depression | ADD ADHD Addessories

Unseen Shiny Things

I’ve been working with some data regarding various mental health things and trauma. (Think big data, not understanding therapy.) It seems that many people with an alternative neural structure get triggered into their various less than optimal status by external events. Something like panic attacks is the quintessential example. Most panic attacks are triggered by an external stimulus.

That may not sound out there at all, but what if many other mental states are triggered, or even partially triggered by external events? Those of us with ADHD talk about losing our focus or being distracted. These are obviously external events, but what about the ones that aren’t so obvious?

Distracted by Distraction

There have been many studies showing that depression and ADHD are common comorbid conditions. Yours truly probably falls into that bucket. Now, depression we are taught is a continuous state, possibly caused not by stimulus but by brain chemistry. It seems that our brains have a tendency to produce low amounts of serotonin or produce excessive amounts of the chemicals that clean serotonin from the body. Either one results in less serotonin than optimal. This condition may cause depression.

But the brain is nothing if not a reactive beast constantly inundated with so many signals and stimuli that it must frequently block or discard them entirely to function properly. For example, as you sit there, what does your shirt feel like on your back?

If you are like many people, it feels like nothing, and yet the fabric of your shirt is touching your back, and you know that your back can and does feel things. So, how do you explain that your shirt feels like nothing until you bring your attention to it?

Which brings me to my points. First, could ADHD periods of distraction be caused by not properly excluding outside stimuli. Do I, as an adult with ADHD, receive and react to more stimuli about, say the update icon on my WordPress editor, than I should. Should my brain be throwing that away as irrelevant as the feel of the shirt on my back, when instead it draws my eye and my attention and throws me off of my work cataloging cool day trips from Denver for a future project?

Second, if depression is an ongoing constant depleting normal levels of serotonin, could the triggering of ADHD actually be that there is too little serotonin to please the brain about external stimuli, and so, that update icon shoots through where a serotonin pool should have stopped it with a nano-sized splash and bounces instead into my brain where it demands processing?

None of this is scientifically backed. I’ve been sloshing through what may or may not be useful data that in some cases includes various mental health factors. Without math, we see what we want to see, and I see a lot in the data that is not only not causation, but not even correlation.

There. I have typed. My brain should be mine again for at least a while.

Happy Election Day to you who are fellow Americans.

Psst

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When You Just Can't

Written by ADDer 2 Comments

Procrastination versus Motivation

Sometimes, you just can’t.

Period.

That’s it.

I mean it.

As adults with ADD, we tend to be an introspective lot. It starts with questions like, “What’s wrong with me,” or “Why can’t I just get it together,” and moves forward (hopefully) through a vast journey of other questions until someone, somewhere, blurts out (grin) the words, “Maybe it’s ADD.”

Along the way, a lot of other considerations get made and a lot of other theories are formed. Some of the ideas suggested are pleasant fictions, some are unpleasant realities, and there are many others in between. The thing is, that by the time you actually get diagnosed with ADHD you already have a barrel full of other things that could, should, or would be issues that you do or do not have to deal with. This vat of knowledge can overwhelm other factors that might be at play.

When you CAN’T get going on something, I mean really cannot get going, there are a lot of things to choose from.

Off the bat, you could go with depression and its coincident apathy.

You could go with procrastination.

You could also go with the old standby and blame distraction.

That’s Not It

However, with all of that ammo born of introspection, it is important to fully understand the situation before picking your metaphorical bullet and loading it up into your mental firing chamber.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it isn’t ANYTHING.

Depression is not a one day thing, nor is one day worth of hard core apathy a symptom of depression.

Procrastination is defined by the putting off of a task in order to do something else marginally more enjoyable. Not doing anything isn’t procrastination per se.

And distraction requires that something else be occupying your focus. Just staring at the computer screen and rolling your eyes at the thought of doing ANYTHING at all isn’t ADD. It isn’t depression. It isn’t distraction. It’s nothing. Nothing at all. And, it sucks.

When that happens there really isn’t anything you can do about it other than unlearn everything that you have learned since being diagnosed with ADD and go back to what you used to try and do before you knew you had ADHD. Just put your head down and try and plow ahead until that lack of motivation goes away.

As an adult who has grown more savvy in the ways of managing ADD, this can be trying. For years, just putting your head down and trying harder was a one-way ticket to Failsville. It accomplished nothing more than draining your brain of willpower and happiness. That makes trying it again in these situations tough to take. But, there it is.

A quick reality check that you already knew courtesy of my own Day of Blah. I’m a writer and I didn’t feel like writing. I just couldn’t make myself write a very easy, very due, assignment, so I wrote this. I don’t feel any better about it, but I’ve already been writing now, my fingers are already moving, and I’m already forming the intro paragraph in my mind. In other words, I didn’t exactly put my head down and write on the assingment, but I put my head down and wrote.

And it worked.

If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.

