do you ever doubt your add? | ADHD Information

Mark-

well said.

i might add -- what is done is done.

get the facts, analyze them, understand them, apply and adapt then move on down the road.

life is what happens while your busy making other plans

I gave up on trying to pay attention. I always figured I could read the book later. By the time I finished I was embarrassed to tell people my major or to look for a job in my field because I felt like I hadn't learned anything.

[QUOTE=sonya_h]

[QUOTE=bcgirl1978]
I know there have been times where I have seemed to have had it together. I remember once writing an essay for school AHEAD of time. AND I got a very good grade on it. It was a miracle. But I think it was also an exception. There were too many times when I've WANTED to write my other papers ahead of time and just for the life of me could not do it.

[/QUOTE]

YEAH!!! and then, do your teachers use that one paper to say "SEE? She could do it if she just 'wanted to'.....she just doesn't try hard enough...if she tries hard enough, she could do it, and here is her paper to prove it!!"?

I have had the occassional good grade and these have been sources of anxiety to me because people use it to say that I'm just lazing around, and I could really "do it" if I wanted to..."when I put my mind to it"......it makes me sick!!!
[/QUOTE]

Exactly!!! I use dto get that from my parents all the time. I almost hated bringing home tests with a 90+ mark because they would say "SEE!!! You could do this all the time if you just pulled up your socks!"

Do you ever think that that there's nothing really wrong with you. You just need more rest or to eat better or to change your habits or the way you think? Do you ever reflect back and think, "Oh, I seemed to handle things alright back then. Maybe I've just planted these ideas in my head, sulf-fulfilling prophesies?

I think I ought to be more clear headed than I am, but the meds don't seem to be fixxing that. In a flash, I'm lost in thought and forget what I'm doing.

What do you think?

I think a lot of people with ADD go through that from time to time.

No. If I don't have ADD, then I must really be the a***hole everyone told me I was over the years.

Now I know that I'm not. I have ADD.

Mark -

I do this from time to time...I will sort of downplay the ad/hd....I think nothing much is wrong with me...and I will go about day to day life thinking this for a while..

And then I will find some other problem or aspect of ad/hd that I was not aware of before, and wonder why I go through this problem, and no one else seems to...

And I will go through a little period of depression thinking that I'm just a wacky, wacked out no-gooder, that can't do anything right...

and then eventually I will come across an ad/hd book or website that mentions the problem and realize...oh, that's right....I do have ad/hd, and this is another one of those ad/hd "things"....

and slowly I began to realize that, contrary to what my parents have always told me....that ad/hd not only just affects your learning and school work, and so forth, but it affects EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE, and I try to keep that it mind and I would feel better....

and then I would forget in a few months, and then go through the whole cycle again....I find that I go through these cycles of thinking "nothing much is wrong with me" from time to time///

sonya_h38429.4308101852 I agree with Tara. I think everyone with ADD has those moments, but I know now beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is real (and now it has been officially backed up by a psychiatrist).

I get depressed from time to time, and think maybe I AM just a screw up, but that comes as a result of a lifetime of feeling like I wasn't living up to my potential.

I honestly believe that if a person IS just truly lazy and/or unmotivated, they would not care. The fact that we ARE angry and depressed about it I think PROVES that the problems are caused by a disorder.

I know there have been times where I have seemed to have had it together. I remember once writing an essay for school AHEAD of time. AND I got a very good grade on it. It was a miracle. But I think it was also an exception. There were too many times when I've WANTED to write my other papers ahead of time and just for the life of me could not do it.

Just my two cents.

bcgirl197838429.4342708333

Oh...sorry to get off the subject...

