Posts Tagged: adhd symptoms

ADHD Traits — No Comments
26
Apr 12

Overcorrecting ADD Behavior

My office is a nightmare. The shelves are crammed with what was originally placed on the shelf, plus all of the things that were stuffed on to of those things. There are file folders on top of books, there are books on top of files, the lesser used printer has stuff that can’t be chanced with getting lost on one of those full shelves. Behind me, the floor is piled high with papers, file boxes, laptop bags (I seem to collect them), and plenty more stuff. The irony is that while I have never been a neat person, my office never used to get this bad. It is truly terrible now, thanks to me being diagnosed with ADD, but not for the reason you think.

Correcting ADHD Behavior

Many have noted that being diagnosed with ADHD can actually be liberating at first. There is a great sense of relief at knowing the name for what has been going on for all these years. Frankly, Attention Deficit Disorder isn’t really all that scary sounding. To me, that sounds way better than something like depression or even Seasonal Affected Disorder, with its unfortunate acronym telling you exactly how to feel about that one.

However, after a while, ADD becomes like any other chronic condition. You start to try and fix it, or manage it in some ways. There are often two components of ADD treatment. One is often ADHD medication, the other is behavior modification or therapy, usually in conjunction with a health professional or ADD coach. Either way, the self-aware ADDer will eventually become aware of at least some of the things that his or her ADD seems to propagate within their personality.

For me, the biggest problem I have in the entire world is procrastination. I have no doubt that I could have had success a hundred-fold above and beyond everything I have ever achieved in any arena in life if I could just stop procrastinating and get things done at even a semi-reasonable pace. Many ADDers report being unable to adequately focus and get going until a deadline looms. For me, the deadline must often pass, and the consequence be severe before I can get going. It is the one thing that I would gladly change about myself.

Knowing this, shortly after being told I have ADD I noticed myself organizing my office ahead of a huge, important project, with a very looming deadline. Like many ADDers, I had a reasonable excuse for this ADD trait kicking in. After all, I would be much more productive if everything were organized neatly and I could find what I was looking for right away.

The catch, of course, is that a full office organization of this kind can take hours, precious hours that should be spent on the task at hand. Organizing would have been helpful last week. Doing some of the 20 hours of work that are left before the deadline 12 hours away, would be much, much, more helpful. And so, I stopped.

Unfortunately, that was years ago and I haven’t really organized since. Every time I even think about organizing a list of important things to do floods my mind and I feel guilty for moving around even one scrap of paper, believing that what I am doing is procrastinating. Frankly, that is what I’m doing sometimes, but doing that occasionally would likely be better than getting to where the current state of my office is.

This is a sneaky ADD issue to avoid successfully. Often, in our attempts to better ourselves and “make up” for the various character trait of ADHD that cause us distress, we overreact. Shifting too far is often no better than staying where you were on the behavior spectrum. It can be difficult to see when you have overreacted, but there are some signs to look for.

Signs You Have Overcorrected for ADD

  1. You set a hard and fast rule – Life isn’t static. Things change. Organizing isn’t always procrastinating. Sometimes it is good, even necessary. If you have a “never” or “always” lurking in your mind, you may have overcompensated.
  2. The new situation is just as bad – Never cleaning leads to a state just as bad or worse than cleaning too often, or at the wrong times.
  3. You feel bad about doing something – Adjusting to ADD is about understanding how your mind works and making tweaks to the things that you want to in order to achieve your own goals, which should be primarily about happiness. If you’ve set up a structure that makes you feel bad about doing something, then chances are you’ve overcorrected. Stop and think about what you actually feel bad about. Should you really feel bad about that? Feeling bad about cleaning or organizing is not what I wanted. I wanted to be sure that I was doing it for the right reason at the right time, but it progressed to just feeling wrong about doing it at all. If you feel bad about overeating or not exercising or yelling at a spouse, that makes sense. I’m fine with feeling bad about those things. But if it doesn’t seem right that you feel negatively about something, then it probably isn’t.

Have you overcorrected  any of your ADD traits? What kinds of ADHD symptoms have you gone too far with?

ADHD Traits — 1 Comment
16
Apr 12

You Might Have ADD If…

Jeff Foxworthy does this stand-up comedy bit where he goes through a list of things that, if true about you, might make you a redneck. My personal favorite is, “If you mother does not take the Marlboro out of her lips before telling the state trooper that he can kiss her ass… you might be a redneck.”

My dad’s, who grew up on a farm, favorite is “If you have ever unloaded a pickup truck by driving backwards really fast and slamming on the breaks… you might be a redneck.” He’ll then add, by way of explanation, that that is the fastest way to unload a pickup truck.

I’ve often thought of doing a set of these for ADD. “If you ever <did something>, then you might have ADD.”

Unfortunately, I often forget them before I can compile any sort of list. I figured that if I started chronically them here as I came up with them, then I might get my list of funny ADD traits together faster. Ironically, I had a really great one yesterday that is currently playing hide and seek with my mind. I’m sure it will come to me, again, when I’m somewhere that remembering it will be totally useless to me, like in the shower, or in the car, or while giving a presentation.

Anyway, I had an ADD Moment today that I think would make a decent one. Here goes:

“If you’ve ever been to the fridge to get something you just bought at the store and been unable to find it… because it was still on the counter, you might have ADD.”

It’s a work in progress.

This one came to me because I went to the store this morning. I did not forget the groceries in the back of the car (Score!), but I did have to go to the bathroom as soon as I got them all into the house. After finishing my restroom business, I went about my daily business, only to come back a half an hour later to be surprised by all the groceries still on the counter.

Fortunately, everything was still frozen or cold, as necessary, and I got them all put away.

At times like these, I try and replay what happened in my head. I like to see where I got distracted or where my train of thought derailed. This was one of those times where everything was so rote that I’m not sure I was actively thinking anything at all. At least I can’t remember anything running through my head.

I probably just threw on the autopilot to go into the bathroom and didn’t resume full control until I had moved on to something else.

Update: I just thought of another one.

If you remember that you haven’t eaten lunch yet… at dinner time… you might have ADD.

How’s your Monday?

ADHD Traits — 7 Comments
2
Mar 11

Adult ADD Symptom Criteria

ADD Research ADHD StudiesAn interesting ADD research review from November 2010 ask whether the proper criteria are being used to diagnose adult ADD.  Attention deficit disorder, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as it is officially called, has three clinically defined types.  Each type of ADHD has its own symptoms and potential treatments.  However, the criteria necessary for a diagnosis of adult ADHD is laid out in a manual known as DSM-IV. One group of researchers reviewed clinical interviews to see how the ADD symptoms criteria should be re-examined for the upcoming publication of DSM-V.

Diagnosis of Adult ADD

One interesting result of the research was that almost half of the people who had ADHD as a child still meet the DSM-IV criteria to be diagnosed with adult ADHD.  Of those, almost all of them still report a current attention deficit disorder (94.9%) while just over a third still report a hyperactivity issue (34.6%).

In other words, the persistence of ADD into adulthood is correlated much more with attention deficit rather than with hyperactivity.

To put it another way, you are much more likely to outgrow being hyperactive than you are to outgrow an attention deficit.

The main issue raised by the researchers is that many consider ADD to have three factors. Two of the factors are recognized by the DSM-IV as requirements for a diagnosis of adult ADD, while the third is not.

According to the researchers, the three factors of adult ADD are:

  1. Inattention / Hyperactivity
  2. Impulsivity
  3. Impaired Executive Function

Executive function is not a recognized criteria for adult ADD, however, as the review shows, it is the least likely of the three to be outgrown.  In other words, it is the key component of an adult ADD diagnosis and it is not currently used as a criteria.

Whether anything will come of this research remains to be seen, however, it does provide some useful information for us adults with ADHD. Just because you are not hyperactive, doesn’t mean you don’t still have the core issue that comes with ADD. Furthermore, perhaps as you age and choose your ADD treatments based on solid scientific data and medical research, you may want to prioritize those that focus on executive function.

 

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ADHD-ADD Tips — No Comments
18
Jul 10

Best ADD Tip Ever – The Only ADHD Advice You Need *

best-add-tip-adhd-secret Are you ready for the best ADD tip for overcoming ADHD symptoms? It is surprisingly easy, and once you see how this powerful attention deficit disorder tip can be for managing ADHD at work or school, you’ll want to use it all the time.

Is there a catch?

Well, did you see that asterisks up there? That means that there is a catch.

Overcoming Distraction to Get Work Done and Be Most Productive

The key concern when it comes to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is how constant distraction can be overcome in order to be more productive at school, more productive at work, and more productive at home. All the other ADD symptoms are sort of secondary. If ADDers could just get a handle on increasing productivity in the face of ADD, everything else would be a little easier to manage. (If you were as productive as you are capable of at work and around the house, do you think it would matter as much that you occasionally tune out or interrupt your spouse during conversations?)

To become more productive and improve your standing at work or improve your grades at school, the person with ADD need only do just one little thing: keep working.

See, I told you there was a catch.

However, hear me out. For those of us with ADD, the symptom of distractibility is one that keeps us from focusing properly on important tasks. When a major report is due the next day, we find ourselves intrigued by something else entirely. When this happens, there are only two choices. One choice involves using all of the ADHD tips and ADD tools that one can muster to overcome one’s natural tendency to have attention wander from the important tasks at hand, to those of lesser importance, or even no importance at all. The second choice involves just going with the flow, or allowing the mind’s attention to wander as it sees fit.

* The Catch: (That asterisks does indeed mean that there is a catch. Typically, it means a footnote, which is where some company uses really small fonts to explain how they are going to screw you over, and therefore cover themselves legally by “disclosing” the information that you need to realize that the whole thing is a scam. Here on Addessories, we have no reason to trick our fellow ADDers, so this explanatory asterisk is in full-size font type.) The catch is that in order to follow the path of least resistance and give into your mind’s typical urges to find ever more interesting things to focus on, you have to keep working longer than you would if you went the other route.

How much longer?

That is the essence of the catch. You have to keep working until you have finished that important task. That major report, or that semester-long project that you just started and is due tomorrow, must be finished before you stop working, whether that takes four hours or thirty-four hours. You’ll find that you are happier along the way, but the destination will end up being much further away than it should have.

Whether or not this is a good ADD trick for you depends entirely on whether you are the type of person with ADD who finds the journey more important than the destination, or whether you are the type of person with ADHD who finds crossing the finish line the most satisfying.

Which one are you?

ADHD Traits — No Comments
8
Jun 10

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – Distracted By Boring Stuff

boring-wall When I first envisioned what the addessories.com website would be like, I pictured a site where both adults with ADHD and teens with ADD and even children with ADHD could get ADHD tools, products, tips and yes, accessories for ADD lifestyles. The idea was that of the many books, magazines, websites and organizations for ADHD out there, there was, and still is, a lack of actual useable tools and products for helping with ADHD symptoms and making time management and organization easier for people with ADD.

(What is with switching between ADD and ADHD all the time? – What is the difference between ADD and ADHD?)

For example, every book about ADHD or ADD article you read is going to tell you to do things like make lists, use reminders, and of course get a calendar or organizer to help you get more organized. Of course, unless you are incredibly un-self-aware (Whew, too many hyphens!) chances are that you already have tried tons of planners and calendars and lists and various organizational systems. If you were diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, chances are that you have desperately tried buying calendars and Palm Pilots and BlackBerries and the like hundreds of times in an effort to work better, organize better, and be a better husband, father, dad, wife, mother, or mom. After all, one of the symptoms of ADHD is not liking to be disorganized.

That is why I have started work (again) on the ADHD Planner which will be a calendar and organizational system specifically designed for people with ADD to use. Since no two cases of ADD are exactly alike, the ADD planner will be customizable based upon your particular case of attention deficit disorder.

What Is It Like Having ADHD or What Is ADD Really Like

Along the way, to creating my utopia of the best ADHD gadgets and top ADD tips and tricks, I’ve gotten side tracked.

Now, I know what you are thinking, and yes, I get distracted just like everyone else, both with and without ADHD. However, in this particular case, the distraction has been a bit of a good news / bad news sort of thing. The delay it has caused in making this ADHD website what I want it to be is the bad news. The good news is that much of the distraction has come in the form of increased work for my freelance writing business, which until I get all of these products created, manufactures, and sold, pays the bills.

However, there has been an unexpected distraction in the form of visitors to this website. They come here for many reasons. Almost everyone who ever lays eyes on this website for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder comes here via results for queries made on search engines. When that happens, there is a log of information that basically says what the keywords were that were used to search for ADHD or ADD. This is, of course, why I constantly shift between using ADD/ADHD and why I also try and spell out both acronyms at least once per post.

The really odd thing is that a lot of the traffic to Addessories comes from searches for things like:

  • What is ADHD really like?
  • What does ADHD feel like?
  • Is ADHD a real things?
  • How Do I Know If I Have ADHD?
  • and so on…

The weird part is that this is isn’t really a broadly covered topic. Read any of the major ADHD books out there and you will get a clinical description of ADHD as well as a handful of what I have come to call either "Me too stories," or "Sob stories," depending on my mood. These are the "examples" or "cases" that the PhDs that crank out these books write about where a patient or client of theirs relates how ADHD has affected their life in some way.

