Extreme ADHD ... I am desperate... | ADHD Information

I have ADHD too and if I don't watch myself I will look and seek out really creepy disturbing stuff on the internet then I get depressed .I am too curious and some the stuff I find
is not good for my emotional health. I know it's my ADHD and this hungry brain that constantly needs STUFF  to make it go WOW check that out ,meanwhile my heart side is deeply disturbed. It's a sick world out there ,always has been.  My head and my heart are seldom in synch.
The outdoors is the best thing for my soul,mind and body.
You get away from all the garbage and connect with what's important again. That's loved ones and nature for me. Other people find that in church. But from reading your post you sound co-morbid (why morbid ?). I think the over-eating is very dangerous.
How is your social life right now ?
Are you filling up an emptiness with over-eating ?

Everyone is correct in encouraging you to get prof. help.
Please do it if you can and let us know. Good luck to ya.
worldisround39062.0269097222well, i'm not sure if that's emptiness. i just kinda like fried meat/garbage food, so wheneveri got the time/money/freedom, i'll instantly goto KFC/Pizzahut/mcdonalds. and once i got that idea in mind, its just sooo hard to get over the day without eating them.maybe just lack of will power, but i 'm wonder if the weak will power is at least partly related to ADD?


and sure, thank you all kind folks, i'll see the doctor immediately after this week's final exam! see you all then!

Not a dr. but how about Aspergers.

hypo=LOW,hyper=high WE HEAR USE MUSIC IT'S FOUND TO BE THERAPEUTIC. WE LISTEN TO MUSIC WHILE WE DO HOUSE WORK. Greetings my fellow ... i came here for the last light of hope, and i wish i
have found the right place to post.for all these years, I am really really
sick, desperate, and hatred of myself due to being an ADD(or maybe
more than that, some other psychological problems).

MY PROBLEMS

my problem mainly focus on being a constant and extreme "thrill seeker",
my f***ing brain has constantly forcing me to seek everything NEW,
nonstoppable, and throwing away everything else(that considered old/
known). I felt exhausted fighting with it. well, i did nothing illegal, up to
the moment, but this problem has GREATLY caused severe life problems
and limiting my potential.

SYMPTOMS
in terms of accomplishment, i'm not that bad. i'm 19 years old, holding a
bachelor's degree and currently in a good MBA program. however, instead
of focusing on studying hard and socializing with people, i am always in
an uncontrollable state wasting tons tons of time on all those stupid
things, here's a few examples that I do everyday:
1. for lots of hours wandering on the internet, clicking on every funny/
stupid/new/wierd/exciting links. by the way, i often crash the
browser, because simply click too much links and toooo fast at the same
time, haha .... FireFox's tab feature seems to be quite good for me in
this
purpose.
2. eating tons of food despite of being already very overweight
4. escaping mandatory classes, knowing the severe result of being
degraded yet still doing that compulsively. i am not saying that the class
is too easy, but usually becuz they are quite the same style, same
professor, similiar content.
5. checking email for hundred of times a day, just to wait for something
new and "fun"
.....
even one hour before final exam, without reviewing a single page, i still
wanders on internet, or reading some non-studying books, or having fun
with friends, and just can't control myself. I also switched jobs four times
during three year( got bored with every job very soon and resigned)

I DO HAVE A GOAL ...
Up to this, you might think that i am just a very typical stupid and lazy
guy living without goals. but i am really not, i wish i am, so that I wouldn't
be so painful. To the opposite, i have set lots of ambitious goals(such as
being very successful entrepreneur) for myself, i have made lots of plans
to be accomplished and corresponding actions. Everytime, the moment i
set these ambitoius goals and make detailed plans, does make me
motivated, very motivated. nontheless, it never works for me longer than
3 months, sometime just a few days or a few hours. then I want to seek
NEW funs.

I am very certain, that with this kind personality, i will fail in every field,
nothing can be achieved. I realized my problem many years before, and
never stop to change myself. i listen to Anthony Robbins, practice NLP,
and lots of motivation books. but really, they just work for a very short
period, then i back to the old thrill seeking mode....

