Any experiences with ADHD (in adults)?

[Jeff Kelly]

Nope, all that sounds exactly like me.  Do you wear a watch?  ADHD people do not often wear watches.

I get really nervous when I am not able to check the time of day. So no, not really.

[gryeyes]

It's a part of the growing problem with having a profit-based healthcare system.

I think pandering to those with a complete lack of will power has something to do with it also. Im lazy and unmotivated due to my brain chemistry! Please give me a prescription so i can circumvent my personal responsibility for my mental state. I also want an operation to make myself thin because I have a genetic predisposition to consume 100,000 calories a day. I am also depressed due to the two before mentioned factors so will also require something for that.

[Merusk]

Hm.. so what is it when you don't do something simply because it doesn't interest you.  I've wondered if I'm ADD since I've had this problem since at least the 5th grade, butI'm not hyper.   I can focus when i want to and dedicate hours of attention to detail to a single task, I just don't want to pretty damn often.  Mundane things bore me to tears, I need puzzles and complex tangles to unravel and diagnose.  I procrastinate on the boring shit, but get right into the things that interest me.  

Damn, maybe it's just terminal humanity.

[Tebonas]

I know what you mean Merusk, I'm exactly the same.  Thats normal I think.

I thought quite some time I was autistic because some online descriptions I read fit me so well.

I feel really uncomfortable in situations with too many people I don't know, have problems in crowds if I feel the focus is on me, I even have avoided situation where the ratio of known versus unknown people was against my liking (like sitting down at a table where more than a third to half are strangers,depending on the number of people). Every time I changed classroom (or now office) I felt depressed or threatened until I get used to the new surroundings.

I also hate surprises and things that are completely beyond my control. And I have been counting things out of the blue when my mind wanders (like counting the letters in words I hear or think about repeatedly on my fingers until they "finish" off at 5 or ten (or 4+multitudes of three if I count on my thumb).

Then I met somebody who really has Autism and decided it was just a combination of being vain (I liked the idea of being smart because my brain works differently, which is basically just my trained coping mechanism for my Dyslexia) and not trusting strangers!  

[Montague]

Depends on the severity of the symptoms I would guess. There's a fine line between a personality trait and a disorder I would think.

I struggled for years with panic attacks and obsessive disorder. Imagine your brain taking something completely at random and deciding to make you scared shitless about it, and making it nearly impossible for you to think about anything else. For me it was demonic possession - anything remotely referencing it was enough to make me lose sleep for weeks. I had this for 25 years. I finally went to a doctor about it last year - he just wrote out a prescription for Lexapro and within like 3 days I was fine.

Of course when I told my mother about this 25 years ago she basically told me to STFU and quit watching horror movies.

[sigil]

How? No, seriously, how?

I don't know. I've never understood the need to not be alone. That part of my brain doesn't exist. As such, I find alcoholics anonymous a totally laughable endeavor for anyone, including addicts.

Knowing you're not going batshit insane because you have something that other people have and can deal with on a daily basis.

You're not special, you're dealing with something  lots of other people deal with and have normal lives. So suck it up , get help if you need it and just go.


If you haven't been there, you don't really know. There's a dispair that builds from not being able to get your focus and do anything. Everything you do is half assed. You start well, but get distracted. All. the. time. You start to beat yourself up and it just builds this destructive cycle. That knowledge personally for me broke the cycle, got me to a better frame of mind.

My coping mechanism is a metric fuckton of lists of things to do. First app I got for my G1 was a list maker.

No watch here. I have a nice one but haven't worn it in over fifteen years.

[schild]

Nope, all that sounds exactly like me.  Do you wear a watch?  ADHD people do not often wear watches.

I get really nervous when I am not able to check the time of day. So no, not really.

Man days must last forever for you. I don't even look at clocks anymore.

Seriously, still saying it's mostly stress related.

[Hindenburg]

Knowing you're not going batshit insane because you have something that other people have and can deal with on a daily basis.

You're not special, you're dealing with something  lots of other people deal with and have normal lives. So suck it up , get help if you need it and just go.

I'm failing to see your point. Are you implying that if someone was uniquely retarded, he wouldn't have to suck it up and deal with it?
Why should you give a fuck that other people deal with it on a daily basis? What matters is solely if you can or can't. If others are able to, more power to them. What others in this scenario do doesn't affect you in any way, shape or form. Fuck, it should give you even more pressure to get it over if, after all, everyone else does.

[schild]

It sounds like my alcoholics anonymous comparison was correct.

