posted
...that I had ad/hd, I think college would've been much different.
I mean, I thought it was normal to be doing 5-10 things at once. To get bored in any class, even if you like the subject material. To always have to DO something, to always have to keep your hands occupied. To lose stuff all the time. To forget stuff constantly. To not be able to study for tests, even if you LIKED the material, because you couldn't stand being still that long, and focused on ONE thing that long.
That writing a story, taking notes, listening to a lecture, tapping your foot, shifting position and looking at the clock fifty times during a class was perfectly normal. To be introduced to someone and not remember what their name is five seconds later. To be listening to someone and then realize that at some point you stopped listening and are saying "Hey! Look at the kitty!"
I wonder what it've been like if I could've studied and paid better attention. If I'd done my assignments in a timely fashion instead of putting them off until two hours before.
Would I have traded the two novels I wrote in for better grades?
Would it've been worth it?
I don't think this changes me from how I am now. But it does EXPLAIN a lot. And now friends and teachers in my life are saying, "Well...damn. Yeah, that makes complete sense."
Or, as Finn said, "Duh."
So.
Does finding out a diagnosis change who you are? How you perceive the world? Or just explain things, give a name to a set of symptoms that you've had your entire life, not knowing that they were abnormal?
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
The problem with declaring yourself adhd (as I do) is that you learn to keep that belief to yourself, since there are a lot of people out there who look at it as some kind of hypochondriacal(I just made that word up. Like it?) condition. I mean, jeez, everyone forgets stuff. What's so special about that? Everyone gets a little antsy just sitting around. What's so special about that?
Anyways. I don't know organic from psychosomatic, but I do know that reading about adhd made me feel SO much better about myself. Always being forgetful, 'you could pay attention if you really wanted to'. It takes its toll after a while.
Anyways. I guess I'm saying 'yes'. Knowing that I have adhd gives me a way to respect myself and let myself relax with who I am. I do work at paying attention, not letting myself get too hyper and freak people out when I'm around them. On the other hand, I accept that that's part of who I am.
I like being adhd. I think people who don't have it are flat, boring, and pretty monochromatic.
posted
I'd be surprised if finding out something about onself like that would cause a fundamental change in personality for that many people. People can certainly change, but I find that the older we are, the more likely change, especially non-traumatic change, is likely to come in new viewpoints or behaviors, rather than new personality traits. I guess a new viewpoint could include how you view yourself, though.
I've often wondered if I have ADD. I kind of doubt it, because even though I have a hard time concentrating on what people are saying to me, I'm still able to focus very strongly on work that I need to do (although it takes me forever to ramp up into "hack mode", so I generally need to keep my momentum once I get going).
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I can relate in that I'm still sorting out what to do with the diagnosis of OCD. Which I guess is kind of the opposite of ADHD. At first, I thought "Maybe I'll start watching R rated movies again" But then the first one I tried was "An officer and a Gentleman". Big mistake.
I think the biggest issue I'm having right now is that I used to enjoy a lot of self improvement/motivation but now I notice whenever they are telling me how to think and it ticks me off. So I just suddenly quit a bunch of things that were helping me with my depression.
You wouldn't think it would be that important but I guess that's a whole nother can of worms.
My husband definitely doesn't understand why it should matter. Like I said, I haven't gotten it sorted out myself. But I used to be like a Gila monster when I thought I was right and someone else was wrong. I still fall into that mode without realizing it sometimes.
SS and Saxon75, why do you always show up in the same places? I guess I could look up your landmark posts and get some clarity that way. But would that be stalking?
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I get very, very sick and tired of the tendency to glamourize certain "creative" and oddly "common" mental illnesses, like synesthesia and ADD.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm so confused. What does OCD have to do with rated R movies? I'm sure there's a connection, I just don't see it right off the bat. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Tom, I do too. They aren't gifts. They're...abnormalities. And those abnormalities aren't what cause any creativity, nor are they a byproduct. It's a happenstance of genetics that a person got both a mental illness and creativity.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
It's funny reading your post, mack, because about half the things you listed completely apply to me, and the other half couldn't be farther from who I am. Posts: 2149 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Just thought you should know that ADHD individuals are far more likely to start, and successfully run their own businesses than "normal" folk.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity.
Neurotypical individuals often assume that their experience of the world is either the only one, or the only correct one. NTs find it difficult to be alone. NTs are often intolerant of seemingly minor differences in others. When in groups NTs are socially and behaviorally rigid, and frequently insist upon the performance of dysfunctional, destructive, and even impossible rituals as a way of maintaining group identity.
According to the site, "as many as 9625 out of every 10,000 individuals may be neurotypical."
