Dr. Umesh Jain is now exclusively responsible for TotallyADD.com and its content

wolfshades

wolfshades2012-11-13T13:00:41+00:00

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  • in reply to: King Minus: Everything I Touch Goes Missing!!! (vent) #128205

    wolfshades
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    Post count: 211

    I can’t tell you how often this has happened to me.  Back when PalmPilots were still the rage, I went to the washroom at a stadium (we were watching the Blue Jays at the time, I think).  I got back to my seat and suddenly had that same feeling @quizzical had: This. Feels. Wrong.

    Realized that I’d left my PalmPilot in the stall. Raced back but, just like that automatic door that you see closing, and you rush hard to get to it: it was too late.

    King Minus. Genius. : )

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    in reply to: What is it that I have as well as ADHD ? #127399

    wolfshades
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    I very much like what you wrote, hum4n.  My mind goes completely blewey sometimes, as thought after thought occurs.  I sometimes get the idea that people with ADHD have Inception-like thinking. We see the patterns other can miss, and we keep diving just to see how many layers of the onion are actually there.

    It’s the reason I have a very  hard time holding conversations with people who are far more linear in their thinking than me. My daughter also has ADHD and she and I can literally talk for hours.  Anyone listening to us or trying to join in usually ends up walking away in frustration – we never stay on the same topic. Some of the links we make seem intuitive but for others just comes off sounding bizarre.

    Rick, I really appreciate the tips you made in your post!  I have found Twitter to be an excellent tool for honing my writing skills.  If you want to make an impact with 140 characters you have to know how to be concise, and how to create power with very few words.

    I’m also grateful to my editor over at the website where I do freelance critiques of TV shows – they taught me how to hold the interest of our readers by keeping paragraphs short.  It’s kind of the opposite of what they teach you in college and high school – where you are told to have a beginning and end to a paragraph, with all of the salient points embedded in the paragraph.

    In the case of writing for an entertainment audience, you have to account for attention span, and so often it becomes necessary to perform a literary MMA performance: ducking and punching with one-two hits and then backing off before coming in again to engage.

    : )

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    in reply to: This is me:) #116582

    wolfshades
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    I used to think my little girl was a pyro – she was so fascinated with fires and has a thing for candles. Turns out she just forgets to blow them out before leaving the house. And she’s an ADHDer like me.

    I think God has assigned a whole army of angels to watch over his ADHD kids. He must, otherwise most of us would end up on His doorstep a little early, what with all the fire, floods (from unwatched filling tubs) and car accidents we seem to get into.

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    in reply to: 46? I'm almost 70 and just found out! #116837

    wolfshades
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    That’s one side of it.

    The other side: I was on increasing amounts of Concerta for quite a while. My mind was orderly and instead of writing quick sharp vibrant quips I found myself writing reams of paragraphed material – all of it fairly boring.

    Had some chest pains and rising blood pressure so opted to stop the Concerta – at least for a while (I’m still off of it). And now those vibrant ways of thinking are back.

    Yeah, ADHD causes no end of problems – but they’re problems I”ve lived with for my entire life. Before the prognosis I had no idea why I was so different or in some cases didn’t realilze that I was different at all – I just thought I was lazier than most, and prone to procrastination. When you go through life like this, you tend to come up with workarounds. Such as making decisions NOT to take on extensive projects, either in school or at work. Or you figure out where your strengths are – in my case, the creative arts.

    I have to say now that I truly *like* the fact that there are all of these shiny balls floating around in my brain again, all alive with neon lighting and bursting with music.

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    in reply to: 46? I'm almost 70 and just found out! #116834

    wolfshades
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    So good to read your post calmdown. Reminds me of what I went through just a couple of years ago. The sense of relief was cathartic almost to the point of overwhelming. I saw a doctor anyway just so that I could have that badge of honour – a medical confirmation of something I knew only too well. A series of tests (and $1,000+) later and they told me the obvious. ;)

    Welcome to the club of the delightfully distracted.

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    in reply to: Best alternatives to Concerta? And another question too. #115847

    wolfshades
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    Interesting comments, everyone. It appears I’m way more of a newbie at this than I thought. Never considered that a lesser dose might actually help – although……I would have thought my doc would have suggested that. (I’m aware that medicine is often a case of trial-by-error, so I’m not blaming him).

    The other side of the coin though is this: after it wears off – my creative side actually gets a bit busier. Last night when my mind was doing its whirling-dirvish thing – as it is wont to do – I churned out a blog and actually got a lot of hits on it.

    I suppose the bottom line is that I want the meds to work for me when I’m doing my humdrum job, and I don’t want them or need them when I’m doing something creative. Which might make Adderal the better choice.

    And I honestly have NO idea whether any of that makes sense. : )

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    in reply to: New Toyota Advert #115718

    wolfshades
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    Yup. It’s really a car. I think the value of the commercial for Toyota only lies in the fact that it’s so funny that people will (they hope) remember the name. It doesn’t showcase the car itself much, or at all.

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    in reply to: New Toyota Advert #115716

    wolfshades
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    Clive: I love that commercial. Makes me wonder things would be so much better for me, had there been an omniscient entity hovering around me all the time, emitting a honking noise whenever I was about to do something dumb.

    *honk* = “you realized the sink is stilling with water and is about to overflow, right?”

    *honk* = “um, you’re about to walk out of the supermarket, but you left your iPad behind at the cash register to fend for itself”

    *honk* = “YOUR KEYS! AGAIN!”

    *honk* = “You can stop shouting about your lost sunglasses. They’re on your head.”

    *honk* = “I know you’re tired and it’s time for bed, but those frozen groceries you left on the counter aren’t going to put themselves in the freezer.”

    *honk* = “Gee that TV show really is interesting but your daughter is still on the phone, waiting for you to come back from answering that door knock from 20 minutes ago”

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    wolfshades
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    LetterB: you don’t state where you live. ipsofacto’s link doesn’t show any results for ADHD psychiatrists in Ontario Canada (from which many of us are posting) so you’re not in the U.S. you may want to do a quick google search on “psychiatrists who specialize in ADHD in….(whatever your location is)”. In Toronto, there are a couple of places, one of which is called “The ADHD Clinic” and there’s another center as well.

    P.S. ipsofacto is right: there’s a *lot* to learn, starting right here with the blogs and forums on this site. Welcome (?) to the club, by the way. : ) (The question mark is there because some view it as a curse, while others see it as a means of finally getting on track to do something in life more in keeping with the strengths afforded by ADHD. Lots of entrepreneurs in our little club. Also a lot of entertainers and other creative sorts.)

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    in reply to: Expert Doctor says I don't have ADD – I say I do #115536

    wolfshades
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    My God. It’s difficult to not get angry at the number of times so many of us get labelled as “lazy” or “not trying hard enough”. I mean, I said that to myself – put myself down – for so many years and believed it. The evidence was there: other people could do projects involving intricate planning and details, and they weren’t any smarter than me (or vice versa) so obviously it *had* to be a matter of laziness.

    Toby: it’s worth finding a reputable doctor – someone who is known to have studied ADHD in particular – and getting some testing done. The idea that it might be something else is quite right – it *might* be – but a wild guess, especially if it doesn’t adequately explain your symptoms – is far from helpful. An actual full-on series of tests which include an examination of you and your family’s histories right back to childhood, will clear that up. Many of us who have ADHD also have comorbid conditions as well, and true testing will show all of that. When in doubt, there is nothing wrong at all with getting a second opinion.

    For myself, I did the online test here and was surprised at how letter-perfect my symptoms measured up. Then I attended a few seminars and an ADHD support group and heard others’ stories. All of this before ever getting tested. I saw three different professionals, all from the same psychiatric office, before I got my diagnosis (a psychometrist, a psychologist and the psychiatrist himself). When the results were in, I wasn’t as surprised by then so much as grateful that this…..thing….that I’ve carried around all my life had a name. And….that there were so many others just like me.

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    in reply to: My wife is leaving me because I am not "Passionate" #104864

    wolfshades
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    The one thing I learned through my tumultuous marriage was that every one of us – every single person – interprets the display of love differently. One person feels loved when their partner says it forcefully, while another feels loved when their partner takes the time to pick their clothes up off of the floor. The trick is to find that out about each other – which counselling will help to do.

    I remember a story about a conversation between a man and a woman where she said “you never tell me you love me”. His response was “I said that to you when we got married 25 years ago. If something changes, I’ll let you know.” ;)

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    in reply to: Crazy in the Cubicle – is this common? #114081

    wolfshades
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    Tiddler: what an awesome (and awkward) super-power you have. : )

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    in reply to: Crazy in the Cubicle – is this common? #114080

    wolfshades
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    Wow – I just came back to catch up on this thread and man oh man! What a treasure trove we have going on here.

    Dr. J. – it’s good to hear from you on this. The sensitivity you mention as being common to ADHD types is something I hadn’t heard before – just suffered through. I know as well that I’m highly sensitive to touch – something I had known for a while without understanding why. Your comment about occupying the middle seat of a crowded airplane – wow, that really hit home: I could feel my skin crawling at the thought.

    Perhaps the bottom line is that we should respect these things about ourselves. I know I will at least.

    As an update to all of this: I did finally talk to my boss about the noises, and the problems I was having. He was understanding – I kind of knew he would be, as we had discussed my ADHD before. I just never realized that it’s another “feature” of the condition – the fact that we have all of this inputs coming in all at once, with no way to filter them. Another variation on a theme. We’re used to informational inputs, and the problems associated with that (schooling, workplace direction, projects, etc.), but our condition is multi-faceted and is not restricted to just one type of input.

    When that guy in the next cubicle is munching away and I’m trying to work – it’s like a living hell. I can’t shut him off and concentrate, and I sure don’t want to even try to stop working so that I can pay attention to his obnoxious open-mouthed horror either. (P.S. to Amy: your comment about the guy who was sniffling all day long reminded me of a time when I was in a cubicle to a guy who was just like that too. *sniff* *sniff* all day long. Drove me nuts – and I wondered if maybe I was a little crazy. That happened at a time when I didn’t know I had ADHD and hadn’t yet sought a doctor about it.)

    Anyway – my boss supports me working from home. There are distracting sounds from the outside here, but they’re minimal and therefore manageable.

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    in reply to: Humble request to the webmaster #113732

    wolfshades
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    Adding my voice to kc5jck re: the ads.

    They’re driving me to distraction. Plus they make the site look cheap. I know you have to generate revenue to bring the costs down but…..man they’re awful. Sorry – hate to post anything negative about this wonderful site but…….

    Ugh. Terrible.

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    in reply to: Crazy in the Cubicle – is this common? #114063

    wolfshades
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    Philabuster: thanks very much for relating your experience. I use that same brand of orange foam earplugs at home, just so that I can stay asleep. Never knew they could be used to filter out background noise while allowing you to concentrate on someone else who is speaking though. That’s interesting – think I’m going to give that a shot.

    I relate emphatically to your bar experience. Anything that would work so well as to allow me to calm down would be terrific.

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