Loving Life with ADD, ADHD

"Your child has ADD-ADHD." That's a little sentence every parent dreads to hear. I remember when one of my son's elementary school teacher tried it on me. I almost replied, "Putting him on Ritalin? What if we put you on Prozac instead?", but I held back.

The truth is: he has been a tough kid to deal with. Like many people with the same issue, the tendency to self medicate is great, and the best prevention and/or remedy is for him to gain a full understanding of what Attention Deficit Disorder entails. Sadly, he inherited it from me. People must wait for you to die to inherit your possessions, but not your genetic dysfunctions. Those are readily available, whether they claim them or not!

As soon as people hear ADD-ADHD, they think it's a curse, and it can be if you let it. However, it can also work to your advantage. I was not diagnosed until the age of 45 and 50 jobs later... All along I knew something wasn't quite right, but I was clueless as to what it was. I mastered all major functions of my new jobs within the first three months, by which time I was making major process and procedure improvements and saving the company a lot of money. It entertained me for about one year, then I was ready to move up or on.

It is true that we get bored, very impatient, forgetful, that we procrastinate, that being on time seems very trivial to us, that we hate being distracted and disturbed when we are in the middle of concentrating because we have a hard time getting back on task once we get out of focus. Background noises drive us crazy. We love to interrupt and be noisy. We talk too much. We blurt things out without thinking. Yet, ask me today if I regret going through 50+ jobs and I will tell you that I don't: My boredom has allowed me to go from field to field. I have done more things than anyone I know: law school, business school, business, HR, and economics majors, modeling, accounting, sales and marketing, advertising, public relations, photo shoots, writing, designing, human resources, management, retail and business sales, consulting, legal work, starting Europe, being on a city council, you name it, I have done it, have loved it, and have been fascinated!~

Had I known years ago, I suspect that my life would have been much different: my awareness would have allowed me to find ways to tame my eagerness and insatiable thirst for learning. This said, I love who I am today and enjoy the incredible amount of knowledge I have acquired.

However, being or living with a ADD or ADHD person can be challenging. Whether medication is the answer or not is an individual decision. As a ADD sufferer, I feel that I do well without help. For my ADHD son however, it appears as though the extra H (for Hyperactivity) creates some additional trouble. When you are constantly bombarded by information so fast that you can't possibly assimilate and process it all, it takes away your peace of mind and interferes with your ability to think and function, hence, the tendency to self medicate to calm down. Medication is a healthier solution than drugs or alcohol, and that's precisely the argument made by those who support medicating ADD and ADHD sufferers. Many ADD/ADHD patients have difficulty being slowed down by medication, however. When you have spent your entire life thinking and living at 200 miles an hour, being held back and slowed down by medication can be uncomfortable. Many of us enjoy a lot of the advantages of our ADD/ADHD condition: we are masters at multi-tasking and at accomplishing tasks much faster than most people. We also get easily bored, and therefore are very curious, and learn everything we can get our hands on. Under medication, it seems that our desire to accomplish a lot remains the same. What changes is our ability to do so. We feel held back, like you would when you feel sick yet have a long list of things you want to get done and don't seem to have the energy to get to it. It causes much frustration and can make it difficult to stay medicated.

ADD/ADHD sufferers may find it difficult to live a normal life. The disorder affects their education and schooling, their work, their relationships, their driving ability, and their marriage. Subsequently, they may have bouts of depression which brings them down, although the ADD/ADHD disorders tend to make them talkative, expressive, and obnoxious at times. Because of these ups and downs, it s not unusual for a depressed ADD/ADHD patient to be misdiagnosed as a bipolar disorder patient, with the ups mimicking the manic state, and the depression resembling the down state of bipolar disorder. That's why it is crucial for the patient or a family member to ensure that the counselor is very familiar with both ailments. Most counselors specialize in one area or another, be it alcoholism, marriage counseling, child psychology, mental illness, sexual disorder, etc. Just like you wouldn't want a foot surgeon to operate on your heart or brain, you wouldn't want the wrong counselor addressing your or your loved one's emotional issue. Here is a crucial piece of information: anti-depressants will appease a depressed ADD/ADHD patient and throw a bipolar patient into a manic state. One counselor out of four told me that. The three others misdiagnosed me. Don't be misdiagnosed!

For further information and practical advice to deal with ADD/ADHD, download the guide at ADHDactionguide.com or call 1-800-563-2265.

Joelle Osias, MBA
Author of "Get the Life You Deserve!"
President and CEO Osias International, LLC