Was it yourself that recognised the symptoms, your friends or family or both?

When I went to school when young I took a small amount of "speed" just enough for me to be able to get my home work done. I did very well at that time, in the coarses despite the fact I only went throught the nineth grade.

Several years and two more children later I decided to become "clean and sober". After a year of soberity I returned to college. I did poorly even in remedial coarses. I barly got by with an equivelent to a "B"(80), where previously my lowest coarse had been the equevelent to an "A" (90). I couldnn't understand why and mentioned this to my mother.

Several weeks later she handed me a book simply titled "ADD in Adults". I read the first three or four pages a dozen times but never got any further than that. I carried the book around every where trying to find the time (or attention span more likely) to read it. Well carrying it didn't increase my attention span but it did catch the eye of another nurse who happen to know of a doctor that treated ADD in adults. She had taken her son to him and in the process of diagnosing the doctor mentioned the genetic aspect of ADD. She was a female adult version of the young boy.


I did read the book about a month after my diagnosis and start of my medications.


I knew I was too talktive and so wish to have more control over my mouth and the expression of my emotions. I even drove my self nuts because I couldn't shut up. I was also very defensive and had a difficult time accepting opnions that differed from my own. I wanted to educate myself on so many subjects but was unable to read a book from cover to cover. In my work I could run circles around most other nurses but got no more work done.

Great thread subject!!

My friends and family knew my symptoms but didn't attribute them to ADHD. After all, I had been an excellent student after elementary school and I wasn't so wiggly anymore either. Not even the counselor I was seeing caught it -- she just thought I was depressed (I was that too). I just typed my main symptoms on Google one day and about a bazillion ADHD entries came up. I knew I was diagnosed as hyperactive as a child so I did some reading. Boy was I surprised at what I found. I had never heard of hyperfocusing or a lot of other things connected to ADHD. I got evaluated by an psychologist specialisting in ADHD and found out than my suspicions were correct. My family and friends are starting to come around now they they've learned more about what ADHD actually is.

Scattered

My wife begged me to get help. At work, I could not get anything done.

I was always speaking up and speaking from emotion in meetings. I could never hold a conversation with my wife. It was always "my way or the highway" with just about everything I did. My bully tactics worked for me as a kid.. It worked for me as a teenager.. BUT BOY WAS I WRONG as a new father , a husband and as a top producing sales rep in another software startup I joined.

Honestly.. in the past.. I thought that the whole industry around ADD ADHD was a conspiracy theory by the big pharma to sell drugs. That's right.. Any other ADD-ers believe there was a second shooter out there on the grassy knowl? :D

My wife threatened to leave about 8 mos ago. We went to counseling. For once I promised myself I would keep an open mind and do my best to get our marriage back in order. In 4 months time, I turned my marraige around, got everything back in order there..

My counselour told me this. You sound as if you are torturing yourself in your thinking! I found her thought interesting and asked her to elaborate.
She said, I talk fast, then stop, then I lose my place, then talk fast, then stop. She said I never come to a point when I speak... She also took notice of my sleeping habits being all over the place.

She asked me this, would you be open to solving this problem? I said unequivacoly (sp) yes. So, I went to a Psychiatrist in the office building the next week and came out, diagnosed BiPolar and ADD, but they had to medicate me in steps, first lithobid, then concerta.

What a life changer. Bigtime.

I was diagnosed around age 7 as "hyperactive". My mother was told that she needed to cut out the sugary and put me in "non-stimulating" surroundings.

Yeah.

Riiight.

Over the years I knew I was different and one day, can't remember when, I heard about ADD. I knew, then, that is what I was. I was embarrassed to admit it but knew I'd have to deal with it eventually. Growing up, teens into 20's, I'd see things that I did that cause problems; socially, mentally, physically, spiritually, relationship-wise. Each time a problem created a disaster, I would, through sheer force of will, vow never to do that again.

At times I grew increasingly depressed but there was always something that would yank me out of it. Looking back, I knew it was the ADD that refused to keep me depressed...too much stuff going on!

Through my 20's and 30's, I became, for lack of a better word, anal-retentive/obsessive in my behaviour. These actions/attitudes were, of course, defense mechanism's I used to control my ADD. I would never go on Ritalin because I didn't want people who told me to "take a pill, dude" to have any kind of victory. And in my chosen profession, aviation, one pill grounds me for life.

Unfortunately, I still have ADD-related disasters and melt-downs and each time I build up the defenses and vow to make the changes needed to function in society. I have admitted to myself that I will always be in this kind of mode. Learn from my mistakes. I finally realize that I haven't arrived, I will continue to learn and adapt and adjust. I will fail and pull myself up, I will crash and burn only to rise again from the ashes.

This is how I have to live my life.

