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Zhentar posted:I will recommend some caution with this - the stimulant drugs are also appetite suppressants. Young children taking them may not eat as much as they need to, stunting their development. Oh yeah. I agree with your points. Every drug has side effects, and sometimes the side effects outweigh the benefit of the medication. But it should at least be an option. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed, but my parents also opted not to medicate me - consequently, nearly my entire schooling was a mess. I can understand their reasoning, as they were afraid of the side effects, but as the one affected, I wanted to at least give the drugs a shot to see if they helped or not.
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Apr 10, 2010 05:16
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SquirrelFace posted:To all the people not diagnosed until adulthood, did you ever feel a sense of loss over all the things you could have done, but didn't because of ADHD? Looking back at all the lessons and clubs and activities I dropped out of as a kid makes me feel like I missed my chance to be a good pianist or dancer or whatever. If I had stuck with Spanish instead of taking up three other languages, maybe I would be fluent. If I had stayed in gymnastics, maybe I would be an athlete. I know its crazy to let that stuff get me down now and I am hopeful, but I'm just angry about it. The reverse. I wonder what life would be like if I hadn't spent the greater part of my teenage years on stimulants. Yes, they helped me get things done. I listened to everything the teachers said, I got in the top 2% and came first in all math subjects. I studied programming and taught myself C, Assembly, and Pascal at 14 (among other things). But godamn I was weird. I was chatting to a kid today (I'm 29) who'd just started on Ritalin and he seems exactly the same. He wouldn't shut up about his various boring interests. It was like the kid's mind was on fire, and his enthusiasm and dedication to his work (he works near my workplace on the weekends) were 'unnatural' in my opinion. Volunteer work? Sign him up. I mean godamnit people it's natural to find certain things boring. Ritalin will without a doubt make concentrating on uninteresting tasks easier, it will help you peruse and understand legal documents / poo poo they throw at you at work much much easier. Just keep in mind to a large extent our interests define us, and if your interests are 'loving everything' you may develop personal problems (yes, like I did), tics, nervousness, depression and other side effects the medications may bring you over time. You'll win accolades from everybody who wants you to read everything technical / legal / very bland though. I just got a job at a firm. I still fall asleep / think about monkeys if what I'm studying is like a 500 DVD player manual with all the pictures taken out, but I get by. Occassionally my lateral thinking takes me on tangents relevant to the issue being considered, I come up with new ideas, and this is valuable too. I'd like to add on this point that if I read only 100 pages of something without a stimulant, I recall and retain that 100 pages better than if I'd read it on drugs (much better it seems). It seems to me many of the people posting have life issues they'd like to find an excuse for and are perhaps too eager to get on drugs (it's a loving drug) and believe it will solve all their life problems. As someone with behavioural problems, perhaps the same ones you share (impulsiveness, depression, monkeys) I think if I hadn't had bad experience with amphetamines I'd be tempted to go on them as well. Hobo Tickler fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Apr 11, 2010 |
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Apr 11, 2010 01:34
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Hobo Tickler posted:The reverse. I wonder what life would be like if I hadn't spent the greater part of my teenage years on stimulants. Yes, they helped me get things done. I listened to everything the teachers said, I got in the top 2% and came first in all math subjects. I studied programming and taught myself C, Assembly, and Pascal at 14 (among other things). But godamn I was weird. I was chatting to a kid today (I'm 29) who'd just started on Ritalin and he seems exactly the same. He wouldn't shut up about his various boring interests. It was like the kid's mind was on fire, and his enthusiasm and dedication to his work (he works near my workplace on the weekends) were 'unnatural' in my opinion. Volunteer work? Sign him up. There is a sort of idealism that comes with first being medicated, but that wears off. You can say that stimulants made you weird, but that just means you shouldn't have been on stimulants, not that no one else should be. And since when is enthusiasm a bad thing? But sure, if it makes you feel better about your own dysfunction, believe that everyone here is just out to get drugs because we have other "life problems." We're all just so lazy that we can't even do things when we want to. And  I'm on Ritalin and still find this book I have to read for class boring, but on the drugs, I can actually remember what I'm reading.
