A New Try

I have four alarm clocks in my room not counting my cell phone. I have a clip with an outdated to-do list. I have a coffee maker. I have three lamps. I have a desk and two other places to sit that are not my bed. I am taking ADD meds (yes, I decided to take this piece of information public, more on that to come). I still do not feel like I am Getting Things Done.

So starting today, I am going to try a new strategy. Forget about the technology. I am going old school.

Today I am buying binders and a white board or two. I am making lists that are easily changeable, and I think the one technology thing I am going to do is set an alarm (maybe on my computer) to go off at bed time. I am going to try to forget about the panic that these goals make me feel and focus on this problem like a scientific experiment. I am going to try to post on this here, costs and all.

It IS Personal

I long avoided writing anything personal here, the thought being that this was going to offer the facts, and other places could offer feelings.

The problem is, it doesn't work like that. At the end of the day ADHD is a whole lot more than some misfiring synapses in the brain and questions about which medicines work and how.

It is almost entirely about how it effects ones life; if it had no effect, if it were only about the synapses, than it wouldn't matter at all if anyone had ADD. It would be a quirk like red hair or left-handedness.

But it's not. I recently read an interesting kids' book The Lightning Thief. Broadly, it and the other books in the series answer the question "what if there were children of the Greek gods among us mere mortals today." The answer, in it's unfairly abbreviated form, is those children would all be dyslexic (hard wired to read Greek not English) and have ADHD (hard wired for battle not modern-attention spans).

The thing I liked about it, is it didn't glorify ADHD. When the kids are in the special camp for "half bloods" (half god, half mortal) they are in their element, but they are nowhere close to godliness in the world everyone else exists in. They have real problems in school and in making and keeping friends. They suffer realistically with severe cases of dyslexia and ADHD.

It is a great read for middle school students because it is an intersection between literature and mythology, and--perhaps more importantly-- it creates a platform for thinking about what kids who are different have to offer (that probably takes a teacher's prompting, since kids are generally not threatened by titans in their day to day lives).

But for me, it also gave another message, one that I've been avoiding: this is something I have. It's the way I am. For better or for worse. Period.

So when my mom asked why a three page essay was taking me so long to write, I said "that's the way I'm wired" and moved on to talking about the importance of research and the idea that "the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."

But being able to say "that's the way I'm wired" is the result of months and thousands of dollars in therapy. Which is to say that therapy is expensive and, I think for people diagnosed with AD(H)D in their adulthood, often necessary.

I still get massively frustrated with how long it takes me to get things done and the anxiety that the lost time and the frustration produces. But even as I am annoyed at myself, being able to say "that's the way I'm wired" without it feeling like a lame excuse, rather an explanation of how I will inevitably approach the world and the tools I will need to find and develop, is something that is important enough for me to share with others.

Important for me to post on this blog. So maybe others in similar positions will mull it over themselves.

Adult Manifested ADD

Once I committed to coming back to this, it was hard to actually do so. First, I started this blog while on Spring break in college. And, second even after that, I had more time -- and more personal need -- to write this blog.

But, recently, now that I'm no longer in college and am now in the real world -- whatever that means--I've been thinking a lot about ADD again. Particularly about the warped, incorrect term "adult onset ADD."

The DSM standards mandate that symptoms manifest themselves before the age of seven. That much is clear. But then, there is the fact that this is a blog about adult ADD. As I understand it, there are two types of adult ADD. There are the people who had child ADD which turned into adolescent ADD, which turned into teen ADD, which turned into adult ADD.

And then, there are the people, who were diagnosed with ADD as adults.

In my case, it was the latter, though it came as a surprise to no one, including -- well, hypothetically--my first grade teacher who administered the hearing and listening test I failed.

But I would suggest the term "adult manifested ADD." A psychiatrist I recently spoke to said that for many people, ADD surfaces at different times in different people's lives: for some it's high school, for some it's college, for some it's medical school, and for some it's a first job, or a marriage, or what have you.

