Self Diagnosis Talk: Raise your had if you've got ADD or Dyslexia

[Golden_Rhino]

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I find it a lot harder to concentrate on things, especially reading, than I did when I was younger (I am 25 fwiw). Is this just part of getting older or a sign of adult ADD?

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I've experienced the same thing. I think it's just a result of concentration not being at a premium anymore. When we were kids, pretty much anything we did required concentration. Now it seems that very few things require a lot of concentration, and as a result, your skills have diminished.

A trivial example would be driving somewhere that requires a map/directions. When I started driving it required pulling out a map, figuring out which roads to take, figuring out if there was a better path, which turns had to be made etc... Now you either have GPS in your car, or the new 'old fashioned' way is to go to mapquest and printing off the directions.

[durron597]

i had a friend in college who had real ADD. he told me that when he wasn't on medication, in the middle of conversations he would see a lamp sitting behind someone, and the lamp would make him thing of a light, which would make him think of the sun, which would make him think of going out for a walk, which would make him think of heading downtown for stuff, which would make him think of a restaurant he had plans to go to, which would make him think of sushi, which would make him think of going fishing, etc., or the light would make him think of his computer, which would make him think of the homework he had to do, which would make him thinking about going to class, which would make him think about his professor that he hates, etc., basically just completely random crap that would make it almost impossible for him to sustain a meaningful conversation. (these are both examples that I made up just now to convey the point because i don't remember the actual examples he gave me at the time, but anyway)

there's a HUGE difference between "low attention span" (which can come from things like having too much sugar in your diet or watching too much television growing up) and actually having ADD.

[tdarko]

I do think that it is most often used as a crutch and the diagnosis is abused but I most certainly believe that it is real.

I don't have it but my father was actually diagnosed with ADD at the age of 40. He is an extremely successful businessman, driven, and from the outside looking in you can't see anything but focus, order, and attention to detail. He is his own accountant, secretary, etc. and runs one of the most successful building corporations in Dallas in which he started from the ground level.

When you walk into his office you will see that he has a formula that he never steers away from. He does this b/c when he was in his twenties he was struggling to make it b/c he was disorganized, and his mind would wander so easily to the things that interested him instead of doing work. Most people keep things organized but he does it to where it is almost creepy but he has to or he will fail.

Some of his friends told him a few years back that he may be ADD and to take some tests to check it out. Turns out he was. He believes that he hasn't needed medicine b/c of how healthy he is, he is a fitness freak and with the combination of his diet and figuring out methods to combat his bad habits (which really was his ADD all his life) are what made him successful...no crutches or excuses.

[Fast Food Knight]

There's a big difference between ADHD and ADD. I think there are tons of undiagnosed ADD people, including most males from Georgia Tech I ever met.

Disclaimer: my parents were shrinks.

[NorCalJosh]

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i had a friend in college who had real ADD. he told me that when he wasn't on medication, in the middle of conversations he would see a lamp sitting behind someone, and the lamp would make him thing of a light, which would make him think of the sun, which would make him think of going out for a walk, which would make him think of heading downtown for stuff, which would make him think of a restaurant he had plans to go to, which would make him think of sushi, which would make him think of going fishing, etc., or the light would make him think of his computer, which would make him think of the homework he had to do, which would make him thinking about going to class, which would make him think about his professor that he hates, etc., basically just completely random crap that would make it almost impossible for him to sustain a meaningful conversation. (these are both examples that I made up just now to convey the point because i don't remember the actual examples he gave me at the time, but anyway)

there's a HUGE difference between "low attention span" (which can come from things like having too much sugar in your diet or watching too much television growing up) and actually having ADD.

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durron-

i do not understand your point. yes this is true, and i experienced very similar things before being put on medication, and experience similar things now. but to say that this is not something that can be overcome is silly, esp considering you are going off of what your friend has told you, and not off of having experienced it or a similar sensation for yourself. and for the record, i had very health concious parents and did not own a tv during the first 13 years of my life.

[James Boston]

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Neither of those for me, but I certainly have a touch of OCD, and I would suspect a good percentage of posters here do as well.

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I would say people "self-diagnose" this more often then ADD or dyslexia. I often joke that I'm OCD, like when I get paranoid thinking "Did I lock my front door?" Sometimes, I've gone so far as to go back home and check (only if I'm still really close to my house). I'll also wake up occasionally to make sure I've set my alarm....stupid crap like that. Echoing Dids' point, real OCD is nothing like what I, you, and most people who claim to have OCD actually suffer from. People with real OCD have these bizarre rituals they have to go through, or else they suffer from extreme anxiety until that ritual is completed. I.E. They have to count all their spare change before they can eat a meal, or something like that.

