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From what I have read, we’re already highly stressed just trying to get through the day. Kinda like driving around in first gear all the time. So when something seemingly insignificant (well, insignificant to others) occurs, we go over the edge. The funny thing is, after the carnage, we pick up and dust ourselves off and carry on as if nothing has happened. Meanwhile, the party involved and all the innocent bystanders are still trying to figure out what the heck happened.
<humour> ADD. The gift that just keeps on giving….</humour>
REPORT ABUSEI thought the comment was funny and I certainly didn’t see a political side to this at all. If you learn anything at all from this website, it’s that despite all the pain and suffering we endure, we can still find time for our unique sense of humour. Besides, I’ll trade Harper for Obama any day.
As to the original intent of this topic about jobs that are ADD friendly that’s like saying what are good jobs for someone with blue eyes. If you are aware of your ADD, and what flavour it is, I think any job is suitable…if you know your limitations and CAN and DECIDE to work within them.
I think that’s the issue. Whether an ADDer can make the adjustments to their brainstyle to accommodate whatever they choose to do is what it really boils down to. I hate working in a corporate cube farm, but I try to adapt to that by changing how I approach my work. Instead of working on single project at a time, I’ll work several concurrently. Drives my boss nuts. When I work on a single project, well, you all know to well what happens. But when I work multiple projects confined to tight deadlines, my brain now fires on all cylinders and stuff gets done. I’m focused. In the zone. At one with the Tao.
I try to bend the world to me as much as I can.
Would I have chosen this career if I were aware about my ADD? Probably not, knowing how it was going to turn out.
My job started out interesting because I was allowed to get away from the computer all the time, go into the factory to do what I had to do, find out stuff, talk to the people I needed to talk to and go back to the computer. So when I found myself getting bored or loosing focus, I could find an excuse to get away. Even if I didn’t need to go into the factory, I’d go anyways just to keep stimulated. It doesn’t happen now at all. Now it’s starting to drag me down.
Everything is now provided to me on the computer, so now it’s eight hours a day (even on weekends, frequently) staring at a computer screen in a gray cube-farm. Very boring. The paperwork, procedures and policies used in my workplace have drained every bit of enjoyment. Not to mention computer network that is so slow that I frequently forget what I’m to do next, I just “gap-out”. I think even the “neuro-norms” find it tough going now. I can say that corporate life sucks if you have ADD. Oh, in addition, I think I’m burnt-out.
What would I have chosen knowing I had ADD? Something creative, perhaps stayed with photography which I have done most of my life. That was stimulating work. A paramedic, fireman or bush-pilot perhaps. Something that requires regular stimulus, with little or no paperwork. A lion-tamer? Entertainment field is good: ADD is frequently called the “comedian’s disease”. Journalism?
I read that we like to work on things we find really intrinsically interesting (almost obsessively), highly detailed or complex, and to work mostly by ourselves if we can. Places that require out-side-the-box thinking and that our input is needed and valued, like software design. When I look at how computer software is designed with poor user interface, that makes me nuts. I think my hyper-awareness makes me really sensitive to that. Why is the checkbox up here and the Accept box why down over there? Why is it most ON/OFF switches in a car are in the middle of the dash, but some are on the left side of the steering wheel requiring the driver to switch hand during driving? That sort of thing. Because when you have ADD these things really stand out.
So, at mid-fifties, I’m contemplating another change, perhaps working on a series of small contracts at different places, doing different projects to provide stimulus and change.
When I have the answer for what is a good career choice for someone with ADD. I’ll let you know, but in the meantime, the search continues…stay tuned.
Hope this helps…and good luck.
REPORT ABUSEHi, Mungo!
What a great handle, BTW.
The annual performance review, ah yes.
It was another in a series of lousy performance reviews that lead me to investigate further the possibilty of ADD. Although I was working toward the assessment at a slower pace, it was this emotionally significant event that was the catalyst for change. When I received the diagnosis, it was a tremendous relief. All the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The was finally a reason why I couldn’t perform to the level expected by my supervisor. The diagnosis was presented as evidence that I wasn’t an incompetent employee, just someone with a different “brain-style”.
