i am your son. i am your seed.

[Bizarro]

I'm serious, Jeff.  I want to know how you can read Walking Dead #1-64 (or whatever) over 3 days and think you have ADD?  That takes focus.  Unless you're skimming pages?

Short answer: hyperfocus. Slightly longer answer: it isn't that people with ADD are unable to pay attention, it's that we're unable to control how much attention we pay. Sometimes, it swings the other way and we show seemingly impossible focus for a short period of time on something that catches our interest.

I'd add that while the symptoms of ADD are frequently seen in regular people, it's a matter of degrees. It's pretty similar to how the symptoms of depression are seen in healthy people, but not to such a degree or with such consistency.

My dad doesn't "believe" in ADD. I have tried to impress upon him that it isn't a religious principle, it's a medical diagnosis, backed by brain scans, genetic studies, and thirty years of worldwide epidemiological surveys, but he isn't buying it. But then, he doesn't believe in evolution, either.

[captqitn]

On a related topic:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/white_house_reveals_obama_is?utm_source=videoembed

[Bizarro]

Have you ever driven in winter and had your car start to slide on the ice? Out of reflex, you pull away from the slide instead of turning into it, like you know you're supposed to do? You know how you feel in that instant that you realize you're doing it wrong, and you're quite possibly going to crash, but you still can't force yourself to turn the wheel?

Now imagine that feeling extended from one moment to every waking minute of your day. That's how I feel all day long lately. When it comes to life--work, taking care of myself, etc.--I am aware I am doing it wrong, but am helpless to do anything but feel terror and anxiety while I watch myself continue to do it wrong.

Not that anybody asked. I'm just sort of spewing. It's been a tough week.

[Bizarro]

Thanks Captain Bringdown!

I'll shut up now.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/CQo2FJPLeQk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/CQo2FJPLeQk</a>

[Sabamah]

Have you ever driven in winter and had your car start to slide on the ice? Out of reflex, you pull away from the slide instead of turning into it, like you know you're supposed to do? You know how you feel in that instant that you realize you're doing it wrong, and you're quite possibly going to crash, but you still can't force yourself to turn the wheel?

Now imagine that feeling extended from one moment to every waking minute of your day. That's how I feel all day long lately. When it comes to life--work, taking care of myself, etc.--I am aware I am doing it wrong, but am helpless to do anything but feel terror and anxiety while I watch myself continue to do it wrong.

Not that anybody asked. I'm just sort of spewing. It's been a tough week.

i understand you completely. you're not captain bringdown at all. i never talk about my ADD because of EXACTLY what you were saying about your dad: people think it's made up. or, again like you said, people think you're just lazy.

i was on adderall for a while, but i got off of it because i was truly becoming dependent on it and i don't like that feeling. however, it's been reeeally affecting my work for the past 6 months and i need to find another option.

[Bizarro]

Thank you very much. Sincerely. It really helps me to have someone say they understand.

I took Adderall for a while, too, but started to have odd side effects. (My impulsivity when speaking actually got worse rather than better after a while. Total diarrhea of the mouth--I said some awful stuff and some harmless but oddly stupid stuff.)

My doctor told me there is some new med called Vivance that he recommends, but I wanted to just go back to old school Ritalin. That had worked well for me in the past, with the only side effect I suffered--massive weight loss--not being anything I would mind right now.

Seriously, though: thanks for the sympathetic ear. It improved my day. I am thinking about going to a meetup group for ADD people tonight. Maybe that will help, too.

[Sabamah]

Thank you very much. Sincerely. It really helps me to have someone say they understand.

I took Adderall for a while, too, but started to have odd side effects. (My impulsivity when speaking actually got worse rather than better after a while. Total diarrhea of the mouth--I said some awful stuff and some harmless but oddly stupid stuff.)

My doctor told me there is some new med called Vivance that he recommends, but I wanted to just go back to old school Ritalin. That had worked well for me in the past, with the only side effect I suffered--massive weight loss--not being anything I would mind right now.

Seriously, though: thanks for the sympathetic ear. It improved my day. I am thinking about going to a meetup group for ADD people tonight. Maybe that will help, too.

anytime, honey 

i'm going to look into the vivance thing. adderall helped me immensely, but it also allowed me to never sleep, like, ever. also, you can just drinkdrinkdrinkdrink all night long, which becomes a bad thing after a while.

[Bizarro]

Apparently, the correct spelling of that one is Vyvanse. FYI and all.

http://www.vyvanse.com/

[Jesse]

First of all: the Christian "songwriter". He apologizes for not knowing his own song by heart, but doesn't apologize for not being able to sing?

Second: All of this ADD talk is actually very helpful to me, and I'm grateful that you're sharing it. As I may have mentioned before, I'm the only full-time employee at my job. We release something like 100 CDs a year. The guy I'm working for does a million things at once, and can rarely keep focus on any given project for more than a couple of minutes. I'm basically in charge of making the place run smoothly, and being a 'safety net' so nothing major gets overlooked. I'm not complaining, but sometimes it's really difficult to work for someone who I believe in my heart has undiagnosed ADD. Even though he and I will never talk about it, I feel like this conversation at Crappity is helping me have a little bit of empathy for the guy.

[Bizarro]

You could always leave a copy of this book on his desk...

Seriously, though Jesse... I feel guilty on the guy's behalf. He probably knows he's a pain in the ass and just doesn't know what to do about it.

Gawd knows, I drive my wife insane.

[Bizarro]

Here's an essay that author wrote on what it's like to have ADD.

Not his best work and not how I would have put it (his is more from the perspective of it complicating his successful life... my essay would be subtitled "Why I Don't Believe I Will Ever Succeed at Anything") but there's a lot of truth in it.

This article is on a kinda retro-1994 looking site, but it's got some good stuff too.

Here's another good example of what it's like to have ADD: sitting in your car across the street from the account you're supposed to be servicing, using free wifi to complain online about how stressful it is not to get things done.

[captqitn]

Oh yay!     These are the awesome kids I recorded a couple years back.     And now look at em all bustin the NPR song of the day!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111981397


(single proud tear)

[Bizarro]

I like the sound of that one. Terrific singing. (adds to list)

[bebopbalogna]

You could always leave a copy of this book on his desk...

Seriously, though Jesse... I feel guilty on the guy's behalf. He probably knows he's a pain in the ass and just doesn't know what to do about it.

Gawd knows, I drive my wife insane.

knnnch....

my dad gave me a copy of that book a few years ago.  swears by it.   my response was...."yeah, like i'll have the attention span to get through THAT."  (i made it through the preface).

also,  i swore off ritalin years ago.  i was the VERY FIRST kid to be prescibed ritalin in my elementary school.  one of the first in pensacola.  it was still very experimental back in 1980.   ritalin kinda made me introverted, completely anti-social, and made me feel like a space case. uncomfortable in my own skin.  when i got caught  selling ritalin to classmates in 8th grade, and i told my mom i hadn't really taken it in a couple years and the improvements in my grades actually happened when i started talking to people again, she agreed to take me off.  but it seems to work well for other people, so i gave up my crusade against it years ago.  apparently, it just wasn't good for me.

[Tripp]

Shit.!  Maybe I'm an ADDer..