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Apr 11, 2010 02:59
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I said might and may, and please don't put words into my mouth. I didn't say you'd end up with problems with 100% certainty. By 'enthusiasm' I meant the artificial enthusiasm invoked by the drug that causes you to read The Great Gatsby or a 200 page dense maths textbook you normally wouldn't read in one sitting. The wired, brain on fire, drug invoked enthusiasm for boring poo poo is what I mean. I haven't been keeping up with the issue, but when I was a kid 'ADHD kids' were known for having an awesome attention span for things they wished to participate in - is this not the case now?. I read most of Roald Dahl's stuff before I was 10 and read the LOTR in year 5, yet later on I still went on dex because I had 'difficulty concentrating'. My main difficulty was concentrating on stuff I didnt want to do (e.g. statistics). edit : Also a lot of people have posted saying 'oh god I think of monkeys too when trying to read and concentrate how do I get the drugs' - these are the people I was referring to. People who openly admitted they were to some extent dysfunctional. People who display hallmark symptoms of ADHD such as impulsiveness. Well just hold up and consider whether you really need drugs. Have a meal, sit down, away from your dungeons and dragons or whatever, and try concentrating and working on boring stuff that needs to be done. It's hard, but you can manage without. Hobo Tickler fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Apr 11, 2010 |
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Apr 11, 2010 04:07
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Well you obviously came in here just to stir poo poo up, so I don't actually care. If medication makes you weird and you can manage without it, then hurray for you. Medication makes me feel normal, so I'll keep taking it.
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Apr 11, 2010 04:32
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Hobo Tickler posted:I said might and may, and please don't put words into my mouth. I didn't say you'd end up with problems with 100% certainty. By 'enthusiasm' I meant the artificial enthusiasm invoked by the drug that causes you to read The Great Gatsby or a 200 page dense maths textbook you normally wouldn't read in one sitting. The wired, brain on fire, drug invoked enthusiasm for boring poo poo is what I mean. The very definition of the famous British "stiff upper lip" right here.
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Apr 11, 2010 05:10
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Hobo Tickler posted:I haven't been keeping up with the issue, but when I was a kid 'ADHD kids' were known for having an awesome attention span for things they wished to participate in - is this not the case now? Not necessarily. I don't get the 'awesome attention span' when I'm doing something/reading something/watching something interesting or exciting, as opposed to boring. It may be extended a little longer, but not by an awesome amount. However, hyperfocusing can and does kick in. And sometimes it has nothing to do with how 'awesome' the subject matter is. To wit: While unmedicated, I can get bored and distracted at a metal concert, watching some of my favorite bands. I can also concentrate on and hyperfocus in on, of all things, working on a database detailing out the new infrastructure for our lab machines at work.  Now you tell me which task sounds more fun. (Hint - it's not going to be the database work.) And both of these things? Happened in the past month. But again, I tend to listen to licensed doctors who specialize in ADHD in adults for my medication and treatment choices, instead of angry dweebs on the Internet.
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Apr 11, 2010 06:17
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First of all, you always have to keep in mind the simple fact that drugs affect everyone differently. Maybe there are rare cases where stimulants transform jumpy and weird kids into docile robots, but for the most part, the effects are subtle and much less pronounced. When I had my first dose of a drug, I was amazed to find I was able to work on academical stuff for several hours (something I was never able to do in my school years), but even if you ignore the placebo effect that's typical when you start a treatment like that, the long-term effects on me weren't as extreme as you make them out to be. My interests didn't change, I'm simply slightly more able to focus on tasks that require long-term concentration. When I was started on a new anti-depressant recently and stopped taking Ritalin for a while, I did feel a difference, but I wasn't a different person. I think most people here will have very similar experiences. The only times when I felt that a stimulant made me act "unnatural" and hyper-focussed on every thing I happened to be doing at the moment was when I was on actual speed. But that's a different animal altogether, and there's a reason why a big part of drug treatment involves finding the right dosage for the patient. I mean, I believe you when you say that the "what if" questions can go both ways, but you seem to imply that in general, people wouldn't be happier or more functional if they had taken stimulants earlier, and that's just a big oversimplification. My mother was pretty sceptical when I first mentioned ADHD and had bought into the media hype about a made-up illness to a degree, but by now she's the one who says that I should have been diagnosed much earlier and that even with the subtle effects I describe above, I would have had a much easier time at school. On another note: That Barkley text was extremely interesting, but what stuck with me the most are his arguments for considering inattentive-type ADHD as a different thing altogether. Since that's what I'm diagnosed with: Are there any texts, talks or reviews that specifically deal with this variety in depth? It was a bit frustrating reading his thoughts about it and then seeing how he mostly goes on about the combined-/hyperactive-type for the rest of the speech.
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Apr 11, 2010 10:03
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Hobo Tickler posted:Well just hold up and consider whether you really need drugs. Have a meal, sit down, away from your dungeons and dragons or whatever, and try concentrating and working on boring stuff that needs to be done. It's hard, but you can manage without. I fairly regularly experience the 'hyperfocus' where I will spend hours engrossed in something, pretty much completely unaware of my surroundings. I actually get this less frequently now that I'm medicated. I first began to suspect something was actually wrong with me, and sought out treatment, after a number of days at work with a particularly boring task. In an 8 hour day, I would usually manage to spend around half an hour doing actual work - and at the end of the day, I'd have to go home and take a nap because I was completely exhausted by the effort of concentrating for so long.