Then came the skepticism and the stonewalling from a corporation that prides itself on being “diverse and all-inclusive” (unless you have a hiden disability). Even though I had reports and letters from several experts in adult ADD, trying to get the recommended accommodations from the company is the worst experience in my life. It has gone on for almost two years and still continues. I have seen a part of the company that very few people ever get to see and it’s discouraging to say the least. My disclosure is only to management; my coworkers don’t know.
The funny thing is that I can live with my ADD outside of work, it’s really not an issue at all. I’m just more aware of it than before…”Oh, yeah, it’s the ADD thing again! It’s at work where all hell breaks loose.
I have learned that, ADD as a disability (here in Ontario, anyway), your performance as an employee cannot be measured against the performance of your coworkers or peers. The sad thing is, most HR departments are woefully deficient when it comes to understanding human rights as they relate to people with ADD or any other learning/developmental issues.
It’s a long struggle, Mungo. But it sounds as if your workplace is more enlightened.
Hope this helps…and good luck
REPORT ABUSEI would speak to your Doc about an increase first, I think. When I was using Concerta, my Doc split the dose for me to alleviate winding down in the PM. I was on 90 mg per day, 54 in the the AM and 36 in the PM. That worked.
I’m now on Vyvanse and it’s working better for me. It did take a while to get the dosing right for the Concerta, but once at the right dose. it was fine. The change to Vyvanse was in response to my complaining of lack of energy.
With any of this stuff, one-size-doesn’t-fit-all.
BTW, I have also read information about generic Concerta and there are a lot of people with a similar experience with the generic “not working as well”. Concerta has a pretty sophisticated delivery system that allows it to perform the way it does. Even though the chemical compound is the same in the generic, the method of dispersing the medicine doesn’t work the same the way. This can be the reason why the generic doesn’t perform as well.
You can have you Doc specifically prescribe Concerta by writing “no substitutions” on the script. In the US, the manufacturer has a support program for people that cannot afford Concerta, I don’t know if a similar program exists in Canada for those who don’t have a prescription drug plan or other coverage. The Vyvanse would cost me about $8 per day, but, fortunately my plan covers this. But even if I didn’t have a drug plan, I would still use Vyvanse as the benefits are worth the cost.
It’s kinds funny the insurers refer to it as a “drug plan” instead of a “medicine” plan or pharmaceutical plan” as if trying to make us feel like we’re junkies, you know “Drugs are bad, m’K” (Mr MacKee from the TV show South Park). Subtle, or what?
Hope this helps…and good luck,
REPORT ABUSEHey there, bobf007!
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. May times symptoms such as what you are describing often overlap with other things like depression or anxiety.
Have you tried the Virtual Test on this website to help you? In addition, there are other websites for self testing for depression and anxiety. Try the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health:
Sometimes by confirming or eliminating some possible answers may lead in the direction of the root cause or causes. Doing something (even a small thing by posting here) or a self-test may help give you that little bit of strength to feel as if you are taking control. That small bit of control may eventually lead to defeat the feeling of being overwhelmed. I find that sometimes you have to “trick the mind” by doing a small thing in the direction of where you want to go. Lead the brain. Overcome the inertia.
We have all been there, bobf007. Read some of the posts on this forum: you will read stories about pain and triumph.
The most important thing I can say at this point is to get a professional (such as a doctor, psychiatrist, social worker) to help you sort this all out. They’ve seen this all before and are the ones that can definitively provide the diagnosis and expertly recommend some solutions. Don’t self-diagnose. Setting off down the wrong path can only make things worse.
If you ever get to the point where it’s all too much….please get help. I know this spiral all too well. Call a crisis hotline. They often have access to lists of resources to help you.
Let us know how you are doing, OK?
Hope this helps…and good luck
REPORT ABUSEA User Review (I kinda feel like one of those automotive journalists that get to test drive new Ferraris!)
