Hi - I was recently diagnosed with ADD minus the hyperactivity part. I'm not sure if this is the right diagnosis or not, but I was given adderall.

I have felt so dumb my entire life - not sure if that is true or not, but I've just about completed my MBA and I couldnt tell you a thing about what I have learned. Does anyone else feel like that? Things just don't sink in??:confused:

Hey you got Adderall out of the deal, if you don't need it, it'll give you a lift, no pun intended, not that I advocate it, but I know a non ADDer who was given adderall from a doctor and they take it as prescribed and like what it does for them, energy, drive, lift.

Do you know anything about borderline personality disorder or depression? I think you kind of have low self esteem and something about your post seems to give a hint of either of those

I am not familiar too much with borderline personality. I am on meds for depression and a little anxiety as well as the ADD. I feel like a walking pharmacy. Does ADD cause depression or anxiety that you know of?

Does ADD cause depression or anxiety that you know of?
It did for me. Depression over not getting done what I wanted to get done and thinking I was stupid. Anxiety over making the same commitments everyone else made (and fulfilled) then blowing them. Anxiety over deadlines. Then another sort of depression ultimately related to the huge quantities of booze I drank to self medicate (or ease the anxiety or whatever - but at the bottom self medication was the motivation).

When I started digging myself out it was, in order (and overlapping stages): Antidepressants => therapy => quit drinking => ease off antidepressants => diagnose ADD (finally!) => start Adderall => Cognitive Behavioral Therapy => stop therapy. That was a 5 year journey.

After a while untreated ADD can really hammer one's self esteem.

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I'm not sure that ADD causes depression per se, but I'd say the two are very strongly linked. It's depressing when you can't seem to do what you want, and seemingly simple concepts elude you.

I have felt so dumb my entire life - not sure if that is true or not, but I've just about completed my MBA and I couldnt tell you a thing about what I have learned. Does anyone else feel like that? Things just don't sink in??:confused: Hi Bubba - Welcome to the forum!

Yes, I can totally relate. In many areas of my life it is obvious that I am a very intelligent person. I got excellent grades all the way through grade school and 4 years of college. But do I remember it now? Some things - experiences, mostly - the way things looked and felt in the geology and biology labs and art classes. But names of things? All those gazillions of words? No.

I have problems with working memory and long-term memory that affect my life on a daily basis. I really did think I was stupid - turning stupid, that is - or getting Alzheimer's in my 40s. Turns out it's just the way I am - a malfunction in the machinery of the brain, one might say, that really has nothing to do with how intelligent I am. I find ways to work around it - like writing lists, calendars, keeping notes, planners with pop-up reminders, etc. I guess some people can do this in their head - lets just say that the success of saving to my "disc drive" is unpredictable, so I always keep a backup on an "external drive". Is intelligence in the remembering? Or is it in what we do with that information?

And then there are the stupid things I do because of my ADHD attention problems. I burn or boil over at least one thing on the stove every day. Seems stupid, huh? It's just that once I turn my focus to another thing (I'm certainly not going to stand there watching that pot come to a boil, after all!), the first thing (the pot) is forgotten - until I smell the smoke. Not stupid. Just ADHD.

As for the depression/ADHD connection? I don't know - but major depression runs in my family, and I've been extremely anxious and unhappy since I was a young child - I don't think I can blame the ADHD for that, since it didn't have a lot of negative impact when I was young. IMHO, at least in my own case, this supports the hereditary/biological basis of depression as something independent of ADHD.

That being said, my ADHD began to affect my life quite a lot more as an adult - when life became so much more complicated and was all about responsibilities and must-do's (rather than just doing what you feel like doing). A lot of times, I feel like a failure, and "stupid", in this adult world - and this does make the depression and low-self esteem even worse.

Does anyone else feel like that? Things just don't sink in??

My description would be close to I feel I have no control over what sinks in and what doesn't. I have a good long term memory but I forget things I want to remember like birthdays what I need at the store but I recall all sorts of other nonspecific information like how much that resistor cost on e-bay, what my father was wearing when he told my mom he wanted a divorce. I would rather remember where I parked my car twenty minutes ago.



Does ADD cause depression or anxiety that you know of?

People with ADD are more prone to these than the general population However it is not known weather it is from the actual genetic difference that makes us ADD or from being ADD and living in a world designed for people who do not have ADD i