I wanted to get some feedback from othere who may have been in this situation. I'm self employed and thinking about telling my clients about my condition. I just recently "found" out I have ADD. Is this a bad idea? Keep in mind most have them have had their patients tested while working with me. Projects have taken months instead of weeks.

Thanks.

It really depends, on several factors. First, are you in a profession that has a code of ethical guidelines and do they address personal disclosure? Second, its important to think about whether it would be beneficial to your clients to know that kind of information, or is it even necessary?



I wanted to get some feedback from othere who may have been in this situation. I'm self employed and thinking about telling my clients about my condition. I just recently "found" out I have ADD. Is this a bad idea? Keep in mind most have them have had their patients tested while working with me. Projects have taken months instead of weeks.

Thanks.

I would say definately no! It is exciting to finally have a name to what has been slowing you down and want to discuss it with everyone but most people do not want to hear about it. I would tell a few non-client people and you will see what I am talking about. Some information is better kept to yourself.

I agree with both buffalopc7 and add968.

Some people may not like the idea of being a client of someone with ADD, as bad as it sounds, it's the truth.
All people hear about are bad things about ADD, (unreliable, always late, leaves things to the last minute.) And they never hear about the good things, (Hard workers, empathetic, creative... etc).

If you tell your clients about your ADD, some may think about all the negatives of ADD, and may not want to work with you anymore.

Personally I wouldn't. I am not even telling my relatives or anyone close to me about it. I do not want opinions to change about me. It could end up hurting your business instead of helping it.

Alot of people don't believe in ADD or have negative opinions on it. Its still your call though. It is a wonderful feeling to know what you have and want to share it with someone, but I would choose who you share it with wisely.

I'd caution against revealing that you have adhd to your business clients. Some people have a strong bias against people with adhd and you might not want to open yourself up to that kind of criticism. If they don't need to know, they don't need to know.

ME :D

Thanks everyone for responding. I thought it would be bad idea to tell clients but wanted to see what others (with ADD) thought as well. I'm finding out that there many people who look down on ADD or even say it doesn't exist. I was suprised what I found when Googled 'adhd fake'. If it doesn't exist or is real then I guess I'm just going insane.

Telling people you have ADD is a complicated issue. It's not a black and white , yes or no question. Part of disclosing ADD is educating people about it. If you do decided to disclose it you need to be prepared for any and all reactions.

My main job is support and educating people with ADD. At first when I spoke to others and talked about my job I felt akward because a lot of people didn't understand ADD and I had to do a lot of educating and debating. Now I get people telling me how somebody close to them has ADD and all the stories that go a long with it.

Talking about ADD to people is very complicated.

It sounds like the point is to explain delayed work by attributing it to the ADHD.

I wouldn't. It comes off sounding like an excuse.

If you are that impaired, get a coach or organizer to help you.

Clients don't want to hear reasons or excuses, they want to know what you are doing about it, pro-actively (eg hiring an organizer).

if your clients are the type of ADHD that I am (well a bit of PTSD and antisocial pd) then they can read you and use things to manipulate etc...