My Psy Doc changed me over from Concerta to Vyvanse last week.
What a difference!
I was complaining that, although my ADD symptoms were mostly under control using Concerta, my physical energy level was low. Wellbutrin and Lomotragene are covering the depression/anxiety thing, so the depression wasn’t really impacting my physical energy level.
The change to Vyvanse is a real eye-opener. The Psy Doc says the Vyvanse affects other neurotransmitters (such as norepinephrine) as well as good’ ol dopamine. Apparently, norepinephrine can help to restore physical energy levels. And I am noticing that effect now.
Even the concentration levels have improved….when hear music that I’ve been listening to for a long time, I’m hearing things I’ve never heard before. If you’re an audiophile, you know exactly what I’m taking about.
At work things are more stimulating, I’m more “with-it” and engaged. Staying on task longer. Whether that can resurrect my failing career remains to be seen, but hopefully my superiors will have noticed a change in attitude.
Definitely more confident because I can now hold my own in discussions and argue more decisively and logically when trying to get my point across to other people. But argue in the classic sense….”An argument is a connected series of statement intended to establish a proposition.”(from Monty Python). Much like the argument I’m having with a certain Canadian bank.
The once-a-day dosing is a really plus, also. I’ve always had to carry a “stash” of Concerta wherever I went. The only downside I’ve noticed, is that mid-day, usually right after lunch, there is a reduction in energy levels (both mental and physical) but I wonder if it’s food thing causing the “bonking-out” effect. The energy level ramps up after a couple of hours. The other effect is I tend to pass out in front of the TV a bit more and earlier in the night. Not much going on right now on TV anyway.
While my wife and I agree that Concerta has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me in a long, long while, I have to say that Vyvanse is even better.
Based on my experience of getting off Effexor. I was expecting a similar response stopping Concerta and using Vyvanse, but it was a seamless transition. It did take several days to fully take effect.
My pharmacist cautioned me that <humour> “Vyvanse is an amphetamine… and amphetamine is the same stuff that did Elvis in”.</humour>
Oh.
Guess I’ll get me a peanut butter and fried banana sandwich…..
REPORT ABUSEWell, Clive, I think you’ve come to the right place We’ve all been there.
No shortage of advice here, right guys?!
Even if you find one coping skill here, then it’s been a good thing. Even if you can find one positive thing about what you’re going through right now is a good starting point: hang onto that thought.
You’ve working on a patent; that’s a start. A good start. Many of us have great ideas that will never see the light because we felt it was a silly idea after all or a waste of time, or nobody really wants the thing you’re designing. So you are one up on most of us. Most of us live in “quiet desperation”.
<humour>Unless you have ADD, than anything can happen…</’humour>
Office a mess? Does it impact how you work? Can you find what you need, when you need it? EInstein was quoted as saying “If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?
Try this one from Edison, the poster child for ADD:
“Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.”
Hope this helps…and good luck
REPORT ABUSEJuly 1, 2010 at 11:59 am in reply to: What you may be doing that keeps you from making friends #94279My heritage is Ukrainian also. I’m gonna agree with Ivriniel on the Cossack theory because it’s sounds as plausible.
Much like the “Jewish Anxiety Syndrome”. That theory suggests that only those people who felt something terrible was going to happen left town, those that didn’t suffered the consequences. A genetic DNA thing that just happened to develop during several generations? Calling David Suzuki!
Cossacks + Jewish people = Pograms? One ethnic culture with a higher than normal rate of a specific neurological disorder eventually affecting another ethic culture that resulted in possibly another neurological disorder? Highly simplified, I know.
These two cultures probably had these issues bubbling away under the surface for a long, long time. The Jewish people having been persecuted and kicked around in Europe for hundreds of years. The Ukrainian Cossacks not really having a homeland and always caught between the Mongols or Muslim armies invading from the east and various European expansionist empires invading from the west. (The Russians, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, Germany, and I believe even the Swedes, and, oh yeah, Vikings!, to name a few. Again, a highly simplified view.
