[Curlymoe115]

My DH and I have been married for 21 years. We both have ADHD with very different presenting symptoms. I am the hoarder that lives in piles of disorganized piles. He was brought up by a mother who could lift the world on her shoulders and then vacuum under them. He was encouraged to collect everything. His room was always clean and he knew where every piece of every collection was because no one ever touched his things, yet he can not remember a conversation 2 minutes after it takes place, always has to do just one more thing even though he has been screaming about us being late for 2 hours, always leaves for work with barely time to make it in before the bell, and is forever starting things then running to do something else. A simple task of folding a load of laundry can take 2 or more hours. (Never discourage helping behaviour even if you could absolutely strangle him for what he is doing)

As I mentioned I have an extreme difficulty getting organized, live in a state of endless clutter. But I can remember every little detail that takes place in a conversation for months or years afterwards (especially if it struck an emotional cord with me), but when I go to the grocery store for milk I often forget milk. I lose my keys, purse, debit card, clothes, glasses, books, drinks etc. We both have an extreme difficulty with crowds and when we attend a party we often socialize strictly with one or two other people because it is very easy to get overwhelmed.

Because of our differences and the way we think we are often absolutely delighted with each others company. We agree on most areas (don’t get us started on child rearing, our families, the state of the house, ect) and so it is always great when we have time together. Our children are of course both ADD with different presentations that in a lot of ways mimic one or the other of us. So what we do not appreciate in the other or ourselves we see in our children. The teachers at the school often remark how like us they both are and we just accept it as a compliment.

This means that because of his short memory he often accuses me of keeping secrets from him. I not only tell him I write it on the calendar but he doesn’t often look at this tool. But he often acknowledges my absolute superiority in most things so I am able to overlook this little flaw. Just Joking, about overlooking the flaws. I may never win the good housekeeping seal but I am a great partner and keep the kids fed, his laundry done, the house still has heat and power, the house hasn’t been repossessed, so I take this as a win, and so does he. He is a great worker, he can get more done in a day then the average person, is great with faces, good with people, and if he puts something down and it isn’t moved can put his finger on it again quickly.

But I can certainly understand where you are coming from about putting things too high. My height is under 5 ft and his is closer to 6 ft so he feels that we should maximize every inch of cupboard space in our too small kitchen. Every spice I use on a regular basis if he finds it on the counter he places on the top shelf in the spice cupboard, every bowl or dish is above my reach and I often use spatulas or other “reaching” tools to get things down. His organizational plan is completely different then mine and we mostly agree to disagree. If I get it down and put it back it stays where I want it, but if I leave it out then I better have something to reach with.

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[Curlymoe115]

Has Skatterkat noticed money being spent in cash a lot more then before. If he is an addict and his source has been cut off is he now buying these illegally. Or did he go to a doctor (or more then 1) and get a prescription for his own. It is not realistic to think that if he has been taking 3 or 4 a day that he quit cold turkey.

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[Curlymoe115]

Why don’t you write up what you see on a lined piece of paper. Give it to DH and let him read it then if he has anything to add he can add it to the bottom and then you can transpose it onto the form. If dad is basically oblivious to the behaviours then that is going to be reflected on his form. Then your assessor is going to have to compare dads assessment with everyone else’s. Much easier for him to read one parental form with both yours and DH’s assessment together especially if dad isn’t great about spotting abnormality. And if he is married to an ADD and a lot of your 7 year olds behaviours are like yours maybe he just thinks its normal.

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[Curlymoe115]

I saw a psychiatrist for about a year. He knew that I had ADHD as a child yet instead of connecting A to B he threw in about 20 other disorders I fitted as well. In his office the files were piled on the floor in huge stacks, there was general clutter everywhere and he always had to be reminded who I was before we would begin the session. Then he spend a few minutes finding my file. He prescribed 30 different medications and combinations to the point where I was just about comatose with the combinations. I wasn’t functioning I was existing. When I would inquire about any other form of therapy (he had mentioned some things to help me get past the anxieties and compulsions) he would always put this off until after I was stabilized on medication. This was a teaching professor at a Canadian teaching University.

