Hey all! First post here (though i lurked for a few days many months ago and subsequently forgot about it) and I'm very confused as to whether or not I may be conflicted with inattentive ADD. I am 22 and currently going to school.. which i will have more on later. I have a feeling this could become a large post as i have quite a bit to spill, so please bare with me!

EDIT: this is becoming my life story so I really appreciate those who stick with it.

First off, let me outline several reasons why I seem to fit the bill:

- I am a chronic prorastinator though I am not a lazy person (I am turning into a health nut). This problem is at its worst when writing a paper. I HATE writing papers and I can sit for hours trying to think of a decent title or first paragraph. I would always write the paper right up to the wire and never edit it or make more than one copy. This is something that stands out for me because i could always tell throughout highschool and the occasional university paper that i had an incredibly hard time starting and finishing a paper and it frustrated me to no end. I'm not necessarily horrible at english though i considered it my worst class in highschool.

- When i'm driving my car WITH a friend or two, I often miss my turn-off or head the wrong direction when i know exactly where I'm going and have been to the destination countless times. My friends are used to it now and they don't give me a hard time because I've made it known to them that i am a horrible multitasker and get distracted easily. This happens far too often.

- speaking of getting distracted easily, I can't seem to study in a library because little noises like people coughing, flipping pages, or moving things REALLY gets to me. In fact, if i'm trying to do anything that requires concentration, background noise seems to get to me much more than your average person.

- Back to my car, I have left my headlights on more times than i can count. Sure, it's an 89 and doesn't beep at me but still.

- When i was younger i had a huge problem making eye-contact with people, so much so that my mom would alway point it out and let me know that it was rude. I've corrected this for the most part, but still have problems occasionally and i have to work at it to make sure I'm being polite and normal.

- My handwriting is quite poor. It's legible when I take notes, but on tests where i have to write quickly it is borderline legible. I wouldn't mention this but with everything else it just seems like too much of a coincidence

- Random small things like when playing board games with people I tend to have to be reminded that it's my turn once in awhile, or sometimes several times throughout a game (such as risk). Speaking of risk, i lose interest in it VERY fast and start spacing out bad so i hate to play most board games. Something like cranium is fine though because it's short enough and is quite varied.

- I am frequently late for events or work. In fact, i would show up 5 to 15 minutes late for work almost every single day. My friends are constantly on me about this because it was worse in the past. I have become more reliable but I'm still late for school (i don't work right now) and such occasionally.

- My parents or friends will be talking to me and I have to get them to repeat themselves, or start their story over often because I'm thinking about something else. "You just don't listen" my mom says.. and my friends haven't really picked up on it or haven't made a big deal about it.


Those are SOME of the things that come to mind right now but i will post more as they come to me.

I'm not sure I should go to my GP about this for several reasons. Firstly, I've brought it up to my mom before and she dismissed it as rubbish. On top of that, I did fairly well throughout highschool and barely made the honour roll, even though i knew i was capable of much higher grades. I happen to be very adept at math, even though later on in highschool my test marks would fluctuate between high 90s and 60-70%. Much of this was due to not being able to study until i was looking down the barrel of the gun. This gun only became larger in university and my marks dove because of it.

First year i blamed on being in an animal house of a residence (which i was) and the fact that my roommate had ADD and stayed up till all hours of the night.

/// A side note here:First year was indeed a crazy time for all in our particular res building. 17 out of 90 people ending up being kicked out which is alarming because it took a lot to get kicked out (several incident reports) and over $5000 in broken glass occurred in our building before the year was out. "the worst residence of all time at this school" was what we were told. Anyways, as i said, my roommate actually had ADHD. I'm certain it was the hyperactive type. As exams rolled around (50-60% of ones mark for many) people caught on that my roommate had dexedrine and since we were all friends he handed them out like candy to his bestest buddies. After researching on the net i found that such behavior was common enough and I was extremely desperate (since i rarely found time to do work all semester which is a nono in engineering) so i gave it a go. The dexedrine absolutely grounded me. I've never been able to look down at a book, enjoy what i was learning and do it for many hours at a time with pleasure. I know that electrical engineering and math is what i enjoy so i could never really understand why it was so hard to study before this. Anyways, i did that for a couple exams, but then our residence advisors found out and my roommate was one of the first people kicked out, and rightfully so. Still, i won't forget how normalized i felt, but i realize it was potentially a stupid move.

In 2nd and 3rd year i had a horrible time attending classes, which were a bunch of physics and computer science classes (because i was kicked out of engineering, along with 8 other people in my first year building out of a possible 10). I accumulated a few fails and many poor grades, barely ever breaking a B. This is where i started to google up ADHD for the first time and was shocked to find out that the inattentive type really seemed to hit home.

Now I find myself at an institute of technology back in electrical engineering (which i truly love) and I've done extremely well this semester. Our program is weird and my finals are actually coming up in a week so i don't have my grades yet, but everything leading up to this has been quite good. Most people would have given up, taken a trade, anything besides continue to throw money away, but somehow i know that I am better than what my past has shown. Now that i'm back at home, I have more structure in my life and i go to every class. I'm not dependant on my parents by any means (in fact, i will move out as soon as I get a real job and pay off my debt) but any structure seems to help me. This semester has been easier for me because i've covered half the material before, but i'm trying REALLY REALLY hard to take notes and do problems while the prof does in class. Most of this stems from knowing that this is my last kick at the can, and my parents have high expectations which is great, but so far i've let them down big time. They know i'm starter than this.. I know i'm smarter than this. I do think I have a problem and it may resurface next semester as the material will be 100% new to me. In some ways i'm not worried about it. My brain is capable. Everyone knows i'm great at math, but some of my closer friends think I haven't applied myself enough.