Would anyone here tell me is this all caused by the ADD? or is it some
other kind of mental illness? how can i overcome myself??

thank you so much!


a desperate patienttclaudius39059.8322453704It honestly doesn't sound like ADHD to me ... ADHD is a neurological disorder .. as are Autism, OCD, etc ... They kind of run together w/ the symptoms and I think ADHD might just be the best publicized.  It sounds like you have OCD to me ... The constant checking and inability to stop ... I'm not a doctor yet, so don't take my word for it ... It could even be a combination of the two: ADHD with OCD.  It's not uncommon ... the two disorders overlap a LOT.  I would suggest just stopping.  Sounds hard, yes ... For me, the most stimuli I take away from myself, the less I need it.  No, it's not fullproof ... I often get inundated w/ the stimuli again and need to remind myself to cool it w/ it all.  I feel best, for example, doing dishes w/ nothing else.  When I get all stimuli craving, though, I need music going, I'm talking on the phone, I have the TV going, I'm checking my email ... It's not satisfying or relaxing.  Sounds to me like you have a really hard time getting relaxed.  Forget CDs by people who promise to save your lifes -- see a real doctor.  No shame in it if you can afford it. Medication might be what you need -- have you ever tried it before? I missed the part about you not being certain it's ADHD, heh sorry. I
assumed you were diagnosed.

What everyone else said is key: get an evaluation. It could be Bipolar
disorder (hypomania mimics hyperfocus and hyperactivity), or it could be
hypothyroidism (which can cause hypomania, memory problems, and
inattention). I'd ask yourself a few things:

1. Am I often going without sleep? When I do go without enough sleep,
do I wake up the next morning feeling totally refreshed and fine? Or do I
wake up groggy and fighting "the fog"? (if it's the former, it's more likely
to be a symptom of hypomania, and if it's the latter it's more likely to be a
symptom of ADHD)

2. When you start feeling hyperfocused and hyperactive, are you also
finding yourself much more irritable? How long do those periods of
irritability last? Do they go for an hour, or do they go for days? Irritability
can be a symptom of a "mixed state", being both depressive and manic at
the same time. It can also be a symptom of ADHD and our well-known
difficulties in regulating our emotional behavior and our problems
handling an influx of stimulation. The key is that a mixed state bipolar
situation will usually last a few days to a few weeks. In ADHD it can come
and go and come back again within the space of an hour. It tends to
arrive and then vanish equally as quickly.

If you're anywhere near Maryland, there's a center called Chesapeake
ADHD Center. It's run by Kathleen Nadeau (very highly regarded expert
on ADHD), and it focuses on gifted adults with ADHD. Personally, I was in
a similar situation as you are. Very high IQ (I assume), attending Stanford
U having done virtually no school work my entire life, and dealing with a
horrible host of symptoms. I couldn't get an evaluation from anyone, and
I certainly wasn't going to get a diagnosis due to my high academic
achievement and super high test scores. Chesapeake wasn't fool for a
second, however. They're used to dealing with very gifted adults and
young adults who've managed to rely on raw intellectual talent and a host
of semi-effective coping skills. Even if you're not nearby, scheduling an
intake with them and paying for a hotel in the area could be the best
money you've ever spent. They definitely have people who do that, and
they'll work to accelerate the intake (do it all at once, with all of the
testing, and have a phone conversation afterwards to discuss the results).
Just be warned, they're quite expensive (though they do sliding scale for
some people- the testing can be done for as little as 0).

chesapeakeadd.com

Good luck!Heh, I can actually relate to this.

ADHD is a spectrum in terms of the symptoms. Personally my
hyperactivity and impulsivity issues are pretty extreme; though most
adults end up outgrowing a lot of this and primiarily have problems with
inattention.

I can give you some suggestions that have worked for me (though
admittedly I'm still struggling through this).

1. Watch your sleep!! One of my problems is that there's always
someone who wants to go out. I can 100% content with what I'm doing,
but if someone suggests something MORE stimulating, I suddenly can't
bear the thought of NOT doing it. So I'll go out; which ends up resulting
in less sleep than I need. I've found that when I get into that sleep-
deprived cycle, I get much more hyperactive, much more restless, and my
craving for stimulation becomes extreme. This makes sense if you
believe the theory that ADHD is the result of an understimulated brain.
Your brain craves the stimulation and produces hyperactivity and
stimulation chasing in order to keep your brain activity at an acceptable
level. If you're sleep-deprived, your brain activity falls, and so your brain
will compensate even more than before in the way it is accustomed to
doing. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that you get so
caught up on the computer that you don't sleep until exhaustion
overtakes you, and then you crawl to bed a few hours before you have to
be up.

WATCH YOUR SLEEP! Take a mild sleep aid for a while if you need to, to
force yourself to sleep.

