What's it like to have adhd?

[ohmama]

I'm interested in hearing expressions on what it is like for you. Can you say what your thinking process is by comparing it to something? not sure I'm asking this correctly. Must be my adhd acting up. You know what I mean, don't you? If you were trying to describe it to someone who didn't have adhd and really wanted them to understand what would you say?

[eaccae]

I read and article on adult adhd once and the author described it like driving through a snowstorm but the windshield wipers weren't working well - I thought that was a great description.

[rosyred45]

I think I described it best to my husband, but a way to put it best:

Take all of your favorite things that you like to do, put them on the table and go from there.

Where do you start? Do you organize it first, put it way as you go, sort through it to see if there's stuff that you don't want there, do you sort it first to look for that stuff to get rid of or toss as you go?

Sound about right?

[jdmom]

When I was a kid, I used to complain to my parents about what they told me was "anxiety". I used to describe it to them as "my thoughts in my head are just going so fast that I can't keep up with them to understand what they mean". My mind would jump from one thing to the other so fast that I was always confused about what I was SUPPOSED to be thinking about (usually homework). I can remember sitting at the kitchen table, trying to do my homework and just holding my head between my hands and silently begging my brain to slow down. Usually, at those times, my dad would suggest that I go to my room and have a little quiet time and "calm down". It usually helped.

[ChicagoRedwing2b]

What is it like to have ADHD?

Well I can compare it to all sorts of things, but last night I came up with a good one.

Imagine that your entire life is kept in a file cabinet.
Memories, emotions, dreams, experiences, thoughts, images, smells, everything you have in life all in that file cabinet.

New thoughts, dreams, hopes, memories, work, home, love, sex, dinner plans, everything yet to do or planned to do, all in that file cabinet.

Now in a normal person, that file cabinet will remain for the most part, organized, and easy to access what that person is seeking. Remembering to pick up the kids after school, set dinner out to thaw, pay those bills before the 1st of the month, where their keys are right now, all in there file cabinet and organized.

A normal person can put in new thoughts and ideas, and file them away properly, and efficently, and easily get them back when needed.


Now lets look at the ADHD persons file cabinet.
Wait a minute, I could have swore it was here a second ago. Where did I put it now. Oh ya I left it open and was working on organizing it last night when that tornado just ripped through my brain and messed everything up.

That tornado never leaves, its always there, and very hyper active. As the ADHD person tries to organize the cabinet, the tornado that is his hyper active brain just messes everything up. Files all over the place, and flying around randomly. Maybe that person can manage to grab one or two files out of the air, but can't concentrate long enough to hold onto the two they already have, and tries to grab another file thats important suddenly.

As files fly past the person some are ignored, and other suddenly are very important, so they try to get a hold of them, but as they try to grasp them, they lose the ones they already have in hand.

The tornado in my mind causes me to struggle to focus on more then 2 or 3 things at once.
I may have in hand:
Pick up milk on way home from work, we are out.
Pay the car insurance bill Friday when I get paid.
Remember to clean the kitchen up for Sarah as she asked.

Sudden another file, I have to play a online hockey game tonight, flys past me, and I jump to grab it, and in so doing I lose the file, Get Milke we are out.

Oh wait there goes the file, Sarah's birthday in a week need to get somethinjg for her, and I reach for it, and drop the file, pay car insurance bill.

Oh ya need that file, get milk we are out, crap dropped, clean kitchen.

Whoa I forget that file was here, have to work on Sarahs car it needs repairs, darn, dropped, Sarah's birthday.

Where was that other file, which one was it now? Crap I can't find it, wait is that it? No I already have it.

That is what goes on in my mind. An organized chaos, and constantly changing priority list.

[ohmama]

Wow, I Love This Guy!!

When can I get a copy of that book you're writing?

[finnmom]

CRW [glow=red,2,300]THAT WAS GREAT[/glow]

I want a copy of your book, when ever it´s ready....please. go on and start writing it NOW!!! ;D