This is all very frustrating. I don't necessarily want to be diagnosed and put on meds but I know for a fact that they would help immensely. The problem is that i've covered all of this up throughout my childhood by being charming in class and I think that is something I really had to work at and took pride in. Again, this is because of my parents high expectations for me. I've read that women may slip through the cracks more often because of reasons like this but i really feel that I've always acted that way as well. I'm always looking to please others and this might be part of the reason that nobody has taken notice.

One more thing -- I want to go to my GP and ask about this but i don't know if i should mention about trying dexedrine back in first year or not. Human nature would be to automatically think that I am after the drugs, which I definitely am not. In fact, i'd like for him to tell me that i don't have inattentive add and be done with this. I seem to be doing well enough with my current strategy of working my behind off to learn DURING classes so midterm review was easy. Additionally, looking back on my report cards, most of the comments say "a pleasure to have in class" and the like, even though i struggled to pay attention and especially read novels for english (I looked up spark notes) or read sections of textbooks for social studies and the like.

Anyways.. i know i've missed a bunch of crucial information but at the same time i really didn't mean to go on like that. Thankyou for reading this and I would appreciate comments, whether you can point out a large gap in my logic or you have had similar experiences, anything would make me feel a lot better right now. (This makes me sound like i suffer from depression which i assure you i do not haha..)

Sounds like someone I know... :)

I went through almost everything you described in college including being bounced out of the engineering program. I was smart enough to do the work... just couldn't focus on the material to keep up in a very intense and competitive program.

If your GP has experience diagnosing ADHD it would be worth while to speak with him. The other, better option if you have insurance is to get an evaluation with a Psy. doc. There's plenty of resources on this forum about what is involved with getting a diagnosis.

Hope everything works out for you.

Welcome!

Here's a link to the ADHD 101 thread which I also bumped up today:

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9767

You can try your regular doctor, but if that doesn't work, and it didn't for me, try to get an appt with a psychiatrist. I did talk to a therapist who agreed with the diagnosis, but she can't do prescriptions. Good luck!

Thankyou both for your responses! For the time being I will leave it because I have exams coming up next week. In the mean time, maybe i will finally make myself go buy a copy of driven to distraction. That seems like a good place to start.

Also, reading the 101 I noticed some questions on whether medication helps difficulty falling asleep at night or trouble coming awake (not getting out of bed) in the morning. I've had these problems for as long as I can remember and I'm still not sure if they are a related to ADD or not. Unless I am exhausted, it takes me a good 1-3 hours to fall asleep on many occasion. In the morning I can get up if i know i absolutely need to, but on weekends forget it, even if i've made plans with a friend to do something in the morning. On weekdays when I have school I often can't get out of bed and I have to be woken up a second or 3rd time by one of my parents, which is pretty embarrassing. If they're not around in the morning I can usually make myself get up though.. it's like a subconscious thing.

So my question to you is whether this is common or not, because that would only add fuel to the fire as I seem to have an abnormally hard time doing both.

I agree, get an appointment with a Psychiatrist. Mental health professionals are the way to go.:)

Good luck!

Psychologists can do the impusivity/inattention testing. Psychiatrists miss most Adult ADHD, and a lot of psychiatrists don't beleive in it. (Even my psychiatrist SO tells me that... he won't Rx ADHD meds unless you have Testing Paperwork showing the Diagnosis from a Clinical Psychologist.)

Most Adult ADHDers get missed b/c most of us are not physically hyperactive. Same with the more intelligent ADHDers b/c we can compensate better in school. Things tend to get worse in High School and College, though.

Your story is pretty typical.

NB. Remember, in terms of schoolwork, ADHD is a working memory disorder, and an organizational disorder. I am not suprised that you mention your performance and notetaking problems.

i'd really recommend testing, so you can find your Weak and Strong skills. this will help you cope better academically, b/c then you can create and use Interventions for coping.

W/o Testing, too many ADHDers never really "learn how they learn" -- how they learn best, how they learn worst.

The meds don't fix everything, and CAN make some symptoms and frustrations worse.

eg in my Testing

I learned that my 'self-monitoring' is low. My 'frustration tolerance' with myself is also low.

In learning this -- that i have a very low frustration tolerance for certain subjects(can't stand the sense of frustration/difficulty), i now know from my testing, that i cannot take meds at that time. Meds make me more tense in my body (sympathomimetic), and i get too stressed out with myself, and it blocks my learning.

However, for really really BORING repetitive tasks (usually deadly to an ADHDer!), i know that i NEED meds for that, or else i just fade away. (Could never work on a factory line!)

Testing can give us self-knoweledge, which better affects our performance. And ADHD is a performance disability, of sorts. We 'know' but we can't 'do'. (Sorta like LDs that way.)

Soda,

Your story sounds very similar to mine (inattentive-add as well) in terms of studying and schoolwork. It was hard to come to grips or even to convince others as I had done alright in school (especially with taking difficult classes). But like you, I felt like I was underachieving all of the time (I knew I was).

As for a doctor, a psychiatrist is the best, but you may have difficulty finding one who will see you right away. This is what happened to me, so I just went back to my pediatrician (he'll still see me for physicals and other forms to fill out); he has been pretty helpful. Pediatricians probably have more experience with making the diagnosis/choosing the right meds because of the number of children being diagnosed with ADD. Just a suggestion.

Now that I'm on Adderall, I find it to be working really well. I am much more aware of myself and my surroundings. Sure, I still have a ways to go with organization and task-management (like writing papers), but as many have said, "meds work like glasses, you still have to do the work." I now feel that I am ABLE to organize my tasks and get things done on time.

hope it all works out,
kc