Shadow Syndromes

[Anonymous]

Hey Rey! welcome aboard its like I said before you can’t “hide an elephant under a blade of grass…” you are who you are with your shortcommings but even more, with your talents. Now like all of us “ADDers” we need to “find our niche” or if we did continue to encourage others to the same.

K

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[Carrie]

Some funny OCD here. The psych nurse thought I may have it and was questioning that while my initial interview for ADD.

The silly things I do are on my stereo the sound has to end in 2, 4, 5, 8, or 0. Nothing else! My car clock has to be EXACLTY (or as close as I can) to 3mins ahead, my stove clock 10mins, and my bedroom clock 20mins. I am VERY fussy about the cleanliness of my food, if it hits the counter (which I bleach) I throw it out, or if I think some one has breathed on it, I wont eat it. At the grocery store all the items I put on the belt have to be in a certain order or I stress out. Actually getting groceries is a very stressful situation all together. Nevermind the order on the belt. But once the cashier rings them in my husband deals with them cause I just cant. And I dont like dust, or flaky dry skin floating around (I work in geriatric care, and the skin gets quite dry if they have no lotion) so I hold my breath or gag.

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[Anonymous]

Carrie,

I am verry fussy about cleanliness as well, although some how I have been able to be otherwise my “Better Half” is not very neat because she tends to be a bit of a “pack rat” and has her OCD symptoms similar to yours especially at the grocery store. I have alot of OCD tendencies while writing “thank God for computers” otherwise I would go through a ream of paper just to write a coupe of paragraphs and probably get frustrated and quit well before that.

I hope you don’t mind but it dfeels good to ramble for a moment it helps to relax my mind; my other OCD tendencies I am too pressed for time to get into them but I will share them at a later date

K

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[rebekkajm]

I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and depression also !

I count furniture and other stuff around me, all day long… especially whilst in a conversation. *sigh*

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

I’ve been through a couple of bouts of Depression at various points in my life. Beyond the normal sadness when something awful happened or things got very stressful. It really emphasized the difference between ADHD and other conditions that you fall into. I’ve never known anything other than ADHD, and the frenzied tornado of thoughts that went with it. (Until I tried medication.) But when I was in the low part of the Depression I could sense something was different. Both times I sought help from a counsellor, though I went in to see them with the idea that, “I’m frustrated and can’t figure out why.”

Once I had a reliable diagnosis for ADHD, and I started to take it on, I could see how the tornado of thoughts was 99% negative stuff.

Even when things were going well, all I could see were the negatives, or the things that might go wrong.

Even good news was bad news. “Hey, they’ve picked up our show for another season! We’ve been renewed!” and I’d think, “Oh God, another year of long hours and hard work and stress… and what if we aren’t as funny as last year? And I want to go do something new…” Blah, blah, blah.

The scary thing about Depression is that everything and anything is negative.

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[Curlymoe115]

Well I have been diagnosed with a great number of co-morbid or shadow conditions. I have been diagnosed as Bi-Polar, OCD, Dysmorphic, ADHD, Depressed, Social and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, Disposophobia (compulsive hoarding), Panic Disorder, Bromidrosiphobia, Demophobia, Bulimia, Insomnia, ect.. I know that I am O.D.D. which I have passed on to my children. I am also a control freak and things have to be my way or the highway (although in the nicest way possible) and when I am told about a problem I can solve it faster then you could blink. The funny thing is that I was reading before I went to school but there was no way for me to read out loud and back in the 70’s that was how they tested your reading comprehension skills. So I spent a lot of time in Reading Comprehension reading out loud. Both of my children had a University Reading level when they were still in early grades because reading is something that was stressed. I learned to read with Nancy Drew. From the time I was 5 I was reading these and when I encountered an unfamiliar word I would go to one of my parents who would explain what the word meant. My vocabulary was always very advanced and I would know the meaning of the word and would use it frequently which irritated my class mates because I was using words that they didn’t know. Instead of Amusement Parks our kids got museums and historical sites which meant that they were also far more knowledgeable then their peers and when they would go on field trips with there class our kids could lead the tours. I would also through them in the car without any thought and we would go for a 5 hour drive and find something new. Our kids can pump gas, add fluids to the vehicles, change light fixtures, and every other thing we can think of. We want them to be self sufficient which leads to one of the other things I am, Paranoid.