Different changes trigger different types of symptoms, different manifestations, and that's when the diagnoses come in, offering help in the wake of changes in a person's life that can be big enough, or different enough to allow the ADD to manifest itself.

I'm Coming Back

After more than a year's hiatus, I am back. This year has been difficult and remarkable, and I want to share parts of that, because I wish I had had someone else whose experiences reflected mine. The two postcards here are from Post Secret. I don't know who wrote them, but they will be my jumping off point, my raison d'etre for coming back to this blog.

Every once and a while, I see a secret on the Web site that reminds me of myself, but these two so closely encapsulated my most recent decision to return to grappling with ADD, that I gasped. I am sharing them here and will refer back to them in the near future.

I hope that I can develop this Web site into a real resource for others. Again, please e-mail me at addblog@gmail.com or leave a comment if there is anything you would like to see.

With a year break, I will have to do some promotion to get readers, but I am also going to change the focus of this blog a bit.

Lots more to come.

Stereotypes, Ignorance, and Britney Spears

I have not posted in ages, and I promise to write a substantive post soon. But for now, I just wanted to comment on something that I found ridiculous, offensive, and factually incorrect.

Last week's US Weekly, which granted is not the authoritative source on anything other than photographs of and gossip about celebrities, wrote (emphasis mine):

Days after a judge ruled that Britney Spears could only spend three days a week with her children, she reacted by leaving her two kids in a parked car with a court-appointed monitor (whose job description does not include babysitting) as she shopped for $18,200 worth of chandeliers at the Crystal Place design shop near L.A. November 4.

Why does Spears, 25 — even after having physical custody of her kids taken away — keep exhibiting such questionable parenting skills?

Sources say the troubled pop star does not seem to grasp the gravity of her custody case, and they blame her bizarre public behavior (swapping clothes with a stranger, among her recent moves) on psychological issues, not drugs.

“It’s not substance abuse — it’s mental!” a confidante tells Us."Pals suspect adult-onset ADD or depression, with one friend saying, “Postpartum has always been a problem” after giving birth to Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1."

This is problematic for a number of reasons.

First, it might be true that Spears is dealing with mental illness, but it is unlikely that all of her bad judgment, or even most of it can be attributed to mental illness. The article implies that people with mental illness, people with ADD or depression would be unable to take care of children, or that an imbalance of serotonin or norepinephirine would cause someone to think it was O.K. to trade Halloween costumes with the bartender. I am not a doctor -- and it should be noted that Spears' friends and US Weekly sources are not doctors either--but I am pretty sure that that's pretty unlikely.

Secondly, and this is what caught my eye in the first place, there isn't really such a thing as "adult-onset ADD".

According to the DSM It is essential that "some hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms that caused impairment were present before age 7 years. As Doctors Glenn Brynes Carol Watkins, of Northern County Psychiatric Associates in Baltimore wrote, "By definition, AD/HD is a condition that has its onset in childhood."

It's great that Spears' friends -- or so called friends since they are dishing to magazines instead of getting her help--are concerned, but US Weekly perpetuates all sorts of falsehoods and stereotypes by printing these guesses. All that would have been needed to fix it was one line from a doctor explaining what was and what was not possible. Maybe this week's cover story on Spears' childhood will reveal a long-time struggle with ADD. Maybe. I am not holding my breath.

I am all for celebrities with ADD or any other disorder talking about it to raise awareness and to educate people. But spreading ignorance and perpetuating stereotypes? It doesn't make dealing and living with ADD any easier for those who have it. Even US Weekly should do better than that. Or for a magazine as widely read as US, maybe I should say especially US Weekly.

Some Personal Thoughts

This blog was designed to provide information but I think it's also important to provide personal reactions so that when other people read it it might resonate with people who are dealing with ADD, testing, or diagnosis. So here are some personal thoughts. They are from a longer essay, edited for legnth and identifying features. That's why it sounds disjointed.

I am part of a growing number of students and adults who are diagnosed post-childhood because, growing up, they were the academic super-stars, popular, and more or less well behaved. Their symptoms were overlooked when they were children because they seemed to fare well without medication or therapy.

The first time I remember having a panic attack was in fourth grade. I didn’t call it that. I didn’t call it that until I was a junior in college. But when I was nine, I had the test the next day on the digestive system, and I didn’t feel prepared so I burst into tears, the big back-shaking kind, with liquid coming from everywhere, eyes, nose, mouth. I don’t remember what my mom said. I do remember that she came into my room later that night and took the diagrams of the stomach and intestines and the flashlight from under my blankets. I got an 103 on the test. No one worried, because when the tears dried I was an overachiever....

On the molecular level, Speed—the blanket name given to a group of drugs that produce the stimulant effect—and Adderall are the same drug. Both are Amphetamines—the title that is given collectively to an assortment of drugs with similar molecular structures including Meth, which can be made illegally in secret laboratories. Amphetamines, legal or illegal can be taken orally, or through injection, smoking, or snorting and create the same rush.

When I nervously asked a psychiatrist counseling center what the difference was between Speed and Adderall, he said, “nothing. Molecularly, they are the same. The difference is how you take them. Adderall is prescribed in small, controlled doses.” The illegal counterparts of the drug clearly are not.

It’s of little surprise then, that Adderall is easy to get on college campuses. Students, some joking some not, beg for it when they are faced with pulling an all-nighter. Other students use it as a party drug.

“I snort it sometimes when I'm going out for fun, because it hits you faster if you snort it,” an NYU student identified only as Mary told The Washington Square News.

When I told a friend via an instant message chat that I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a prescription for Adderall, he wrote “WHAT!?!??!...but like, it's speed.”

Which is exactly why I didn’t want to take it. Edward Hallowell, a physiatrist who has ADD himself, treats it and has written multiple books about the subject, listed “[t]endency towards addictive behavior,” as a symptom of adult ADD in his book Driven to Distraction. Later in the book, Hallowell, describing high stimulation ADD, a specific subset of Adult ADD, “he—and it is usually a he—may seek high stimulation through relatively safe avenues [such as] creating tight deadlines to work under.”

I don’t know if I have high-stimulation ADD. I don’t fit all of the descriptors and I am not a risk taker in the most widely accepted form it takes. I am afraid of roller coasters and skiing. But I am addicted to deadlines. Ask the person who sits next to me in the library. I hate the exhaustion that comes with writing on tight deadlines. But I love the rush that comes with them.

I have a tendency to addiction—my dependency of coffee indicates that much. So I am afraid of prescription medication.

"A Man Walks Down the Street, He Says, Why Am I Short Of Attention? Got A Short Little Span of Attention" - Music and ADD

A while back, the New York Times ran an article about the dangers of multi-tasking. I thought it was ridiculous at the time and I still think it is silly. It contains "news" such as "The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car."

I can't imagine that even people without ADD actually think their attention is equally shared among things like talking on the phone and paying attention to the road. It didn't strike me as something scientists needed to study.

But I have been thinking a lot about this line in the article: "Listening to soothing background music while studying may improve concentration. But other distractions — most songs with lyrics, instant messaging, television shows — hamper performance."

I listen to music with lyrics while studying and writing papers. I have been trying to writing papers in a quiet library recently, and it has been a disaster. One of the things about ADD is that people with ADD are more likely to seek out distractions or get distracted by things that are available and interesting but is not the task at hand (O.K. that's essentially a working definition of ADD). For me, that manifests itself as a lot of time on the Internet. (Case and point this blog). But when I am listening to music with lyrics,--I try to choose songs whose lyrics I already know so I won't spend time trying to figure out the lyrics--I am less likely to get distracted by all out time wasters like Internet or random walks. I type more quickly and am more focused. It's choosing the lesser evil and I think it works.

Lyrics in the Title from Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" click play below to hear the song (with a weird video).

Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al
Uploaded by manon42

Jealousy

The worst part about knowing this is fixable is knowing that there are people who can do their work without getting distracted.

ADD Books: Part I: Finding The Symptoms That Make You Say "Aha!"

I didn't forget about the promised science posts. It turns out they are a lot more complicated than I thought. I will get to them when I understand more about the science of the medicines. But for now, I want to write about some of the more anecdotal things. I have been doing a lot of reading both online and in books. One book that I plowed through today (skimming the parts that seemed less relevant to me, but reading most of the first 100 pages) is Driven to Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey, both doctors with ADD. (They chose to use ADD instead of ADHD because it is more inclusive since hyperactivity is not assumed). It is an easy read full of anecdotes but not skimpy on the real science. There is some of the laughing at ADD that I find annoying (like questions such as "did you have trouble reaching the end of this questionnaire), and some repetitive language that I suppose is helpful for people who read the book in more than two sittings, but mostly it is very well done.

I've found reading about ADD frustrating because often I don't fit the symptoms, and I find myself questioning the diagnosis and saying "this is not me". I have always done well in school. I am good at evaluating myself, and I am not really impulsive, for example. But Hallowell (the book is mostly in his voice) describes enough different cases that I have found symptoms close enough to mine, even though he suggests that someone with ADD would meet 15 of his 20 symptoms where I barely meet 12 of them.

There was one patient he wrote about, Sarah (pages 94-101) an adult with ADD, whose symptoms made me understand more about me and about some of the people in my life. I am just going to block quote here:

"Oh," she answered, "that is about a cough drop someone left on the dashboard of our car. The other day I saw the cough drop and thought, I'll have to throw that away. When I arrived at my first stop, I forgot to take the cough drop to a trash can. When I got back into the car, I saw it and thought, I'll throw it away at the gas station. The gas station came and went and I hadn't thrown the cough drop away. Well, the whole day went like that, the cough drop still sitting on the dashboard. When I got home, I thought, I'll take it inside with me and throw it out. In the time it tool for me to open the car door, I forgot about the cough drop. It was there to greet me when I got in the car the next morning. Jeff [her husband] was with me. I looked at the cough drop and bust into tears. Jeff asked me why I was crying , and I told him it was because of the cough drop. He thought I was losing my mind. 'But you don't understand,' I said, my whole life is like that. I see something that I mean to do, and then I don't do it. It's not only trivial things like the cough drop; it's big things too.' That's why I cried. "
It was such a classic ADD story that I've come to call it the cough-drop sign (Page 95).

This anecdote reminded me of myself in a lot of ways. Though I can't think of any specific incidents, it was familiar. But more importantly, it reminded me of someone I know, who is in her 50's (like Sarah in the story) and on occasion worries that she is developing Alzheimer's disease--like after she read a New York Times Magazine Lives column about Alzheimer's disease, or after she watched an episode of the West Wing where the White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg spends time with her father who has Alzheimer's. But the symptoms she most worried about were most similar to the cough-drop symptom. Maybe it's not as scary as Alzheimer's. I bet it's ADD.

Sarah provided Hallowell with a whole list of things she thought were relevant that bothered her. Some of them did not apply to me at all. Other ones made my mouth drop in recognition. Those are below. I list them here, in a blog that is supposed to be more informational than personal, because I would never have associated them with ADD, but Hallowell did--calling Sarah's list something that "could serve as a pamphlet on adult ADD" (page 98)--and so I think others would be equally surprised at the links between the symptoms and between the symptoms and ADD.

I am going to list all the ones in Sarah's list that apply to me. Some are more surprising than others. I don't want to give the impression that I am a totally atypical person with ADD I have put stars and notes next to the ones I found jaw-dropping.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: This list makes me seem like a total space cadet. Most, if not all of these things DO NOT CONTROL MY LIFE. I have figured out how to work around them or to use them to my advantage. I am very successful and trustworthy. Also, I am NOT BLAMING ADD. Some of these are things that I am going to work out, ADD or not. It's just cool to see that they might be connected to one another. (There's my fear about someone figuring out who is writing this and using it against me).