If you're finding yourself completely stuck in something (i.e. hyperfocus),
preset alarms. I have a great alarm machine I bought with 37 alarms on
every hour and half hour (it's missing a few hours of the day for some
reason). I have it set in advance for three to five half-hour alarms. they
keep going off, and I have to get up and walk across the room to shut
them off. The process of tearing me away from what I'm doing, plus the
consistency of it helps keep me from lapsing into really bad hyperfocus,
and it makes it easier to remind myself it's time to sleep.   Does it always
work? No. Sometimes I ignore them. Does it work fairly often? Yup. I
notice the difference.

Eating Habits: PROTEIN PROTEIN PROTEIN. Protein is necessary for the
production of norepinephrine and dopamine. People with ADHD are more
likely to run on all-carb diets which means a lot of crash and burn plus a
deficiency in the substance you need to make a chemical you're already
deficient in. I tend to forget that I'm hungry. I get too distracted with
other things, and I just move on until the hunger suddenly reappears, and
I feel like I'm going to pass out. Or I'll notice it, but I can't gather the
motivation to go through the steps to make a meal (let alone grocery
shop! My nemesis! 0 and two hours later I'll walk home with
NOTHING I meant to buy...assuming I even make it there in the first
place!). I've started stocking protein drinks that I eat two or three times a
day. It means even if I'm not getting enough calories, I'm at least getting
nutrients to help offset my ADHD problems. Sounds like you have the
opposite problem (and when food is readily available I'm the same way
honestly- I go from forgetting to eat to eating constantly), but you could
benefit from keeping more protein-rich foods around that are easy to
nab. It means less junk food that's not doing anything to help your brain,
and it means more dopamine...so ideally more ability to regulate your
eating and behavior.

Exercise: Personally I'm gay and young and attractive (if I do say so
myself, ha), and I love to check guys out; I love being surrounded by
music; and I love being in a crowd. (So many things to see, to hear, etc)
I've joined a nearby predominantly gay gym which is always open and
always plays great dance music and has a crowd. So instead of
compulsively going out to get my stimulation, I can go to the gym (which
is closer thank god). So this works out super well for me in a way it may
not work for you. But working out increases dopamine production in your
brain, and it helps to ease hyperactivity (which also makes it easier to
sleep as opposed to being drawn into things you're doing because your
exhaustion can't compete with your need to be doing something). If you
can find some great reasons to go to the gym, you'll find a lot of your
symptoms abated.

Finally...stimulant medication, an ADHD coach, and cognitive behavioral
therapy. These things are indespensable. I used to scoff at the notion of
an ADHD coach (Oh good, just what I need a babysitter), but the work
we've done has really helped me to regulate my own behavior in ways that
allow me to avoid the pitfall you're in more often than not. And trust me,
I have definitely been there.

I guess the final thing I'll note is that you have a disorder that makes
regulating your behavior difficult to impossible. You know that in X and Y
situations you will almost always do Z. You can spend a lifetime banging
your head against the wall and trying NOT to do Z, or you can spend a
few months learning to not end up in X and Y situations. Getting enough
sleep, eating well, and working out are great steps to begin that process.
I know if I'm exhausted and fall into hyperfocus, I'm screwed. I know that
if I'm well-rested, I'm more likely to get back out. I know that if I don't
set alarms, I WILL lose track of time. I know that if I have 5 alarms go off,
I'll be aware of time passing and will likely keep myself from lapsing into
bad zombie hyperfocus. And...I know that if I have access to the internet
at certain hours, I'll lose myself. I'm still working on breaking that one
off, but at some point you have to do what you have to do.

Good luck!

You need to get a diagnosis to be sure of what you have, then get the proper treatment.

Are you always this hyper or do you have periods when you are less hyper or even much calmer? What about depression? There are just too many variables for anyone here to tell you whether or not you have it. All we can really do is tell you its a good possibility, but ADHD is often diagnosed when its really something else, so you do need to get evaluated and diagnosed.

If you have a BA at 19, you must be very intelligent for you to get so far at such a young age in spite of your symptoms. You owe it to yourself to get diagnosed and really get control of your life.

 

 

According to everything I've read, this really does sound like add to me, the with hyperactivity kind. It really does. Constant search for stimulation and inability to keep plugging away when things get tough/boring. Check out some books on ADD and go see you MD or a psych. You may have to see several providers until you get the answer you are comfortable with.