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Apr 18, 2010 06:50
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So, my programming night classes are starting up again on Tuesday, and I'm figuring out what to do about my Adderall dosage. I'd be taking the classes after work, which also complicates things. Here's my previous schedule: Get up around 8. Take my morning asthma and antispastic meds (Advair, Baclofen). Leave for work around 8:30. Get to work at 10 am. Around 9:30, on the bus, take my 5mg of Adderall XR so that'll kick in by the time I get to work. Have drug peter out after 7-8 hours or so - which is perfect, because by that time I'm heading home and I don't need to think. Now, I tried that before when taking a night class, and by the time the class started, the drug had completely worn off. However, taking it later in the day wouldn't work sometimes, because I'd completely forget. At this point the school is more important than the work; I really want to learn programming and I get laid off in two months anyway. However, work is chaotic, and I find that the Adderall helps a lot with that, esp. with the audio processing. So what should I do? I'm going to see if I can get into the habit of taking it around 1-2 pm, but that then shoots my entire morning out of the water. I'll be doing this work + night school thing for two months, BTW. The night classes are only two nights a week, but it is intense material.
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Apr 18, 2010 21:16
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I've been reading about ADHD recently, and the similarities I've been reading between the symptoms and myself has motivated me to seek professional consultation. There's the constant roar of four separate trains of thought constantly running in my head, the inability to ever fully hear what someone's saying, my life-long lack of organization and the despair it's caused me when it's graded, how I'm always picking at some hangnail or biting skin off my lip because the protrusions are just so distracting, and then there's the fact that I've never truly been able to stay on top of homework. I'm sixteen, so I've asked my mother to get me in contact with someone - I'll be meeting with my GP on Thursday. So I've been looking through my old report cards, to see if there's anything that I can bring in, and one thing jumps out at me: did anyone with ADHD have trouble with their fine motor skills when they were in the younger grades? My penmanship was simply awful, and it took me far too long to learn how to tie my shoes, use a zipper, and ride a bike. Other than that, my early report cards don't tend to scream "ADD."
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Apr 19, 2010 02:32
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Bleusman posted:I've been reading about ADHD recently, and the similarities I've been reading between the symptoms and myself has motivated me to seek professional consultation. There's the constant roar of four separate trains of thought constantly running in my head, the inability to ever fully hear what someone's saying, my life-long lack of organization and the despair it's caused me when it's graded, how I'm always picking at some hangnail or biting skin off my lip because the protrusions are just so distracting, and then there's the fact that I've never truly been able to stay on top of homework. I'm sixteen, so I've asked my mother to get me in contact with someone - I'll be meeting with my GP on Thursday. Let me put it this way... I'm close to 25 and never learned to tie my shoe officially. It took me at 22 to drive cause I hated changing lanes. (Lost attention everytime)
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Apr 19, 2010 02:46
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Re: fine motor control - oh Gods yes. Example - when I was in the 1st Grade, we had to print out our names 10 times before we could go to recess. Both first and last name. Now, both of these names together only total 9 letters; I had one of the shortest names in the class. In the entire 50 minute period of class, I only got about 6.3 names down before I had a massive meltdown because I just couldn't hold the pencil anymore. It physically hurt me to try to write in all the little muscles, and my hand just wasn't having it anymore. I was also legendarily horrid in any and all things PE - with the noted exception of basketball, for some bizarre reason. I adored it, and could play it well. Being a tiny little twirp of a girl, I could steal away the ball like nobody's business. (Of course, I can't track these down solely to ADHD issues; I also have a couple of Movement Disorders that could also be responsible for my wacky hijinks in all areas muscular. And even though they weren't diagnosed until I was an adult, they're known to start in childhood.) Qu Appelle fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Apr 19, 2010 |
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Apr 19, 2010 03:26
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My god. It's like... a thread. Filled with my posts. Anyway, I have ADHD, have been diagnosed since I was 14, and was lucky enough to have an amazing psychiatrist. He didn't know that I had ADHD for about a year, because he'd always assumed that I was doing well. I definitely take on the attitude of the other person and he's always thought I was bright and with it, just depressed. When I showed him my grades, he scheduled an appointment for me with a guy who specialized in diagnosing AD/HD. I took a 400 questionnaire, got the Rorschach blot tests done as well as some other comprehension test and the report that he wrote as my diagnosis was eerily correct. Especially for my mom, who read it and immediately thought that it could be her to a tee, and my brother who couldn't keep a job to save his life. I got onto Adderall, and so did my brother and my mom. We're all much calmer and my brother is still working at the same job, except that's he's moved up a lot in the corporate ladder. Any one else have a family like that? My Grandpa on my mom's side has it, as does my mom and one of her 2 siblings, my brother and I both have it and I'm positive that my half cousin has it. The rest of that side of family is on antidepressants. Needless to say, we're Scandinavian American, so that explains the depression. I also have Tourtte's that's most likely because of my ADHD. Basically, every little annoyance that I feel, whether it's my eyes being dry or my throat feeling scratchy or my shoulders being sore, makes me tic. I've gotten to a point where I can postpone the urge till I'm alone or in my car or in my cubicle at work, then it's on and I'm ticcing 24/7. Helpfully, I also have mild tics that I can generally hide into conversation. I make a 'huh' sound that's my vocal tic, and I can say it in a conversation, be able to tic and make it sound like I'm just listening. Adderall also helped to calm me down a tone, as does glorious weed. Apparently, this is a pretty common thing with people with ADHD. My mind is hyper so I overthink usual aches, pains, itches etc. and I lack impulse control so I react in weird irrational ways. Any other ticcers out there?