Eric

I have admitted to myself that I will always be in this kind of mode. Learn from my mistakes. I finally realize that I haven't arrived, I will continue to learn and adapt and adjust. I will fail and pull myself up, I will crash and burn only to rise again from the ashes.

This is how I have to live my life.

Eric
that was described very beautifully

Thanks Fidge...

Eric

i actually went to a doctor to get rittalin my first year of university. i did not believe i had ADD, or even that ADD was a real thing, thought it was just some excuse to market more pharmacuticals... but i did know that amphetamines really helped me hold my stuff together (from my many years of excesssive intoxication) and so i played along so i could get the drugs. but i had to go to counselling too, and the counsellor challenged me in ways i was not prepared for, asking me to try to be on time for everything for a week (i dont think i lasted the day) and then they sent me to see a psychiatrist who decided i was 'a-typically bipolar' and had 'borderline personality disorder' but he would not be able to diagnose me with anything until i had been sober for at least 6 months (not likely at that point). so i totally lost faith in the whole counselling/psychiatry thing, not like i had much to begin with.

then i wound up in the hospital over christmas with total septic shock from kidney problems, (the first time i was in the hospital for drugs about two years earlier, i almost died from an overdose of ecstacy mixed with some other stuff) and my best friend told me it was ok, he loved me and had accepted that i might die at any time, which scared me. so decided i would quit drinking and doing drugs (which i did a LOT of). i quit the rittalin too, because i still didnt believe in ADD and to me it was just another drug.

that was four years ago, now, clean and sober for a long time, ploughing through school by sheer determination, stubborn will, flailing all the way, nervous breakdowns, depression, losing my mind because the work keeps piling up and i just cant seem to get on it, and i haven't even moved into the room i have been living in for months, and i go to the doctor to ask for a referral to see a massage therapist... and some blood results are missing from my file... and i vaguely remember carrying the form around with me for most of last year but never getting in to let them take the sample.. and i tell her so, and she starts asking me questions and then suggests ADD, just so happens she is interested in it and knows a lot about it, and she explains it to me, how it is different in girls, how it is not what we think of from popular media, and it blows my mind, because the way she explains it, its like she has known me my whole life and is describing all the sh*t that i have been wrestling in forever... that was about a month ago.
since then i have done tonnes of research, and its just nuts. it explains so many things. why my life has been so messed up. why i have always been so different. why i am so frustrated and in tears almost everyday of school. why i was so into drugs, particulary stimulants, why i can never remember anything, why my life is always a seething mass of chaos, why i never really know whats going on, why i never really feel like i can affect my world, why relationships have been so hard, why i have been so hurt by people, why i am so afraid of people, why i always say too much and can never figure out if people are offended by me. why i have hated myself, why the inside of my head is my whole universe and when i was a kid i would just crawl in there and live in these crazy stories i make up, why my mom thought i was retarted because i had no friends in elementary school, why i turned into such a raging party animal just before my teens, and then crashed and couldnt handle the social scene and left school... and on and on.
its been a rollercoaster, i often dont know how i ended up here, in one peice. :faint:

I finally got fed up when I couldn't get anything accomplished I wanted to in my life.
I couldn't clean when I wantd to, I couldn't keep a job for more than 6 months to a year.
I had a hard time getting out of bed, and couldn't be consistant with anything but finding the "wrong" men and having bad relationships that ended bad, leaving me running home to mommy again.

A "smart" kid from a smart family, who spent her teenage years in all kinds of legal trouble...drinking and drugging, stealing cars, running away, truancy, and who dropped out in what would have been my 2nd year of the 9th grade. Could get straight "a"s but couldn't handle the school scene, and all those cruel teenage kids!

I called my mother. I said mom, I need help! I am not normal, something is wrong with me.
She told me about my sister, (meadd823) who had been diagnosed earlier as an adult adder.
Then I picked up the phone and called my sisters doctor.
Made my first appt. And was Diagnosed, and medicated the same day.
I stayed on the meds 3 years. Found another "man" , had 2 more kids...and went off the meds for 10 years...

I had managed to learn enough coping skills the 3 years I scambled along.
Until once again, at age 35 my life and that of my 14 year old son also ADD,
that I was like, right back to square one...I can't do what I need to.
So here I am again, back to the doctor, and back on meds...what a relief!

Hope

oops it posted twice!!! I would say stupid computer,,I am sure its the operator!

posted by lostdog65:
And in my chosen profession, aviation, one pill grounds me for life.

A distractible pilot this could be a bad thing but it is already a sad thing...medical professionals from brain surgeons to nurses can take ADD medications and still hold thier professional licenses ,and practice while on the medications

I would prefer my brain surgeon take a pill if that increased his ability to remain on task. I would also favor that preference for any pilot flying an air plane. Not just as a passenger of air travel but as a person who has to live upon the ground beneath. What is wrong with your profession in that it will not allow you to treat your condition and remain a professional pilot??? It makes no sense?????