[DANIEL]

thats a pretty good description, i once described it here as working on a computer, on the internet, and every time you go to a website, you get pop ups, and lots of them, your mind never stops, for those of you who know about computers, you know that windows in an effort to be faster, puts things in a start up group and every time your computer starts up, these selected programs run in the background. now imagine that you have way too many things running, the computer slows down, then ofcoarse some of the programs conflict with others, as they fight for the same resources, now your agenda...that is what were you going to do, ah ...hmmm....let me use an example of mine......i am converting a power wheels car into a radio controlled car... ok i need to yank the wireing and find something i can use to steer with.....hey i know my buddy has a couple of junk cars and they have power seats....i just use those....ya know i could make a real car radio controlled.....but i would probably need to get a real transmitter and servo's instead of useing those 20 dollar ones from walmart, they are right next to the model rockets...hey you know what would be great i could put a rocket launcher on it the estes rockets use solar ignighters that you can activate with electricity, but how would i aim it...hmmm that means i would have to purchase a second radio controlled car with a diffrent frequency, and then i could just use it to do the aming...hmmmm, back to the origanial agenda, ok got to pull out the power seat unit....no big deal...takes about five minutes....i get them out and me and my buddy go to the shop... now we have to figure how we can make them work...hmmm....ok he is not on the same lvl as me.... he requires drawings to make things work in his head, i cant draw....no matter what i scribble down it invariably ends up looking like a congregation of stick figures in an all out bar brawl...so i try to explain it....meanwhile although my mouth is moving my mind is else where ... wishing for the 10 billionth time that i could comunicate telepathicly, the whole time thinking that if i could i would just end up frying a lot of peoples brains with too much info...so...still talking must not be done yet..... i wonder ....when we talk or think our brain generates electrical impulses, i wonder if you could study them long enough to get some kind of pattern and then maybe you could translate them into something understanable by everyone else...ah i have stoped talking....not sure what all i have said but my buddy seams to understand what going on ,,, which puts him in better shape than i am in...,, this is the point when i usually freeze up and ask what were we doing???.....after a supply of fresh weird looks from my companion he tells me whats going on and we continue with our construction....now he is more mechanically inclined than i am so when we figure out what were doing i let him go and i work on the electronics......here i do pretty good cause i am interested.... the output of the car is about 3 volts...it wont work with what we need. so i hook up a 5 volt relay to that actually two and a couple of diodes to restrick current in one direction otherwise both relays will activate.......yada yada yada......after about 30minutes i get bored.... random thoughts ensue .....back to brain waves that was interesting... and wouldnt it be neat if we had tricorders like in startrek... they had all kinds of cool stuff ... and they had cures for cancer and all the bad stuff...hmmm cancer.... cells that are stuck in metephase...they constantly reproduce...they never stop.....starts with one cell goes from there....hmmmm lisizome self-destruck mechanism of the cell.... neculeas send message to it and it desolves the cell from the inside...hmmm i wonder what would happen if you took one cancer cell and studied it found out the chemical message it sends to the lisizome... since they are are all the same cells wouldnt it kill them all if you could reproduce that....ouch!!!!! oh look i have a new scar on my arm....matches the other one from i laid the soldering iron on my arm....ok ignore it the pain will go away.....oops my buddys calling... something about burning something upo with the welder...oh well....i used to be a welder, i was certified mig welder...man i didnt like that job...i like the job i have now.....i remember the first time i use a welder it was fun i was thirteen, i made a go cart my dad got real mad cause i used the motor off his edger...i guess i could have used something else but then...................and this goes on for eternity...non stop... flitting from one thing to another, never being able to hold on to one thing for very long, always something far more interesting going on inside my head than whats going on outside....most the time i am on auto pilot...interacting with the world outside..while inside i am somewhere else....lol its kinda of funny one of the sports guys was talking to me about football the other day for the umpteenth time....finally i looked at him and said stop...see my face , see what it looks like right now....when i look like this i am not here, i dont care , iam not going to care, and nothing you do can make me pay attention, the wheel is turning but the hamster is dead...."thats ok boss ill just talk to you anyway, i dont mind".....oh well your wasted breath buddy ............ok this is long sorry
daniel

[ohmama]

Good one Daniel! I understand adhd. I have it, big time. Now, think about this dx.... adhd, anxiety disorder, mood disorder (suspect bipolar) all overlaping at the same time! And this is a 10 year old boy that I, as an adhd mom am trying to help. I am thankful his twin brother only has add along with depression.

The part that is most difficult for me is having to deal with the school system. They just don't get it. Finding a good psych can be another problem and if you can do that then there's always the problem of finding the right medication that helps you before it creates side effects that add another problem to deal with.

It amazes me to see how people with these disorders not only survive but often thrive and are successful in life. Others go on to become hopelessly lost and quickly reach the point of no return. I am trying to think positive. What would we do without support groups like this? Sometimes it takes all I have to just get through the day.

On my list of what I am thankful for I would have to include this forum and the other sites out there made by us and for us.