[gryeyes]

I believe its a matter of knowing that a given goal is possible makes it easier to accomplish. Of course you also start to self diagnose yourself due to a shallow comparison of experiences and use that to justify your depression and lack of motivation.

I have borderline personality disorder because of the list of symptoms on wiki etc. Billy takes medicine for ADD so its ok to medicate myself.

[schild]

I believe its a matter of knowing that a given goal is possible makes it easier to accomplish. Of course you also start to self diagnose yourself due to a shallow comparison of experiences and use that to justify your depression and lack of motivation.

I have borderline personality disorder because of the list of symptoms on wiki etc. Billy takes medicine for ADD so its ok to medicate myself.

Did you know:

Your posts are incredibly hard to read.

[Tale]

F13 General Discussion makes me feel left out because you all turn out to be on drugs. I don't know what I'm even doing here. Had some antibiotics a while back and even some paracetamol.

[schild]

F13 General Discussion makes me feel left out because you all turn out to be on drugs. I don't know what I'm even doing here. Had some antibiotics a while back and even some paracetamol.

I'm not on drugs, but I probably should be.

[Merusk]

Diitto. I'm not even on the recreational kind. I'm just naturally this fucked up.

[gryeyes]

Your posts are incredibly hard to read.

I have ADD

[Signe]

Geez.  And you guys say I'M nuts.  You guys are all kinds of fucked up.

Crazy bastards.

[MrHat]

Your posts are incredibly hard to read.

I have ADD

 

[Hindenburg]

F13 General Discussion makes me feel left out because you all turn out to be on drugs. I don't know what I'm even doing here. Had some antibiotics a while back and even some paracetamol.

I don't even consume alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs of any kind. I'd be a straight edger, if they weren't so silly.

[schild]

Your posts are incredibly hard to read.

I have ADD

No, you have a minor case of Full Retard.

[gryeyes]

No, you have a minor case of Full Retard.

ADD?

[Yegolev]

Fuck, it should give you even more pressure to get it over if, after all, everyone else does.

The idea is that everyone else does not.  Also if you think you have it, you have an angle to work towards some solution.  I am sort of assuming Jeff wants some help here, which means he's not using it as an excuse to be a lazy fuck. Finally, it can give you some hope of getting better if you know that other people are dealing with the same thing.

It's not a motivation issue when it is ADD.  That would be depression.  People with ADD do crazy things like get obsessed and demand people help them get a device to take screenshots from a DS, and then later get distracted by something else, never to revisit that idea.   Or maybe decide one day to teach themselves to program C# without any prior experience.  Instead of mundane things like remember to get the dog food on the way home.  It's screwed up.

[sigil]

Knowing you're not going batshit insane because you have something that other people have and can deal with on a daily basis.

You're not special, you're dealing with something  lots of other people deal with and have normal lives. So suck it up , get help if you need it and just go.

I'm failing to see your point. Are you implying that if someone was uniquely retarded, he wouldn't have to suck it up and deal with it?
Why should you give a fuck that other people deal with it on a daily basis? What matters is solely if you can or can't. If others are able to, more power to them. What others in this scenario do doesn't affect you in any way, shape or form. Fuck, it should give you even more pressure to get it over if, after all, everyone else does.

Ok, it's obvious you've no idea about anyones mental state other than your own, but here. let's break this down.



It means that you're not imagining this as being some psychotic fit. You're not as well and truly fucked as you feel you are. You , and schild, seem to think that everyone runs around with full knowledge of them having a problem. It doesn't always work like that.

My case in point. Me. I thought everyone when they talked would jump over fiften to twenty different trains of thought every five second, all competing for space. Why can't you tie two notes played to a melody, then take that melody and a line of the lyrics from the song it came from and connect that to ancient greek mythology to last nights Stagrate SG1 to something you did as a kid in a couple of seconds? What are you, stupid?

But no, no one thinks like that. Also, you never finish what you start because you get distracted. This starts a cycle of negativity. Jeff gave a prime example of what happens. Yes Schild, he's stressed out. The question is why is he stressed out? Relieving stress doesn't fix the underlying issue. That maybe fine for you, but it's only short term. Eventually your trick to reduce stress starts to fail. Then you're really fucked.

Until you learn that you have a illness, you didn't actually think you were sick, just a failure. A lazy fuckup no matter how much you do, because you know you could do more. Because it's in your head to do it,if you could just keep it still for one minute.  This is different from using coping mechanisms without addressing the problem . This is understanding that there really is a problem, which helps you get a really firm grip on why things are like that for you and how you can improve your mental wellbeing. I've been doing it for  four years with therapy and long term coping mechanisms. That works well except when i"m really stressed. Right now I'm in a period of high stress and I'm thinking I might want to try meds, because the coping mechanisms aren't cutting it now.

