What do you think?

[Anonymous]

I don’t really know that much about ADD/ADHD. I have an older sister who has a PhD in psychology and she thinks I have ADD/ADHD or one of them, I forget. Tomorrow I fail out of college. I’ve honestly tried in my classes and I can complete complex cognitive challenges and I have a large vocabulary so I know I’m not unintelligent. Sitting in class is excruciating, I often leave early so I don’t have to continue sitting in a desk, and when I am present in class i’m hardly focused on the material. I’m very impulsive, last year I left college and moved to LA on a whim, then moved back after a few months. A week ago I moved out of my new place, as I find it very difficult to live in one area for too long of a time. I could go on, hope this helps formulate accurate opinions. It’s all the truth and this is my first serious attempt at exploring the possibility of having ADD or ADHD.

One more thing, a friend gave me an adderall recently, and i’m usually very hesitant about self-medication and I avoid drug use in general. Call it an impulsive decision, but I decided to use it to self-medicate as an experiment. What’s frightening is that I felt like saw myself for the time. My usually present infinite self-doubt, over-analytical and tangential thinking disappeared. It’s hard to describe but during the duration of time that the medication took effect, my “normal” behavior seemed in retrospect more like typical mania associated with bi-polar disorder.

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[Anonymous]

Well Nathan, I would say that your sister may be on to something. Having ADHD myself, I can see a lot of what I went through in what you are saying. From what you’ve said, it’s definitely worth looking into seeing if you do or don’t have ADHD.

First thing I suggest, the online test available at this website is a pretty good one, not anywhere near perfect, but it may help you see for yourself that it’s worth looking into. You can find it at http://totallyadd.com/virtual-doctor. Now even if it says that it doesn’t appear that you have ADHD, if you’re anywhere near close and know you’ve answered honestly, then it’s worth looking into further.

Secondly, educate yourself about it. There is a lot of great material out there that can give you a pretty good idea of what ADHD is exactly, and what to do about it. I suggest Delivered from Distraction by Edward Hallowell M.D. which has helped me out a ton! There’s also a pretty good video library on this website too. If you can’t make yourself read at least most of a book like Delivered from Distraction, then try to get it on CD, MP3, tape, whatever it takes, but make it so you can listen to it while you’re doing something else, like driving, doing something around the house, ect, so that way you can get the information you need without feeling like a dungeon slave chained to a book, lol

Finally, while you’re educating yourself, if you feel that you may indeed have ADHD, make an appointment with a good psychologist, particularly one who specializes in learning disorders (I don’t know your sister’s area of expertise, but she might at least be able to reccomend someone), or even a child psychologist who usually have more training on learning disorders than normal psychologists (and child psychologists see adults too before you ask, lol)

Well, hope to hear back from you soon!

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