Attention Deficit Disorder

Attention Deficit Disorder
J

John Oarc

Registrant
Has anyone been diagnosed with adult attention deficit disorder or attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity as a child?

Just wondering, there is a screening test at this website https://psychcentral.com/addquiz.htm

The site does not claim that a high score means you have ADD but it suggest you contact a health care professional.

Let me know what you guys think about this.

Thanks,
 
John,
I was diagnosed at sometime around 6 or 7 years old but I question the diagnosis. Even though my abuse didn't start until I was 13, I had a very unstable family life, my father was sick with Parkinsons disease, my mother and father were fighting and eventually divorcing, and I believe my mother to be a bit emotionally/verbally abusive. I'm thinking that these traumas are the cause of my symptoms which were incorrectly diagnosed as ADD. I was taking ritalin from Kidergarten to 1st or 2nd grade but my mother took me off because it wasn't working (or atleast thats what she tells me). I don't know whether I do have ADD or not or whether its PTSD and anxiety.

So bottom line is I'm not sure exactly. But from what I've read of your book you too had a traumatic childhood, so I don't know what to tell you. I can tell you that I have been on several ADD medications as an adult and they don't really help much.

Jason
 
John,
Years ago, an expert on adult ADD told me casually that she was certain I had ADD. She based it mostly on my very highly creative mind and my ability to be going 17 directions at once and keep so many balls in the air. She said, contrary to a handicap, think of it as a gift. Think of it as the ability to move effortlessly from one task to another - as if all computer programs were open at once on the screen and a simple click allowed one to go from one program to another.
My guess is that if you are creative enough to write a book, you could very well be ADD since of the hallmarks of ADD is quite often a creative mind. But you are still able to accomplish tasks - such as completing a book.
If you are ADD, enjoy who and what you are. I laugh at my conversations sometimes with the way I leap from topic to topic - even in one
sentence.
My VERY humble two cents.

Q: How does an ADD guy change a light bulb?
A: Wanna go ride bikes?
 
In response to this question, I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and see that I still struggle with this even as an adult. I was diagnosed around the age of two. Through much of my childhood I was medicated. At current I am not medicated which I find makes concentration, organization and multi-tasking difficult.

Sean
 
Oops! My abuse happened when I was five and ended when I finally realized at seven what was happening to my biological father who I have since abandoned since my parents divorced and had a wonderful step father who was more dad to me since he remarried my mother. The ADHD was diagnosed before the abuse and I'm not sure what impact if any the abuse I suffered had on me then and now.

Sean
 
According to European Psychychiatrist it seems like American psyhciatrists over-diagnoze ADD 5 times as much as here in Europe. Everytime some kid has trouble i.e. from beeing bullied in schools or have a hard time concentrating they are diagnosed ADHDAD/ADD and put on Ritalin. 5 times as many patients are on Ritalin, than here in Europe. I wonder how many of these really are abuse survivors?
 
I'm not sure it's useful in the context here, but in case it is:

I went to my current T diagnosed by earlier Ts and evaluators for the German and British health services as having PTSD, mainly because of flashbacks, hypervigilance, and the fact that I had been abused as a child. They seem to have put those down on paper and thought, aha: PTSD.

When I asked my new T what she planneded to do about that, however, she smiled and asked me to bear with her for a bit. She said she preferred to talk to me, see what it was that was triggering my flashbacks and other symptoms, and try to resolve those problems through therapy rather than meds.

One of her arguments for this was that my "symptoms" of PTSD could easily be the results of extreme trauma as an abused boy, without being part of some other distinct syndrome or disorder.

I agreed and we proceeded as she advised. I haven't had a flashback for almost a year, and I am no longer on red alert all the time when I am in the presence of strangers.

Much love,
Larry
 
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