But you will be happy to know that I could probably get a life long pension from my myriad of disorders and get paid to stay home for the rest of my life. I still live in my hoarders dream house, still have a problem with large crowds of people (too many conversations, can’t hear any one person), still am compulsed to do things in certain ways, over and over again, still get really angry if I am hyperfocused and am interrupted, and on and on. So I am a bi-polar (I get excited and often run off without a plan with the utter conviction that this will succeed without any thought of consequence, and I have had some depressed episodes), I am obsessive compulsive, I have social anxieties, I suffer from many other disabilities that can all really be traced back to my ADHD yet in all of these diagnosis he never mentioned adult ADHD. He suggested that I go out into crowded shopping and social situations so that I could adjust to them. When I reported back that I just feel overwhelmed he would suggest that I just keep trying.

Of course I stopped all the medications and while I still suffer from my condition (but nothing improved with the meds just felt like my head was a balloon and it was floating disconnected from everything), I am at least happier. When my oldest daughter was diagnosed with ADHD we were not surprised. She also suffers from a variety of other mental illnesses that multiply the symptoms of her ADHD. She was put onto Dexedrine when she was in day care. She was taking a very high dosage for her condition. She was extremely disruptive in the regular classroom and in grade 1 was moved to a special behaviour based classroom. There were 6 kids in a class with 2 behavioural aids. The person who ran this program was a Psychiatric Nurse who would say he could tell what type of day our daughter would have by what she looked like when she got to school. He insisted on having a bottle of her prescription and would give her pills if he thought she had missed them. Then he started reporting that she was often in “sillyland” for the rest of the day, and instead of focusing she would be disassociated for the day and had to be placed in time out. Turns out that what she was was high. This 50 lb child was getting twice the spansule of Dexedrine (4 instead of 2) and was therefore stoned. When, in consultation with her pediatrician, we weaned her off the medication they actually reported us to social services and took us to court to try to force us to put her back on the medication. After we were finally vindicated for taking her off the medication they tried to black ball our daughter from ever being mainstreamed even though her behaviour had stabilized. We literally moved our family across the country to get her into a mainstream program. The consequences of the medication are still being felt. She now uses drugs and alcohol to try and replicate the feelings of silly land.

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[Curlymoe115]

For me the work wouldn’t be the problem, give me a really tight deadline and throw in a lot of adrenaline and I am humming on all cylinders. But a boss screaming at me would be my invitation to leave. I hate nasty criticism and the fact that this person thinks he has a right to belittle or demean you would be a fast call to the provincial ombudsman. In Alberta we have a lot less protections for disabled workers then most other provinces. But if you can get documentation for a Human Rights case then you should pursue this option if he tries to fire you after you go to him with your diagnoses.

Your best bet may to be to go into one of the Employment offices on your day off or lunch hour and take the Choices test. This will help you pinpoint what you are good at and what kind of place that would be the best for you to work at.

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[Curlymoe115]

My hobby is reading. I have gone through about 2000 books this year. I don’t read all the words, hate too much description and can read a book or two in a few hours. I get the flavor of the characters or story. I always joke that they don’t write fast enough. I don’t have the patience to wait for a year for the next book. I also do a lot of research for ancestry or other things. I read the paper but only stay focused on articles that interest me. I will take up an exercise for a day or two but then something else catches my eye and I am off. I do really well on tight tight deadlines but get hopelessly lost on open ended projects. I always underestimate how long things will take and try to finish just on time. This leaves me lots of time to get distracted by a million other things.

