I am new to ADD and this forum. Does everyone experience the high level of anxiety I do? Is it part of ADD? I have read some articles that mention it and others that don't. I am very competent, smart but sometimes I have debilitating anxiety (not all the time, but most).

Do you take any medications for the ADD? Sometimes the meds can cause anxiety. It did for me. I was on Adderall and had to go for a MRI that took over an hour. I thought I was going to come unglued!

If not, have you talked to your doctor about the anxiety? I get anxious sometimes, usually at night when I am trying to go to bed and I can't turn my mind off. Is there a certain time of the day that it happens? Any triggers you can identify?

No I am not on medication and my doctor just puh-puh's my anxiety level. My stress is very high in my life but I am going to be tested for ADD (which I KNOW I have). Possibly, that will make the dr take my anxiety level seriously!

complex, sorry to hear things are so stressful right now!

to answer your question, i've been diagnosed adhd - combined type, but i haven't experienced much anxiety that wasn't situationally justified. e.g. sitting 6 hours to write the Medical College Admissions Test is bound make even the best of us nervous considering the high stakes.

after starting medication a while back, however, i did notice that my normal (nonmedicated state) is to feel perpetually "driven", "on the go, " scattered, unfocused... typical ADHD. apparently, i'm one of the many out there for whom dopaminergic stimulants are actually calming & relaxing...

are you doing anything beneficial to help manage the stress in your life? sometimes, excessive stress can cause concentration deficits and behaviors that mimic adhd. in some ways, anxiety may even be preferable to adhd. At least in the former, minimizing stress, exercising more, eating well, and getting quality sleep would help resolve the symptoms. iI still try to do these things for health reasons, but they don't seem to have any effect on my "symptoms".

best of luck in figuring things out & achieving a resolution!

I'm pretty anxious all the time....sometimes it's situational...well its always situational in that I'm usually the one everyone depends on....and being so undependable and scattered thats kinda stressful.

kilt

Thanks for all your posts. I have had high anxiety since I can remember as a small child. My life has always had stress in it but my response to the stress has definitely ramped it up. I was a single Mom for 15 years (a singleton and then twins 21 months later - all boys). I am very proud of the fact that they have become wonderful young men but, since I can only focus on one task at a time, and do that task well, everything else in my life was a mess. I am now in a wonderful relationship, with a wonderful man, but sometimes I feel that my quirky personality will interfere and cause some problems. I do try to sleep, eat well and manage my stress but like everything else in my life, it goes in spurts. Whatever, I am focusing on at the time, I do well (like taking care of myself), but other things suffer. I am finding some good info on this site for managing stress. It is nice to finally have some kindred spirits!

a lot of ADDers (maybe all?) have anxiety disorder along with adhd.
Don't let the doc discount your symptoms.

ME :D

I have anxiety problems too, and depression. The anxiety was worse when I took Dexedrine without anti-depressants.

Ilearned something too - a plane flying from Calgary to Toronto is not a good place to have a panic attack. :eyebrow:

Since I was on last night my mind has been racing (I know you all know what I mean). I have processed a lot of info since I joined this site (just joined) and realized that there is such a wonderful community here.

I think the dr discounted my anxiety because I appear to everyone to be so in control and handling everyone so well. (Raising 3 kids on my own, doing contract accounting work, not talking about how inwardly my life felt out of control). It was all because I didn't let anyone too close to actually see what was going on.

NonSequitur, sorry about your panic attack on the plane. Must have been scary. Panic attacks are not good at the best of times, but on in small closed environment it must have been awful. Hope your time in Toronto was good, though. I live near there. Great place.

I don't take any meds at the moment. I was taking Ativan to help sleep and it did help at first but as time went on, my anxiety increased.

actually..I have the opposite problem....I am a tad too relaxed most of the time..

I do get cranky..etc..but not a lot bothers me

Even though the anxiety is always there, ready to be called to action whenever needed (any change in plan or direction), I can be relaxed if I am focusing on something because I just shut everything else out! This causes other problems.

I have ADD with co-existing anxiety. Very often a person will have another co-morbid illness such as anxiety, depression or others. I do take medication for the anxiety.

im with tracey way to relaxed. if someone says something nasty to me, il be annoyed for like a lil while and then il be forget about it,. i once lost my phone and new where i left it but it didnt worry me to much so didnt go back to find it. I just suddenly decided that i probably needed another one anyway...

