Hi I’m Rick green from totallyADD.com. So in a previous video I listed the 5 reasons that many people give for why they can’t possibly have ADHD. 5 reasons that actually seem to discount the possibility, but which actually suggest it could be ADHD. Now the confusion is understandable because ADHD is not well understood by most people or all that many doctors. Even the researchers have been yet got a clear understanding, and it looks different in every single person. Your ADHD is not my ADHD. So here are 3 more very common reasons that people offer as to why they think they can’t possibly have ADHD. Reasons that actually suggests it might be ADHD.

Right. The name attention deficit hyperactivity disorder sucks. It’s not a deficit of attention it’s uneven attention. Some people can hyper focus when it’s something interesting something that wakes up the brain something that gets the dopamine and norepinephrine all on flowing, but unfortunately that’s not often the thing we should be focused on right now. What needs doing first or what is worthy of our attention. One guy told me I can spend two hours making a perfect salad and forget that I have work to do and it’s due tomorrow.

Look everybody gets agitated by having to do paperwork or make boring small talk or waiting in line or reading instructions. They don’t? okay.. well we do. We all have different definitions of boring, the weather the traffic the price of cucumbers this year, some people can find that fascinating and go on and on about it. I’ve met them. The fact is ADHD is situational, its interest driven. When we are into it we can be unstoppable. Which is a problem when we’re supposed to stop. My taxes are due and I’m busy working away on my model railroad, or when my son is doing Lego, when my daughter is drawing, when I’m playing a video-game. We can go forever. Which is why I no longer play video games. We forget about deadlines, work, eating, even the smoke alarm that has gone off, or the cat that’s choking in the next room. Yes people have told me horror stories. By the way all of these reasons, beliefs, justifications, were ones that I had before I was diagnosed.

Right. What I found is it’s very hard to be who you really are when you have 9 radio stations playing in your head at the same time, when you can’t complete a single sentence without going off on a tangent, or when you interrupt everybody or you stop listening because you’re waiting to throw in your thing in and you have to say it soon, because if you don’t you’ll forget it, you’ll lose it, you got to say it now, and the other reason that some adults refuse to look into ADHD is they had a bad experience as a child. When I was diagnosed as a kid they put me on some medication. I didn’t like it. I don’t think it helped at all. Right bad experience, very common, and I don’t want to go through that again. I don’t blame you. So forget medication. There are a ton of non-pharmaceutical strategies, exercise, mindfulness, ADHD coach, because this disorder can impact every area of life, you need a holistic approach. Multi-modal I think they call it. A variety of tools and strategies. When something stops working heck I just switched to something else. If that doesn’t work I try something else. I keep experimenting until I find what works. Oh and by the way there are many more medications available now.

If you’re afraid to look into ADHD is a possible explanation for why you’re struggling in some areas of life despite the fact that you’re smart, caring, good-looking, trying your best, take our Do I Have ADD quiz, do some reading, look into it. In the 18 years since I was diagnosed I have never met an adult with ADHD who said I wish I’d never found out. I’ve met some who say “I wish I didn’t have this mindset” well sometimes I wish but every adult I’ve ever met who has been diagnosed with ADHD has the same wish. “I wish I’d been diagnosed sooner” because they have discovered that once you know what’s going on you finally have a fair chance to deal with it, and a fair chance to succeed in life, and that’s all we’re asking for right? A fair chance.