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Apr 19, 2010 22:51
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Effexxor posted:Any one else have a family like that? My Grandpa on my mom's side has it, as does my mom and one of her 2 siblings, my brother and I both have it and I'm positive that my half cousin has it. The rest of that side of family is on antidepressants. Needless to say, we're Scandinavian American, so that explains the depression. I'm the only one in my family with a diagnosis (although I'm currently trying to pressure my brother into at least seeing his college's therapist, because I don't want him to fall into crippling depression like I did), but ADHD is extremely hereditary, and I think both my brothers have a lot of similar symptoms, and my mother told me that she had similar experiences in the past. My father doesn't talk about things like that a lot, but I'd guess that it comes mostly from my mother's side in my case, her side of the family seems to have more excentrics. If anything, I got the introvertiveness from my father's side. quote:Apparently, this is a pretty common thing with people with ADHD. My mind is hyper so I overthink usual aches, pains, itches etc. and I lack impulse control so I react in weird irrational ways. Any other ticcers out there? Little things, yeah. Stuff like small chips on my teeth and other small anomalies on my body can drive me crazy, I can't deal with itches too well, things like that. It's not a major problem or anything I've thought about too much, though.
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Apr 19, 2010 23:15
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Rushputin posted:I'm the only one in my family with a diagnosis (although I'm currently trying to pressure my brother into at least seeing his college's therapist, because I don't want him to fall into crippling depression like I did), but ADHD is extremely hereditary, and I think both my brothers have a lot of similar symptoms, and my mother told me that she had similar experiences in the past. My father doesn't talk about things like that a lot, but I'd guess that it comes mostly from my mother's side in my case, her side of the family seems to have more excentrics. If anything, I got the introvertiveness from my father's side. Nearly everyone on my dad's side of the family has ADHD; it's so prevalent and known in the family that it's known as 'Being a (insert my last name here)'. However, AFAIK, only my cousin and I are diagnosed and being successfully treated for it. And hey, fellow Scando-American. Norwegian-American here. We have depression issues, but I don't think our family can trace it back to that. However, our undying love for any and all things coffee? Yes. Oh God yes.
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Apr 19, 2010 23:22
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OK, folks. I don't have health insurance. So if I wanted to get evaluated by a professional to see whether I have ADHD and/or Asperger's, (1) who should I go see, and (2) how much money do you think should I expect to part with? EDIT TO ADD: Also, if I did get my own health insurance, would it help me any in terms of finding a good psychiatrist, or would you still recommend I be prepared to pay out of pocket? drumwolf fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Apr 20, 2010 |
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Apr 20, 2010 02:55
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Rushputin posted:Little things, yeah. Stuff like small chips on my teeth and other small anomalies on my body can drive me crazy, I can't deal with itches too well, things like that. It's not a major problem or anything I've thought about too much, though. Oh my god, I'm ADHD and have been treated for it my whole life, but I never put this together until right now! I have a few chips in my teeth (totally un-noticeable to anyone other than me) and I seriously CANT stop running my tongue along them! It's to the point where yeah, it's totally just an unconscious tic, and I can't believe I never put 2 and 2 together.
