New user, I need help badly | ADHD Information

Daniel G.

I am an adult who is diagnosed with ADD. I understand your very urgent desire to deal with aspects of your outward personality and thought patterns. You are probably inheriantly messy and disorganised in all aspects of your life.  It 's not only your room but your thoughts too. In no way does this make you unintelligent. Probably the very opposite.

You are brave to fight so hard for your truth. You are not a loser. Loser's wouldn't have made it this far. They would have given in and just gone with the flow and accepted the critsism of others as an unchangeable truht. If you know there is something you can do for yourself to help, never stop searching. BUT ....always be careful to make sure your "answers" fit you...truthfully. It's easy to get excited about some explanaition for what you think you are going through. Its even more interesting when so many things can mimic other disorders. Always asking yourself to be honest when meeting criteria for a given disorder is crutial...and very hard to do. Independant evaluation by a trained professional is a must.

There is relief for ADD but it will be alot of hard work for the rest of your life.  Meds alone will NEVER cure ADD. They can help you focus... having the ability to have a thought at a time or doing a task at a time without your brain getting constantly distracted by things around you is obviously helpful but there are side effects. You may feel they are worth it.   

Even though meds will help to focus your attention they do not help for your lifetime of by now habitual thought processes and figiditiness brought on by the same LACK of focus/attention. You have to train your brain to use the proper areas of the brain that are currently underactive and fairly unused for what they were meant for. Meds can stimulate it but it can't re route the proccesses already adopted by your brain's stucture so you can, all be it badly, sort of carry out some tasks, data proccessing etc. The way your brain's routing these nerological paths to perform the functions as you are now IS THE ADD.

ADD IS NOT a Mental Disorder.  It is more accurately a learning disorder.

Wether you were genetically predisposed to learn differently than others or had not been given sufficient direction and tools for proper brain learning/ development pathways to take place at an early age. ( By this I mean birth to around 2 years old mostly, then up to say 5) Who knows why exactly and how exactly to stimulate the right parts of the brain during early childhood to promote the best use of brain structure for its intended  purpose. The fact that the brain will compensate, sometimes all be it poorly, to try to do a task with other routes through the brain as an alternative to no skill developement at all, is pretty incredible. It allows you to understand that in taking these alternate routes, your feelings while doing those tasks would make a person feel very scattered!

Don't blame your parents!!! Its just as much your possibly born inability to learn exeutive functioning/ ordering skills when at such a young age, as your parents not being able to understand that you needed to learn differently. How would they know until they put you around others and bother to compare your traits against alot of other kids? How did you know your self, until you chose to compare your self to others and found no matter how hard you tried to..you could never "just relax", "sit still" "clean up your mess" "stop talking so much" or my favorite, "you can do so much better if you just applied your self!"  But no matter what you've previously tried...it just wouldn't stick.

All the brain equipment is there and in working order. It just wasn't stimulated for use for its intended tasks in infancy.

Another route inside the nero net of the brain was forged instead, one not so useable for the purpose of that task but better than nothing at all.

Think of it as a bad wiring job. Now you have to re wire it.

It won't be easy but all those brain pathways are still waiting to be used properly.

 Now you need to learn how to activate the correct pathways and deactivate the alternative routes that you have been exsisting on for so long.

 You have to further understand that by now these processing routes you must deactivate are habitual. you've been using them for different tasks for a long time.

 You're a smart kid. I think you can grasp the consept AND how delicate a business pulling that off will be. Certainly won't happen over nite and even with the meds to aid you in focusing on A task, it'll take alot of time.

There is no cure in a bottle, only some help and even that may not and should not be forever. Don't let it become a cruch! BUT also don't turn your back on the real  help meds can give. Just be very careful not to rely on them alone or see them as a cure!!!

ADD is obvious when you live this daily and several times daily, at home, at school, at work as well as in other types of relationships NOT just sometimes. Everybody can claim some aspect sometimes. That is called "just a bad day"for them not a way of life as it is for us!

Below are some of my favorite ADD highlights and some stuff to start you off

You know you have ADD when....

You get a muster of energy and resolve...you may get some self help books or emulate a friend who is popular and you go at it trying to make it be the "new you". Sadly these efforts last only a day if your lucky with many stops and starts in between. And no, its NOT cause your a failure. It just could never have worked doing it that way because of your ADD.

