Anon, I, too, was diagnosed later in life with ADD (believe it or not, I first started getting inklings that I had it from a television show about a teenager trying to figure out why she had such difficulty completing simple tasks even though she was very bright. All of a sudden, all the symptoms she was experiencing sounded very familiar to me.)
There may be others like us out there, who have always had the wrong idea about ADD. I simply thought that Attention Deficit Disorder meant you couldn't focus on anything, and that was not the case with me. I can focus -- and even hyperfocus -- on things I am interested in. I am a bookworm and can read for hours. And I had accomplished quite a few things in my life. I had had the impression that ADD meant that you couldn't finish a book, apply yourself to a task or concentrate on a task.
The difference is this: The ADD brain shuts off the "focus" chemicals when we're not genuinely interested in something, or when it's a routine (paying the bills, putting away the clutter, making appointments). I would go late on my bills even though there was money in my account because I simply couldn't make myself concentrate on it. I would start a load of laundry, go back for a second load, then decide to organize the closet while I was at it, and somehow at the end of the day I would end up with: Three loads of finished laundry that needed to be folded, another dry load in the dryer, another wet load in the washer, and stuff all over the floor of the closet. It would be worse than when I had started, even though the project was invigorating at first.
Do you begin projects wildly interested in them and then never finish?
Do you "mean" to get back in touch with people and never do it?
Are there times when you look around yourself at your desk, your house, your office and wonder how it got in that condition?
Do you constantly think that all you have to do to get it all under control is to work harder, try harder, stop being so lazy, etc? (This is common ADD-adult self-talk, conditioned by years of being told what we needed to do to "get over" our seemingly willful problem.)
Here's the good news: You are creative, you are intuitive, you are smart. If you have ADD, it will be with you always, but you can learn to manage it (and you can replace that negative self-talk with a bit of understanding about why you do what you do).
Here are a few of the ADD books that helped me the most:
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Anon, I, too, was diagnosed later in life with ADD (believe it or not, I first started getting inklings that I had it from a television show about a teenager trying to figure out why she had such difficulty completing simple tasks even though she was very bright. All of a sudden, all the symptoms she was experiencing sounded very familiar to me.)
There may be others like us out there, who have always had the wrong idea about ADD. I simply thought that Attention Deficit Disorder meant you couldn't focus on anything, and that was not the case with me. I can focus -- and even hyperfocus -- on things I am interested in. I am a bookworm and can read for hours. And I had accomplished quite a few things in my life. I had had the impression that ADD meant that you couldn't finish a book, apply yourself to a task or concentrate on a task.
The difference is this: The ADD brain shuts off the "focus" chemicals when we're not genuinely interested in something, or when it's a routine (paying the bills, putting away the clutter, making appointments). I would go late on my bills even though there was money in my account because I simply couldn't make myself concentrate on it. I would start a load of laundry, go back for a second load, then decide to organize the closet while I was at it, and somehow at the end of the day I would end up with: Three loads of finished laundry that needed to be folded, another dry load in the dryer, another wet load in the washer, and stuff all over the floor of the closet. It would be worse than when I had started, even though the project was invigorating at first.
Do you begin projects wildly interested in them and then never finish?
Do you "mean" to get back in touch with people and never do it?
Are there times when you look around yourself at your desk, your house, your office and wonder how it got in that condition?
Do you constantly think that all you have to do to get it all under control is to work harder, try harder, stop being so lazy, etc? (This is common ADD-adult self-talk, conditioned by years of being told what we needed to do to "get over" our seemingly willful problem.)
Here's the good news: You are creative, you are intuitive, you are smart. If you have ADD, it will be with you always, but you can learn to manage it (and you can replace that negative self-talk with a bit of understanding about why you do what you do).
Here are a few of the ADD books that helped me the most:
http://www.amazon.com/Driven-Distraction-Recognizing-Attention-Childhood/dp/0684801280/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234888855&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/ADD-Friendly-Ways-Organize-Your-Life/dp/1583913580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234888919&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Healing-ADD-Breakthrough-Program-Allows/dp/0425183270/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234888984&sr=1-4
February 17, 2009 - 9:45amThis Comment
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