one of the characteristic features of ADD for me is the wild swings in emotion elicited by thoughts regarding events or anticipated events. i can be feeling quite fine. then i may consider some situation i am facing at work or in my career. within seconds my emotions do a major slalom. these are the catastrophic thoughts that i'll go bankrupt, that my life hasn't panned out so i may as well terminate it. then i think, 'stop it. these thoughts are invalid. they don't mean anything'. i instruct myself to think of something that makes me happy. then i can muse on that for a while like a dog chewing a bone. but it always seems my mind has to be on something whether good or bad. it's difficult to blank it or to think about neutral subjects. grocery lists?

in the past i'd get depressive thoughts and have a hard time getting rid of them. i tried paxil, serzone and zoloft with varying degrees of success. now i'm only taking dexedrine and reading everything i can get my hands on regarding ADD. i've always had slaloming emotions but wasn't observant of them as i am now. i used to think 'let it be. that's you. accept yourself even if it's at times very uncomfortable'. the dexedrine has made me be able to focus on what's going on in my head. i don't want to go through these emotional roller coasters. i want to be able to control my mind.

does regulating thoughts and therefore emotions constitute a form of cognitive behavioural management?

has anyone else started out with becoming more observant of how their thoughts influence their mood in alarming ways? has anyone managed to significantly decrease the magnitude and the incidence of wild negative emotional fluctuations? can they be eliminated totally over time if the response to them is consistent? or do the periods of catastrophic thinking still occur but can be expunged faster?

buddhist philosophy states that good and bad thoughts are equal. they can be observed but not create reaction. i suppose to succeed in this manner is a form of cognitive behavioural programming of sorts as well?

Since I began to get 40 minute of 70% of max heart rate exercise four times a week, I've not had to look back.

I'm very much more resilient to even major set backs.
Cheers! Ian.

does regulating thoughts and therefore emotions constitute a form of cognitive behavioural management?

has anyone else started out with becoming more observant of how their thoughts influence their mood in alarming ways? has anyone managed to significantly decrease the magnitude and the incidence of wild negative emotional fluctuations? can they be eliminated totally over time if the response to them is consistent? or do the periods of catastrophic thinking still occur but can be expunged faster?

buddhist philosophy states that good and bad thoughts are equal. they can be observed but not create reaction. i suppose to succeed in this manner is a form of cognitive behavioural programming of sorts as well?

Hi - I can answer yes to each of your questions from personal experience. I have found that it gets easier with practice. The swings have reduced over time and I am much more on an even keel. I also noticed that a particular foodstuff sends me a bit nutty so I stopped eating it.

Important tips tho' - don't beat yourself up for bad thoughts just stop yourself. If I'm alone I talk out loud to myself or if with others say it silently in my head (like "that is not a thought that I want to have today, I will think about something nice now"). Also distract yourself with some activity I sing aloud (if alone) or go play chasings with the dog.
Pru :)

Hey Pru. Great points.

Changing how we think is one of the hardest things to do, IMHO, but worth the effort. I am a lot like Pru in that I talk to myself a lot, sing out loud, and I practice breathing exercises to help me control the physical reactions I have to my emotional state. I tend to suffer from panic attacks and when I do this I most often can get through them with very little difficulty.

It is not something that completely goes away, but knowing that I can influence them has given me confidence to go out there and live my life!

Kim

when i woke up this morning i thought, 'hey, i'm tired and fed up with this emotionality. it's exhausting, unproductive and quite frankly boring'. it's a start?

even if i manage to convey rationality to the world outside, the inside is always swirling around.

it's time to change how i behave inside of myself.

p.s. i do exercise, do pilates, do yoga about 5 times per week. maybe that's helping now too.

Solitary bee,


I can relate so much to what you are going thru. I have gotten so much better over the last year or so but it is a process that takes time. To complicate things with me I have a history of severe child abuse which gives me lots of material on which to dwell on as well as training to expect the worst. Not fun at all!