The historical evidence seems to suggest something. There could be a paper in here for someone’s thesis.
After being diagnosed with ADD, my wife has commented that she see these ADD traits in many members of my family. And when she hears the stories, the antics and the escapades during family get-togethers, just confirms our belief about higher incidence of ADD among Ukrainians. Not all, but more than a few: mostly undiagnosed, and in some cases, self medicated.
I like to tell her that ADD was God’s way of preventing Ukrainians from taking over the world…..
Have a great Canada Day…and be thankful we live in the greatest country in the world!
REPORT ABUSEIt came as a tremendous relief to my wife why I behaved the way I did. It wasn’t “me”, it was my brain. (Ricky from “Trailer Park Boys” said that “My brain is way smarter than me. It’s always making me do things and getting me into trouble and stuff.” I like that show – please don’t judge me….).
It took almost thirty years to figure this out. I’m now on Concerta and my wife is of the opinion it’s the best thing that ever happened to us. It was a diagnosis that came entirely out of nowhere after 20 years of treating the wrong symptom.
I think every ADDer out there is, in their essence, a caring, loving and responsible person. We’ve just fallen of the rails. And much like so_calvin, I deal with the same issues. The same RAM computer thing….When I’m overloaded mentally, I do exactly the same thing. I shut down as if a circuit breaker has cut out.
But, as I have found out, there is a lot of support out there. Your husband has the awareness thing about ADD, so he is, at least, some idea as to what may need to be addressed. I try to avoid the work “fixed” as there is nothing to fix – <humour>it’s not like taking your dog to the Vet to get neutered. </humour>
Doing a lot of therapy has taught me that the goal of therapy is to guide the patient so that the patient makes the discovery themselves. The “breakthrough”, as it is sometimes called. Therapists never really come out and say you’re depressed or have have anxiety issues. They may use that as suggestions or starting points during therapy as ideas to help you along the path to lead to the breakthrough. And I suppose, much like I have discovered, that’s when you become self-aware of the core issue, then recovery can take place because you own the issue.
The problem is how do you motivate someone to get to that place. My wife always tells me you can’t get people to do anything they don’t want to do. Took me awhile to figure that on out.
I don’t want to add another stressor in your life right now, but it may be conceivable (from a statistical point of view) that one of your boys may have ADD also. Since ADD can be a genetic thing, maybe that can be the starting point to open discussion as to “nudging” your husband into dealing with the issue that vexing your lives right now. I am not a health care professional or therapist or counsellor…just someone who has ADD and has been down that road. And I don’t want to advise you how to run your lives. I just want to offer some support, much as I would to a friend.
Has he seen the documentary on this website?
Don’t forget also, that as more and more women become the major, and in some cases, the only, source of income that men are having a great deal of trouble dealing with that fact. Many males, including me, are trying to understand our roles in the “new world order”. Everything we know, or understand, or believed about our place in the scheme of things has been turned upside down. For generations, men have been hard wired to play a specific role in society and now that has been tossed side like an empty Tim Horton’s coffee cup.
Again, I am not judging, it’s just my opinion. Hopefully, I haven’t overwhelmed you. There are a lot of good people on these forums, with a lot of real world experience trying to make the world bend to our ADD.
Hope this helps….and good luck
REPORT ABUSEConcerta….wonderful stuff.
REPORT ABUSELast week’s Globe and Mail’s Focus and Books section contained an article on “Critical Thinking” by John Allemang. In a new book by philosopher Martha Nussbaum, she is “raising the alarm against higher education’s growing obsession with knowledge that you can take to the bank”. In a nutshell, Nussbaum concern is that the humanities in university are facing tough times against the “culture of market-driven schooling”.
Increasingly, governments are funding more technical and scientific endeavours and that schools are now challenged with supplying talent for these areas. However, schools, being profit driven, are directing most of the resources to the scientific, engineering and technical areas. And you guessed it, no one is going to universities for liberal arts degrees anymore. It’s just not a lucrative field to be in these days.