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Apr 20, 2010 03:41
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drumwolf posted:OK, folks. I don't have health insurance. So if I wanted to get evaluated by a professional to see whether I have ADHD and/or Asperger's, (1) who should I go see, and (2) how much money do you think should I expect to part with? You'll want to look in your area for a mental health clinic, and see a therapist who has some specialty/experience in those areas. A therapist would be preferable over a psychiatrist, at least initially, because while they usually have less education and can't prescribe medication, you can get an hour with them for less money than 20 minutes with a psychiatrist. Prices are area dependent; around here you could get into a therapist for as little as $100 a visit, and $175 for the psychiatrist. You could reasonable expect non-lovely health insurance to cover the necessary visits, possibly without even a co-pay. The availability and price of such insurance varies wildly by area. Edit: from your post history, it looks like you're in San Francisco. I don't know how much Kaiser coverage costs around there, but if you can afford it they should cover what you'd need. Zhentar fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Apr 20, 2010 |
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Apr 20, 2010 05:51
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Zhentar posted:You'll want to look in your area for a mental health clinic I assume you mean a private one? Like I said earlier in this thread, San Francisco residents have free access to a city-run public mental health clinic, but that clinic seems to be there more to make the city look good than to provide genuine treatment. The "treatment" they provided me was a cynical sham. The best way to describe it would be to use this analogy: imagine if you showed physical symptoms that could be consistent with diabetes, intestinal problems or possibly even pancreatic cancer, and you go to seek treatment only to find that the only thing they will do for you is to give you aspirin and they keep trying to convince you that no, all you have is a cold and this aspirin will make you feel better.
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Apr 20, 2010 11:43
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Qu Appelle posted:oh Gods
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Apr 20, 2010 11:51
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Paramemetic posted:Punishment and reward for kids with ADHD. Somebody mentioned somebody describing ADHD as the "hunter-gatherer instincts" or something to that affect. I feel this is true, since I'm one of the ADHD folks who's capable of hyper-fixation on something I'm interested in, which is most often something engaging with an appealing goal in mind. It's much easier for me to spend hours on some pet project (like making up screenshots for the LP thread or modifying my window screen so it doesn't fall out the window again, or washing dishes, or extracting colonies from wood, or trying to get that perfect shot of some drone patrolling, searching for logs with P. chinensis inside, or writing this post. This is not the case for listening to a professor talking about something I don't particularly care about, or read a boring article, or figure out some math thing I don't really understand, in which case I'm driven to think about/do something else. If I'm unmedicated, I literally cannot focus on something I don't really want to do and don't enjoy. I can be actively trying to maintain focus, but this will cause my thoughts to trail off, and I won't even notice it's happening. Effexxor posted:Apparently, this is a pretty common thing with people with ADHD. My mind is hyper so I overthink usual aches, pains, itches etc. and I lack impulse control so I react in weird irrational ways. Any other ticcers out there?  Also, I've always had auditory processing difficulties. I'll often not understand words I hear, or will have a hard time parsing out actual coherent words and ideas from what I hear (I almost NEVER can understand lyrics), but only recently was I told that this could actually be related to the ADHD.
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Apr 20, 2010 17:22
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drumwolf posted:I assume you mean a private one? Like I said earlier in this thread, San Francisco residents have free access to a city-run public mental health clinic, but that clinic seems to be there more to make the city look good than to provide genuine treatment. The "treatment" they provided me was a cynical sham. I did indeed mean a private one. Public ones are rather rare, and generally focus on treating people who are very crazy.
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Apr 21, 2010 01:07
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Yeah, I made an 'Ask me about Tourette's' thread 2 years ago and it was hilarious, because every other person with Tourette's had ADHD too. The auditory sense is making a lot of sense to me too. I'm one of those people who always going 'What?' when someone's talking because I really have no idea what they're saying.
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Apr 21, 2010 04:32
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Socket Ryanist posted:Please, do tell us which polytheistic religion you practice. I can't wait to hear! Father, Son, and Holy Ghost  So, I have another question about Adderall XL - what's it's half life? Because I've been trying to remember to diligently take it every day, instead of half-assing it and only taking it when I 'feel' I need it - and it's been making a difference. Not only am I working more productively, but I'm finding that I'm definitely more patient in my day-to-day interactions with people, particularly my coworkers. Which, yay, because I've been feeling that the ADHD has been making me an ogre at work, and I don't like being an ogre. I felt so bad about it that I went to talk to my boss about coping skills for it. So I'm wondering if the drug just completely peters out after a day, or if some lingers into the next day. I do know that when I skip a dose, either by accident or on purpose, I don't feel the full effects of being unmedicated until the second day or so. Also, does anyone have experience with Adderall (or other drugs of this type) and COBRA? I'm losing my job at the end of June (I knew about this for a while now, so it's not a surprise), and I'll be taking out COBRA. However, there's always a lag between when you get the paperwork, send in the payment, and having the benefits kick in again. And I don't want to have to pay for the meds out of pocket and then get a reimbursement - that's a pain. I have it timed so that I'll get a month's worth of meds on my last week of employment, but that's only 30 days worth of meds.