I used to think maybe I used it as a crutch till I got an "offical" diagnosis and went on medication. The changes in my behavior were dramatic enough to leave me thinking " Wow, I didn't need to spend so much of my life asking myself why I couldnt do normal life stuff regular folks do well and feel like a failure because I couldnt will myself to any level of organized thinking and living"

I stopped taking meds two days last week when I was sick. Ihad class one night. It was hell. I couldn't follow the Professer. I had a real hard time grasping the principles he was teaching because I couldn't pay attention long enough to follow the concepts through the end of the problem. The whole time I just wanted to get up and leave. It was the same way at work. I just wanted to leave all day....it's not like that with medicine

I was diagnosed almost 2 years ago and finally accepted it 2 WEEKS ago! I knew that there was something wrong with me all my life, but I just got so used to it and most of the people around me just considered me a "dingy" person and it get's to the point where it ain't funny anymore. I have bad credit as a result of this disorder, I owe SO much on student loans because I passed HALF of the classes I attepted. I'm 29 now, but at that time, I used to procrastinate and would get so frustrated that I would just give up, and not EVEN WITHDRAWL because I was too impatient. THe results? F's. Luckily the college allowed them to be removed since they have a plan called "academic forgiveness." I wish I would have known about this sooner, but I always thought ADD was just for kids that are hyper. So, I thought that I was just this unintelligent chick just trying to get by. There is so much more but i'll probably be posting them in other threads as time goes on.

ditzychick38429.6355208333

Is the effectiveness of medication an indication of ADD? How does it effect nonADD brains? My husband has tried ritalin and says it makes him feel sharp, but as far as we know he's not ADD.

Oh, yeah, just like everyone else said. I've only known I've had add since about November, but even in those few months, I've had a few clear days where I've said "oh, maybe I just havent been getting enough sleep etc and that's my problem."
And, I also have plenty of days where I say 'yeah, maybe I'm just a screw up"
I almost hate those good days bc they do make me say "look, I mustve been trying hard. If I just buckle down I could do this all the time. But reality is, I cant."

I question it too sometimes..Maybe because it is so hard for othere people to understand what it is like to have our types of brains....and deep down we think others question it as well. I became so good at hiding my add stuff...that alot of my friends and peers were leary of myl diagnosis...( With the excepion of hy hubby, who actually lives with me. Add looks so different in everyone...I think it would be easier if we wore a scarlet A on our shirts....anytime I doubt it...I think of how calm and serene my brain is when I take my meds, I had never felt that before...didn't know it was possible, whatever it is, or what ever you want to call it...it is who we are...and we all need to be happy to be us, and be comfortable in your own skin......I know I know, easier said than done.I am going through this faze right now... just dignozed ADD and I am 22

and am looking back at my life... processing it and getting a grip. But

with medication I see and feel a big difference and people around me see

it too.

[QUOTE=chocoholic]I almost hate those good days bc they do make me say "look, I mustve been trying hard. If I just buckle down I could do this all the time. But reality is, I cant."

[/QUOTE]

me too! I like good days because I get so much done, but I hate them because I know the day after will be a bad day because I'll be so exhausted and I'll feel so guilty for not being the person I was the day before.

Yeah, I get that Eliza. I've been hearing my whole life how smart I am. But that didn't keep me out of summer school. Or from my 1.4 GPA in high school. When I started community college I made dean's list one semester, which proved to myself that I was somewhat capable. But I also spent hours every day in tutoring labs. Not that I required a lot of tutoring. I just found that I was better able to stay on task if I had that safety net around me.
And the imposter feeling, yeah I get that too. I've always been envious of those folks who may seem a little boring or plain, but who finish everything they start and seem to plow through the pressure's of school without sweating. They're like pack mules. I feel like a different species. foxp38430.2418287037

I think when people tell me i am smart, i pretend not to need to hear it or want to hear it - but, i'm almost always secretly very glad that they've noticed. thank goodness that has happened on occassion.

consider the alternative, people implying - 'well, you aren't very smart anyway'.

sometimes i wonder why being 'smart' is so important to everyone though - if you weren't smart that wouldn't make you a bad person. maybe we equate intelligence with value somehow.

as for myself, i feel that i have certain kinds of intelligence and have less of others. a common characteristic of people with add is that we lack certain kinds of intelligence.

i wonder if there is also some commonality with some of the intelligences that we do possess.

