Hi everyone. This is my first time here, and am currently researching about what could or could not be wrong with me.

This all started about a year ago when my friend told me that I act as if I have ADD. I didn't think much about it at first....until I started researching it on the internet.

I'm currently 33yrs old and am trying to get my Bachelors in mechanical engineering. Ever since my mother passed away 2yrs ago, my school performance has taken a huge toll. At first, I thought it was simply from the extra pressure in now having to take care of my teenage sister. But the more I researched ADD, the more I realized perhaps there really is something wrong with me.


My biggest factor in making me decide to heavily research this occurred yesterday. I had an exam at the university, and it took me nearly 45 minutes to remember one of the stupidest things on the planet. Needless to say, I was not able to finish the exam. Every time I take any exam in any class, I feel like my mind is drawing a total blank.



Other possible symptoms which may indicate I have ADD are:

1) Not being able to sit still and study.
Almost every time I try to sit down and study, I want to immediately begin to want to do something else.

2) Read has become ever so difficult for me. If I begin to read a paragraph in any readings I am doing (school or nonschool), I almost always want to skip the entire paragraph and go straight for the end.

3) I have trouble finishing projects. Whether it be something as simple as vacuuming the floor or something as intricate as creating an online game which I am currently doing, I find myself immediately changing to another thing to do.

"Reading has become" hard for you? This reading problem and exam problem stuff is recent too?

if the symptoms are ONLY present since the passing of your mother, it may induce psychologically ADD-like symptoms. Loosing someone close often causes a person to repress the memories with that person in order to avoid the pain of sorrow, by forgetting thoes times, alot of other things can 'dissapear'.

However, if you've felt these symptoms throught your life (or at least noticed it on a prolonged plane of time) it may be a psysiological problem related to dopanie deficiency.

Each possibility has its own treatment, so knowing which applies more is important.
good luck

Yes, reading has become very difficult for me. Also even listening to people in a conversation can be difficult to follow. It's like my mind wants to go off in a Tangent. The funny thing is that I realize what I am doing on the spot, and then I try to focus even hardder on the conversation, but it doesn't help.

These problems have only come up recently. Before my mother passed away, I was doing very well in school. For the first time in my life, I had actually made it to Calculus 3. And I was never a math wiz in high school because I was simply too lazy. The highest math I ever made it in high school was geometry, and getting that far was exciting for me.


Another "odd" habit I notice I have is having Firefox with 10+ tabs open. Sometimes I'll spend hours just sitting at the computer switching between tabs checking different web sites constantly checking for updates. And I should be doing homework. But if I begin to do homework, I'll get really frustrated at the fact that what I read tends not to "stick" to me. It's funny because as an engineering major, a lot of these complicated calculations I usually understand, but when I try to do it later on in the day or on a quiz/test, I blank out.

My biggest problem right now is I currently do not have health insurance. :( I'm thinking of simply jumping into a quick plan to begin the proper evaluation process. But I also wanted to ask, what is the normal procedure/process associated with this? I was thinking it's a quick "Take a test with a doc" then they tell you "Yup, you need help, here is your prescription & have a nice day" type of thing. Is it this simple or do issues like this become MUCH more involved?

if the symptoms are ONLY present since the passing of your mother, it may induce psychologically ADD-like symptoms. Loosing someone close often causes a person to repress the memories with that person in order to avoid the pain of sorrow, by forgetting thoes times, alot of other things can 'dissapear'.

However, if you've felt these symptoms throught your life (or at least noticed it on a prolonged plane of time) it may be a psysiological problem related to dopanie deficiency.

Each possibility has its own treatment, so knowing which applies more is important.
good luck
PTSD is often akin to ADHD in symptoms, if that is what TeLL meant.

I will add however I knew a woman with ADHD and it surfaced after she was raped, she takes a low dose of a stimulant and has for years and it helps her symptoms, so it's possible that ADHD generated from PTSD in a few cases.

I went and got diagnosed recently and the process wasn't too far from "Take a test with a doc" then they tell you "Yup, you need help, here is your prescription & have a nice day". I got a recommendation from my doctor for an ADD specialist, I had a couple of sessions with the specialist and he basically just asked me questions about my life and any problems i had. He asked questions about school, social relationships, and behaviours of mine. Then after like 2 or 3 sessions he made me take this long test which had questions like "when you read do the letters appear to move" and "do you loose focus in conversations of more then 5 people". The test scored me on what level of ADD I had and then the specialist gave his diagnosis. We discussed medications and I decided to try Adderall because my mom takes it. But there are a lot of medications and you have to try a bunch out to see which one works best for you. I still have weekly sessions with the specialist because I have some annoying behaviours that I want to stamp out :) but you don't have to continue going. I would definitely suggest getting health insurance. Meds and shrink visits aren't cheap :P

As for some of the behaviours you described they sound very ADD. I can totally relate to the firefox mania. The internet is an ADDer's heaven. We crave intellectual stimulation constantly and we want it NOW! lol. I easily get lost in wikipedia because of those nifty little links they put on things you might not know. Also reading is a bugger because books often don't grant the instant gratification, I very often don't remember what I read (which means we need to work twice as hard as the normal person to make it stick with various memorization tools), Math is one of my greatest passions because it is intellectually stimulating for me to tear through algebra problems (beware many people fear math fanatics), and listening to people in conversations is one of my greatest challenges because my mind often wanders to something that I would rather be thinking about. :P

You have come to the right place. Apparently there's millions of us ADDers :). I'd suggest reading around a bit longer for insights into your past of behaviours you may have had most of your life. Sooo much was explained when I came to understand ADD and why i failed so much at life. Alright. Damn I ramble. Good luck dude

re: 6

Letters appear to 'move' [when reading]?

