This is my first time to post here. I hope you won't mind me asking a question of some of you who are more experienced about all this.

For half my life I've been trying to figure out what is "wrong" with me. I have a terrible time sticking on any task & a very short attention span. I am very interested in writing & constantly daydream about various storylines or characters, but I can't sit down long enough to write out the stories. In my hard drive I have about a dozen started novels that I'll probably never finish.

I alternate with frenetic activity & feeling depressed about how little I accomplish. This has only gotten worse since I graduated from college & now stay home full time with my daughter.

I am not the typical ADD -- I was very motivated to do well in school, and did do well. But I never did as well as I could have, because I lost interest/motivation halfway through each class. I was nearly valedictorian of my high school class, but for reasons I can't explain, decided to drop an honors class (because it was boring) my last semester, and lost the points that would have given me the highest GPA. This is the story of my life -- work hard, burn out quickly.

The reason I started thinking about this is that my father & brother have both been diagnosed with ADHD, and I recently read a book about housekeeping that described Adult ADD -- and it described me. In the middle of rinsing dishes, I'll remember something else I need to do & wander off, leaving the water running. I forget to turn off the oven almost every time I use it. I plug in my curling iron to do my hair, then wander off to scoop dog poop in the back yard & find the curling iron several hours later. I flooded the yard this summer because I left the back sprinklers on for over 24 hours.

Is this just absent-minded professor type stuff, or could I have ADD? Do Adult ADD's, particularly women, sometimes also suffer from depression? It seems I'm either running full-tilt everywhere, starting ten projects at once, or just completely lifeless, depressed about how I never finish anything. But I'm not manic, as in bipolar.

The other thing that kind of worries me is that I have a strange & constant craving for sugar. Anything will do. I keep a huge bag of chocolate chips in my fridge & eat them all day long. Sugary cereals, sweet sweet coffee, all of these I crave constantly. I looked around on the web & found there is sometimes a connection between this & ADD. What do you all think?

Thanks for any input you have.

Wendy

[This message has been edited by Wingenit (edited 12-07-2002).]

Hey there, Wendy:

I just read your post, and I figured I'd try to provide some insight and (hopefully) a little pertinent advice.

I was recently diagnosed with ADD by my psychologist, with whom I've been meeting for the last several months, and a subsequent psychiatrist, who has prescribed meds to treat the symptoms. I'm 28 years old, and I can't explain the sense of relief I've experienced knowing that my personal "shortcomings", if you will, are textbook manifestations of ADD.

You described your educational successes as being atypical, which I believe is accurate. I, personally, struggled through college, despite the fact that I was very capable of producing the expected quality of work; it was my inability to focus on the scholastic tedium that posed the greatest obstacle. It's fortunate that you are able to achieve the goals to which you set your mind, such as your schooling, but it is obvious that you consider your inattentiveness and ease of distraction to be serious issues.

I am definitely not one to qualify your behavior as symptomatic of ADD, and if you believe that this is a possibility, then you must seek professional counseling and therapy in order to confirm or deny the disorder. A book (concerning ADD, called "You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: A Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder")
was given to me by my therapist for my perusal stated that ADD is often misdiagnosed as depression. This is due to the fact that ADDers often have a deflated sense of self-esteem caused by their repeated failure to achieve that which they consider themselves capable. Does this sound familiar to your situation? I know exactly how it feels to be frustrated by the fact that you see yourself falling short of accomplishing goals which you KNOW you are within your capacity to attain... but for "some" reason or another you simply just don't get it done. You know WHAT and HOW to accomplish something, but rarely see it through its course, to its fruition. This is all a very good source of anxiety and depression for an ADDer.

If your family has a history of ADD, then there is absolutely no good reason not to look deeper into this issue. This is a neurological dysfunction, a physical phenomenon, and sometimes the apple don't fall too far from the tree in these matters.

I'd recommend picking up the book I mentioned above. It will help you realize in what ways, if any, your life is affected by ADD, and how to go about dealing with it. Talk to your family about their experience -- they are a great sounding board for you to relate to your own personal experience.

I hope this helps, if even just a little. As difficult as it may be to admit having a psychlogical disorder, it is, conversely, just as cathartic to realize how it affects your life and what steps you can take to manage it.

Good luck -- it can only get better from here!

-- Nacho