Complexnatural, yes, I too am a control freak. Everyone always thinks I have it so together when inside I'm coming unglued, not a fun way to go through life. Then again, when you really get under pressure you can always pull it all off, can't you? Gives you a rush! I know that's how it has been for me. I'm a mom of 3, 43 yr old, aspired "super-mom". Diagnosed with my oldest son (age 8). Until then I didn't believe in any of it, ADHD, depression, you name it. I just thought people with those kinds of problems were "weak", needed to get a grip. Boy, was I ever wrong. Amazing how we learn something new everyday. Medication has definitely helped me, some of the adhd meds have a tendency to make you more edgy, anxious, you have to find the right one for you. I can say that now, for the first time in my life, I am more at ease, a better parent and a better wife. Much more productive now, can't imagine what my life would have been like had I known this years ago..... can't dwell on the past, but the future looks much better now!

Best to you, hope you can get to the bottom of it, hang in there!

Interesting...Listening to you all, I realize that I fluctuate between anxiety and not caring. I have also just walked away from things and said "oh well" and not been upset about it. It seems that my anxiety comes up if there is a performance issue. This could be due to lack of confidence to do/say the right thing. I usually do well at whatever I am doing, so it's not that I can't do things, but the related anxiety is way out of whack to the task.

Momm, you sure know me! In a crsis, I am amazing. I do get a rush, plus I like the kudos that come with coming through. I, too, believed that add/adhd was something that was like a label.

I believed that if children got more attention, tried harder, ate better, etc, that it could be magically overcome. I think I was in denial about myself, and didn't even know I had add. I refused to believe that my son could have add, when the school made me take him for testing in Grade 2. He just day dreamed all day long. The dr refused to test him, saying he was just bored because he was gifted intellectually. I guess I would have found out more about add at that point if I had reasearched it. I refused to believe that Aaron could have had add but I just described his learning style, like mine, as "alternative". Anyway, (I know I am rambling) but I switched him to a Montessori school for Grades 2-6 and he blossomed. Today, he is in college and doing well. He suffers from similar anxiety as me, we are very similar in personality and like me, he has learned coping and compensating techniques.

When I finally tell my family about me (I haven't told anyone), I hope to share with him and hope he will be tested.

Thanks for listening. Feels great to share.

I always figured my anxiety was a component of my ADHD, not a coexisting condition.

As ADDers, why shouldn't we be anxious? We are naturally wondering what the day may bring--will we say something stupid? Will we lose something important? How will we control our racing thoughts?

It seems only natural to me that ADD and anxiety would go hand in hand.

I personally have extreme anxiety, but I don't think it is an additional condition. It is just something I have developed as a response to my ADHD.

Anxiety is the first symptom my medication has taken care of. I have been on Effexor for years and just started taking Adderall. Both do well for my anxiety more than they help anything else. Maybe because my anxiety is something I have developed overtime rather than being a condition I was born with?

As ADDers, why shouldn't we be anxious? We are naturally wondering what the day may bring--will we say something stupid? Will we lose something important? How will we control our racing thoughts?

?
I think this is a key thought for me. I have always known that my anxiety is heightened with performance related issues but I just realized that LIFE is performance related.

I generally do better when I am alone which is why I am somewhat of a loner but my thoughts can race at a moments notice and I can start having extreme anxiety over an issue with no valid reason. (ie worrying about losing my job when there is nothing to indicate that is going to happen).

The shaking I experience, only happens though when I am with someone else - has never happened when I am alone.

For all of you with anxiety, I have one word: Strattera.

See my post in this thread: http://addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45367

Complexnatural, I too, (age 43), have had since I can remember high anxiety. I pretty much assumed I picked it up from my mother as she was the same way. Like you I find I can go for some time wih no issues and then out of the blue it takes off with me searching for a reason as to why. Sometimes its obvious, others I never really know what triggered it. Being a late starting father of two young girls the ADD as well as the anxiety issue is something I now want to get a handle on. It was one thing when it was just my wife and I, when stress was a but lower but now with two little ones running around I realized quickly that I don't want to raise them with me looking stressed out all the time...who wants to have memories of their father being stressed out all the time?