You have memory lapses daily over small but significant things. "in one ear out the other" type stuff and then there's the just constantly misplacing things. Lost to you within minutes of putting down, always a sense of being scattered. You write notes to remember, only to forget that the damb note itself exists just a short while later. Great help that turned out to be! haha!

When trying to do one task, you're switching every few minutes to another, then another and so on, even though eventually you may return to the first task, you just to seem to go around and around again! ( it can also be just your thoughts shooting about but you actually haven't moved yet...happens alot when I'm trying to picture my task. I end up picturing so many tasks that I'm so overwhelmed, I can do nothing...barely even move.)  It appears to others like you never complete anything. Actually your are constantly starting several things and never completing one thing as a result. Hey, at least its half way there!!!

Your thought patterns will do the same while trying to think and focus. When you talk...well, you vocalise all those multitudes of thoughts often and at a "hefty tongue clip" (you're very talkative) You will also constantly interupt others when its thier turn to speak, if you even give them a chance to speak.  It is important for you and your mom to know that you do not do this intentionaly.  These traits are from a feeling of impulsivness... that all those thoughts/ideas have to be said NOW. And then 2 seconds later, you're on to a whole diiferent thing and so it goes.  Impulsivity also shows itself in an inability to wait. If you want it...you want it NOW. If you think it...you say it NOW.

You're forever late. You hate getting out of bed. TV/music/video games are zones of non thought for you. Its all reactive, no real thought to it all hense the allure. (Beware when this kind of "zoning out" becomes "the habit of choice" when overwhelmed, much like doing a hard drug or excessive drinking. JUST SAY NO!)

You will only get motivated for an appointment or a chore AT THE VERY LAST MINUTE!!!! fear/anxiety maybe even a bit of guilt drive you forward as you urgently try to get it all done...always late though and always half assed done.(Every mother looks under the bed or in drawers that should be neat. Save yourself the trouble and her time. Ask her to help you do it right the first time, one step at a time)

You feel overwhelmed when too many thoughts come at once. Often it is when you are trying hard to focus on a task or to convey a single thought hopefully briefly. Genrally, then its often. 

Secrectly you admire people not for thier looks or popularity but for there "togetherness",  easy going nature and organisation. You on the other hand may be very fidgity, always moving or nervously chattering when out in public disorganised and no one would describe you as easy going. Perhaps Lazy but not easy going.

All this and more is ADD. But

There are huge positives when having ADD. You have a thousand ideas and they are GOOD ONES!

You engage people easily inspite of everything and most people enjoy your humour which is different as well

You are very creative if not in art then in  identifying problems and creating solutions to solve them.

And that last one is what makes you a winner, especially when haveing the strength to get up and try, day after day, again and again, until its better. read on for a few tips. Note how small the task is broken down.

This is important since ADDers get overwhelmed. Pick a task. Break that task down even more simply to its components on a list.

Now consentrate on one component at a time. Do one. Read the next one. Do it. and so on.

Force your brain back often to the first component of the task.

 Make a huge flash card and put it in front of you if you have to. Do what ever it takes.

Now finish in the same way all the components that make A task.

Do this every day for 3 weeks and you have created a habit!

If you don't have to think about doing the task, you can't get overwhelmed and you'll do the task automatically even while thinking of other stuff at the same time. If that sounds impossible...you walk and think at the same time don't you? You may not even recall the walk for thinking so much of other matters but you make it still to your destination.

How is it that you can do that! The motions and coordination/balance of walking, the muscle and brain processes to allow your body to walk and the usualness of where you are going, are by now habitually done...no consious thought required...but in the beginning you had to learn all of these and so much more.

Try some more...

1) since you know that your short term memory sucks (mostly because you are not focusing and there for retaining something you just did or heard) you have to then make as many things habits as you can. This is tricky because it takes around one month of consistantly doing something before it becomes a habit. This means remembering this new habit and then to REMEMBER TO REMEMBER several times a day about the same habit you are trying to form!!! So try this...pick a spot to put stuff you need with you daily. You may already habitualy take something always with you ( I smoke so its safe to say I always notice if I do not have my smokes with me and will look for them ever time...DO NOT START SMOKING EVER by the way) so one way to remeber something new to take with you is to place it with stuff you already do remember every day from a specific spot. Works great for returning library books or videos on time!  