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Apr 23, 2010 23:27
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Qu Appelle posted:Father, Son, and Holy Ghost The halflife of amphetamines is highly dependent on metabolism, to the point where it borders on useless, but it's average is 10 hours for dextro and 13 hours for levo. However, the release mechanism for Adderall XR fucks it all up anyhow - XR has two different types of little spheres in it that metabolize different places in the digestive system. The end result is that the first dose happens instantly and peaks 2 hours after taking it, and the second dose happens about 4 hours later and peaks 6 hours after taking it. It's effectively the same thing as taking two pills four hours apart. Because of this the halflife is weird. quote:Also, does anyone have experience with Adderall (or other drugs of this type) and COBRA? COBRA is just a policy for extension of your current health plan, it is not a health plan of its own. You will have the same experience with Adderall and your insurance under COBRA as you have now. Good luck finding a new job.
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Apr 23, 2010 23:36
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Paramemetic posted:COBRA is just a policy for extension of your current health plan, it is not a health plan of its own. You will have the same experience with Adderall and your insurance under COBRA as you have now. Good luck finding a new job. Thanks. I've had COBRA before, so I know what it is. Just how to work with the timing. Because there is a lag between when you get your paperwork and when the policy retroactively kicks in - during that period? You're considered as 'uninsured'; I've had to see doctors and fill prescriptions during this period, and it's no fun. I may just talk to the pharmacist; they may have ideas as to how to deal with this. I'm sure they run into this situation a fair bit.
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Apr 24, 2010 00:01
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I found this thread after I spent an hour looking for a new web comic, which led me to encyclopedia dramatica for two hours, where I saw a reference to SA halfway through an entry and decided to come here. All while I have a half-finished paper open on the other monitor. I was diagnosed with impulsive ADD when I was about 9 and was originally prescribed Adderall. Unfortunately, that didn't really do much for me, so they switched me to Concerta, which was good change. Then my family moved to a different state and my parents didn't want to deal with having to find another doctor, so they just stopped medicating my brother (who was diagnosed with ADHD) and me. For a few years, I was kind of okay without medication because I was homeschooled. But then I got back into public school for high school and everything got really bad. Bad grades because I just didn't do the homework, depression, blah blah blah. I got things under control and graduated and am off at college. Now I'm really considering trying to get re-diagnosed and re-medicated because everything's gone south. When I'm planning a schedule to do homework, I literally have to double the amount of time it would take most people because I can't focus for more than a few minutes at a time. Big projects scare me. If I'm facing a huge project, I literally just shut down because it's too overwhelming to try to start thinking about where to begin to approach it. I have to spend an hour budgeting my time and breaking down each individual step so that I can start doing things. I start trying to type a sentence and midway through I'm suddenly thinking about some random sentence in a book that had that word in it and wow, that was a good book, I really ought to go read that again and didn't that author write a sequel, I'll go look it up oh look the internet. Needless to say, it's annoying when I need to get something done. I was also reading through some of the earlier posts and read about people talking about tics and the like. I was in band and played the trumpet in high school and picked up this habit of absentmindedly fingering random trumpet notes. All. The. Time. I do it when I'm listening to music, when I'm reading a book, when I'm walking to class, when I'm talking to a professor, pretty much whenever I'm not actively using my hand. Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I don't really know how to go about getting diagnosed again. Is there likely a place on campus like the student health center that I can go to?
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Apr 25, 2010 03:03
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I'm assuming you're in the US. It might be worth it to try to talk to your Student Health Center, especially if you have a previous diagnosis of ADHD to see what they can do for you. Also, if your on you're parents insurance still, or have health insurance, it might be worth it to see a GP if you don't have a student health center. Good luck!
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Apr 26, 2010 04:26
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Could someone elaborate on the effects video games have on someone with ADD? I'm new to the thread and saw it briefly mentioned on the first page, and now I'm really curious. Before I was diagnosed, I simply could not stop playing them, and I would get really angry at myself for putting off homework again. Then I would just say gently caress it, I don't have enough time to do it anymore anyway, and I would go back to playing video games.