What is that about?

Some ADDers can read for MANY hours straight ('hyperfocus').

Do you have an undiagnosed Visual LD?
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re: 6 [[i]behaviours you want to "stamp out"]

I really recommend IPT (interpersonal therapy AKA 'group therapy') for this sort of stuff.

Why? [i]
B/c your Doctor won't 'call you on it' [annoying behaviours -- in an App't)!!

(He just scribbles it down as a 'symptom'. Shrinks jobs are to listen, observe and document mental illness. They really aren't 'behavioral mod' people.)

In an IPT Group, your fellow Group members will 'call you on' your annoying behaviours and draw your attention to the "social" things you do that [silently in a social setting] get on other people's nerves. E.G. INTERRUPTING and all the annoying stuff that we ADDers do. ;)

I know it has been 2 years, but I am sorry about your mother passing away.

Perhaps these symptoms are coming from depression, which of course can mimic ADD.

The moving letters thing was just an example, I don't think that was actually on the quiz. What i meant was like do you have trouble reading and paying constant attention to it, something like that.

As for stamping out annoying behaviours it's just something i am striving to do. My therapist calls it behaviour modification strategies. I just have the burning desire to stamp out certain habits like spending 5 minutes on reading assigned chapter material and then proceeding to pretend to book is an airplane because i am that bored of the reading. :)

But group therapy is definitely something i would like to look into. These forums are the closest i have gotten to finding other people with ADD/ADHD to talk to. Supposedly there are like monthly meetings hidden somewhere in Seattle but i haven't been able to find anything solid.

I am sorry to hear that you lost your mom. But I do have to express some caution if the ADHD symptoms only appeared in the last two years. Most ADHDers have had symptoms pretty much throughout their life. Now I'm certainly not saying you don't have it. But if focus, concentration etc. were never a problem until after the loss of your mother.. than you may want to explore other causes.

Michiko74, yes, the issues I have had are since my mother passed away. Thing is, I am long from feeling depressed about it. But could I unconsciously be thinking about it causing me to have these issues?

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Hyperfocus…heh. I kinda wish I had that type of focus in order to be able to read what I need to read.
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I don't think there's really anything unconscious about it. You lost someone that played a significant role in your life. That is going to take some time to get over from. So it looks like you might need some help getting over that pain.

Just to put things in perspective, you know the problems you're having now? People with ADHD had them pretty much their entire life, and have no idea where it's coming from. If you've never endured the struggle and pain of living with that for years and years, than pull up a chair and come on in...

Not saying one way or the other if you have it or not, but ADD is not something that appears in mid life (I am not allknowing and can not claim to know all but I have never heard of it before). This does not however state that you do NOT have it, because you might very well have had it all your life, but studying has been "your thing" that you really got into, and now with her death you lost the passion for it and first now the symptoms arise.

How are you with other things in your life, how do you do stuff you have zero passion about doing?

......How are you with other things in your life, how do you do stuff you have zero passion about doing? I procrastinate a lot. There are numerous other things around the house which I tend not to finish. I used to be the type of person to get to an event 30minutes early. Now I end up procrastinating so much, I get ready at the very last minute to leave the house and end up arriving either on time or late. Obviously, the latter is not preferred.

e.g. I’ll be on the computer just browsing the internet, and I’ll be hitting “refresh” an endless amount of times just waiting for someone to respond to a forum when I should be washing the clothes. Well..I KNOW I need to wash the clothes, and I really hope I DO get up after responding to this thread. LOL. But many I’ll times I’ll tell myself “Yeah, yeah. I’ll do it in 5 minutes.” And I end up doing it hours later.

Well, my chores, I’m probably being somewhat lazy about it. My MAIN concern is my reading & studying. To look at a word and it seems as if the rest of the words are phasing out of focus is really irritating. To read a paragraph, and then ask myself 5 minutes later what was it that I just read is simply horrible. To have to read a paragraph 2-3 times just in order to be able to remember what was in it is unacceptable. Of course, the worse is, to be in the middle of a paragraph, I get up and go check my email because I tell myself “I’ll finish it in a minute” is probably the worst. As I read, I also sometimes get this irritating feeling that I’m never going to finish it and is all worthless. I feel like this odd congested feeling in my head. As if my head is in a vise.

Well guys, I thought I'd let you know I'm scheduled to apply for insurance with a local agent this Wed. Takes a couple of weeks for it to kick in, but hopefully I'll be seeing a specialist. :(

I really should have paid attention to my friend when she told me almost a year ago I act as if I have ADD. I could have taken care of this a long long time ago. :(