If you don't have a spot or stuff you take daily then break out the sticky pads! Pick a "sacred spot" for your stuff. Always put your stuff only there. Use notes and then more notes to remind you of the first notes message and place them is a few key spots where you will be sure to see them. First try to make only USING the spot daily a habit and then CHECKING the spot daily a habit. Once its habitual to you to place your stuff there and to look there first for your important day to day items you will be alot more organised! ( takes about a month and you will not do so great the first week or so but you must STICK AT IT EVEN SO. Stop once for a day and its unlikely you will try again for quite a while. Just push through it. If you forget, try the task again right away.)

Any where you can stucture yourself the better. One on One help in school, mostly to GENTLY be brought back on track. At home tell your mom you are doing homework. Pick one subject at a time and keep your thoughts simple by taking it a step at a time. Go slow but deliberately. Start again when your off track or you notice when your mind runs way ahead in the homework problems and leaves you momentarily clueless to the one you were actually on. Learn to recognise when this happens, calm your self inside and direct your attention back to the origional task. Ask your Mom to stop in from time to time and ask you how you are doing and only that.  She's to get you off of day dreaming. Use this as a chance to "snap out of it" and put yourself on track. After a while you won't need her as a distraction to get a hold of your run away thoughts. You will occasionally get a "blank mind" for a time when you try to refocus on the origional task. You may not know exactly what you where doing or understand what you had just wrote before you got distracted, exactly meant. DO NOT GET FRUSTRATED. Just don't push it and it will come back. If not, reason it out again and start a new. 

If this sounds like something you can relate to and the solution do-able then maybe seek out the help of a Psycho Therapist through your doctor or Mental Health office. They are not Psychiatrists or Psycologists. They are however excellent councellors and are specifically trained in behavioural management on a day to day basis. This means they help you cope by identifying old habits and replacing them with new ones. You tell them one issue you have at a time. They'll help you see and understand that habit or issue for what it is in its basic parts and give you a few suggestions to try to cope and ultimately change that habit. If they take into account your ADD, they will modify thier suggestions into "small" do-able steps. Often your perseption about the task as a result will change noticebly to you, as if its almost a new way to look at an old problem.  This is the way your brain activates those under stimulated areas as if you were learning how to proccess those small tasks as a kid but through the right way this time. You must keep up with the suggestion you find works for you until it becomes habit. NOTE habits are LEARNED skills.

This will take time but can help you better manage day to day life and psycho therapy can even show effective ways to calm your self (feelings,mind or mouth) in certain situations.

As your brain RE LEARNS to focus or in reality is actually learning for the first time how to PROPERLY FOCUS, everything else will be easier.

The anxiety will lessen, being overwhelmed will lessen and the impulsivity will lessen AS YOU LEARN TO FOCUS your will and attention on just one task at a time.

Be very aware when you acknowledge the old habit. At first, you will only be aware of the old habit "while its happening" or just after. and later, as you try more, you'll become aware "before its happening" and have a chance to replace that habit with a new response that is better.  You'll need to do this several times but very soon it will replace the old habit!

Please note this fact and the differences: where it takes 3-4 weeks to learn a whole NEW habit...it can take up to 3 MONTHS to replace an OLD habit with a NEW one.

By the end of this year you could replace 3, maybe 4 bad, old habitual habits you hate with good ones and make 10 to 12 new skills/ habits you never had before.

Thats more than the average joe will ever do in 10 years. And it will end up being like a game for you that you'll get off on the challenge of it. Best Part...you see, feel and are aware of real change as are those around you!

However an addictive habitual behaviour will take at the very least 1 year to replace with a positive one but the addictive aspects will haunt you for years since they are chemical in nature and this is the basis of your brain functioning. Its very hard to eliminate those kinds of experiences. Smells are the hardest, then tastes, then emotional/physical feelings then actual memories. Somewhere in all that is the key to reinforcing your new, relearned habits. Whats hardest to erase is maybe the best for reinforcing a task or thought or idea. Your mom can explain this better to you. My brain is very tired now. I write as much as I talk.

IF I sound so unfeeling and matter of factly about this stuff its because I have learned it is not entirely my choice and there for not my fault I do these things. That its pretty damb good all that I have become today inspite of this and in someways...because of it. However, I still want better for myself and am capable of assisting in my recovery. I choose to look at it with humour and often talk about IT (ADD) as if it were another personality that temporarily grabs hold of me gainst my will and that eventually I will disolve it altogether and only I will be left standing.

Truthfully, I'd be happy to basically concentrate and remember well. I talk alot but my friends get more joy than annoyment by it. The cutting off thier conversation thing however wears a bit thin. So take a look at your self well. You may like some traits of your ADD. Its not all bad stuff all of the time!

