I am very amazed at the fact that nearly ever time I log on that we have a new member who has joined us.

Im not sure what I want to say here but I am going to relate to the fact that I am now coming to the realization of the many aspects of ADD that has affected my life from when I was a child to now and that I am now remebering many things that were lost in the deep recess of my brain.

I am also watching my son go through the same cycle that I went through and he as yet is not ready to accept that he has ADD.

He has been DX but as of yet has not accepted the fact.

I remeber my mother and many ADD type things that she did and back then there was no Name for the Disorder

I was a problem child "That was the Dx that society gave to me

My son got an official label when he was in school (He Has ADD)
(nothing was done to help him other than to be Labeled )

That is 3 generations of possible ADD people and it has taken this long for society to now start recognising that ADD is not only a childhood Disorder but that it carries on into ADDult life

By the time the 4th generation arives mabee there will be a change in societys acceptance of the disorder.

We are the generation that is going to effect the change.

We are the generation that has to stand up and and say
" hey listen to us'

We are the generation that has the new ADDvantage of the computer and the Internet and we are now banding together and recognizing that,

"We Are Not Alone in Our Suffering"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you remeber the TV comercials when we were kids

"Dont Be A Litter Bug"

The next forced change in societys thinking was

"Dont Drink and Drive"

The Last one to date that I remeber is

"Buckel Up" "Wear Your Seatbelt"

_____________________________________________


We need some creative ADD minds working together as a Collective of Minds

to come up with a Slogan that we can use ,

then we need to figure out how we can ,

" GET THIS MESSAGE OUT "

It is estimated that 4 - 6 % of the population is affected with ADD in some form.

This is no small potatoes

4 - 6 % of the population is a pretty influential LOBBY GROUP in the eyes of politicians

The time for Change Is UPON Us

What Are We Going to Do About It

That is the QUESTION?????????????

I think we are slowly becoming recognized. I was diaganosed back in 1997. In the past 6 years AD/HD in has become recognized a lot more.

It takes people like those of us who are members of ADD Forums to help AD/HD become more well known.


Another way to help AD/HD become more understood is to become members and support groups like ADDA (http://www.add.org) and CHADD (http://www.chadd.org).

I like the tone of this forum. There is another one I had been frequenting that just, well, is not as good.

It seems like most here are helpful and that is nice to find. I also like the fact that there seems to be a wide variety of posters and not a few that dominate all the posts.

Thanks.

Welcome to the forums, jimmmaaa. You're right, the folks in this forum are a good group of people. Helpful, caring and non-judgemental (for the most part :D)

I can't stand how much the schools do not know, nor care to understand ADD. They still think of it more as a stereotype than anything else. I think with the numbers of people affected by some form of ADD, teachers should be required to learn about it.

Agree Misclee -- that's exactly how it is for example with the head of the department of my school...I mean this guy heads up a department and you'd THINK when I told him about my ADD, he wouldn't repond with "Well I've never SEEN you do anything inappropriate". He doesn't know and doesn't care to know. Sometimes I get the feeling he -- and others think I'm downright lying....sucks....Perhaps it will become more accepted as more of us are diagnosed and treated and out of the closet, so to speak...there's strength in numbers....now I KNOW the universe will provide my school with another ADD adult student after I'm gone....just to force my dept. to know and understand ADD....

Yes, I definitely see people who think of it more as a cop out, than a real disorder....especially when you are really functional to all outside appearances.

Precisely...and only reason I'm "functional to all outside appearances" is because I'm being treated...on meds.....you're right...he thinks it was copout...jerk!

Tell me about it...I used to work as special ed tutor. I was amazed at the lack of understanding most of my co-workers has about AD/HD. There were few people at work that knew I had AD/HD.

I used come close to tears at meetings when the teachers would talk about how lazy students were. I felt as though they were talking about me.

Do you people mind if I copy and paste your statements that you made there to present to the various agencies as I continue my quest.

And you are correct in the term coming out of the closet,
and there is strenth in numbers

Once again I restate, that with 4-6 % of the population being afflicted with ADD

Properly organised that is a very powerful lobby group when it comes to elections and such

Its time to stand up and be HEARD

I think 4-6 percent is a low estimate too

Yes, that 4-6% is probably mainly diagnosed males.

I took it as an average of everything Ive read 4-6 %

Is that a real dog in your picture, Garry?

Garry -- You may copy and paste any of my statements. Please leave out the "joanrdtobe" part totally, okay? And leave out my name at the end please.

Yes that is a real Dog Misclee His name is Brutus I calll him Stupid

He doesnt seem to mind as long as I feed him

Ok Joanrdtobe Thank You

At the risk of people getting the impression I'm a shill for or in any way affiliated with Odigo, (I'm not, it's just a messaging program I found and liked) this would be a POWERFUL tool in getting ADD sufferers networked.

Imagine if only one person knew of a congressional hearing or somesuch and wanted to get the word out, and was able to send out a single message to the millions of ADD sufferers all at once to fax, call or write their congresspersons. This, potentially, is what can be done with Odigo.

The thing that makes it unique is it's searchable interests feature. Say you're into cycling, or want to talk to someone in a specific place, like Brazil. You can do a search and find only those people. I started another thread asking people to go to odigo.com and email them asking them to add an ADD/ADHD search field, and have also brought it up at my local CHADD meetings. Please help me get the word out on this, or if you have other nominations for an Instant Messaging program that would serve this need better, I'm all ears.

Oh, and there's no issue with having to lose all your MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger contacts, because Odigo is interoperable with those messenger prgrams. You'll still be able to talk to all your buddies from those lists. It claims interoperability with AIM (AOL INSTANT MESSENGER) and it does work- sometimes. The AOL programmers block it every time odigo programmers make it work again. Guess they don't want people paying them $25 bucks a month for lousy dial-up service to find out they're getting reamed... I view people on AOL as being like poor souls trapped in the matrix!

Anyways, check it out, I know you'll like it, odigo.com or odigo.org

I checked out odigo its ok and works with icy contacts also

I find there are often two responses by professionals...You either get the undeducated "cop-out" response or you get the other side of the double-edged sword and people begin to do and say things to you that make you feel like a complete idiot that is incapable of knowing things at their "sophisticated" level even though they may never have experienced ADD first hand other than through counselling others etc. I find "coming out of the closet" in my sociology grad classes (especially my theory class) was helpful and at the same time I found people really odd afterwards...My most common comment from others was "everyone has trouble concentrating sometimes...so I know what you're going through man" and I say, or try to say thanks for being supportive...but they really dont understand what it feels like to read one page of a book in six hours while they may read half of the same book in 24...nor do they understand that the work we put into many of the same tasks that they do is five times the effort required only so that we can keep up with them. I also fear sometimes that people who have, like myself, come out and said they had ADD may be used by institutions as token representatives for positive PR...(I sometimes wonder if my grades were good because I was smart, or if they were good so that someone can say "Hey, look at how progressive our institution is, we even have someone with ADD doing such and such...!" (although, I also think that is probably a little far fetched, but the danger is there...which makes such disclosure of our condition that much more brave...).

just a few thoughts. thats all

MC