Finally an answer...?

[jennythereader]

I found this article on ADD in gifted children a few days ago.

It could have been written about me.

I... fell off a cliff academically in middle school. Everyone I knew told me that if I just tried a little harder, just focused a little more, just stopped letting myself get distracted by books or crafts, just had a little more will power and self discipline, I could climb back up it and be back on track to as much academic success as my intelligence suggested.

I never managed it. I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth and dropped out of college twice. The whole time everyone told me it was my own fault. The whole time I believed it was a moral failing, a character flaw. Something that I could just get over if I tried hard enough. However hard I tried it was never enough. Nothing I did made a difference.

This article is the first evidence I've seen in 20+ years that maybe it isn't my fault. You wouldn't believe how much I've been crying since I read it.

I'm being tested for ADHD in early January.

Comments

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

do yourself a huge favor....
read up on ADHD in adults. wayne was finally diagnosed at nearly 40.. but many adults with CLASSIC ADHD "fail" the tests because they give tests for kids, and by the time an ADHD adult has survived this long they have coping mecvhanisms.

in my case i have a LD that wasnt diagnosed until i failed, failed again.. and developed a lifelong flinch at any classroom.

god luck to you!

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

I was diagnosed after I flunked out of college the first time, I think. I was seeing a therapist for my bipolar, which was certainly the proximate cause of said flunking, but the ADD had clearly been causing me problems for years. And yeah, I perfectly match that list.

Actually, I just went to see a new psychiatrist a couple of weeks ago. He asked me what I was like as a student, and I just said, "ADD." "Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at," he said.

(Sidenote: Fascinatingly, 20% of people with ADD have bipolar, and 20% of people with bipolar have ADD. Weird that the percentages match up like that.)

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I have been reading up on it, and keep being tripped up by things that I recognize from the inside. It's enlightening and disturbing all at the same time.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

What has tripped me up every time I've tried school is having more than one big project with an actual deadline. As soon as that happens I start flailing. If I'm working at the time it's even worse. My one success in college was a single class, in a subject I really cared about, while I was between jobs.

It may turn out that I have some sort of mood disorder, but I really think that the depression I suffer from will turn out to be a symptom, not a separate problem.

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

What I can't handle is lectures. I just absolutely cannot stand them, cannot pay attention to them. I can nearly memorize the book, and have passed many classes that way, but lectures make me crazy. So I stop attending, and then flunk from absences. Infuriating. I only got through culinary school with lots and lots of help from the disabilities office. (Which, seriously, if you ever go back to school, you definitely need to make friends with. They can get you extensions so you can stagger your projects, and other things. They got me out of some of the attendance requirements. We had four hour lecture classes. It was sheer torture for me.)

[dwarven-brewer.livejournal.com]

Something I can also relate, too. Up until about Middle School my brother and I were highly competitive academically. Then, I just got bored. It wasn't challenging, didn't interest me. Ew! New shiny!

I skated through High School by the skin of my teeth and only made it through college the first time because I went for an Occupational Studies major.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

For me, lectures are OK as long as the instructer can stay mostly on topic. If they stay off topic for too long I'll tune them out and may not notice when they get back on.

I stop doing homework when it gets overwhelming, and then stop going to class when I get too far behind on the homework. Big projects just seem to trigger that faster.

[tehuti.livejournal.com]

I wasn't diagnosed with ADD until my late 20s. The symptoms in that article describe me perfectly. My "cliff" was college. I was completely unprepared and unable to manage being a college freshman on my own. It is comforting to know that there is a reason for why our brains work the way they do. And once you understand that, it becomes easier to work with it, rather than fight it. Thanks for sharing.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

I'll probably be posting about this a lot. It seems important to share my experience.

[tehuti.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more. My family knows that I am an adult with ADD, but they are still surprised when I actually BEHAVE like I have it. You probably know exactly what I mean; getting distracted by shiny things, hyper-focusing on tasks (to the point of not hearing someone trying to get my attention), losing or forgetting steps in longer tasks, chronic disorganization (my piles are everywhere!) and late to bed and difficult to rise.

I should put a link to this on my own journal, as a gentle reminder.

I look forward to hearing more as you learn more. Last question; what kind of testing are you going to do?

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

The counselor I spoke to didn't say, and I didn't think to ask. :/

Yeah, I do all of that. It drives everyone around me nuts.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

Can I ask... Do you take anything for it? And if you do, how does it feel different?

If you don't feel like commenting here you can send me a message.

[tehuti.livejournal.com]

I was on Ritalin for about a year. Then I started having trouble sleeping, so my shrink put me on Wellbutrin to help me sleep. The side effects of that were awful. I had the dry-mouth problem, so I was constantly thirsty, which had me running constantly to the bathroom. It was particularly annoying at night, since I was on the damn Wellbutrin to sleep!

I chose to go cold-turkey when I moved back to Massachusetts. I realized that I missed my mind. I hadn't realized how much I liked how my mind worked until it didn't anymore. So I learned how to control it in other ways. I also depend on a trick my therapist gave me before I left. Ritalin is a stimulant; most of the drugs used to treat ADD/ADHD are. For whatever reason, stimulants work differently on our brains. They help us focus like normal people, keep calmer, etc. ALL stimulants do it. Like caffeine, for instance.

Ever since, I try to keep a fairly low level of caffeine in my system all day long. On days when I'm feeling scattered (and I bet you know what I mean), I drink more. It doesn't seem to matter what form I get it in. In the mornings, I tend to take a stronger dose; i.e. coffee, and supplement as needed during the day. It works fairly well.

But most importantly, caffeine is a naturally occurring substance. I'm not drugging myself up, and if I want the burst of creativity that I can only get when I'm scatter-brained, I simply don't have any caffeine that day.

The withdrawal headaches can suck, though. :-)

This got a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, and I've just scratched the surface. If you'd like to talk more, feel free to contact me, privately or otherwise.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I have trouble sleeping as is, so your experience with Ritalin is not encouraging. Ironically, I've always blamed my sleep problems on the absurd amounts of caffeinated soda I drink.

[siderea]

Awww. I'm glad you found an answer! It's been quite something, how many of my (smart, adult, female) friends have been recently diagnosed with ADD.

And thank you for posting that link. It looks really useful.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

It's not a definitive answer yet, but it seems really likely.