[DANIEL]

i feel it important to mention that before i was diagnosed with add, i suffered from depression, anxiety, ptsd,and a few other things i am sure i am forgetting. i did not like to be in public nor did i like to leave my house, constantly paranoid that someone was out to get me.. i hated to answer the phone, and thought that men in general were, bad testostorone driven animals. mind you a lot of this was brought on by a few thing that happened in my life. i was severly abused by my step father, my real father made it very clear that he did not want anything to do with me. saying things like i dont want to ever see you again. stuff like that. then there was the mental abuse as well from my parents.not to mention the everyday abuse i took from myself because of the add. i cant explain the result of being so much smarter than everyone else yet feel that you were retarded because you could not excell were people whom you know would pass as pet rocks do. a lot of the pshchological damage that was done to me was done by yours truly, i assume in an effort to cope with being the way i am in this world. i was on medication for all of the dissorders i mentioned before, none of it worked save for the lamactil for anxiety. that stopped the panic attacks, not much else but that was enough they were aweful. anyway back to my point. when i started takeing ritalin my world change drasticly, it was like i was awake for the first time in my life, no depression, ptsd, anxiety, or anything, i wasnt afraid anymore, of anything...well within reason...i found out a lot of what i had done to myself, and believe it or not the changes i had made to myself were identifiable and easily removed. i could be out in public and no longer did i look to find a place where my back was to the wall, nor do i look and identify all the reflective surfaces in a room so that i may keep a better eye on my surroundings. i do know that add's effects on me were cumilative, they did not happen all at once but developed over the years, which led to my constant missdiagnosis, the only advice i can give would be useless here, for what i have seen this forum is filled with loving parents with a devotion to help their children. what my parents did to me was what you would call the worst possable thing you could do to a child with this condition.which is make them feel everyday that they are worthless, beat them, show them that your siblings are far more loved/important than they are, make them do repetitive tasks for hours on end just to prove a point, make sure that at least once a night you wake them up by kicking them out of bed or punching them or some such thing, and above all, make sure you keep them locked up in a room so they have no interaction with the outside world, so that they dont have any friends, or have a chance to experience what it is like to be a child. follow these simple rules to get a "me". patience and love, reassurance that although they are diffrent, they are special, and they have abilities that lots of people would love to have(well not all the hassle that come with them) i am begining to believe that this is not a dissability in so much as it is an advantage, properly maintained. takes us a while to learn how to walk, to talk and to do anything. this ability just takes longer to control and use to our advantage. i salute all the parents here, i know it is frustrating and hopless at times, but you deal with it well and no matter what people tell you about yourselves and your children, just remember they can go get bent

[ohmama]

Daniel,
This group therapy is very healing for the child locked inside all of us who have been through what you have.

All I can say is, consider yourself adopted .

[finnmom]

Daniel

that´s such a thouching story of your life But you survived and what I can see and read in here, they didn´t "ruin" you, you have so much potential in you

I agree; best thing for our kid´s is being a good parent, to love them and guide them and emprace the speciality in them

[rosyred45]

Oh yes, you are adopted Daniel, your are more than welcome into my family, at least you wouldn't tease me for being fat when I was little, or make fun of the fact that I always had short hair and glasses

What you have been through shows us all how strong you really are.

[sweety]

I am very fortunate in that I come from a family with a long history of "high strung" behavoir. (I'm 4th generation that I know of) My grandmother, God Bless her, (very non adhd but married a man who was glow in the dark adhd) called us "high strung" and said that things made us "nervous" Whether is was from practice or just good child rearing skills she knew when things bothered me and when I should sit down and rest.

I guess to me ADHD is over stimulation. I like the reference to all the pop-ups on the computer. My life can be just like that. I got through a 4 year state university on no meds and shear will power. Now I don't know how I did it but when you need to to support yourself you will do just about anything.

I try to encourage my daughter with the positive side of ADHD. Creativity, energy, and empathy for those society considers 'different" are all positive traits I see in ADHDers. We don't talk about ADHD much but when she brings up the subject I try to be positive.

[rosyred45]

sweety said:

I try to encourage my daughter with the positive side of ADHD. Creativity, energy, and empathy for those society considers 'different" are all positive traits I see in ADHDers. We don't talk about ADHD much but when she brings up the subject I try to be positive.

AMEN
AND THE HIGH STRUNG THING....HE IS ON THE PHONE WITH THE OTHER HIGH STRUNG ONE 8-)HIS DAD