (highly intelligent) adders can often manage so well that their ADD causes them no problems & perhaps is never even noticed. Or one day a little straw breaks the camels back. Where as lower functioning adder may struggle all along.

Same is true for high functioners and structure. In a highly structured environment an adder may excel so well that you’d never even suspect add. They’re on top of everything. But remove the structure and "now what do I do?"

Also, if you don't feel depressed your probably not. You don't sound it. Your coach mentioned being addicted to the fix-it mentality. Have you considered that when you set up things half assed what the end result is? Does it end up putting you in a heavy time constraint? Like a deadline? Are you unknowingly trying to impose some structure? Now it HAS to be done by X time? Just a thought.  People also do this type of thing to get the adrenaline rush (a form of self medicating). Don't think this is you necessarily, just wanted to give you some ideas as to how we work sometimes.

Also you said in the 90's you had a job w/ 4-5 projects going on at one time. How about now? Some people need to multi task. Then in your next job you had rigorous structure to follow w/ strict deadlines. Do you have strict deadlines now? Also you may be more of a planner than a doer or vise versa. More one this later.

A good book for you would be Thom Hatmann's "Complete guide to ADD". It includes a smaller book he wrote, "Hunter in a Business World”. It’s a must read for add business owners and entrepreneurs and a very short, concentrated read too.

Let me address a few other things you wrote and then I'll finish.

You wrote:

I could swear the crappy planning and time management woes I have right now boil down to a very basic need:  positive feedback from someone in authority.  Back when I worked for someone else, I always worked hard and got noticed.  It was hand in hand.  The more kudos I got, the better I became.

This is very common and I believe this is where you need to start. I think that’s where your answers are. 

And: * does the lack of a time management and planning method have a guaranteed result of missed promises.  Yes, pretty much.

And: *  Time will tell.  I started a few initiatives this weekend.  I started carrying around a digital recorder two days ago, and I set my cell phone up with about half a dozen daily reminders (spend time on planner, check priorities, call the wife, etc).  I also asked my partners to hold me accountable for a running schedule of my time (deliverables I'm responsible for).

That may work or help. But you may HAVE to find external structure. Just depends on your add (not your willpower). "Driven to Distraction" Ned Hollowell is also another great book for you.

I don't know how your business is set up. Are you the planner or the doer or both? Perhaps you can become the planner and let others be the doers. Or you could hire a manager/planner and you "do" what they say. Or you could help them plan and then do what they say. Planning and doing are different processes and we tend to collapse them.

Anyway, none of what you say is unusual. Very common actually. But distressing non-the less.

I excel in highly structured environments but at the present am working for myself and it's soooo hard sometimes. I flounder all over the place and some days I just want to give it all up and go get a real job. Just so someone will tell me when to come and go and what to do. It's so much easier for me then. But like you I love what I do so I keep trying. I find as many things as I can to commit to so my time is more structured. Too many choices are not really good for me.

By the way< I've never been able to implement my own structure. I have written down a play by play of how my day/week will go but I never follow it. It HAS to be externally imposed for it to work for me. This is not true for ALL Adders but it is for many many.

Let me know how it goes, I'd love to know and perhaps correspond some more.

I hope this was helpful, Cindy