New to the adult ADD/ADHD club. Members only

Glad to see this thread.

I was recently diagnosed with AADD and have started taking concerta to deal with my inattentiveness. I am thankful that I have finally gotten a formal diagnosis since I often worried that there was 'something wrong with me.'

I found this piece about AADHD online. Afaik, the author is unknown. This piece of writing describes a day in the life of a person affected by attention deficit.




I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.
As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.
I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.
So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.
But then I think, since I’m going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where
I find the can of Coke I’d been drinking.
I’m going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over.
The Coke is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye–they need water.
I put the Coke on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when I go to watch TV, I’ll be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.
So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.
Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
the car isn’t washed; the bills aren’t paid; there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter; the flowers don’t have enough water; there is still only 1 check in my check book; I can’t find the remote; I can’t find my glasses; and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.
Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all damn day, and I’m really tired.
I realize this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some help for it, but first I’ll check my e-mail….

I'm just now looking seriously at time management again. In particular, the Pomodoro technique. I think just a timer would help a bit ...
Lots of people have been helped by smartphones & apps. I just have a paper planner, which I keep losing - can't wait for my upgrade!

There are a lot of good smartphone apps. I recommend Clockwork Tomato. It makes a ticking sound, which you can mute, and has a nice, customizable interface.

bump-

My only though is the irony is that every one of these responses are so long. I mean, I started to read




wanna ride bikes?

not only did i not make it through the first post, i didn't skim all the responses either.

These posts make me laugh but also kind of make me want to cry because it is just like me! Especially the one about going to water the garden, then to wash the car, then the mail, then the garbage, etc. That is pretty much my daily life and sometimes when I think about it I get sad because then at the end of the day nothing is done even though I feel like I worked so hard and tried really hard AND I had such good intentions!

So I'm 32, recently diagnosed because I finally had an AMAZING doctor that listened. Basically I was in grad school and got depressed because among other things, I was so sad that all my friends could study for a few hours and go out at night and have dinner and drinks but I felt like I still had SO much to do even though I'd been at the library longer because I couldn't focus and it took me forever to study even though I've always been really smart. So when I talked to a doc to get meds and told him I think I have add and that's a big contributing factor and/or the cause of my deperession he poo-pooed the idea since I'd always done well in school (straight a's through high school, cum laude in college, top of class in law school, etc.) and he said he couldn't diagnose me without talking to my parents to see how I was as a kid (wtf?). I guess he thought I was just seeking meds to abuse. So anyway, fastfoward to 8 years later and I was seeing a doctor in my new city (current city) for anxiety for which I take meds (getting off of them though!) and I was talking to her about the cause of much of my anxiety - fear of being in trouble at work because someone will find out I'm googling about gardening instead of getting my work done, feeling overwhelmed w/ all of the housework I have to do, stress about my high energy dog who is always injured, stress about not being able to follow through w/ plans whether social plans w/ friends, family events or just self plans like taking a photography class or going to the gym. She said "I don't know if you've ever thought about it, but it sounds a lot like add and I'd like to explore that a little more", which led to my diagnosis. I can't even describe the feeling - like "oh my god, someone is finally listening to me! someone believes me!!!" It felt so validating!

You see, my family and friends are those people that say things like "everyone has add" and "you just need to try harder" or "if you cared, you'd do it" or "you just need to think of others and what they need' (when I talk about how my boyfriend is mad because I don't do my share of the housework). So I would LOVE to have some friends on here that are sharing my struggles - it's so hard not to be able to talk to anyone about it because they all just assume I'm some selfish, thoughtless, lazy person and they don't realize that it is 10 times harder for me to get myself to do the dishes and then takes me 5 times as long, thus I don't get things done even though I want to and I mean to.

Me:
- impulsive - I buy things I shouldn't, have hardly any savings, eat things and then regret my impulsive choice later, etc.
- can only focus on things that are new, novel and exciting or challenging - difficult work project or planning a trip or new garden
- put everything in life off until the last minute when the external pressure forces me to focus and do it (bc I have no internal regulator);
- I forget things - boyfriend always annoyed when he says something and I say "why didn't you tell me about that"...he did.
- I don't follow through on promises/plans - I planted a garden, watered it for a few weeks, then pretty much let things die and the veggies rot on the plants because I didn't pick them; i cancel plans w/ family and friends on a very regular basis
- i lack motivation to do things that are not exciting or tedius - housework, paying bills, projects at work that aren't challenging

I do take medication and it has been a huge help for me. I am weening off my anxiety med because the add meds are helping so much we found out that my anxiety was largely based on situations created by my add symptoms. I first took ritalin, which was great but I took the immediate release kind and would always forget to take my second dose in the afternoon until I started crashing and even when I remembered I would crash when I got home and be so tired and starving. So then I tried Concerta, which was good bc it lasted all day but it made my heart rate and blood pressure too high and made me a little anxious and I felt generally keyed up. Lastly we tried Adderall XR and it is AMAZING. I can't even describe how much it helps me - it makes me feel a sense of calm and it makes my brain "quiet", not in a dull/numb sense but in the sense that I don't have a million thoughts racing around in my head all the time and when I'm at my desk at work and I think "oh yeah i want to tell my friend down the hall about x" I'm able to resist that urge whereas before I'd stop in the middle of what I was doing and go talk to her before I could even have the thougth normal people do that told me "that's not a good idea, finish this first". You see, with add, it's not deciding to not finish something, it's that the thought never occurs to me NOT go stop what i'm doing and start something else because i"m on to that next thing so quickly I don't think about it.