It's a funny site, composed by people who allegedly have a very impaired sense of humor. As satire, it's probably funnier if you happen to be a person who has some kind of label or have had to listen angrily through an extremely negative psych assessment of a loved one.
For the record, I'm not ADD, ADHD, or autistic. But pretty certifiably atypical in the neurology department.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I scored 6 out of 10: "You show some signs of Neurotypic Disorder. You may want to be evaluated by a qualified autistic to determine whether or not your neurotypic tendencies warrant intervention."
The screening test asks you to enter your name and email address, but I took the test without filling those in and was able to get my results anyway.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: You had 1 out of 10 questions correct. You appear to be suffering from neurotypicality. Sadly, there is no cure, but with training it may be possible for you to become a high-functioning neurotypical (HFNT).
What does this mean?????? The only question I got correct was that I was the child being bullied . . . Posts: 5609 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote: and just how are we to interperet these findings?
As satire . They explain it on the site. Fun, though.
I think others have noted that there's a definite tendency by some members of the psychological and psychiatric professions to put a label on almost and perceived deviation from "normality." And those that are labelled that get to have their personalities, traits, etc. interpreted in overwhelmingly negative ways.
I see the site as a nice example of resistance through humor.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: Does finding out a diagnosis change who you are? How you perceive the world? Or just explain things, give a name to a set of symptoms that you've had your entire life, not knowing that they were abnormal?
Actually, some scientists agree that ADD is completely normal. They explain that the "ADD cavemen" types who were hyper focused on the jungle/forest around them and not on the task at hand (like inventing the wheel or what ever the intellectual nerdy cavemen did to pass the time), had better survival instincts. They knew when the enemy or predator animals were close at hand. They were also better hunters because they were more in tune (you know ... distracted) by their environment. Like you were saying: "that at some point you [they] stopped listening and are saying "Hey! Look at the kitty!"
As a kid I always had this problem of being aware of everything going on outside of the house, like birds chirping, dogs barking, cars passing, etc. Impossible to concentrate on homework and stuff like that when everything in the background is bugging the hell out of you.
Look for a book called Driven to Distraction. It is a must read for all of us who are "driven to distraction."
posted
Sigh. I've been trying to figure out how to respond to some of the posts here, and I'm not sure I can. Sndrake's and Tom's posts were particularly heart warming, I must say. Nothing like baring your soul and having people call you a shmuck to make you feel all tingly inside!
I'm well aware that with enough searching through the DMSV IV or whatever the heck it's called that psychotherapists use, someone can find a problem for themselves. You too can be cool and be a victim! You can be special!
I don't know what to tell you guys. If you want to feel like I am labeling myself out of some desire to be special or something, I can't stop you. As I mentioned in my first post, I don't tell people that I think I am an adhd type person because I am well aware that people have the attitude that people who believe such are whiners looking for attention. To my knowledge, this is, maybe, the second time that I've ever mentioned it on Hatrack.
I realize adhd is usually not anything like 'real' mental disorders which make it so you can't function in life at all. Like a lot of mental issues, particularly like depression, which a lot of the people on this board suffer from, it occurs on a sliding scale throughout the population. Some people get it and they can function around it. Some people have it so badly they have to take medication to function.
I read the book Kranky is referencing about ten years a go or so, and all I can tell you is I thought, wow, this is me. There's not something wrong with me after all. I felt so much better about myself. I went to a couple meetings of a kind of support group and that helped even more.
One of the nice things about adhd is that for many (most?) people, you can work with it quite well without taking ritalin or any other kind of drug. You just make lists, meditate, perhaps, try to be more aware of your surroundings. DtD has sections on this. It helped me.
Just because a lot of people seize on shit for the mental illness of the month doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Outside of Kranky and Mack's post, this whole thread has been really depressing for me. :/
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Oh, they exist. They really, really do. I just hate how some mental illnesses, especially manic depression, are linked to creativity, so that the illness is a "gift" and a "blessing" bestowed for that creative purpose.
I just hate that, as if any of my creative ability is the result of my illness, and not a result of ME.
And besides, who the hell would really WANT manic depression? I'd give anything not to have it.
For me, the book that particularly got was "An Unquiet Mind" by Kay Redfield Jamison. It describes her struggle with manic depression and it is just...very close.
Somehow, having this stupid bipolar disorder, I don't see ad/hd as anything bad. More like, a clarification of why the bipolar hasn't been stabailized. The possibility that it HAD, but we mistook AD/HD symptoms for the onset of hypomania.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I try to communicate clearly, really I do. I'm beginning to think I better stick to fluff threads since I obviously made a mess of what I intended to communicate. I did not mean to offend you or anyone else - it's not my style to offend in social situations. I save it for when work calls on me to offend people - but that's another story.