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Apr 26, 2010 16:45
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Oh god, video games. My brother and I both had our teen years pretty much ruled by Blizzard and their games, Starcraft for him and World of Warcraft for me. I can remember him playing Starcraft till 4 in the morning and my parents being furious. But yeah, video games are definitely something very easy for people with ADHD to obsess over. It's interesting, you're successful in SOMETHING, even if it is a video game, and it's super easy to get absorbed completely in. Most importantly, they're a great way to escape an ADHD ridden life. You spend all day getting distracted, anxious and your mind just races non stop the whole time... till you play the game. Then you're just focused on one thing and your world quiets. But then, you're going to have to log out and deal with the real world again. zoso820 posted:Before I was diagnosed, I simply could not stop playing them, and I would get really angry at myself for putting off homework again. Then I would just say gently caress it, I don't have enough time to do it anymore anyway, and I would go back to playing video games. But it's not just the video games. It seems like you're having some major frustration at your inability to focus, and you're turning it on yourself, which is something I struggle with constantly. And when you turn it onto yourself, you get apathetic and suddenly don't care because you don't want to deal with it. And then nothing gets done, and you feel worse for not just getting it done and beat yourself up for it. You've been diagnosed, awesome. Are you currently seeing a psychologist? Cognitive Behavioral training has helped me out a ton with that way of thinking. With a good psychologist who understands ADHD and a good psychiatrist who gets you and what you need medically, life becomes a lot easier. Never goes away, but it gets easier to deal with, and there's a lot less guilt and anger. For example, I'll tell you what helps me when I'm getting to that stage. When I start to get angry at myself, I literally say to myself 'This is my ADHD. It's making me distracted. I need to get a drink, take a walk, something to give me a change of pace, and then I'm gonna come back here and finish this.' Then I take my dog for a walk, get a drink, whatever and come back to it. And again, every 20-25 minutes, give yourself a 5 minute break to chill. Maybe keep your game on pause and play it for 5 minutes or something. But anyway, getting back to the point, my therapist helped to teach me to think like that and to stop and say that to myself, and it's been really helpful.
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Apr 26, 2010 23:36
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I'm not seeing anyone currently, but I've been on Adderall for a while and it's really been helping me. You're right about the anger-at-myself thing. I've usually had a healthy self-esteem throughout my life, so it never got to a point where that suffered. It just always confused me once I collected myself, because I'm rarely an emotional person. Now it only pops up when I'm not on meds, and even then I'm smart enough to know it's probably the ADD, and I'm usually good. Every adult figure told me when I was growing up that I wasn't a dumb kid and they couldn't understand why my grades were so terrible, but only after I hit college, a friend I met with ADHD finally said I should get checked. Looking over the symptoms now, it's extremely obvious, and I only wish someone had caught it sooner. I've seen talk in this thread about people regretting what they might have become if they'd gotten help at an earlier age, and I do feel that a bit, but mostly I just tell myself that there's nothing I can do but pull myself up and focus on the future.
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Apr 27, 2010 01:27
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zoso820 posted:Could someone elaborate on the effects video games have on someone with ADD? I'm new to the thread and saw it briefly mentioned on the first page, and now I'm really curious. Before I was diagnosed, I simply could not stop playing them, and I would get really angry at myself for putting off homework again. Then I would just say gently caress it, I don't have enough time to do it anymore anyway, and I would go back to playing video games.
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Apr 27, 2010 02:17
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Hey look! The NYTimes just did an article on Auditory Processing Disorder! And it even has its own celebrity spokesperson, Rosie O'Donnell    Link here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/little-known-disorder-can-take-a-toll-on-learning/?hpw New York Times posted:Parents and teachers often tell children to pay attention — to be a “good listener.” But what if your child’s brain doesn’t know how to listen? If it prompts you to log in in order to read the article, just make one. It's worth it.
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Apr 27, 2010 07:13
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zoso820 posted:I'm not seeing anyone currently, but I've been on Adderall for a while and it's really been helping me. You're right about the anger-at-myself thing. I've usually had a healthy self-esteem throughout my life, so it never got to a point where that suffered. It just always confused me once I collected myself, because I'm rarely an emotional person. Now it only pops up when I'm not on meds, and even then I'm smart enough to know it's probably the ADD, and I'm usually good. Hell, I wish I'd been on meds earlier than 9th grade. There've been studies on what people with ADHD's brains look like when they were on meds and with therapy in their childhood, vs. those who are untreated. People who'd been on medication (who'd actually had ADHD, of course) had more gray matter than the people who went untreated. Gray matter is the stuff that you get long term memory from in your brain, and it's pretty signifigant. Also, people who are treated as children also have a much lower rate of substance abuse. I hate the people who are so hardcore against medication. I fundraise for an organics group and you would not believe the amount of people that I talk to that actually believe that you can 'cure' ADHD and autism by cutting out gluten, not feeding preservatives, etc. It's painful at times. I have a friend who got his hand on some adderall who obviously had ADHD and his entire demeanor changed. He was able to focus, was a lot calmer, etc. But when he tried to get his mom to let him get diagnosed and start taking meds? She told him that Jesus would fix him.
