ADD and not knowing you have it until much later in your life

 

October is ADHD/ADD awareness month.  This month, I will be discussing my own experience with it, both personally and as a teacher seeing it in other children and coworkers.

I've always been a disorganized space cadet, known for daydreaming in class, and getting punished for a messy desk and messy handwriting.  I was always off in my own world and had trouble turning in assignments on time in elementary school.  I was never hyperactive.  In fact, I was considered sleepy and lazy, far from the kid who usually gets an ADHD/ADD diagnosis.  But, my thoughts ran wild constantly.  As I got older, I learned to adapt, but I was always procrastinating and screeching in at the last second for any appointment, assignment, etc. And, I'm still incredibly disorganized.  It's not because I want to be disorganized.  I actually hate being disorganized, but I can't stay organized.  It just "happens."

I know it really doesn't just happen, but it feels that way because I take time to get things where they need to go, and then suddenly, things are piled up again.  It's partly because I'm distracted enough to not realize the piles are happening until they are overwhelming. All those tips for staying organized just don't work for me because I don't even think about what I'm doing as I'm going about my day.  It takes a whole lot of brain power to remember to put things in the exact same spot every time.  I'm notorious for losing things that I literally just had a few minutes ago, like my keys, because for some reason that I don't remember, I put them down in a place that is not their normal spot. I'm sure it was a good reason at the time, or I wasn't even thinking when I put them down, but because my thoughts run a thousand miles a minute, I can't even remember why or where.  My working memory isn't that good.  No one's is, it can only hang onto 7 to 10 items within about 10-15 seconds, and when you've got 100's of thoughts going through your brain in such a short period of time, you can't hang onto everything.  

I'm also easily distracted, especially by auditory input (that's part of also having auditory/sensory perception issues - which I'll elaborate on some other time).  Strangely, lots of talking in the classroom when kids are clearly working on what they are supposed to be doing doesn't bother me.  But, if I'm trying to read, or hold a conversation, music and the TV on in the background make it difficult for me to follow what I'm supposed to and people think I'm not interested in what they have to say.  It's not that I'm not interested; I'm just having an extremely difficult time following what you are saying when there is conflicting auditory input. On the opposite side, having the music playing while I'm driving, writing, or doing math (when I was in school) makes it much easier for me to concentrate. 

People say kids outgrow these things when they become an adult.  I don't think that's the case at all.  I think it's worse, and I also think that I'm much more aware of how much it impacts my life than when I was younger.  I was off in my own world as a kid and didn't really realize just how much my life was being impacted by it.  But, now, I definitely notice how much it impacts my daily life, my personal life, my professional life, and everything in between. It's also one of the reasons I haven't published more than I have.

But, I recently started taking supplements regularly, in particular, vitamin B6, which my DNA analysis my doctor ran states that I have a hard time metabolizing.  Vitamin B6 is one of the key nutrients needed for focus.  The fact that I'm remembering to take these daily in the first place is amazing in itself.  But, I put all of them on my keyboard tray in the morning and take them with my breakfast, moving the bottle to the mini fridge next to my desk as I take it.  And... after 2 weeks of religiously taking them, I started to notice small improvements.  Like being able to notice the pile on my desk before it got out of hand, the ability to stay focused longer, the ability to follow a conversation longer, etc.  But, I've still got a LONG, LONG way to go, and I know this isn't a miracle cure.  There's so much more work I need to do.  I know that if I stop taking the vitamins, I'll likely slip right back into that mindless inability to focus, so it's certainly not a cure.  Still, it is a way to help me find other ways in which to start learning to focus better and not have scattered thoughts impact my life.   

And who knows, maybe I'll get that second book finished before next summer.