I have a therapist who helps me thru alot but it is really a matter of recognizing that I do this, accepting that this will always be a tendency of mine and learning to just allow myself to think 'whatever bad thing' but that its okay to it go let go. The letting go part is hard but once I could see that this is how my brain works and that the thoughts are not there as some kind of warning to me that I must to act on. I can accept this as an irritating aspect of ADHD that I can go just let go of it.

I also allow myself to 'hold on to' something. I realize I have to do this. I have to have something I am hanging on to. When I've looked to the past I have seen that this tendecy of mine has worked for my good and for my detriment. I can choose to find something good to latch on to. When I focus on good, productive things I tend to throw myself into wholeheartedly. I am finding something good I can lose myself in. The bad stuff still comes but I can let it go much easier since my mind is occupied with the good thing/project. I find my mind must be occupied with something so I ahve decided I want more control over what occupies it.

I hope this makes sense. I can relate 100%. I had a terrible, awful time the last few years and I am just plain tired of feeling like I did. You are on the right track!

Do you have some hobbies or special interests that you like? What are some things that interest you?

Take care,

actually i also grew up in an abusive family. i sued (civil court) and won the case. won on their appeal. the Supreme Court of Canada refused to give them leave to appeal. and that's all in the past. my father then sued my psychiatrist. attempted to get her license lifted. he lost, lost, lost and lost. on appeal there was a roomful of cops. apparently he'd threatened someone with physical injury (not my psychiatrist) so just in case he was book-ended by a couple of big boys in blue plus a couple spares standing at the front of the room and at the back door. did anyone say 'psycho'? that's the guy who declared to all and sundry that he 'always did the best' as a father. yup.

i became, i suppose, the black sheep of the family because everyone's afraid of him. some people made it clear they wouldn't support him but they are also too intimidated to keep in touch with me. people who grow up in abusive homes and don't really deal with the issues...........that's them. they have acknowledged that they also were abused because it's a family tradition, it would seem. very very violent bunch of people i'm related to.

i just couldn't watch the next generation be abused as well. so even if no one stuck up for me, there was no way i would betray the trust of my children.

lots and lots of drama of all sorts. i don't have to wonder how the ADD came about. not at all.

hobbies? sure. mostly i read though. i realize full well that it's a form of escape. i am reading the books on ADD.

dexedrine really kills the creative cooking urge. i used to be very inventive in the kitchen. these days i just think food is food. to heck with the convoluted recipes.

I applaud you wholeheartedly for standing up for what is right. That whole court battle sounds horrendous! You are a very strong person.

You had written~lots and lots of drama of all sorts. i don't have to wonder how the ADD came about. not at all. ~ I also lived with all kinds of drama and chaos. I attribute my ADD to this. I take it from your post you do too. I know most places they do not list abuse as a factor but it is most definitely what brought mine on. I went back to my grade school report cards and read thru my grades and teachers comments. Nothing in their even suggests a problem until 6th grade when things really got bad at home. I read an article at The Child Trauma Academy that has many medical articles on how the brain is adapts and adjusts to its its environment and if trauma occurs at critical periods of a child's development the brain chemicals that are excreted upon prolonged periods of stress and trauma actually cause the brain to be wired differently. This made a whole lot of sense to me because even this hyperfocus/overfocus/anxiety ADHD makes perfect sense when I look at my environment and what I lived under. Of course I had to be on guard all the time. Of course I had to either zero in on something or zone out. That was survival!

I probably shouldn't go on. I know you know all this so the point of things now is to learn how to retrain my brain to let go of waiting for the disaster.

i read alot too. I think I have used it as an escape too. My h asked me to put away some of my ADD books and I did-- so I am here instead :D . But I do try to find other things I can get into besides ADD or abuse.

