Do you feel like you're making excuses?

[Anonymous]

Even though I know I have ADD, I still beat myself up about being distracted and generally unproductive. And when I try to apply what I’ve learned about ADD to my thoughts, I feel like I’m making excuses and that I really am just lazy. If people are harping on me about something I know is a direct result of ADD, I find it difficult to educate my friends/family on what’s going on in my head. I feel like they’ll think I’m just making excuses. But is it really an excuse is I’m explaining it for the first time? Anyway, it’s not like I want to just blame everything on ADD and do nothing, I just want to be capable of giving myself a break once in a while.

Anyone else have this?

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[Anonymous]

Since most of the time people don’t really believe that ADD exists, that it’s just something made up so that lazy people can get out of taking responsibility for their lives, I try not to actually put an ADD label on my behaviour. I know that ADD is making me do some of this stuff (like screwing up on written tests because my brain gets distracted reading long questions) but I never actually say to anyone ‘ADD made me do this’ for fear of being looked at like someone who shirks my responsibility. There is a stigma that goes with verbally acknowledging you’re ADD and I’m not sure if I want to accept it.

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[Patte Rosebank]

Katastrophe, it’s tough enough living with ADD, but when you’re also trying so hard to hide the fact that you have it, life is a whole lot tougher.

But take heart, and take a look all around this website. There’s so much here to help you, and to make you laugh—especially the “Bill’s ADDventures” and “Rick’s Rants” in the Videos section!

And I think you’ll find this Blog entry especially encouraging: http://totallyadd.com/the-courage-to-come-out-of-the-adhd-closet/

Good luck!

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[Anonymous]

Katastrophe, I get what you are saying. I hate putting an ADD label on things too, for that reason and also because that seems to absolve me of my responsibility. To me, if ADD made me do something I regret, then that means I need to work on my coping skills to avoid it happening again. There was a problem in how I managed my ADD and something happened, so it is still my responsibility. That allows me to keep power over myself, which helps a lot. Never mind what other people think, which you already know about.

I think when verbally acknowledging the ADD, the trick is to do it pro-actively. Explain what is difficult for you because of your ADD and suggest ways that you or that person working with you can make sure things run smoothly. For example, my job is to run a day care program. That involves things like checking the details, planning answering phones, all things ADDers are bad at! But I’ve discussed things with my boss, like frequent check-ins of progress, a firm schedule so I can actually work with my elastic sense of time, and some extra time to plan phone calls ahead of time that make my job much easier. Then I’m not making excuses, I’m trouble shooting to make sure that the program runs well.

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