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Apr 27, 2010 18:44
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Week 3+ on Wellbutrin now. I've had a pretty nasty, long-lasting temper my entire life. My anger would get the better of me and I would fly off the handle in rage. Lately, while the anger hasn't stopped coming around, I can get back in control of my emotions more quickly. But more importantly, I'm a lot more inclined to say "gently caress it" to certain things beyond my control. It's really nice. In addition, it's easier for me to make the decision not to procrastinate. One of the realizations I've had is that Wellbutrin (and other such non-methy treatments) doesn't make you do anything. It doesn't magically make you not procrastinate or turn you into a person who would never do it. But, for me at least, it has made it easier for me to seize and act on inflection points. I can sit here and waste my day away like I'm inclined to do or, gently caress it, I'll do x,y,z. I can let my temper just take control of my brain and ruin my day, but gently caress this, it's not worth it, take a deep breath, calm down, relax. These kinds of decisions didn't used to be decisions. It was just automatic I'd procrastinate the day away (at work or home) or I'd fly off the handle. But now I see where those moments are where I have control and can keep some perspective. It's not a magical tingly feeling, no physical side effects like jitters and stuff you get from Adderall, but it is a very nice rewarding sensation to be in control of my brain again.
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Apr 29, 2010 07:33
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After having multiple appointments with GP's that told me ADHD/ADD doesn't exist in adults I finally convinced a doctor to refer me to a specialist clinic. The thing that is bothering me is that I practically had to diagnose myself COMPLETELY. When I originally went to the doctors, I purposely didn't spend hours researching ADHD so as to not colour the diagnosis by "tailoring" the symptoms to my own issues (if you know what I mean), I was hoping for some Q&A with the doctors, a preliminary diagnosis, and a referral to a specialist, what actually happened is I got stonewalled by a couple of doctors who didn't believe in ADHD in adults, and it wasn't until I showed them the loving NHS guidelines on Adult ADHD that they agreed to a referral. I am in my late 20's now, and I am really bitter at myself and my Teachers for not picking up on this poo poo. My School Reports always said "Intelligent but lazy", "Must Try Harder", "Daydreamer", when I was 10 my school even tried to put me in the Remedial Class because I could never finish my work (if it was boring - I was always good at science though), you'd of thought that someone at school or in my family would of realised what was going on In my late Teens A few of my friends thought I had Assburgers, but I looked into that, and the symptoms just didn't fit, and at that time ADHD == Manic Kids to me. In my adult life in every Job I have ever had, I have felt Like I am working my loving rear end off, yet I was constantly told I was "the slowest", I remember I got sacked once when I was 17, and my manager told me I was a nice guy but that I would constantly stare into space and stop completely what I was doing, I don't even loving remember ever daydreaming in that job  I hope that when I see the specialist, I get diagnosed by him/her, rather than me having to diagnose myself (it would feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy if I have to), even if that means no diagnosis, or a negative. Anyway, random question. How many Interests do you have? Because I want to be/do everything, and it loving kills me because I don't have enough time/focus, to do even one of things I would like to do. but anyway off the top of my head: Languages Programming Languages (I learned C, C++ and Lua YAY!) Music (my loving 80's keyboard has a key broken )Music Technology CAD Graphics Design Web Design Business Studies Accounting Computer Repair Network Maintenance 3d modelling Drama Stage Lighting ...and a poo poo load more All of these I want to be a an expert in, but never will (plus it drives my girlfriend mad hurr)anyone else have this problem? I think I will focus on programming and maths
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May 2, 2010 10:36
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I too have way more interests than I will ever become an expert in. It's the journey that counts; even if you'll never be an expert in any of those things, it's better to try and do as much as you can then agonize over what you'll never complete. I'm ADHD-Inattentive and have been diagnosed since 2nd grade. My parents tried every drug on the market, but no drug can fix a terrible school system and overworked teachers. Well, after spending several years being an average undergraduate, I decided that I could do more. I just got on Vyvanse this semester and it's been amazing. I'm actually getting above a 3.0!! So happy to finally find drugs that work for me. It's so weird to me to finally realize how different my thought process is from other students. Other kids don't get exhausted from paying attention during lecture? Some people could sit down and work on something boring for more than three hours? Other students don't have to sit down and make deliberate plans on how to keep their house clean, or else it doesn't get done? Some people who don't get their work done actually never intended to get it done? So weird!
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May 4, 2010 21:27
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Hey guys, are we still completely barred from joining the armed forces? Being ADD sure crushed a lot of dreams I had when I was younger.
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May 5, 2010 07:02
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| # ? May 10, 2024 00:29 |
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Philosopher King posted:Hey guys, are we still completely barred from joining the armed forces? Being ADD sure crushed a lot of dreams I had when I was younger. I don't think we are barred for solely having ADHD. However, we are barred if we are on medication commonly used to treat ADHD, such as Ritalin. Or, if you show symptoms of uncontrolled ADHD. More info here: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/a/asthma.htm
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May 5, 2010 07:05
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