ADHD for adults | ADHD Information

I have had ADHD for many years now. It is my 20th Birthday tomorow. I realised over the past 3 years that adhd is in my life all the time. Do you think it will effect me asll my life.... PLease Help

Welcome to the forum toughguy,

What makes you so sure that you are an ADDer?  If you are certain, you should begin to educate yourself about your disability.  Read through this forum and you will learn a lot.  Remember that a disability is NOT the end of the world and there are certainly worse impairments than ADD.  But I'm sure you knew that.  Stick with us and learn, toughguy.  All is not lost but first, medically confirm your suspicions with a neuropsychiatrist.  Discuss your options for treatment and whatever you do, do NOT put yourself down.  You have some challenges to overcome and you WILL.

toughguy, I wish I could assure you that there will be an end to ADD, but most of the time it doesn't go away. If you really have it, then I would say you are stuck with it.

Here is the good news! You know you have it. You are dealing with it now. You will be able to deal with it in the future. You are always learning new ways to live a life with it successfully. Think back to 3 yrs ago. I bet you have much more control now than you did then.

You may have to work harder to understand some things and your memory may not be what you wish it was, but there is a creative side to you which the poor people who don't have Add can only envy. You are so used to thinking outside of the box that you see answers and solutions to things which others have given up on.

Without ADD, we would not have the light bulb or electricity. Do you think anyone who didn't have ADD would fly a kite in an electric storm, expecting electric to be attracted to the metal key he was flying on a kite? Only an ADDer would do something that risky just to prove a point. (well, maybe someone with a death wish would) 

There are so many things we take for granted today that were discovered or invented by an ADDer. Life would not be as easy for us today if they had out grown it at 21.

My advice for you is what I wish I had known at 20. Find something you love to do and no matter how impractical it seems, focus on it and force yourself to stay with it, learning all you can. Find a way to use it that doesn't require tight schedules and deadlines if possible, but you will need some schedule or you will never finish what you start.

Look up the thread posted in this site about ADD humor. Learn to laugh at yourself and feel sorry for the people who are stuck in a world that has so much focus, they can't enjoy life. 

It won't make it go away but you just may find you are glad it didn't!     Barb

Has any1 wondered what we would be like without ADHD,I sure would like to know but will never find out as this is something I have to deal with for life.Since I was 7yrs old I have been a nightmare for my Mum.I'm 18 in 2months & still I can have my moments of smashing the house up,getting angry if I can't get my own way.I repeat myself all the time,always talking about things that are not going to happen for ages but I like to plan ahead although I get let down alot in my life(Maybe cos people don't give me a chance some of the time) It's like most of the time I'm not me its like Im always talking through my ADHD,the things I say I sometimes think If I didn't have ADHD I would not have said that but I can't help saying things that are out of the ordinary Cos it's not me really its the condition I've got.Only family & close family friends know about my ADHD.Sometimes I wanna tell people but it's hard cos once its been said there's no going back I may lose people forever & I need to hold on to the people I got cos its hard for me to make friends,Most of my school life I was on my own I had one mate who gave me a chance although she knew nothing of my problems but still wanted to know me after the weird things I did at school,But now we are no longer mates.When I do get close to people I always think that I'm gonna lose them so maybe over crowd them always wanting them to put me first, always needing to be centre of attention competiting to be the only mate when their others mates are important but me needing to be if you know what I mean.