Ok, that's probably enough - I think this is sounding like some add rambling. I'm just really excited to hear some other people struggling w/ the same things as me! I would love to have friends on here who are fellow ADHD'ers since I don't have any of those in *real* life. I know this thread is sort of old, but if any of you are still around send me a friend request! :drinker:

Im 34 and have ADD. I started taking Ridilin in 7th grade all the way thru college till I was 21. I still have ADD but I dont take the meds. I have just learned how to deal with it. Im the girl who leaves her keys in the door once a week, passes my street sometimes that Ive lived on for 6 years, burns her hardboiled eggs because I wondered off to do the laundry or blow dry my hair. Im a single mom of 3 boys and they laugh at me because I lose everything BUT Id rather be my goofy ditzy friendly self than a walking zombie that never speaks like I was in high school. Everyone says you were so shy in school and now your so outgoing. I wasnt shy , it was the medicine. So I personally decide to deal with life without the meds.

I too leave a lot of post its up and Ive gotten to where I make the same mistakes all the time that I now start my morning off thinking about those mistakes before they happen if that makes since. lol

I have so many friends that have took ADD meds to lose weight and now are all too skinny and have disorders or heart problems and NOW have ADD that they didnt have before. Granted the meds didnt do that to me but just seeing the affects it has on other people makes me skip it.

There was a lady above that said she couldnt keep a boyfriend because of it. Now you do have me thinking thats maybe why Im single LOL. But I highly doubt it

Bump to read and reply at home.

I am being tested for it in March. This will be interesting.

I just finished reading Laura's post. That pisses me off when people say "everybody has ADD". You know why I go to the gym at 10 pm? It's not because I was busy working, it's because I get distracted HERE! But I'm not willing to give up MFP. I can relate to everything on her list. It's frustrating as hell. I think I'm going to suck it up and spend the $120 to try Adderall, if my script hasn't expired.

It's ok, Cali, we're still here, old thread or not! :drinker:

OK please explain these APPS you are all mentioning? Are they supposed to help us concentrate?

Oh oh! My clock app has a gazzzzzzzilion alarms set on it because I have to pick up my kids at certain times and if I didn't have an alarm I'd lose track of time. There is an alarm when it is almost time to go and another when it is time to walk out the door. My calendar also reminds me noisily when something is coming up. Just a couple handy apps

I don't have an app (aside from the Cozi app which just keeps my stuff together and sync's with the school calendar). The alarm on my phone has the ability to set several, so I use them for everything from telling me it's time to get ready for bed to cleaning up to get ready to leave work. I need to stop turning them off, though. :ohwell:

OK please explain these APPS you are all mentioning? Are they supposed to help us concentrate?

Oh oh! My clock app has a gazzzzzzzilion alarms set on it because I have to pick up my kids at certain times and if I didn't have an alarm I'd lose track of time. There is an alarm when it is almost time to go and another when it is time to walk out the door. My calendar also reminds me noisily when something is coming up. Just a couple handy apps

I don't have an app (aside from the Cozi app which just keeps my stuff together and sync's with the school calendar). The alarm on my phone has the ability to set several, so I use them for everything from telling me it's time to get ready for bed to cleaning up to get ready to leave work. I need to stop turning them off, though. :ohwell:

I've tried the alarms as well, and I also just turn them off. Also, my Adderall is like $45 for a 3 month supply. Back when I had good insurance it was $50 for a 3 month supply of the XR, but now my suckass insurance doesn't pay for meds until we've met the deductible, and we can't afford the XR, since both myself and my spouse take it. We get the regular Adderall, generic version. We were both on the 20mg XR, and now we do 20mg regular and just break the pill in half. Half in the AM and half around noon (or 3 depending on how many times I hit snooze or if I turn off the alarm entirely). I greatly prefer the XR but this works and is more cost effective.

The $120 is for the generic. :sad: I should check the price on the regular. Thanks for that tip!

OK please explain these APPS you are all mentioning? Are they supposed to help us concentrate?

Oh oh! My clock app has a gazzzzzzzilion alarms set on it because I have to pick up my kids at certain times and if I didn't have an alarm I'd lose track of time. There is an alarm when it is almost time to go and another when it is time to walk out the door. My calendar also reminds me noisily when something is coming up. Just a couple handy apps

I don't have an app (aside from the Cozi app which just keeps my stuff together and sync's with the school calendar). The alarm on my phone has the ability to set several, so I use them for everything from telling me it's time to get ready for bed to cleaning up to get ready to leave work. I need to stop turning them off, though. :ohwell:

I've tried the alarms as well, and I also just turn them off. Also, my Adderall is like $45 for a 3 month supply. Back when I had good insurance it was $50 for a 3 month supply of the XR, but now my suckass insurance doesn't pay for meds until we've met the deductible, and we can't afford the XR, since both myself and my spouse take it. We get the regular Adderall, generic version. We were both on the 20mg XR, and now we do 20mg regular and just break the pill in half. Half in the AM and half around noon (or 3 depending on how many times I hit snooze or if I turn off the alarm entirely). I greatly prefer the XR but this works and is more cost effective.

The $120 is for the generic. :sad: I should check the price on the regular. Thanks for that tip!

Yeah, generic XR is obscene too, but the immediate release is pretty cheap.