I was very serious when I identified myself as "atypical". And the website I linked to was written and created by people who are autistic.
I don't see it as contradictory to affirm the reality of disability and illness on one hand and overzealous "pathologizing" of people who are diffferent on the other. Both can be true. They are not mutually exclusive.
About me - here's an excerpt off the webpage listed in my profile - it's from a presentation I gave in 1992:
quote:Testing is kind of problematical for people with lifelong neurological involvement. Neuropsychological batteries were developed for people who acquired brain injury as adults, which means sudden losses of function and generally site-specific damage. Those of us who have lifelong neurological involvement more often have disruption of function. Plus, we have no idea how our own neurological functioning departs from what is "normal". As an example - It took me forever to learn to drive. I have to look at what I write in order to avoid mistakes (computers and word processors have been a godsend). I cannot talk and make a sandwich at the same time. But a neuropsych battery fails to reveal any motor problems. The tests call for me to do one thing at a time. I have no trouble with this. I can do one thing at a time just fine. It is trying to do several things at once that is difficult.
Another example of how the experiential factor can "hide" abnormalites is this: I have doubled vision outside of my central field. I always have. However, repeated exams by a neurologist never revealed this. In fact, it was only a couple of years ago that I discovered that this was unusual. The docotr, by the way, tested me for double vision. He would hold up fingers in the periphery of my visual field and ask me how many fingers he was holding up. Remember, I didn't know my vision was unusual. Anyway, I might have had weird vision, but I wasn't stupid. I saw two hands, but both of them were holding up two fingers and that's what I reported.
Until school, I didn't have a lot of trouble. At that point, though, problems with my organization and motor skills started to get me in trouble. I had a great deal of trouble with printing, and handwriting was really awful to learn. My hand would get confused and write wrong letters. I would know as soon as I made the mistake, because I was an excellent speller. While I always missed words on spelling tests, I was always one of the last to sit down at spelling bees. Teachers never picked up on this discrepancy.
I never had any formal labels, but I had plenty of informal ones. Lazy and unmotivated were two of them. "Underachiever" was probably the most frequently used one. No matter how many times I wrote and rewrote something, it looked like something put together at the last minute. So I started doing things at the last minute, since it didn't seem to make a difference. Finally, I stopped doing most of my schoolwork. I loved learning. I hated school. I would fixate on certain subjects and read everything I could get my hands on dealing with it. My fixations seldom had anything to do with what I was supposed to be studying.
It goes farther than I was willing to say in the speech. I had a devil of a time growing up trying to figure out how to deal socially with people. The more people, the worse. At least part of that is due to my difficulty in processing several inputs at a time and reacting effectively to them (inputs=people).
As an example, it took over 3 years at regular staff meetings back at my old university before I was able to communicate and contribute at meetings. Not shyness. I couldn't figure out how other people figured out how to hop in the gaps in discussion with their own remarks and contributions.
I was lucky - I was in a situation where people were supportive. When I informed my boss and mentor what the issues were, I was regularly asked for comments and feedback at meetings. I was able to learn - with that group of people - how to contribute even when not asked once I got comfortable enough.
I don't have that trouble these days. I've had more practice. Plus I tend to have a high enough profile and enough special knowledge to make my contributions expected at most meetings I attend.
Anyway, that's a little more self-exposure than I tend to do in one fell swoop. I really do apologize for the impression you got of my posts and I hope we're cool now.
posted
Sndrake, It sounds to me more like a nonverbal learning disability. It is a very new diagnosis(last ten years) and fits the bill for lots of kids who tend to fall through the cracks and end up in alternative ed. classrooms. Poor social skills, due to an inability to read social cues, is one of the main things. Written output is usually poor, but verbal skills are high, so they do not usually test out as having a learning disability.
It is also characterized by poor math output, particularly in spatial stuff, like graphing. Students do very well early on, so it tends to go undetected. This is because rote learning is very easy for the kids, and there is more rote learning in younger grades. Hands on math, which is thought to be the panacea for all math learning problems, does not work, because it doesn't progress to abstract thinking in the same way.
Here are a couple of links. I have been reading about this a lot lately.
posted
Sndrake, Another book to read is "The Myth of Laziness" by Mel Levine.
Tom, There are positive qualities of ADHD. We live in a society which thrives on its people doing more things in a day than there is time to do them. Yet in school, we teach children to sit down and focus on one thing at a time.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:I'm sorry. I appreciate the additional clarification. I seem to have misunderstood where you were coming from.
