Is it ADD/ADHD if you can't remember?

[squirrelygirl]

Ok, more precisely, I score pretty high on the online tests, well within “strong likelihood,’ but what if you can’t remember your childhood well enough to know if the symptoms were there?  I was put in the MGM program in elementary school but refused to do it because they were making us learn about art history and I just wasn’t interested.  No one in my family remembers me as odd in any way, but then were little girls ever diagnosed as ADD back in the early ’70’s?

I can definitely relate to articles written by ADD folks as if they had channeled my mind, but when my sister reads the same articles, she doesn’t relate at all.

If I don’t have ADD because I didn’t have the symptoms in childhood but have them very strongly as an adult, what DO I have?

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[shutterbug55]

Hello squirrelygirl,

I have no idea what you have, but I can tell it is causing you some concern. I could tell you not to worry, as if that could actually stop your worrying. ADD/ADHD is not fatal. I have had it all my life, and while it has led me down some interesting paths, I have not died from it.

The quick tests you take that say you could have ADD are like those artist adds on the matchbook covers: Just because you can draw a reasonable copy of the bird, doesn’t make you an artist. Just because you scored high(low) enough on the test, doesn’t mean you have ADD.

To find out if you do, you need to have a Psychiatrist or some other mental health professional, who specializes in diagnosis/treatment of ADD to perform a series of tests and interviews on you. This is to tell if you do have it. They look at your family as well. ADD is hereditary. They will look at your history. ADD is just a symptom of how your brain is constructed. They will try to determine how impairing it is. After all that you get the good/bad news.

I don’t know what the statistics are on diagnosis between girls and boys. Maybe someone else can answer that one.

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[squirrelygirl]

Thanks, shutterbug55 – I do have an appointment with a psychiatrist after going to a therapist – she referred me on, in large part because of my depression but also because my mind is not registering being present.  How can I explain?  My mind is so all over the place, and the way she sees it, my brain doesn’t properly write memories/experiences because I’m just flitting along thinking about everything else but what I am actually doing/experiencing.  She gave me the job of practicing grounding, which so far I have been a failure at doing.   I forget to do it, first of all, and then when I try, I can’t reign in my thoughts to focus on the grounding.

As far as impairing, well, I’ve got a lifestyle at the moment that protects me from being hugely impaired.  I’m not employed, don’t have children, and rarely leave the house unless I have to.  Even with no gainful employment, I still can’t get the house cleaned – if I tackle one area with the help of music, that is all I can handle for the day, and then the rest of the house is coming apart and I feel overwhelmed by the clutter and dirt building around me.  I have also neglected the outdoor chores because there is so much to address that I can’t seem to get started.  Instead, I end up on the computer in a self-rewarding loop of surfing sites like this one!

I know the meds don’t help everyone equally, but when I read some ADD/ADHD peoples’ life-altering improvement on the meds, I hope that I am diagnosed so that I can have a chance at that, too.  The thought of being the way I am and not getting the diagnosis leaves me feeling such despair, that I don’t even have that explanation for why I am the way I am.

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