[Bibliophile]

Just read that article too and was absolutely stunned by the nonsense. The fact that it appears in such a prominent paper as the Toronto Star makes it all the worse.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

I forgot to add the wonderous restlessness that ADHD brings to the party as well. As well as the perseverating nature of hyperfocus, especially when it kicks in at the wrong time or on something tangential or irrelevant to what I need to get done.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

I believe this is the video that you are referring to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c09aZkzyzgE

I must say that I agree with its creator 100%. I have seen little benefit from having a quick (not detail oriented) mind and poor impulse control. It has impaired the ability to maintain friendships, lost friendships due to impulsive comments, made working in many professions extremely difficult or impossible, etc. This is not a gift. That being said, it is who I am. I would give it up in a heartbeat if it were possible. Also, “this gift” of ADHD comes with so many pleasant comorbidities. In my own case, anxiety and dysthymia.

While I am very happy some people have found a situation where there symptoms are mitigated to the point where they are successful and happy, I resent them attributing that situation to ADHD.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

that people with ADHD are never happy. The best they seem to experience is ‘relief’.

That is so true. I am just happy to be able to move on from something that it isn’t happiness at the end, but a sigh of relief from having to do it. I think this is especially true for longer projects; shorter ones offer immediate gratification and are much more rewarding.

Incidentally, in the latest happiness ranking, Canada placed 6th.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

Anyways how do you folks handle your happiness with ADHD. If a job pays the bills but doesn’t suit who you are, stresses you out, not compatible with ADHD do you leave? Do you stay?

I am in a situation where my career, librarian, is not particularly suited to being ADHD. That being said, my present position as a solo allows for a greater variety of tasks so the work is not too mundane. I have been doing this for over eleven years now. I usually end up putting in way more hours than I am paid for just to get the work done. Many days are also quite boring which makes doing the work a chore.

I am not sure what else I would do. I tried cooking for a living, but I lack the time co-ordination skills to multitask effectively at that and the pay is quite low.

All I can say is that sometimes you just have to put up with it until an epiphany strikes.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

What CMS is the new website built on, e.g. Drupal and Umbraco? Just curious as it is a very clean design.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

@SayWhat

It is only a spectrum disorder in that the degree of the debilitation varies in severity from one person to another as do some of the symptoms, e.g. hyperactivity/restlessness and impulsivity. I too get frustrated when I hear people complain about what sound to me like minor problems, e.g. losing keys repeatedly, compared with the long term negative impacts, e.g. impulse control leading to saying things that get one in trouble or extreme forgetfulness that creates problems maintaining friendships. I understand your frustration, but I do think there is enough evidence to demonstrate that it is a spectrum disorder and that it becomes more debilitating with the severity of the symptoms.

@Carry and SayWhat

I get so angry when people say that they are ADD/ADHD today because that implies it is something we can turn off at some point when we cannot, ever. Sure our symptoms may not be as severe in certain situations, but they are always there. Diagnosis is the only means of truly determining the cause. I don’t hear anyone say that they are a bit Autistic or Manic Depressive today, which leads me to believe that they are underestimating the severity of ADHD on our lives.

I agree that we cannot recommend a course of action without understanding what they have, its severity and how it is impacting their lives.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

It is not quite that easy a decision, Seahorse.

Many children are too young to be asked if they are helping or want to take the drugs. The drugs do have some side effects (lets not kid ourselves that they are perfect). Also there is the question of severity of the impairment; if tutoring and b-mod or other techniques can assist the child without the need for medication, why not try that first.

That being said, I have one child presently on meds. He is combined type so there was never any doubt and it runs in my family. Do I give him the drugs when he is in not going to be in a learning situation or require sustained attention or massive amounts of impulse control, no. I can tell you that he doesn’t want to take the meds and will probably be like I was and refuse at some point.

Meds are a tool, but I don’t think they are “revolutionary.” Mitigating techniques will have to be learned as well and the meds don’t teach you that one. Also, the meds have less of a benefit for impulse control than they do for sustained attention.

To be honest, having to take meds as an adult is not completely without doubts and trade-offs.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

Just bear in mind that there are overlap in symptoms between different conditions. One may score highly on a quiz for ADHD and in fact have just Autism or vice versa. The more detailed the questions and specific, the less likely this is to occur. For example, if a question asks about the ability to stay focused on a topic this could be perseverating/hyperfocusing or autistic exclusive focus. It is also possible to have both conditions, which makes the matter even more complicated. Social avoidance might be due to personality and ADHD symptoms and not necessarily inability to read social queues and conversation norms.

Just remember that quizzes are not a replacement for proper testing, just a starting point for your own interest.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

I was off meds for 23 years and only started them again last year or so. I was similar to your case, Niksoh2, in that I seemed to get by “alright.” That being said, as my job pressures mounted and home life became more stressful and chaotic, e.g. two kids, I found that I was not able to maintain the coping mechanisms that I had developed as they required an almost ritualistic adherence to be effective.

Are the meds helping? They are helping my tasks at work get done, but it is sometimes problematic if I get sidetracked as now I find I lock in my attention (i.e. perserverate or hyperfocus) without realizing it on secondary or unrelated tasks and it takes me longer to extract myself, when I can. I will have to say that in many ways my job is ill suited for someone with ADHD, but I have altered it as much as possible to accommodate my issues.

I agree with WGreen in that it is just as important to ensure that your symptoms are not impacting those around you and not just look inward as one might conclude that everything was fine while others see it differently.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

Because ADHD <u>is</u> so debilitating. No face will take away the stigma. Ty Pennington or Howie Mandell saying they are ADHD does not make my symptoms any better. We cannot call anyone who has not been tested ADHD as they might have had other issues, e.g. depression or a problem with their thyroid. Do not fall into that trap.