Again, please accept my apologies.
Storm, as tempting as it is to see if we can start an endless loop of apologies and counterapolgies, maybe we can just say there was a lapse in communication and "apologies have been exchanged and mutually accepted"?
Sheesh - wondering where the "manly handshake" graemlin is when you need it.
And, at the risk of starting a fresh round, I really do accept most of the responsibility. I put something out there that was open to a lot of misinterpretation without context about myself and about the way I tend to view some of these things.
I realized in my last message, I used the term "self exposure" when I meant to say "self-disclosure" - interesting kind of slip that I will have to ponder for a bit.
Now signing as "Stephen" - there doesn't seem to be one of those here and it avoids confusion.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I would fall out somewhere on the nonverbal learning disabilites (NLD)continuum. Which isn't surprising, considering that Byron Rourke, who first promoted the label did a lot of his work defining it with kids who had hydrocephalus.
Please take the NLD literature with a large grain of salt.
I read Rourke's works about 10 years ago.
For what it's worth, from the very type of person he was trying to describe, there's a lot of very unhelpful garbage to sort out.
When I read the descriptions of NLD kids, I see kids I have a lot in common with. When Rourke and others start interpreting those same kids and their behaviors, they're suddenly talking about strangers.
Just as as example - The motor difficulties of those of us in this category are well-documented. I described my own view of how they affected my ability to deal socially, especially in groups. It's a problem of dealing and reacting to multiple inputs in an appropriate and timely manner.
Instead of looking at the well-documented motor difficulties of NLD folks as a factor in social difficulties, Rourke and others allege that there are primary deficits in our wiring relating to reading social cues. That may be true for some - maybe even a little for me, but the neuromotor issues had a greater ripple effect than I see reflected in any of the literature.
It's a good thing I was growing up before all this literature hit - I work now as someone who develops political strategy, organizes grassroots activists, analyzes research articles, and engages in public presentations and debates. None of these would be on the list of targeted career options for a person with NLD.
Good thing I didn't know any better. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
sndrake, You should do some writing about it. Every article I read has an implicit disclaimer that this is a new diagnosis. Tell them where you think they are wrong. This knowledge will help me teach my kids. I am ANGRY that no one ever told me this was what these kids have(or might have). I could do so many things better for them. I will do things better now. Like Jenny, I want to know how to help!
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I acknowledge that some of my insights and others like me could be of value. Trouble is, I just don't have the time - I love what I do, but it keeps me very busy.
There's another barrier - professionals trust their own interpretations of behavior of those they are labelling more than the insights of "the labelled." In the case, of ADD, they've had to make some concessions, since there are so many articulate people with that label able and willing to advocate for themselves.
If professionals see me as someone who has trouble with abstraction, and other core cognitive deficits, than anything I say about myself is regarded as suspect. I speak from experience.
And yet, I can pull certain things off very well that seem to require a certain amount of sophistication in understanding other people's motivations and finding ways to deal with that:
Over a year ago, we were contacted by a producer of the "Dr. Phil" Show before its first airing about a show they were going to tape. Without elaborating here and now, it was a very bad show from a disability perspective and I was able to make the producer uncomfortable enough to make me believe I effectively caused the show to be trashed, since it has never aired.
A few years ago, I was on a radio show with a notorious Princeton professor who advocates a lot of really nasty anti-disability health care policy. I managed to put him solidly on the defensive over the integrity of his work, and by comparing him - fairly - to some very disreputable neo-eugenics writers. The host of the PBS radio show started arguing on my side.
Sometimes I think that having to work very hard at learning how to interact with others has - paradoxically - made me more effective than some "smoother" people in some highly charged and complex situations.
Think I better stop now. This is getting dangerously close to rambling.
posted
I agree. There are compensations for having ADHD. Both Bonduca and I have it, and while it's a royal pain in the tush a lot of the time, there are other situations when it comes in quite handy.
For instance, both of us are extremely good during emergencies: it's like life has finally sped up to our speed, so we are able to react extraordinarily quickly to events happening around us.
Also, we tend to be very inventive. The here and now is not very interesting to us (at least, not for long), but what-could-be is very intriguing, and we spend a lot of time there.
I agree with the point about being very aware of our surroundings. I tend to be extremely aware of everything that's going on around me. When I visit NYC, it wears me out like nobody's business, but try, just try sneaking up on me. Very difficult to do.
In addition, we tend to be extremely alert and spot trouble faster than most people. The downside of this is that we get a lot of false alarms: we pick up on change faster, but different doesn't always mean danger.
Jeff
P.S. Tom, you can go suck on a water buffalo. Posts: 1692 | Registered: May 2001
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