What is almost always missing from these writings is an indication of what ADHD actually feels like, or what it is like inside the ADHD brain. I don’t know if this is due to the difficulty in describing it, or if it not scientific enough to relate in formal writings, or (if I’m feeling jaded) if the authors of these books really don’t know because they don’t really have ADHD or it is something very minor to their overall life.

Whatever the reason, people keep coming for answers about what ADHD is like in the real world, outside of the clinics and counseling sessions. Therefore, I will endeavor to keep exploring this avenue in detail and welcome your help in doing so. After all, I can only tell you what it is like inside of my brain.

With all of that being said, I think I may have finally gotten into words a key concept about what ADHD is like and how ADHD is different from everyone getting distracted sometimes.

As I have said in the past, and most ADHD authorities point out, ADD involves an unusually high level of distractibility on a chronic (on-going) basis, not just getting distracted sometimes by distracting things. Which brings me to my pseudo-epiphany which we will cover in more depth in the next post.

The difference between ADHD and regular distraction is that people with ADHD get distracted all of the time by things that are NOT distracting.

Put another way, ADDers get distracted by boring stuff just as often as they do by exciting stuff.

If you have ever brought home a brand-new DVD release that you have been dying to watch and ended up cleaning the dust bunnies you noticed under your TV stand instead, you know what I’m talking about. I needed to be reminded a half-dozen times not to use up all of the already minimal time we had for "date night" because I was trying to get a laptop to play the DVD onto the TV so that I could show her some of the new features in Windows Media Center. Instead of eating popcorn, laying on the couch, and watching the movie I desperately wanted to see (and which she has no interest in, but agreed to watch for me) I was trying to find the online manual for my laptop. Instead of fun, I was troubleshooting keys, software, and S-video cables.

In other words, I got distracted by something boring. That, my friends, is what it is like to have ADD.

ADHD — No Comments
21
May 10

Is ADHD Real or Is ADHD Fake?

adhd-real-add-fake-graphic Answering this question gets a little old after awhile. Part of the problem, of course, is that there are now, and have been in the past, those who use attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in one way or another to further their own selfish ends. Some of those people come from the ADHD is real side, and some of those people come from the ADHD is fake side. Of course, there are many self-serving types in between as well.

To answer the question whether ADHD is real or not, one needs to consider numerous factors. First and foremost is the fact that the current scientific understanding of how the brain functions, brain biology, and mental health has grown exponentially in just the last 30 years. That being said, our comprehension of how the brain works is staggeringly low. Even the scientific techniques we currently use to study the brain are crude. In many cases the science behind much brain research starts out with a laughably simple assumption that may or may not be true.

Consider, for example, PET scans. A PET scan is a way of measuring how the brain works. In many recent ADHD studies, PET scans have been used to show that adults with ADHD and children with ADHD have brains that function differently from brains in subjects without ADHD. That is biological proof that ADHD is real, right?

Unfortunately, the whole concept of the PET scan is based upon an unproven assumption.

PET scans don’t actually show how the brain works. They don’t measure which parts of the brain are working, nor do they give any insight into the complex inner relationships between various regions of the brain. What PET scans measure is how much glucose is being used by the different parts of the brain. The assumption is that since glucose is the body’s energy source, the tissues in the brain using the most glucose must be working the hardest. The next assumption is that if any particular brain tissue is working hard, then it must be doing something at that moment. Thus, the areas in a PET scan that glow brightly are the regions of the brain being most heavily used during that time.

ADHD Tips Tricks and Advice

These assumptions have been backed up a bit via the other main source of brain research, which is far more crude. Much of what we know about the brain comes from studying brain injuries and brain damage. If a person has an accident that destroys a certain area of the brain, and then can no longer speak, one can draw the conclusion that the damaged region is responsible for speech. PET scans show the same areas glowing brightly when a person is talking. That hardly counts as proof, but it does mean that the current assumptions under which we use PET scans are at least reasonably good ones.

So, is ADD real?

Even PET scans are inconclusive. While ADHD brain scans have consistently shown different activity in brains of subjects with attention deficit disorder, they also show a wide variety among people without any diagnosed conditions. One could make the claim that a PET scan of a Type-A person would look differently than a scan of lazy person. That opens a whole can of worms.

For now, what we can say definitively about whether ADHD exists is that there is a large sub-population of people who have similar issues and that these issues tend to respond in similar ways to specific treatments. That in and of itself is good enough for a start. After that, as seems to always be the case, more ADHD research is needed.