I am on adderall and an anti-depressant. I can't do just the stimulant because it really throws me into hyperfocus way too much. As it is I still ahve a hard time shifting my focus. Are you taking an anti-depressant too? It might be worth considering. The anti-depressant by itself took away the depression but made me way too lethargic- I hated that. I felt aimless and unmotivated. So I have found by trial and error that I really need both to level me out. In fact when I tried to reduce my dose of anti-depressant I could tell in just a matter of days that the negative thoughts were coming back full force. I believe for me its a brain chemistry thing-- maybe related to what I wrote up above but without the right medication I don't know if I could do what I described in my earlier post.

I am finding that I can find joy and pleasure in things again. I think you'll be able to do the same. You deserve it too after what you've been thru.

Take care,

i can appreciate that you probably do better with an anti-depressant. i've taken them in the past as well. but i don't think what's going on right now is depression. more like an awareness of how my mind works which i haven't had any insight into before. there are so many things i'm realizing now. i'm not sure if taking an anti-depressant would distract from all this.

this is all a very steep learning curve because it hasn't been all that long since i've started to deal with the ADD. which books have you read so far?

Solitary Bee, I applaud your strength and survival skills. It sounds as if what you had to grow up with is a major factor in your 'catastrophic thoughts.' Now that you are out of such a horrendous environment, your mind has a chance, and seems to be, working out, getting rid of and 'detoxifying' such an environment. It's possible it may take years for your soul to calm down, but you seem to me to be on the road to peace. Your brain and emotions are trying to be rid of such poison in your life. If you practice the Buddhist way, you may want to consider obtaining a flowering plant, like an African Voilet, or Bromeliad. Then you can focus on it and meditate on the cycles of Life and growth and quiet beauty. It might give you a sense of grounding. Yes, I've had a lot of experience with being just fine throughout a morning, then someone might hint at something that totally sends me into a plunge of blackness. Or a bad memory, or even a song. It's possible also that you might have a bi-polar depressive condition, which is inherited and needs medication since it's a chemical imbalance, and might also be one explanation of your family history. Please, please, consider a commited prayer life. You might be carrying around an evil that has attached itself to you through no fault of your own, and it sure as heck doesn't hurt to seek help on every level or your being. Good luck and blessing to you!!:)

i can appreciate that you probably do better with an anti-depressant. i've taken them in the past as well. but i don't think what's going on right now is depression. more like an awareness of how my mind works which i haven't had any insight into before. there are so many things i'm realizing now. i'm not sure if taking an anti-depressant would distract from all this.

this is all a very steep learning curve because it hasn't been all that long since i've started to deal with the ADD. which books have you read so far?
I can appreciate the new insight too. I am amazed at how more self aware i am. I am ready to be less aware :D like everyone else! But in all honesty the self awareness is where the growth comes from. I am sure you can see that in yourself too. The people who don't have insight don't change. The people that do are the ones who can change. Good for you!

I don't suffer from depression in the sense that I can't get out of bed and I sleep all day. Thats what I picture when I think of depression. My depression has more do to with anxious feelings about the future, negative thoughts stuck in my head- I tend to ruminate on things to the point where I can't let go. I continue to work, stay active and go about my life - so I never thought of it as depression. I think that came from an abusive background. You can't act like anything is going on with you for surivival's sake. You don't want to draw attention to yourself or the buzzards will start to circle- or thats how it was as a kid. The anti-depressants help me to let go of the negative thoughts I ruminate on. I wish I didn't have to take anything but I have come to the conclusion that it is highly possible that my brain chemistry may be such that I need medication in the same way a diabetic might so i take it and it helps. I am not pushing medication on you mind you! :o I just never thought of myself as depressed because I was always still active and putting up a good front. I can see now that I may of been depressed often in my life (with good reason- like you) but never thought of it like that because it was so much a part of my life I didn't know any different. I probably had very little time in my life when I wasn't depressed now that I can see how it is for me. But enough of that.

Books I've read-- I don't know if I can list them all! I've read alot. The ones I think I got the most out of was Driven to Distraction and Delivered From Distraction. I also have Dr. Amen's book. If I go by his descriptions I am primarily the overfocused subtype. I have several books that I can't recall the title. What are you reading?