I have stayed home for the last 2 years. Therefore I have endless hours to fill. So I cycle through my hobbies of reading, researching, sewing, cooking, baking, eating out and still have lots of time for daydreaming and napping. I can waste time with the best of them. I can do everything faster (and usually because of the haste on detail jobs sloppier) then everyone else. I get a call company will be here in 2 hours. I can shampoo the rugs, clean the house, throw a fresh coat of paint on the walls, have time to whip up 2 dozen appetizers, get to the store for the turkey for next weeks dinner, pick up the dry cleaning I forgot last week, do a student teacher interview about the problem my daughter is having in school, get home as you are about to give up and go home because I am an hour late. That is just the way my brain works. When I am on an adrenaline high everything fires better and faster. Better not to tell me 3 weeks before because nothing will get done. I have bought new sewing machines that never make it out of the box, craft projects I don’t have time for (and I have nothing but time) and other time wasters. I get addicted to an activity and can do it 23 hours a day. Then I have to wean myself off because it is having an negative influence on the family. For about 3 months I was playing all the facebook games 23 hours a day. I would cycle through them, spend money to get me places faster (about $300.00 on things that weren’t tangible) and interact exclusively with other gamers. My family and home suffered, my friends were hurt because I would go to their homes and play on their computer. Finally my computer broke down and a five day break just about killed me. But it did allow me the chance to step away. Now I don’t dare even open one of the games in case I get dragged back in. If I am not careful books, tv shows or other imaginary worlds lure me in and I lose perspective with the real world. Everything in the virtual world is neat and clean. There is always a happy ending or at least a conclusion unlike the world of mothering teenagers who hate you and what you stand for.

I am hyperactive in a still body. My brain needs to be continually engaged. I hate sports because I trip going upstairs. I do not pay close attention where I am going or my body positioning. I often trip over other people even if they are standing beside me. My mind is a million miles away. I set a direction and I go without focusing on what obstacles are there. My brain says “get the laundry out of the dryer” and I fall headlong down the stairs because I didn’t see the dog. But I bounce pretty good.

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[Curlymoe115]

Newbie to this site, but not to ADD. I was diagnosed when I was in grade 1. I was the fidgety child that always blurted out the first answer that came to mind. It was usually the right answer, but I got in a lot of trouble because I never let anyone else have their turn. I am very private, secretive and shy but hide this behind an avalanche of words. So I am often in trouble because I fail to ask others about themselves. I figure that if you want me to know something you will tell me, if I stop talking long enough to listen. If there are long lulls in the conversation I either jump in and start chattering or more likely start slipping back into the safe daydreams that keep me busy when I don’t have a book. Therefore when you do start talking it is often a sentence or two before I am aware that you are talking to me again. Then I just guess at what I missed and continue as though I understood it all. (Quite often I get puzzled looks and they pass it off as she is just eccentric)

I have had a few jobs that I loved, but more often I ended up in conflict with co-workers for being impulsive and completing things to my specifications instead of theirs. Instead of seeing the big picture from their perspective I am sure of what needs to be done, and race quickly to complete this. If I get interrupted to do something else it could be hours or days until I feel the energy to get back to it. And then the project can languish because I have lost the vision. I am better at jobs that require a sequential focus and as long as I know the steps I can finish these quickly. My body may be still but my mind is always racing to fill itself up. I think this is a way of compensating because I was forced to stay still. My last job was in a busy government office where we had cubby’s. This was the absolute worse place for me to be. I often would hear conversations going on between co-workers and would feel this overwhelming need to stand up and blurt out a comment. Restraining myself was exhausting. I worked as a program assistant for 4 programs and was required to book conferences and mail outs that needed to be done in a certain way. This information was not disseminated very well and the one coordinator was also ADD so she would tell me what she wanted and could see it clearly in her mind but was unable to share her vision with me. I also could clearly see the project in my mind and would try to explain my vision and she would agree with what I was saying but we both only saw our own vision. So therefore the end result would often fail to measure up to the coordinators expectations.

They then appointed a person to act as the go between for us. She would break the steps down and tell me exactly what to do. She would only explain one or two steps at a time and then disappear and I would quickly finish this and then when I went looking for the next part couldn’t find her and then the enthusiasm had worn away and by the time she came back I would be caught up in a new project and resented having to quit doing what I wanted to go back to this other thing. This person also took an opportunity to draw attention to me and heap ridicule on me. Instead of appreciating the fact that the coordinator also needed her to act as an intermediary because she lacked the ability to explain she used this as a way to point out that she was superior. I finally quit because I always felt ridiculed.

That was 2 years ago. I now stay home. I read 2 or 3 books a day, nap and find other ways to fill my time while my family goes to work and school. I loved my job but I hated the social fall out. I often felt just like when I was in school like there was always a spotlight on me when I just spilled something on myself. I have a hard time being socially appropriate. I come on too strong with friends and family and have to make a conscious effort to not overwhelm people. If my house is clean and organized I function well in the home but things melt into chaos very quickly then I have a hard time getting back on track. I will tidy quickly (putting things in boxes and drawers) and then the next day I have to find something and everything gets torn apart again. I could easily be on one of the hoarder shows because I hate to part with anything. I have every receipt, manual (French and English) and box of household items but they end up shoved away and never found again, unless I am hunting for something else. I lose my keys, glasses, articles of clothing because these are discarded while I am busy doing something, or thinking something and then I come back to where I thought I put it and it isn’t there. I spend a lot of time playing “If I was blank, where would I be”.

My family try not to interrupt me when I am reading or watching tv. They get my attention then stand back while I take a moment to stop focusing on the task that I am doing. If they interrupt me too fast I get angry and lash out. I hyperfocus on one task and the rest of the world ceases to exist. I can be in the middle of an ocean of people but the only thing that matters right now are me and this book because too much stimulation overwhelms me and I get giddy and drunk on social situation. I have to be socially engaged in my conversation or I get lost in my own thoughts and bored and start looking around at something else to focus on. If I am bored I will become engaged with other conversations and will interject comments like I was a participant and give unsolicited advice. My family is always chiding me for eavesdropping on others.

I regularly do 2 or 3 things at once, and if I find it interesting I can complete them all, but if I get bored I can abandon 1 or all of the tasks for something else. I hate to be late but will often get caught up waiting so leave later and rush to get there. I hate to wait on someone else, and this often leaves me angry and impatient when the world does not function on my timetable. When something must be done I am decisive and swift and will finish everything to my specification. I can wake up 5 before I have to go, have time to shower, dress and get out the door. But if I have hours to wait I will often get busy or distracted to keep myself from focusing on the endless time ahead and therefore have to rush to get ready to go.

I was called an old-soul or just weird as a child, I got along well with adults but never made many friends. My social world focused around my family, and if I did get invited to a strangers home it was the same nightmare. I would be on the edge of my seat with excitement, the time would creep by slowly until it was time to go, then finally the time would arrive. I would be manic and hyper and overwhelm everyone else at the party, I couldn’t sit still and had to see and do everything all at once. I usually ended up spilling my drink on the hostesses dress or her brand new couch, or I would have my mouth full of ice cream and something funny would happen and I would spew ice cream all over. I was never invited to their home or any of the other participants homes again. Now I often get cued that I talk to fast, too loud or I am unable to talk at all. If the party is too loud, I can’t concentrate on any one voice. I can’t hear clearly and it all just buzzes through me. I get jazzed and it is like too much champagne. I feel giddy but disconnected. When I get home I just deflate. It takes hours to stop the buzzing in my head. I feel like I have been stung by a million fire ants.

I have a memory like an elephant, and I never forget. But not anything that I need to remember. I can recall the first words you spoke to me, but I can’t remember to get milk when I am at the store for milk. I remember when you need to pay your Visa bill but forget that I promised to make 2 dozen cupcakes for my daughters dance. That is the dichotomy of ADD. My brain is different then everyone else’s. I have to make a conscious effort to be “normal” like everyone else. I have had 42 years experience being a mimic. It helps remembering so much trivial bits and pieces because then you can follow the sequential steps to be like everyone else. But beware, because you are just a mimic and at anytime you could be unmasked.

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