whitecat
03-05-08, 02:04 PM
Hey all. I hope I am not over posting here but I just need to voice myself. I guess I will just get right into it. I have considered myself Add for quite a while though I was never officially diagnosed. I guess I am here to figure out if this is something I should even worry about right now.
I had a lot of trouble in school, was known as a daydreamer and had a hard time keeping on task and keeping up my grades all the way through high school (has doing homework the day before graduation) except for a few classes that really peaked my interest. My parents chalked most of it up to me just being lazy. They where, and still are, great parents, but where kind of afraid of psychology and the like. I pretty much just figured that I was just a stupid person and figured I would end up working in a saw mill or something for the rest of my life
I guess I started realizing that something was wrong about a year after high school. My mom talked me into taking a few jr. college classes (pushing me towards computer stuff since she saw my obsession with video games) and helped me purchase my first computer. I completely disassembled and reassembled it, re-installed it 4 times, and upgraded most of the components in the first 2 months that I owned it. It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t so stupid after all.
I was put into the basic math class (boring, I always hated math) and decided to start looking at the text on my own instead of just doing the class work. I was able to look at math a different way and completed the class way ahead of the semester. It was about that time that I really started to look inward to myself and changed my attitude and how I looked at the world.
<O:pI began to notice a few things about myself.
<O:p·It usually takes me an extraordinary amount of time to fall asleep (often 4+ hours) because my mind is constantly wandering to different topics.<O:p</O:p
· I often have to stop and backtrack in my mind to figure out what my original though was.
· I am inherently curious which has lead to having a large number of hobbies, usually inspired in some form from one another, that I am mediocre at (singing, guitar, piano, writing, reading, role playing games, clothing design, Drawing, Comic creation, web design, programming, computer modification, gaming, in depth flight simulation, paintball, blacksmithing, medieval studies, re-enactment, bow hunting, backpacking, snowboarding, mountain biking, geology, advanced mathematics… that’s all I can keep track of right now.)<O:p
· I often (daily) get so absorbed in something (to the point of obsession) that I lose track of time often being late for appointments. (if there is more than 10 minutes of downtime before an appointment I try and squeeze something in)
· I often take on a huge number of projects at work simply because they sound interesting.<O:p
· I will often go off on so many tangents that I lose track of the point I am trying to make during conversations.<O:p
· I am always “in the middle” of a project, but always have a hard time figuring out how to start it and rarely finish (if it is a work project I am usually scrambling at the last minute to piece everything I have been working on together)<O:p
· Due to the nature of my work (Netowrk Support Technician) I have found myself spending entire days researching the internet on topics that branch off from one another (Looking up Strategic IT plan, find an article on the disaster recovery section, wonder what is constituted as a disaster, hey I wonder what the details of the Hindenburg disaster was, hmmm helium, I wonder what the molecular structure is, what is molecular structure anyway…….. This is a pretty typical day for me)<O:p
· I am usually reading 3 or more books at the same time, jumping between them.<O:p
I could go on, but you get the point.
I guess where I really come down to wondering if I should peruse this further is that life is actually pretty good right now. I actually like my distractibility sometimes as it has allowed me to become a very creative person. I have been able to cope with day to day issues through sheer will power and developing an organization system to keep me on track ( a key component of that is my wife), and I have even been able to carve out a decent IT job without a degree, but there are a few things that bother me.<O:p
I feel that I am unable to advance in my career and family for the following reasons;<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
· Lack of excellence in projects due to being constantly behind
· Inability to further my education (I just can’t concentrate on studies)
· Poor financial decisions (constantly making impulse buys without thinking of long term and having a hard time remembering to refer to established budgets)<O:p</O:p
I could keep going (another trait that often gets in the way) but I will try and wrap this up. I guess in the end, I just need to know, should I look into this being ADD or just work harder. <O:p
I had a lot of trouble in school, was known as a daydreamer and had a hard time keeping on task and keeping up my grades all the way through high school (has doing homework the day before graduation) except for a few classes that really peaked my interest. My parents chalked most of it up to me just being lazy. They where, and still are, great parents, but where kind of afraid of psychology and the like. I pretty much just figured that I was just a stupid person and figured I would end up working in a saw mill or something for the rest of my life
I guess I started realizing that something was wrong about a year after high school. My mom talked me into taking a few jr. college classes (pushing me towards computer stuff since she saw my obsession with video games) and helped me purchase my first computer. I completely disassembled and reassembled it, re-installed it 4 times, and upgraded most of the components in the first 2 months that I owned it. It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t so stupid after all.
I was put into the basic math class (boring, I always hated math) and decided to start looking at the text on my own instead of just doing the class work. I was able to look at math a different way and completed the class way ahead of the semester. It was about that time that I really started to look inward to myself and changed my attitude and how I looked at the world.
<O:pI began to notice a few things about myself.
<O:p·It usually takes me an extraordinary amount of time to fall asleep (often 4+ hours) because my mind is constantly wandering to different topics.<O:p</O:p
· I often have to stop and backtrack in my mind to figure out what my original though was.
· I am inherently curious which has lead to having a large number of hobbies, usually inspired in some form from one another, that I am mediocre at (singing, guitar, piano, writing, reading, role playing games, clothing design, Drawing, Comic creation, web design, programming, computer modification, gaming, in depth flight simulation, paintball, blacksmithing, medieval studies, re-enactment, bow hunting, backpacking, snowboarding, mountain biking, geology, advanced mathematics… that’s all I can keep track of right now.)<O:p
· I often (daily) get so absorbed in something (to the point of obsession) that I lose track of time often being late for appointments. (if there is more than 10 minutes of downtime before an appointment I try and squeeze something in)
· I often take on a huge number of projects at work simply because they sound interesting.<O:p
· I will often go off on so many tangents that I lose track of the point I am trying to make during conversations.<O:p
· I am always “in the middle” of a project, but always have a hard time figuring out how to start it and rarely finish (if it is a work project I am usually scrambling at the last minute to piece everything I have been working on together)<O:p
· Due to the nature of my work (Netowrk Support Technician) I have found myself spending entire days researching the internet on topics that branch off from one another (Looking up Strategic IT plan, find an article on the disaster recovery section, wonder what is constituted as a disaster, hey I wonder what the details of the Hindenburg disaster was, hmmm helium, I wonder what the molecular structure is, what is molecular structure anyway…….. This is a pretty typical day for me)<O:p
· I am usually reading 3 or more books at the same time, jumping between them.<O:p
I could go on, but you get the point.
I guess where I really come down to wondering if I should peruse this further is that life is actually pretty good right now. I actually like my distractibility sometimes as it has allowed me to become a very creative person. I have been able to cope with day to day issues through sheer will power and developing an organization system to keep me on track ( a key component of that is my wife), and I have even been able to carve out a decent IT job without a degree, but there are a few things that bother me.<O:p
I feel that I am unable to advance in my career and family for the following reasons;<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
· Lack of excellence in projects due to being constantly behind
· Inability to further my education (I just can’t concentrate on studies)
· Poor financial decisions (constantly making impulse buys without thinking of long term and having a hard time remembering to refer to established budgets)<O:p</O:p
I could keep going (another trait that often gets in the way) but I will try and wrap this up. I guess in the end, I just need to know, should I look into this being ADD or just work harder. <O:p