Adults with ADD

[FarCry Player]

Hello.
This is my first post,I found the forum through a bulletin board.

I am sorry for not choosing a better username but it is all I could think of,it is a good PC game called FarCry which I currently play.



I have some ideas from my point of view to the question:
What is it like being an ADD/ADHD Adult?

I am female,20 years old and have ADHD,but don't have as much of the 'h' now,I also have Aspergers Syndrome,and a learning difficulty.

I don't think it has changed much for me at all as I do all/most of the same things from childhood,and the problems resulting from the attention defecit will still have me walking out into traffic,or following cats onto roads,and I have done other spontaneous things in later teenage years which has resulted in hospital visits.

I also am always leaving the (gas) cooker on,sometimes unlit when my mind has gone onto other thinking,or leaving windows open or doors,and forgetting appointments,but I am lucky that I am not in a job situation and that my relatives are there to help me.

I think the main differences between being a child with AD/HD and a child having grown into an adult with ADD is that it is more difficult being an adult because of
things like being able to manage bills,work,getting own house and so on.

I thank attention defecit and Aspergers for the way my mind thinks,I have never noticed people trying to influence my opinion before-"peer pressure" and have never got drunk,took drugs or wanted to.

I do not ask for sympathy from no one including my own family but just understanding which even they don't seem to do.

[MadDad]

Hi FarCry Player

Welcome to our Forum.

As I said in my 'Welcome' post we know very little about ADD in adults. What does seem to be clear is that there is little or no support for adults with ADD.
Are you on medication? If so, does it make any difference ? Are you able to get it on the NHS ?

It seems that things vary from area to area.

What is FarCry? I've not seen that

[Tufftat]

Hello everyone,
Im a 37 yr old male and have just been diagnosed with Add. Being an adult newly diagnosed i agree with you madDad there is little to no support concerning adult add, ive been feeling like im on an emotional rollercoaster when it comes to finding any concrete information concerning this subject.

My comments on What is it like being an ADD/ADHD Adult?
In my case nothing was known about this condition and to be truthful it wasn't until last year that id even heard of the term ADHD. looking back over my early years the warning signs were blatant, but as with a lot of children/teens my difficulties were just put down to my character,and upbringing. I can vividly recall spending most of my early years wishing i was grown up and that nobody told me it was so difficult and confusing being young.

on reflection my wife and i have come to realise certain moods and behaviour i have are actually natural defence mechanisms against life, some i encouraged, others i had no active part in, and although these made my life easier then, i can now see they may be obsticles i have to overcome now.

I am blessed with a loving and supportive wife who to all intense and purposes is my mirror image, i rely on her heavily on a day to day basis and we've both come to the conclusion that together we make more than the whole in that we both have in abundance what the other lacks, for example my wife has very good social skills where i have virtually none, I on the other hand can deal with any high stress situation or confrontation but in these situations my wife is lacking, I am the first to admit i have absolutely no idea when it comes to money and so my wife deals with all the money issues in the house. Neither of us aimed for this type of co-existance we just assumed this was what married life was about, and although this wouldn't suit everyone, it works very well for us( even if co-dependancy is usually refered to as a bad thing) - Bah Humbug, lol. Neither of us were looking for these qualities when we were first attracted to each other, but sub conciously? i dont know, maybe it was just another defence!

Pete

p.s - I married Miss Right, i just didnt know her first name was Always

[AranC]

I'm Aran, my husband was diagnosed as a child as hyperactive with some AD, sort of HDAD, trust him to be different. He was always treated as a problem child by his family instead of a child with problems, there IS a difference.
He was on Ritalin from a VERY young age, possibly younger than 4 years old.
He took himself off it at puberty cos it was turning him into a zombie as his body changed.
He has suffered from depression most of his life although he was only diagnosed cllinically depressed four yrs ago.
He was recently diagnosed with Bipolar 2 disorder. He is also now diagnosed as adult attention deficit with some hyperactivity.

I don't think any of them know what the hell they're doing. :-(

[Radon Rita]

Howdy

New to the board, but old Hat to forums - I'm in Chicago - I was diagnosed at 46, when I took my then 17 year old son to be diagnosed - that was 2 years ago - at his request - he knew something wasn't quite right

we went to the doctor and he was talking about his life and feelings and I was sitting in the chair crying - half because my child was suffering, half for me - very astutely the doctor turned and said "so Mom, you felt this way in high school too did you?" "well guess what, I'm sending both of you for further diagnosis and treatment" - so that was that - if a child has it, it's pretty much guaranteed that one or both parents has it

I never knew I had it, only that I didn't do things like other people

there are many kinds of ADD - neither my son or I are terribly hyper all the time which is how we went undiagnosed - I've spent a lifetime having people angry with me for not performing the way they expected, or for being different and not being able to change

that's not to say I've been unhappy or unsuccessful - I just had to figure it out - it's been hard, but in the words of Thomas Edison who had ADD "I haven't failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work"

I've just found this forum, and I'll back - but right now I've been having a very ADD couple of weeks and I'm burnt out - but I'm very glad to have found this and will pass the word along to people I know

[Radon Rita]

the other replies have been about relationships, so I'll give my whatever on it

I'm divorced, after an 18 year relationship with my ex - we lived together for 8 years before we got married and separated at 10 more years after that - my ex and I had many problems - I refuse to take "the blame" or the out of blaming it on ADD - we screwed up, both of us, for many various reasons - it's never just one thing

when I got diagnosed years after that, I went through hell - and a lot of anger - all the shoulda/woulda/couldas of my life and frustrations - and how did this play a role in my marriage and is it what caused our problems and blah blah blah and on and on - what I came to is that all this analyzing and agonizing wasn't going to change a thing that already happened - it is what it was - and that, is that

what I did come to was this - I had adopted a policy in life that yes, I'm different - love it or leave it, Baby - very hard line, and very self protective and very much designed to push people away before they could do it to me - now that I know what the deal is and why I do the things I do I have adopted a much more realistic attitude - this is the way I am, but I'm willing to meet you half way - if you're willing to do the same and work with me on this, I can certainly give it my best shot on coming up with strategies to make both of us as comfortable as possible with how we need to live

because - what I figured out was that whatever I did or didn't do that drove my ex nuts there is this; when someone you love is obviously having problems you say "what's going on with you, we need to figure this out and handle it somehow" - he never said that, never thought it - and never would have, ever, regardless - my ADD or not - he just told me vehemently and often to change, which obviously wasn't going to happen - maybe it would have helped if he'd done it, maybe it wouldn't have, but it's what people who care about each other and their relationship do - that part you can't deny

This post has been edited by Radon Rita on Oct 7 2006, 02:47 PM