[haraldbenz]

Not so sure that’s a good idea. You had a whole different set of problems then.

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[haraldbenz]

@ashockley55, yes you did that @ linking thing right.
I’m happy to make it grape juice in your honour. 🙂

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[haraldbenz]

@MarieAngell, although I was only married for five years the romance had left the building after the first year. My soon to be ex knew about my ADD and what it entails (she even went with me to Rick’s first seminar at the science centre) but I guess, knowing and understanding are two different things. To her ADD became ‘my excuse’ for everything. Nothing was good enough or done right in her opinion.

Here’s a fond Valentine’s Day memory. One V-Day I thought it would be nice to make something myself for my wife instead of buying it. Being an art director and designer I created a really nice, personalized V-Day card for her. It turned out to be a pretty elaborate thing of beauty.
When V-Day finally came around I prepared a nice dinner and when my wife came back from work I gave her the card.
Her only comment was “I should have rather cleaned up the house.”
(Btw, the place didn’t need any cleaning because i did it the day before.)

To answer your question, I don’t think my perspective changed all that much. I do know now why I do certain things – the head over heels impulsiveness only to lose interest after a short period of time, and so on – but that doesn’t necessarily mean I can avoid it.

I know my marriage failed not because of my wife or because of me. The two of us sabotaged it equally. What worries me is the nagging question whether I’m actually able to fall in love AND keep loving that person for good?
V-Day is just a reminder of another failure to me.

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[haraldbenz]

@ashockley55, I read your second post here about 3 or 4 times now (probably more:) ) What you are saying sounds so very much familiar to me, I’d be scared (do I have a twin sister my parents forgot to tell me about?) if I wouldn’t know we both have this emotional ADD-on roller-coaster to our lives.
I’m aware this doesn’t help you much but know, you are not alone.

Let’s forget the lesbian/straight guy tags for a moment. Here’s what I’m gonna do. You are now officially my Valentine’s Day date. On V-day evening I’m going to open a bottle of red wine and cheer to you. At least in spirit you won’t be alone that day. 🙂

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[haraldbenz]

@MarieAngell, It’s been about 5-6 years ago that I got diagnosed with ADD.

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[haraldbenz]

I’m separated for over a year and will be soon officially divorced. Feel pretty lonely these days and don’t have many friends. Besides they have their own families.
Don’t even have a date to show for. So, this year’s Valentine’s Day will really suck big time.

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[haraldbenz]

@Larynxa

As promised, I forwarded the links to your demos to a producer friend of mine. I’ll let you know when she gets back to me.

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[haraldbenz]

I’d like to put in my 2 cents here.
I struggle with many of the same problems as you all do and yes, I wish i could turn finally my life around. I hear you guys and understand your pain because I’m dealing with the same sh!t.

Yet, there’s something i’d like to share with you that gives ADD/ADHD a very positive spin. A huge advantage over other, ‘regular’ people. I’d like you to be aware of the positives as well, not just the negative stuff. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And it’s not necessarily a speeding train. 🙂
The first is a simple realization that we can make work for us.

Only very smart people have ADD/ADHD. – No matter how many obstacles we have to deal with, take comfort in knowing we all have something going for us where we excel big time.
We just need to find this strength. It might not solve all the other problems (well, that’s what meds are for) but it’s a huge confidence boost knowing you are really (!!!) good at something. Something that makes you special. Keep in mind, that something might not be just one thing.

The other thing i’d like to share is an experience I made in my live that’s perfect proof to the above. Funny thing is it took me ages to realize it.
I’m not going to tell you this story to pad my own shoulder but to give you hope there’s more to ADD/ADHD than just the negative stuff.

• When I was in school (way back in Germany) I pretty much was only interested in art. I sucked badly at everything else. No matter what if it didn’t interest me I sucked at it.

Having Latin as first ‘foreign’ language was just one big disaster for me. It’s a dead language, unless one is interested in a career at the Vatican.
The other language on the itinerary (only for a year or two, compared to six years of Latin) was English. I was so hopeless my English teacher told me to my face that I would never learn it. Period.

Flash forward gazillian years. A friend who lives in Montreal, Canada invited me to visit him. He had immigrated with his parents to Canada years ago.
The words ‘yes, no and thank you’ pretty much encompassed my entire English vocabulary at that time. Hence I wasn’t really keen on traveling to an English speaking country.
At some point I just couldn’t say no anymore to my friend. So, off I went on my first flight straight into the unknown. The only comfort was that I could speak German with my friend.