 

Some Reading Material......

Try a book called A Scattered Mind or Scattered Minds by Doctor Gabor Mate'. He himself has ADD and treates it as well. He has a web for this book that you can read a few chapters out of it and about him. I've spoken to him on the phone recently. I didn't know he did not treat ADD now and was dissapointed but he kindly helped me find assesment. He is now helping people overcome addictions on the street level and all that involves. Very admirable man. http://www.scatteredminds.com/drmate.htm

A good coping book for tasks and excellent explanations on whats going on with you, meds etc.. is "Adventures in fast forward, Life, love and work for the ADD adult" by Nadeau, Kathleen G.

But hey, what else is your time on this earth for but to learn and grow. You will just be more aware of it than others. You will embrace challenging yourself daily and seeing results. Small at first...not so easy to do even when that small but always do-able.

Take care, Karen from Canada

 

Danielg,
There's a book by a doctor who has ADD. Actually,
there are two books: "Driven to Distraction" and
"Delivered from Distraction," both by Dr. Edward
Hallowell.
Before you get too down on yourself, realize that ADD
is something you have, not who you are. ADD is just
a label. You have a gift. It also could be called TBT,
for Turbo Brain Teen.
Research a supplement called DMAE
(dimethylaminoethanol) and see what you think.
You'll find it at many local pharmacies. GNC has it.
I'll pray for you.
Scottyboy

I'm new to this forum.  I am probably not your typical board member.  Most people here are probably parents of children with ADHD and ADD.  I am a teenager who didn't think he would be joining an ADD board yesterday.

I think I've had ADHD all of my life.  From the time I was in kindergarten, I've had problems focusing in school, trouble with everyday responsibilities that seem normal and easy for everybody else.  In 6th grade I read an essay by a British journalist that blamed all ADD on 'bloody stupid american parents with no bollocks.'  Hey, I can help myself, right?  Nothing else is to blame but my own lack of direction and my own stupidity.  Born to be a loser.  I operated under this belief for most of my life.  Until today.

There is no doubt in my mind now that I have ADHD.

I was so worked up that I came home from school and immediately confronted my mother about it.  I explained myself, and she listened and understood me for the most part until I brought up the possibility of seeing a doctor.  She is a health nut to say the least, and she told me that she would buy me supplements and nutrients but would NOT take me to see a specialist.  I've heard all my life that medicines like Ritalin and Aderol will not help you.  Surprisingly, the people I usually see argueing about it don't even have ADHD.  I've thought a lot about this, and I've decided that the best way to help fight my ADHD would be a balanced mix of nutrition, decreased caffeine and sugar, and maybe a prescription.  To tell you the truth I don't know what to do.  I've truly never heard a success story about ADHD, as far as I know I'll be fighting it the rest of my life.  My AOL screename is Spankadelphia.  If anybody with ADHD would talk to me about it, I'd appreciate it.  My life is going to radically change and I don't know what to do.  I'll appreciate it.

Karen,

I want to thank you and tell you how much I appreciate the time you took to type your very informative and interesting post to Daniel. (How're your finger feeling, Karen? Is the feeling back in them? )   It took me a while to read at first, because I kept being distracted. However, I'm really proud how focused I actualy became while reading it. I hope you don't mind that I copied your post to MS Word (7 pages!) so I could re-read it in a little larger print and while not on line.

Excellent, in-a-nut-shell explanation of what it is to be ADHD. And good management tools for learning to focus! Thank you.

I've recently started on meds for ADHD, but already feel I'm losing a part of me I like about myself, for example, my perkiness and abilitiy to laugh. I definitely may opt for no ADHD meds yet staying on my antidepressants, which have worked wonders for me, and learning to focus the way you have described. Since I'm 55 years old, I sure have a lot of "bad" habits I've been doing a long time. Just hope it doesn't take as long to change them.

Who, me? Us? Interrupt people? Naw!   

Again, thanks, Karen.

Karen N wrote:
ADD IS NOT a Mental Disorder.  It is more accurately a learning disorder.

Big applause here  I have never read such an accurate account of ADHD on a message board. Every statement you made was right on target and every suggestion you made in terms of developing coping skills and retraining the brain was brilliant. Your post demonstrates how truly exceptional people are who are living with ADHD and I hope that anyone reading your post will use it as an educational tool. You made a tremendous contribution here in terms of providing accurate, credible information. Absoltuely outstanding post. Take a bow