I'm new, ADHD & adopted. You?

[SeanQuail]

I was diagnosed two years ago, but recently have been going through all of the neurological testing and looking at old report cards. I certainly do have ADHD. My report cards from the time I was in pre-k say things like easily distracted, full of energy, then they proceed to "horseplay" "disruptive" "not trying".

My father, that is to say my adopted father, has just started focusing on the fact I have adhd because he was worried about me and saw a shrink to discuss the problem. He refuses to believe I have told him about the adhd and prefers that it was his discovery. I say fine as long as it comes with a new acceptance of who I am and that I don't do things just to make my family angry, like being late, underachieving, isolating myself etc.

But I am a middle aged adult so it's kind of weird to have my father invade my privacy in a bunch of different ways without asking first. I think he feels extremely guilty for not having seen the pattern earlier when it could have been more helpful. My family always attributed my problems to my adoption, which I think is not wrong, but not in the way they think. I was adopted after 5 months of being in a group home, and knowing the little bit I know now, that may have played a role in the development of my frontal cortex and contributed to my adhd. The family I was adopted into are all very conservative, math geniuses and high achievers. Very rule abiding, cautious, in short my exact opposites, and they just didn't know what to do with me at all.

There was always this sense of, it didn't reflect too badly on them that I was not well, since I may have just come from bad stock and it wasn't their fault.

My question is, is anyone else here adopted? Is it true that we are over represented in the adhd department? Anyway, sorry to vent, I am just relieved to have found this place and all of you.

[sarek]

First of all, welcome aboard!

I am ADD(not hyper) and adopted too. And of course my family noticed oddities from a very early age. No one in my country knew about this weird creature called ADD back then so the search for answers always proved rather fruitless until I began looking for answers in my late forties and when I found this forum.

There could easily be problems related to adoption, but the AD(H)D is not the whole answer. Obviously when one is adopted there is almost always a whole wide range of genetic differences between a child and their parents, all of which play their own part.

For instance in my case being INFP with my mother being ISFJ is another major factor.

[SeanQuail]

Hi Sarek,

Do you think that there is a connection though? Were you adopted at birth or after? I have been researching a little and it seems there are an awful lot of adopted adhd adults, some attribute this to the prefrontal cortex not developing correctly in the first several months of life due to lack of a consistent primary caregiver.