Then something strange happened. Within the first few days of my visit a weird feeling grew stronger inside of me that I never experienced before. Maybe because I grew up at a boarding school and the fact that my parents moved while I was away at that school which meant the loss of all my friends at home, or that I later studied in a different city, or that I always have been a loner and found it hard to make friends (I always was the odd ball out) … I don’t know … but for whatever reason and for the very first time in my live, I felt shortly after my arrival in Canada strangely ‘at home’.
So much in fact I made the decision to wanting to live in Canada rather impulsively (after 3 days to be precise).
After explaining myself to my friend and his mother  (who strangely didn’t think I was completely nuts) I asked them first for permission to stay a ‘little’ longer than planned and secondly, i picked up the phone and called my soon to be employer (an ad agency in Frankfurt, I was between jobs) to tell them sorry, I won’t be coming.

To make a long story short, I extended my first visit to 10 weeks. In this time I learned with the help of my friend English. In the last of those 10 weeks I had my first few interviews in ad agencies in Montreal.
I knew full well that my final destination would be Toronto (didn’t want to do french advertising) but I wanted to see whether I had a chance as soon as possible. Little did I know that this turned into a huge confidence boost because I realized quickly I spoke already better English (after 10 weeks!) then the people who interviewed me. – Montreal is more French than English but they all are bilingual.

At that time I didn’t know I had ADD – got diagnosed only 5/6 years ago – but in hindsight I give full credit to my ADD for proofing my former English teacher in Germany so wrong, so quickly. Frankly, without ADD I don’t think for a minute that I could have pulled this one off.

 

PS: I’m living in Toronto for over 16 years now. Not that it applies to all the impulsive decision I made but I haven’t regretted this one for one second yet.

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[haraldbenz]

Here’s food for thought (and my rant of the day).
The human thyroid produces when healthy not just T4 and T3 but also T2 and T1. Don’t know what their job is but here’s me wondering, when the thyroid thinks it’s important and necessary to produce all of those T’s why do have doctors such a difficult time to wrap their mind around that?

We ADDers get often blamed for procrastinating things. I believe a lot of these ‘Gods in White’ of the medical profession should get blamed for utter ignorance.

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[haraldbenz]

Well Robbo, that idea is a double sided sword.

Here’s what I mean. The leading capacity in this field here in Canada is of the opinion that T3 doesn’t do anything. People only imagine that it has a benefit.

I’m originally from Germany. There it never was a question whether or not T3 has benefits. Research proofed it does make a difference and that why I used for many years a medication containing T4 and T3 combined.
When I immigrated to Canada my family practitioner told me such a product were not available. Besides, T3 doesn’t do anything and it were all in my head (see above).
I had no choice and after a couple years of taking T4 only, I got some serious problems. Having gone through this spiel already once – after the surgery it took a long time until the correct medication for me was determined – I knew what was going on.

You can’t imagine the battle I had with my doc who refused to add T3 to my prescription. In the end I won and am taking now every morning two pills. It made a huge difference.

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[haraldbenz]

Doesn’t work for me. My mind wonders off in no time.

I used to read an awful lot when I was young. It was a nice way to escape for me. Had no problems concentrating and pretty much devoured books en mass.
Later on I lost this ability. Couldn’t read a page without my mind drifting off. This was really annoying me to no end. It’s not that I lost interest in reading or such, I just couldn’t finish a book.
Than one day I had an epiphany. I was watching some movie about U-boats in WW2 when I realized that in my head was Glenn Miller music playing. It had nothing to do with the movie, it was just in my head. Strange.
Then it hit me. I used to always listen to music when reading. Not loud, though. Just loud enough to make the noise and other distractions disappear. As a kid I was for a while reading everything I could get my hands on about WW2 and U-boats in particular. When I was reading those books I had always a Glenn Miller record playing, over and over and over.

Funny how the mind works. Now when reading on my iPhone I have always music turned on as well. No problem finishing books anymore. 🙂

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[haraldbenz]

When I was 18 years old I had to have thyroid surgery during which most of it got removed.

What most people – and in particular doctors – seem to either be unaware off or simply ignore is the fact that the thyroid controls pretty much everything in the human body, from how much water the body stores to mood swings/depression of suicidal proportions. Because thyroid related issues take a very long time to manifest, most people don’t realize any changes. It’s like getting used to it while it’s happening.

The tricky thing is finding the right medication and the correct dose. Here in Canada another problem can make things even more difficult. Most doctors are only willing to prescribe meds containing T4 but many patients would benefit immensely from a combination of T4 and T3. Because T3 is considered to be ‘just’ a mood enhancer it is often neglected as being essential.

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