[Floyd Moseby]

My two cents:

I was initially diagnosed by my wife, who is a 3rd grade teacher. About a year before we got married, she gave me the heads up in a kind of nonchalant way. It never occurred to me that it could be true until I got a book about adults with ADD to read on our honeymoon. It was quite an emotional experience. Reading a book about people who struggled just like me, when I just thought I was a burnout, actually made me cry. I ended up seeing a psychiatrist, who agreed with the diagnosis and started me on Concerta. I went from being reprimanded at work to getting a promotion within the span of about 6 months.

I was one of those high-achievers who fell through the cracks of diagnosis. I could do more with 5% or 10% focus than 90% or 95% of my peers. As a parent, I'm sure it's tough to recognize an issue under those circumstances. Sure enough, in high school my grades leveled off, although I still tested extremely well. I flunked out of college twice. Wish I had some good amphetamines in high school!

[imitation]

The reason I think people self diagnose is apparent from the responses of people who have been diagnosed officially. The symptoms generally described are what most university age students all feel, boredom, lack of concentration, no motivation, procrastination, etc.

I read these posts and think wow that could be me, I should get some of these amazing drugs...or the reality could be quite simply i'm lazy and with the right self motivation I could press through it just like Tdarko's father did and well countless other university students have done for however many years.

[divides_by_zero]

I'm with you kipin - I wasn't diagnosed until freshman year of college.

I had only jokingly toyed with the idea that I may have had ADD - various instances in high school would make me wonder.

But, because I am *with all humility* of fairly high intelligence, plus female(manifests differently - there are in fact a different set of questions used to diagnose), plus inattentive type I slipped through the cracks.

I actually dealt with depression (apparently in women especially this is why ADHD often gets missed - it is misdiagnosed as depression) as a result of the frustration I would feel about trying to get work done - the eye opener was when I was talking to my bf at the time of my frustrations and he said it sounded exactly like him and he was severely ADD. I looked at various questionnaires and they were pretty telling so I set up the appt.

Getting diagnosed possibly saved my life.

I was told that most people at my school aren't diagnosed until they get here precisely because of the intelligence factor.

In regards to self-diagnosing in general - it's hard for me to weigh in here since so far my self-diagnoses have all been validated by doctors. *sigh*

[Matt Flynn]

i'm speaking personal opinion here, not a medical one. rant:


ADD is as real a disease as you will find. but a lot of it's crap. much of what's diagnosed as ADD imo has to do with the intense expectations now placed on young school children and the almost absurd amount of time they are expected to sit still in classrooms. it is ridiculous to expect a first-grader -- especially a boy -- to sit for hours on end without movement or exercise. that's not natural. but it's not all crap. there are kids who cannot write a sentence or dress themselves because they can't concentrate long enough. for them, the drugs are the port in the storm. to deny those children meds would be cruel.

the flip side on the drugs is they benefit most people. i haven't read much on them, but it occurs to me that we take Claritin for allergies, Prilosec for the heartburn from all the stress, Propecia for hair loss, Flonase et al for allergies, and on and on. lifestyle drugs are huge. if ritalin will help you concentrate, make your life better, or otherwise add something good, then there is a rational tradeoff to be made with risk and cost. just because it's vaguely related to speed doesn't mean it should be treated as such. sadly, the people who make such decisions usually suck at them (that would be you if you work for the FDA. take a damn stats class already). i don't trust the FDA to decide whether something is safe, or to not make a political decision.

a big part of the world's response to ADD is bias. in milder form it might be viewed as a series of personality traits, several of which are positive. who do you think are the artists, entrepreneurs, and absentminded professors of the world? ok, so if you want to be a country club guy or a big corporate wheel, you need to be able to carry on long conversations about little and need to at least look like you're paying attention in meetings. what about the positives? for example, often with the "attention deficit" comes the ability to intensely concentrate on that which is interesting. that can be a major asset. further, you don't spend as much time listening to idiots.

in part -- and again this is one man's opinion, not a synopsis of the literature -- an entire generation now has attention issues because they are trained to attend to things momentarily. it's really striking to be an "older" person and talk to college kids. they can manage maybe 3-5 minutes. i have observed that several times as a bystander, although to be fair my experience is mostly with poker players, and online poker is the granddaddy mother of all ADD-inducing activities.

the point i feel is most important: for the truly afflicted, ritalin is an effective treatment for life failure.