For people who are bipolar, the fact that Catherine Zeta Jones admits to suffering from it makes her more human, but does not remove the negative attributes of being bipolar. You also never know the severity of the issue for the “Star.”

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

I still reject the notion that all ADHDers are gifted in terms of creativity and abstract thinking. The latter may come more naturally to us, but there is a difference between controlled brainstorming and including every thought or idea. Some have higher IQs, others don’t. We are all different people with gifts in a number of areas. Perhaps, ADHD people focus on their creativity because they have not excelled in other areas, i.e. the creativity is unconsciously developed as a coping mechanism to find some measure of success.

The world is what it is and we are the minority. I don’t like the term “linear” as it is saying that all non-ADHDers think the same way, which is equally as bad. It is not an us vs. them scenario. Instead of imposing a rigid framework on our lives, what is happening is that they can operate and succeed under these conditions and we, the minority, cannot. Now for some things this is not important, but if it is a question of getting work done and not meeting deadlines, we are the ones with the issue rather than it being the system’s fault for imposing dates at all.

Different ADHDers react to different learning strategies or workplace scenarios. Same applies to learning disabilities and other cognitive impairments. That being said, most workplaces are only going to accommodate so much or tolerate unrestrained behaviour to a certain degree. We cannot expect every school and workplace to customize the job/education curriculum to our personal needs to the very detail.

The impulsiveness is the key, I believe, in understanding the harm that ADHD can have versus a “linear” view. People will tolerate forgetfulness (except in the most extreme cases), and you can mitigate much of that through tricks, but impulsivity hurts people directly, including yourself. It causes financial, emotional and possibly even physical harm. For example, it is one thing to forget to bring sheets to a work meeting every time and another to say whatever is on your mind, whether it is rude or unhelpful at a meeting.

I like Tiddler’s comment about persevering in spite of the ADHD and adapting as best we can to what is expected from us from the rest of society and our employers. I put it slightly differently by thinking that I just have to try my best and pick myself up when I fail, which will likely be quite often, and repeat ad infinitum.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

Without the hierarchy, we could never find anything though. The ads and lengthy descriptions of categories don’t help matters.

The randomizer approach can be achieved by reading the new posts only.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

I personally can’t tolerate Dr. Ned Hallowell’s everything but the kitchen sink approach to symptom mitigation and treatment. He is all over the spectrum of ADHD = Gift one minute to ADHD can be serious impairment the next.

While I have not read, Dr. T. Brown’s book, it sounds like more of a Dr. R. Barkley view. I particularly liked this review of the book on Amazon as it seemed quite balanced and fair:

A clinical sobering view–somewhat helpful, at times misleading, December 2, 2005

By JackOfMostTrades “Jack” (Washington, DC) – (VINE VOICE)

Brown eschews the spate of ADD books that champion the idea ‘How wonderful that I have ADD. I’m unique, creative and all I have to do is learn to adapt myself to the world and I will have a great life’ hype that sells copies for people with ADD seeking a cure-all. Brown is an empiricist and does not subscribe to anecdotal evidence such as prominent people who have ADD to suggest everyone can. In fact, his sobering view is that the executive functions of the brain are compromised in the ADD mind, and therefore, ‘training’ is of little use nor are the newer strategies of neurofeedback or exercises that purport to ‘balance the cerebellum,’ which he likens to trying to treat autism by providing courses in communication skills. Rather, his emphasis is that ADD is a serious disorder, or rather a syndrome since there are many parameters to it, or in other words, many roads that lead to it. On the positive side he denounces the deniers of ADD like scientologists and ‘common sense’ observations that you just need to give a child some motivation and will power. He believes thus far medication is about the only good treatment, and wryly states stimulants and other medical treatments are fine for 8 out of 10 people with ADD, fine that is, if you happen to be one of the eight. He presents advice to families that has been covered already in much of the literature. While his views are conservative–and he does not discuss various severities of ADD–this is a helpful book if you need a good outline of the available evidence on the subject, and will be a welcome ADDition to your library, particularly if you have been frustrated by the upbeat hype, and begin blaming yourself for not ‘getting with the program.’ At times, however, he overreaches his thesis, making suggesting that the ‘executive functions’ in people with ADD are so compromised they are practically hopeless. He does not mention degrees of ADD although he mentions types of ADD. He also does a bit of contradicting by first stating that it is a syndrome with multiple causes but then treats it as though all the variables result in basically the same condition. He also fails to address sufficiently the cultural variable of a world saturated with information that can exacerbate the condition, nor does he mention the idea that ADD may evolve during the lifespan, regardless of medication or behavioral training.

REPORT ABUSE

[Bibliophile]

It is not about the positive message but the factual claim that something is being linked to ADHD, which is the theme of this Forum. If I made the claim “ADHD is caused by too much vitamin K,” people would want proof and question my reasoning. When someone claims that their creativity or IQ derives from their ADHD, others question this in a rational manner. They do not accept it as it is anecdotal. If someone said I have a high IQ and proof that is linked to ADHD and proceeded to explain their reasoning and the double-blind tests, all the power to them.

Our lives are stressful enough without propagating unsubstantiated beliefs. There is nothing wrong with citing the benefits of something, but it should be rational and conveyed in a way to explain the reasoning.

Perhaps next time, Filmbuff1984 might start a thread considering the link between High IQ or creativity and ADHD and we can have a discussion on that. What we are discussing is whether ADHD endows us with super-human abilities based on the statement:

All the cool things you can do with your ADHD superpowers like high IQ, hyper-reflexes, hyper-endurance, hyper-creativity, etc.

which I see no evidence for.

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts