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Let me dispel a myth right off the top; adult ADD is a real thing. I know because I was diagnosed with it in college and at age 53 it still rages on in my brain.
For purposes of this piece, I’m considering ADD and ADHD to be the same thing. Yes, there are differences but there are more similarities between the two than there are differences.
Some mental health professionals believe that people grow out of the disease around age twenty-five but they’re wrong. My psychiatrist is one of those disbelievers and that means I can’t currently get the medication I’ve taken most of my adult life so I have to find other ways to deal with the problem that plagues my waking hours as well as when I’m trying to fall asleep.
I never acted like Beavis nor Butthhead, but as far back as elementary school I had problems with attention, focus and generally different than my classmates, but in the ’70s and ’80s, kids weren’t considered ADD unless they were physically bouncing off the walls. Kids like me were simply labeled “stupid” or “lazy” because little was known about the ADD brain at that time.
I was neither stupid nor lazy. I tried my best but it was never enough. I now know that a lot of the problem was with how I was, or rather wasn’t, learning. When it came to math I usually got the answer right but since I couldn’t show the work in the way the teacher wanted I got D’s.
I was, and still am, constantly told that I don’t live up to my potential and to this day I despise that word because when you take the “nice” spin off the phrase, what I’m being told is that I’m a failure. It was in high school that my spiral into low self-esteem began.
As adults, it manifests itself in the workplace in similar ways. Many ADD adults try to go with the flow and become part of the team but since ADD is a hidden disability and not a physical one it either goes unnoticed by co-workers, customers and the boss or they figure you’re some sort of caffeine junkie or just can’t pay attention.
I call ADD a disability because it is, but it’s a disability that can be treated with medicine and coping mechanisms. It doesn’t have to control your life. It’s not an easy battle at first but like any good habit will soon become second nature.
If you’re an adult with ADD you need to know that you’re not alone and that you’re actually in good company. Among the many successful, creative and talented people with ADD are Albert Einstein, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Samuel Clemons/Mark Twain, Alexander Graham Bell, J.K. Rowling, Agatha Christie and Justin Timberlake.
In my case, I have a hard time focusing because my brain sees the big picture and wants to fast forward to the end of the project. This is similar to my math problems in school where I was able to get to the answer but didn’t necessarily know the proper steps to get there.
If you’re like me or know someone who is, God help you, but fear not because we’ll get through it together!
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Photo credit: Photo courtesy Unsplash
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