I tend to be a touch paranoid and am always in survivalist mode. We have enough food in case of an emergency to live for 3 months or more. We have a generator that is capable of running major appliances for 2 days. We have propane heaters, and burners. Although I am a hoarder I would have no problem walking out the front door tomorrow and never looking back if I had to. When I am out in public I prefer to have my back to a solid object and hate crowded places because there is always someone blocking the easiest means of escape. Yet when my child would leave the house in the middle of the night I never feared venturing out into one of the most dangerous cities in Canada to find her. I find the night a comfort rather then something to be afraid of.

Math was always a problem for me until I discovered money. I do not need a lot of calculus and that but most math problems can be figured out if you only think of it in dollars and cents. I also use estimation and I taught this to my kids. In school I would always lose marks because I got the right answer but had no idea how to “prove” my work. When I got older I would provide proof that seemed to explain the answer to me but the teacher thought that there was only 1 right answer. Poor people they needed to open their mind and accept that just because they couldn’t see the brilliance of my answer it didn’t make it wrong or any less right then any one else’s answer.

As for communication I am brilliant. I can use a thousand words to say nothing. When you go back and analyze what I just said you would realize I didn’t really answer your question but you got hooked on what I actually said and if you don’t look too closely you might believe I did. I am also given to enthusiasms. I can talk my way into just about anything. Then I stop and look at what I just talked myself into. Talked myself into moving across the country and then had to spend two years being miserable. I am also a bit of an actress and I apply that skill to Mystery Shopping. They give me an scenario and I off. I love Mystery shopping. I get to be a new person every day and that fits me to a “T”.

Right now that is my only form of work. I don’t do well in social situations. I find the social mores very taxing. I am extremely conscientious and complete every task fast. If this is what you told me to do then that is what is done. I can’t see into your head and see the picture in your mind. So if you can’t explain it then how am I supposed to do it. Then just like high school would be who got invited to lunch or coffee. After the first few weeks I just started taking my breaks at different times so I didn’t have to sit down in the same food court with all of these buddies who would make plans and never invite me. I would come to work early so that I could leave before they left. So you are always the last to know. Then people would get upset because everyone else knew why don’t you.

I am lucky that I am married to someone that has better social skills than I do. He has no problem holding a job and therefore I have become a stay at home mom again. Bring on the retirement sweater vest. Although I hate housework. But I am a great cook. My friends wonder how I can stand to be home all the time. I keep busy. I read, nap, mystery shop, go to the library, waste time on the computer, do laundry, look after the animals, go shopping, watch tv., nap, visit friends. At 5 pm I start supper. My psychiatrist thought that I should practice getting out of the house more. This way one day I may be again ready to venture into a full time job outside of the home again. But while I miss working and interacting with people I don’t miss the confusion of dealing with others expectations and not quite achieving what they want.

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[Anonymous]

When I was a kid, and undiagnosed, I had tics (I might still have them now and just don’t notice because I’m so used to it) and dyscalculia. Languages and spelling I had no trouble with, but give me two numbers to add together and I would just shut down. Thankfully, I’ve been rescued from that by Excel! Thank you, Bill Gates (never thought I’d say that – haha!).

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[Anonymous]

I hear you on the spelling thing, Fearwidg. I always get hung up on the words being spelled correctly which is troublesome if Im writing something for people on opposite sides of the Canada/US border. Thats where the double ss/ll thing comes into play. Along with the o/ou also comes into play.

Then of course, there are the report cards for school. The variation of spellings to use all depend on the administrator who will read your report cards- do they use Canadian English or American English for their own writing and which version of spell check does their computer use?

Comorbidities? Oh yes, ADDers are doubly lucky on this one!! ;o)

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[Anonymous]

Wow, this is very interesting, I never really thought about “shadow syndrome’s”. I was diagnosed with ADD as a child and I’m currently going to school to be a teacher. My grandmother always thought I had dyslexia, hmmm. It all makes sense. I have to say, I worry a great deal about miss spelling and miss use of words. I too use spell check a great deal on my pc as well as my blackberry. I’m under a microscope, if I’m a teacher I cant miss spell.

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[Anonymous]

That “Shadow Syndrome” concept is interesting. I would often question whether my ADHD was a symptom of some other condition, the reason being that when I would research other mental conditions I found that I had similarities to those conditions. For example I would often ask myself, “Am I ADHD or a Hyper-Intellectual?”, “Am I ADHD or a High-Functioning Autistic and a High-Functioning Schitzophrenic?”. I honestly don’t have many imminent friends simply because I find the art of thinking more stimulating than any sort of social function, unless the social function stimulates my thinking. Another thing that made me wonder if I was a High-Functioning Autistic is that often times I don’t understand my own feelings, I didn’t even understand what anxiety was until I described the feelings to my cousin, then he said,”your suffering from anxiety”. I would assume that most people use some sort of intuitive reasoning to understand what feelings compose certain emotions. Right now I’m wondering if an Introvert-ADHD personality presents similar symptoms to that of a High-Functioning Autistic and thats why I’m finding so many similarities. My quest continues…

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[Anonymous]

I have dyslexia and dysgraphia too. I had never heard of dysgraphia until I googled it because I saw my son doing the same weird things that I used to do. We both put extra letters in words and leave blank spaces where the words we wanted to write should be but are not.. He even holds his pen the same weird way I do. I read that their is a strong link between add and dysgraphia…interesting. No wonder I hate writing. Thank god, we now have computers because our handwriting is awful and it’s painful to write. Can anyone out there relate to what I am saying? I wish I could help my son but I slipped through the cracks and never learned how to deal with it myself. My doctor thinks that I have ADD but wants to treat my depression first. I don’t know why but I am kind of stressed out about getting a diagnosis of ADD. Does anyone have any advice for me?

http://www.brighthub.com/education/special/articles/58524.aspx

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[Anonymous]

Spacely, don’t worry about it. Either you have add or not. Not finding out won’t help you. It’s like car maintenance. If your transmission needs work, not going to the shop to find out doesnt mean your tranny is fine. Not knowing will only make it worse.

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[Anonymous]

If I have ADD (which in all honesty I probably do) that means that my son has it too because he is exactly like me. That’s what really bothers me.

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[billd]

Can’t solve an issue until it can be discovered or diagnosed.

Pete hit it (I’m an auto tech) letting that bad bearing go will only put things off – it’s not a solution. It’s avoidance.

Avoiding something only delays it – often the delay means the problem gets worse. What could have been solved with a fluid and filter change can turn into burned parts if put off too long.

There are times that the best course of action is no action – but with medical issues, that’s not typically the case.

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[Anonymous]

@Spacely, there are a bunch of us here who were diagnosed late in life (I’m 37 and just got the news recently). (Makes me wonder what it is about the 35-40 age range that makes it more easily diagnosed). From what I’ve seen, it’s much better to know early. It’s nowhere near a death sentence or even a stigma anymore.

Think of it this way, I grew up thinking I was weird and developed some very unhealthy habits to cope and self-medicate. Had I been diagnosed as a boy, I might have had a few people be cruel to me about ADD and their ignorant prejudices about the disorder. As it happened, I was the one who was cruel to myself. I beat myself up about things that weren’t my fault, and I constantly moved from brilliant success to abject failure in seconds. My successes were always darkened by the mystifying failure that I knew was right around the corner.

Had I been diagnosed, I would have at least known I wasn’t alone. I would have known that there are things I just couldn’t do, and I would have been able to ask for help from the right people. I got very far in life, despite my undiagnosed ADD, but the ride was bumpy and could have been a lot less painful.

ADD isn’t a curse, it’s just a different kind of normal. There are hundreds of millions (if not billions) of us and we have support groups, medical treatments, philosophies and healthy coping strategies. Living with undiagnosed ADD is the curse.

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[Author]

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