The AA shit from schild is a false assumption. It's not about having a support group. Fuck, I don't need or want anyone with me to make me be more "normal". I can do that just fine on my own.  

Yeah, this rambled. Welcome to my head  


For me it was learning russian and how to work with Mixcraft, while forgetting to pick up groceries for the family on the way home from work.

[Wasted]

The fact that I am reading this stuff when I'm at work and have some important stuff to do probably says all sorts of things about me.

[sigil]

Not really, that's just simple procrastination. 

That's the problem with diagnosing this.  At what point does being human and normal dealing with unrealistic expectations in society cross the line with illness.


If you're the type to discredit psychology, like I used to be, it makes it  real easy to  just keep pushing that line  of lazy fuck/person with an illness way over past where it should be.

And most people are the opposite, which makes people like me resist the possibility. Because you see all these fucking people using meds as a crutch for biting off more than they can chew.

[Numtini]

A few weeks ago I accidentally stumbled upon material about ADHD, its symptoms, the issues people with ADHD have to deal with and especially what changes when people with ADHD become adults.

And the number of people without those symptoms is... very low. Particularly if you are reading a summary in lay terminology. The issue is degree.

That's the problem with diagnosing this.  At what point does being human and normal dealing with unrealistic expectations in society cross the line with illness.

There is a huge amount of crossover between what pharmaceutical psychology today diagnoses as ADHD and depression and what in the ancient times used to be called "the human condition." Everyone has those symptoms. The differences are in degree. A generation ago, you weren't diagnosed with any of these things unless you ceased to be functional. Now, you are often diagnosed with them if you are middle class and cease to be exceptional. But at what point normal human existence becomes pathology is entirely subjective.

[Tale]

F13 General Discussion makes me feel left out because you all turn out to be on drugs. I don't know what I'm even doing here. Had some antibiotics a while back and even some paracetamol.

I don't even consume alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs of any kind. I'd be a straight edger, if they weren't so silly.

Ah, alcohol. Now I know what drugs I'm on!

[Baldrake]

There are screening tests for this kind of thing.

Good entertainment value. Not sure of medical value.

(Apparently I'm not ADHD; yay me.)

[Wasted]

Total score of: 70 (70 or Above, High Probability of ADHD)

I still haven't done much work yet.

[Daeven]

ADD?

Yes. The stunted, unmotivated operator that's jealous of SUBTRACT, DIVIDE and MULTIPLY because they all grew up to be full length words.

[schild]

Total score of: 16 (Below 70, Not Associated with ADHD)

[Hindenburg]

Knowing you're not alone is a big help.

It's not about having a support group. Fuck, I don't need or want anyone with me to make me be more "normal". I can do that just fine on my own.

Do you enjoy lying through your teeth?

[Azazel]

I know what you mean Merusk, I'm exactly the same.  Thats normal I think.

I thought quite some time I was autistic because some online descriptions I read fit me so well.

Then I met somebody who really has Autism and decided it was just a combination of being vain (I liked the idea of being smart because my brain works differently, which is basically just my trained coping mechanism for my Dyslexia) and not trusting strangers!  

You probably are Autistic. At least mildly.

It's called Autism Spectrum Disorder. Spectrum is the important part there. You don't have to be Rain Man, completely non-functional or have Aspberger's to be on the spectrum. Auties aren't all the same. Autism in concert with an intellectual disability is common, but far from exclusive. Autism and OCD are also common together, but again aren't required.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html

Enjoy!

[croaker69]

Some new info out


We had our daughter try Adderall for a few months after a recommendation from her Kindergarten teacher and us noticing a lot of facial tics (rolling eyes, odd forced expressions).  Took her off over the summer and she has not needed it this year at all.  I'm guessing in some cases once a child is diagnosed the treatment just continues via inertia whether or not it's needed anymore.

[Tebonas]

36, wee. I hope its Auspergers. I can be just like Sheldon Cooper! 

Seriously though, the net is cast so wide that almost everybody in a selected group falls under the umbrella of a particular Spectrum disorder. I would be surprised if less than 75% of the people here were over 32 on that test.

[schild]

36, wee. I hope its Auspergers. I can be just like Sheldon Cooper! 

Seriously though, the net is cast so wide that almost everybody in a selected group falls under the umbrella of a particular Spectrum disorder. I would be surprised if less than 75% of the people here were over 32 on that test.

I scored a 7.