I'm currently not taking medication for ADD. I was taking Strattera but became pregnant and it triggered vomiting for me, so I had to stop. I will soon go to the doctor.

In the meantime, I have not been working in 5 months. My husband let me stay at home. I feel that since not working, I've only gone downhill. I literally feel - and this is no exaggeration - like I've gotten ten times stupider. Today when filling out job applications I couldn't even pay enough attention to the application to fill it out correctly. I sat in the car to drive after putting my daughter in her carseat and then didn't remember where I had set the keys down! I've left the hair straightener on before, as well as the stove. :nono:

Today my husband asked me to explain something about a bill and because I knew I couldn't remember - I immediately got really defensive and blew up at him because I felt so stupid. I was ashamed of admitting the truth - that I knew the answer but couldn't think of it.

Today has been a real self confidence killer. Moreso than usual because of applying for the jobs. I need to work again because I know I can do the job. I need to get out of house. I'm just afraid of what I'm going to do or say wrong at the interview.

But it honestly makes me so ashamed and I feel so horrible and want to just cry because I am so damned stupid. I wondered today if I was so inattentive then how is it my daughter is still alive? Then I thought maybe I just used all of my attention on her because I'm with her every day and then have no extra to give to anything else - such as the house, my husband...etc.

Can anybody relate at all?? i seriously feel like I'm going to be in a home for crazy people when I'm 30 with alzheimer's or something.

Please tell me if you've ever felt this way before. I think it's the only thing that might help me feel better at this point.

yes of course, days that i do not have my medication i am an entirely different person. i go back to how i used to be, and i just dont do much of anything unless I have to. I feel handicapped in a way. The slightest tasks are overwhelming. Such as paying a parking ticket. Before treatment several years ago, going to pay a parking ticket was overwhelming to me, so I just wouldnt do it. Unpaid ticket after unpaid ticket eventually resulted in a year suspension of my drivers license, all because this was too complex, so i would rather have ignored the tickets. So yes, I can understand how you feel.

yeah my husband has recently had a talk with me too about responsibility.
Something I used to be really good at but since I got pregnant with my first child, things have never been the same. The doctors said I probably had ADD before, and the pregnancy became a trigger.

I tend to ignore things too and put things off to do later.
Every day I find a new reason. If I get sick of myself, I know he does.

I dont want to take meds being 3 months pregnant - but I seriously feel like I have no choice in the matter. I can't get a job if I'm like this!

Pregnancy makes a lot of women forgetful.

Please stop beating yourself up. ADD is a neurological disorder. It would be like beating yourself up for being "spacey" during your seizures if you had epilepsy. Be fair to yourself. You can't expect anyone without ADD to really understand. But you're not an oaf. You're not a loser. You're coping with the hormones of pregnancy on top of a disorder that just makes life hard. You can't compare yourself to the "medicated" you when you're not medicated. It's not fair!

Honestly, not to be funny, but there are probably a lot of successful people out there who are no smarter or more capable than you are who are just ignorant of their failings, so they plow ahead and just do. I think we ADD types can get so self-reflective that we paralyze ourselves from doing well.

You are going to forget more if you stress yourself out berating yourself. Take it from one who knows :)

You are better than you think. You CAN do it.

I am a teacher and I turn into a crazy insensible do-nothing lump in the summer. I was a terrible stay at home mom -- I mean, my daughter was well taken care of, but the house was a disaster and I watched more daytime TV than makes for good mental health. I didn't even like it.

I'm an extremely intelligent, capable person -- when I have a job and a routine. It's like my brain is a closet and my thoughts are the clothes. When I have a job, I am constantly making sure all the hangers (organizing systems) are on the rack, putting things where they belong -- in constant motion, taking off and putting on, quickly enough to where everything goes back where it belongs.

When I'm not working, I forget about the hangers, throw stuff in there, don't pay attention . . . . so when I need to find something, it's crumpled in a lump and I have to dig around to get to it, wallow through a bunch of other stuff - - and the more I do that, the worse it gets. Same with my brain.

Without the job, my brain is like a body without the skeleton. No structure -- useless. I don't know why, it just is.