[QUOTE=foxp]Yeah, I get that Eliza. I've been hearing my whole life how smart I am. But that didn't keep me out of summer school. Or from my 1.4 GPA in high school. When I started community college I made dean's list one semester, which proved to myself that I was somewhat capable. But I also spent hours every day in tutoring labs. Not that I required a lot of tutoring. I just found that I was better able to stay on task if I had that safety net around me.
And the imposter feeling, yeah I get that too. I've always been envious of those folks who may seem a little boring or plain, but who finish everything they start and seem to plow through the pressure's of school without sweating. They're like pack mules. I feel like a different species. [/QUOTE]

Same thing for me! They actually called my mom after our elementary school IQ tests to tell her I had the second highest IQ in the school at 148. Since then, tests I've taken afterwards haven't been as high but still higher than "average." Why, then, could I never seem to get on the honor roll? I'd have a semester where I did just excellent, almost all As, then I'd fail science for losing the folder that had all my assignments in it for the whole semester, talk the teacher into giving me time to find it, and end up redoing the semester's worth of work in a week and getting a C. All the other kids had more money than my family, they were better looking than me, more popular. At least I was smarter. Then as life got more complicated I had a harder and harder time concentrating. I was taking care of my brothers while my mom was sick. My grades were miserable, I fought with people, I didn't fit in. The only time I was happy was the bus because I was neither at home nor in school.
Then my mom went back to school. Suddenly I was motivated again. My mom had struggled with severe depression and illness and there she was doing her homework. It was so hard for her, she'd be doing her math and crying. Suddenly I thought, well, no matter how hard it is I can do it. Mom can. Maybe it's not because I'm stupid but because life has been so hard.
That lasted long enough for me to graduate with a decent grade and I got into "honors" at the community college. I did well there. Then I transferred to a larger school and to nursing school, and it was a struggle all over again. I thought maybe I just plain wasn't as smart as I'd thought I was. Maybe I'd only said that to myself in order to feel better about being a social reject.
Now I'm here. I went through the same damn thing one last time in the military, but so many other things have happened in my life that I've gotten a LOT stronger. I have lost my mom and my younger brother, been to war, lived on my own, dealt with idiots and jerks bent on getting me into trouble like I thought I'd leave behind in high school. And I did it all without medication.
Now I'm on medication, and what a difference it makes. I can do all that, but it doesn't practically kill me. I don't feel like it's such a herculean task to stop at the post office or get all the patients' beds made in between med passes at work. It can still be hard, especially when my mood is bad, but it's possible.
If I don't have ADD, there'd better be a pretty good alternative explanation for my life.

I'm sorry elizer but what is HD. Okay, I don't want to hit the back button(actually rather type, hmmm, now that I think about it, that's pretty wierd because it would be alot simpler to do that rather than typing all this LOL) so it's H something, distinction I think? Anyways, what is it?

BTW, I can say that I totally excelled in my business/typing class in high school. My teacher told me I was the fastest typer in the class. Would that be a common add sign? I dunno LOL

ditzychick38429.9347106482

Once again I'm thinking YEAH I know just what you mean!!

I had only one semester at uni when I got high distinctions. People were always saying what a genius I am, why do I always fail something every semester and only get passes. I started to think I was as mediocre as my marks.

So those two HDs proved to my family I could do well if I wanted to. They would say, "see, you are smart just like we've been saying all along!"

But the thing I realise now is, I always knew I was smart enough, I knew I could easily get a HD if I wanted, but I just couldn't figure out why I didn't seem to WANT to get one.

After that semester I went poorly again. The mental effort it took to top one semester in 3 subjects was so draining that I lost the motivation and went back to failing again. My whole life has been like that. I can do something really well, for a while, but I just can't keep it up forever. I couldn't work out how other people got straight A's every subject year in and year out. Didn't they ever get distracted by something and forget to hand their essay in?

When I'm turning up every day to something, on time, completing tasks, doing well, I feel like an imposter. Eventually the boss will realise that I'm a big faker, barely keeping it together. I always feel like I have a big secret just waiting to be found out.

p.s. A HD is a high distinction

eliza38431.6569444444