As a result, our ability to argue using intellectual strength is greatly reduced. We now live in a society where conformity and obedience is greatly rewarded and that alternative thought or points of view is oppressively discouraged. Everything is an 8-second sound bit from some authority who may or may not have an agenda. What’s behind the curtain?
Sometimes, I will challenge people when they say “I heard …” or “They say….”
I never had the opportunity to go to university (because of ADD, undiagnosed, at that time) so I certainly would have loved to have to chance to learn critical thinking in an academic situation. What I have learned about critical thinking, logic and reasoning is what I have picked up “on the street”. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance being a start. I guess in this case hyper-focusing is a good thing.
Closer to home, I work for a very larger engineering corporation and their lack of understanding of how the world really works is apparent. Every decision, in every aspect, of their corporate culture is about maximum efficiency at minimum cost (engineering logic). The fact that some the people who work for them have different values, opinions or beliefs than theirs never occurs to them. Or, that human behaviour is unpredictable. Definitely a humanities deficiency disorder at play here.
I’m not slamming engineers, we need them. Our world is better for them.
Hope this helps and good luck
REPORT ABUSEWell, there is a difference between belief and fact. If religion or spirituality help than use them. I do, the spirituality part, anyways. The difference between the religion and spirituality, I think? Religion is for people that don’t want to go to hell, spirituality is for those that have gone through it.
I just get concerned when beliefs are passed off as facts. The sad thing is that there are “spiritual predators” that take advantage of vulnerable people. Suggest, not preach.
Do I believe that ADD is an evolutionary thing so that nature ensures the development human race? Yes. Do I believe that some people can be “gifted” for some unknowable reason? Sure. Because if nature leaves everything to the “neuro-norms” (neurologically normal – a phrase I heard someone with Asperger’s Syndrome describing other people – but I think it describes non ADDer’s accurately) I think we’re doomed to pretty boring, drab, mediocre existence with no excitement. And maybe no future.
Sometimes in my deepest despair when people do not understand what I go through everyday, I tell myself that ADDers will make the world a better place. We’ll leave it better than we found it. Would the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast happened if an ADDer were in charge? I’d like to think not; we would have figured this kind of thing will happen and been more proactive in finding solutions for problems that will/can occur.
Foresight: a wonderful thing. It’s no wonder that when limited to linear thinking or are only viewing the world from a spreadsheet that things go badly wrong. It’s just a matter of time.
I hope this helps and good luck
REPORT ABUSEObviously, SimplyStella, doesn’t have ADD because of the fact her post is so long….
But I have to say that these “Fluffy Bunny” approaches to something that has impacted our lives in such a detrimental way really concerns me. In my opinion, it’s as helpful as the things I’ve always heard in my life such as “you’re not trying hard enough” or “you’re just lazy”. Great.
It’s medical science that’s keeping my life together right now and for someone to have the temerity to suggest I should believe in something akin to voodoo is really insensitive. If that floats your boat, fine: just don’t add another layer of confusion.
Bring in the Thetans…..
REPORT ABUSEummm, Rick?
REPORT ABUSE“The things you own end up owning you.”
– Fight Club
This is in the preface of the Peter Walsh book, It’s All To Much.
Peter was on the TLC show Clean Sweep, and he was the “psychological heavy” that would explain to the homeowners why their house is in such a state. Then Peter would provide guidance to prevent cluttering from happening again. Meanwhile, the rest of the team is beavering away helping the homeowners de-clutter. Everything would get tossed in the yard into one of three piles: Keep, Toss, or Yard Sale. This catagorization was done at lightning speed so there is seldom a chance to second guess, or rationalize, in keeping something.
Peter has a very low key approach and is interesting to watch how he works. His Australian accent and demeanor reminds me of a photography instructor I once had in a previous life,
This is his website:
He has many good ideas.
Another book worth looking into is ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life, by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau. This book has a lot of good ideas also.
Hope this helps and good luck.
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