Depression and ADHD St Johns Wort Treatment

Written by ADDer 4 Comments

This one is going to be a little on the short and sweet side because I’m supposed to be doing other work (Hmmm, where have we all heard that before?), but it keeps bouncing around in my head, and that can be just as unproductive as a little writing tangent. So, you’ll have to forgive me if this post does not live up to my usual standard of backing up what I say with links to the original source materials and research evidence. As always, the best ADHD tips I can give is to please DO check up on what I (and others) say about ADD treatments and other ADHD tips.

If you have done much reading about attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder then you know that

a) Those are both the same thing, I did that for the benefit of searchers
b) That many adults with ADHD, teens with ADD, and children that have ADHD are frequently diagnosed with other mental health issues in addition to their official diagnosis of attention deficit disorder.
c) That one of the difficulties in effectively treating ADHD is that certain conditions or issues can overlap each other.

These “add-on” conditions are known by the unfortunate medical term, “co-morbid,” which couldn’t sound worse if you tried. That is mostly because most people do not know the full definition of the word morbid, which is both “of or caused by disease or medical condition,” as well as, “gruesome.”

Note the very important difference between co-morbid conditions, which are those that occur together, but independently from each other, versus, a medical issue that is caused by, or the result of another medical issue. For example, improper insulin balance is NOT co-morbid with diabetes. A person has messed up insulin BECAUSE OF diabetes.

One common co-morbid condition of ADD is depression. Again, depression is NOT caused by ADHD, nor vice versa, it just so happens that the brain biology of people with ADD appears to give rise to depression sometimes as well.

The difficulty of having both depression and ADHD at the same time is that some of the symptoms of ADHD and depression can overlap meaning that while trying to treat and medicate certain issues, one might be barking up the wrong tree, so to speak, by using ADHD medication to help with symptoms that are actually caused by depression in whole or in part.

One symptom of some mild depression is apathy. Apathy, can easily lead to procrastination, which is also a potential symptom of a persons ADHD, particularly for those with the inattentive type of ADD. So, while you pump your body full of Adderall, and talk for hours with your therapist or ADD coach about your procrastination, you might be completely missing the target.

The reason I sought any sort of diagnosis and treatment in the first place was an overwhelming sense of apathy. In fact, I started out being treated for depression and being prescribed various medications for it like Zoloft rather than being diagnosed with adult ADHD. This was partly due to my focusing on the apathy in all of my sessions and either ignoring, not mentioning, or not understanding the potential importance of some of my other “quirks.”

Lately, I have been having trouble not with my focus so much as with my ability to GET GOING ON ANYTHING. Additionally, there have been some very major events happen in my life, including some spectacular failures, to which I had virtually no emotional reaction of any kind. It makes me wonder if it was a mistake to stop investigating the depression or anxiety angles to focus on just the ADD.

No one knows your mind or your body like you do. Unfortunately, our system dictates that you work through expensive, and (rightfully) skeptical middlemen called doctors or therapists to access some of the treatments, medications, and information about most medical conditions, including the ones that deal with your mind. That rules out starting back up the Zoloft or whatever else I was trying.

Now, let’s be clear. I never advocate trying to “get around” your doctor or medical professionals, and I do plan to talk to my guy about my ADHD plus depression hypothesis during our next visit. But, until my current supply of meds and prescriptions runs out, I’m conducting a self-experiment on my theory.

If you are suffering from depression, or think you are, seek professional help immediately. Do not wait based on trying this idea out!

St. John’s Wort is occasionally (and generally wrongly) mentioned as a possible non-prescription therapy for ADHD. This is not surprising as pretty much any herb, natural remedy, or medicine that shows the slightest effect on the brain is eventually promoted as a cure for ADHD and every other mental condition there is. However, real scientific research has shown that St. John’s Wort can be just as effective at treating mild depression as prescription depression medications. In fact, in some research St Johns Wort has been shown to be more effective for treating mild depression cases.

Unfortunately, just like with ADHD, the human mind is a complex and splendored thing. Not everyone responds the same way to every medicine or treatment, especially when we are talking about the brain. However, St. John’s Wort is available everywhere and is not very expensive, so it has a sort of “give it a shot” quality to it. Just keep in mind, St. Johns Wort has only been shown to be effective treatment for MILD depression.

St. John’s Wort is not an instant effect medicine. It must build up in your body, or more specifically in your brain…

The catch is that just grabbing a bottle of St. Johns Wort off the shelf at Whole Foods and throwing a couple down is not going to work. In order to be an effective treatment, you have to get it right. Which is why next up is how to take St. John’s Wort for depression with ADHD ADD.

I am not a doctor. Nothing in this article or on this website should be considered medical advice. All information including dosages, medications, timing, and recommendations and warnings are for general knowledge only and is not medical advice. Consult with a physician before starting any treatment. Drug interactions can be dangerous or unpleasant. Consult a pharmacist or physician about taking any medicine, herbal remedy, or supplement.