With that out of the way, the list:

• "Daydreamed a lot in class as a child."
• "Have lots of ideas but have a hard time structuring things so they actually happen."
• "Desk cluttered."
• "Forgetful."
• "Difficult to walk in a straight line--tend to veer into things or people." *** (My friends used to make fun of me for this. I have one--very close--friend who used to see if he could edge me to the curb to see if I would walk into a telephone pole. It almost always worked. I had NO IDEA this could be ADD related).
  
• "Unless I am involved, usually get very sleepy during lectures.
• "Handwriting: sometimes I wrote things I don't mean to; skip letters or form them wrong." *(I have used this to my advantage in creative writing to come up with unique turns of phrase).
• "Lose what's in my head very easily."
• "Organize my life around projects"
• "Problems with lateness. Even when there is plenty of time, I fill it up and then cut things too close or lose track of time. I don't have a sense of passing time." * (I sometimes have a very acute sense of passing time. But sometimes I have no sense at all. I thought that I just loved working on tight deadlines, but this gave me a different perspective).
  
• "There is something inside that needs to change."* (This was something I just noticed this year as I started talking about ADD).
  
• "Doors and drawers--never close them after myself, then come back and see them and close them."* (I always got yelled at for this. It's cool to see how much of this might be related.
  
• "Get overwhelmed by a large confused mess."
• General problems with distractibility and disorganization."
  

That's a ton of descriptors that I thought matched my life. It was the first time I have actually felt the relief that everyone keeps saying comes with a diagnosis. It was the first time that I actually seriously considered taking meds. I will post soon on meds and fears about them, but I want to do that when I am more informed.

I Have ADHD. Now What?

The three days after I got a diagnosis were some of the hardest days for me emotionally. I was a mess. At first I was relieved and then I just cried. I was angry, hurt, and confused. Nothing had changed about me. I had felt that the diagnosis was waste of time because it told me nothing new. I now had options, but other than that it was the same as before the test. I was therefore surprised that I was so upset.

I had been afraid of stigma, but all of my friends seemed to shrug off the idea of ADHD the way that I just did above: nothing was changing about me, so why did it matter? But it DID matter. For the first time in my life, I felt REALLY distracted. I couldn't study for my midterm. I couldn't participate in discussions. I couldn't listen to lectures. All I could do was doodle the letters ADD. And, when I was alone or with my counselor, I cried.

There are a lot of reasons that I do not like this Web site. For starters I don't think it's funny to keep saying "Look at me! I can't pay attention! I can't finish building a Web site! Because of my ADD you have to look at horrific backgrounds!" Also, I find the Web site a confusing mess and am uncomfortable with talk of an ADD community or "ADD circles". But, it has a lot of information a page that validated a lot of what I had felt. If you don't feel like clicking on it, I have quoted from it below:

"The days and weeks immediately following diagnosis are a real emotional roller-coaster for the ADDer. There is the very real feeling of relief which comes from just being able to put a name on the "disorder" that has been so much a part of your life. Many of the ADD books refer to this as the "Aha" moment, and this is a common term in ADD circles. There is a strong feeling of companionship which can only be truly appreciated by those of have felt like they never fit in to any group. All of this is very positive and very healthy.

However, as the full implications of the diagnosis begin to sink in, the ADDer (and/or his parents) may experience extreme emotional turmoil. For many, one of the first emotions to hit after the "Aha" wears off is one of real grief.

We all grew up with the image of the perfect baby in our minds. We all grew up thinking that WE were the embodiment of the Gerber Baby, right there off the label, in living blue and grey.

Now, imagine hitting The Wall and realizing that YOU are not the Gerber baby."
-http://www.bobseay.com/littlecorner/newurl/treat.html

That feeling is horrible and draining. But it's normal. And it wears off, especially if you have supportive friends and family. Seek out the people who understand that it's hard for you and will let you talk about it on your own terms.