Another Daily Dose

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Hey all, we’ve had our winners chosen now since for a couple of weeks! After a little bout with a tooth abscess & a second root canal, blogging is back on my list of priorities ). I’m pleased to announce the 2 winners of the ADHD Awareness Week – ADHD Success Stories contest.

First, I wish to say that it was so wonderful hearing everyone’s stories! Jess and I could relate so much to each of them! It was so positive that we are going to keep that feature of the site going. So, for now, if you or anyone you know has a story that they didn’t get to share during ADHD Awareness Week then jump on over to our ADHD Success Stories page and leave a comment! We’ll continue to randomly choose stories to spotlight and hand out gifts as we see fit, so spread the word!!

Secondly, I’d like to let everyone know why we picked the entries we did. When creating this site we knew that we didn’t just want to have a bunch of information about ADHD. We were looking for a twist. As we considered some possibilities it started to make sense that we wanted to become a site that gives hope to those with ADHD, a site that not only subscribes to, but CLINGS to the philosophy that ADD is a GIFT and when honed can bring high levels of creativity, achievement and joy to one’s life.

With this in mind, and knowing that many of you expressed the hope we were looking for, we settled on the following stories. First from “boomboomlaboom.”

I was diagnosed in my early 30s. I wish I’d known earlier. I have pretty severe ADD, I’m dropped out of school and spent most of my life being told that I should try harder because I was obviously smart and “could do better” (a quote on just about every school report I ever received). After school I spent several years bouncing from menial job to menial job.

Very long and involved story shortened: At 23 I was given a computer and found I had a natural affinity for them. I started my career in computers at 24 and set myself a goal of becoming Chief Technology Officer of a company within 10 years. I was promoted CTO of a very successful internet company 4 months before my 34th birthday – my 4th promotion in that job.

So, for the benefit of parents struggling with their ADHD/ADD child: Very scattered high school drop out who was good at very little but reading science fiction and playing rock guitar – held a string of menial jobs (I think close to 20 over a 6 year period) – discovered computers and now a very successful executive (also have a stable home life)

ADD allows me to, to steal a phrase, ‘think different’. While my peers and subordinates have a tendency to think linearly I notice that I can make all kinds of intuitive leaps and connect seemingly unrelated information into new configurations to find solutions. There are some ways in which I excel, in IQ testing there are areas I rate above genius level. Of course, in other areas I’ve been known to leave one shoe on a bookshelf and another in the fridge instead of putting them on the shoe rack – so I guess it balances out. ADD isn’t about not having any focus, it’s about not always being able to choose where that focus is – it also allows for hyper-focus. Most of my success, other than the being really good at the stuff I’m interested in, is the ability to shut my body down so I can tackle an interesting problem. It’s almost like a zen state – nothing exists in the universe except the problem or task. I’ve worked around the clock in the blink of an eye, or realize that I havent moved in 18 hours and desperately need to focus on biological issues.

ADD is only a handicap in the eyes of those who assume that life requires us all to behave the same way and think the same way. Yes, it’s painful when you’re younger because you know you don’t quite fit in and the way everyone else does things makes very little sense (parents: your ADD child can’t clean his room because it’s not messy to them. Plus it’s impossible to put something away that has multiple contexts simultaneously – it lives in many places, so leaving it on the floor where I can find it when I need it is the best solution – this also drives executive assistants crazy later in life when shifted to a ‘office looks like a tornado came through it’, which is quite fun).

From what I’ve observed by nearly any measure I have a lot more fun with my life than most people around me, and I wouldn’t change who I am for the world.

And secondly is a story submitted by a mother, Nancy, in behalf of her daughter Carol. Touching story. Check it out!

I couldn’t resist telling story of my daughter Carol.  She was born with spina bifida and has always been a wheelchair user.  So a good part of her childhood was spent dealing with mobility issues.

Carol was very bright but did not do well in school.  Finally dropped out of high school and got her GED.  She went on to college and did well because she was into sports and didn’t have to do much on the academic level.

She went to the University of Illinois which is the only University in U.S. with a wheelchair varsity team.  She won many national races and participated in the Paralympics in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, and won a gold medal in track.

She married and worked as a vet tech and loved animals.  But she wasn’t organized in her life and felt something really missing, felt depressed.  It was after she was diagnosed with ADHD and got help that she really began to live a full life.

When she and I talk about those times, she reflects that her real difficulty in life was the ADHD and not the birth defect.  That is how profound and real attentional issues can be.

Happily she found neurofeedback as a therapy and, through use of EEG and computer technology, she was able to retrain her brain to a much more alert, focused and organized state.  It was really amazing how effective it was.

Now she even writes thank-you notes and can study for hours effectively.  She is in her second year of acupuncture school and is learning hundreds of Chinese herbs and loving it.  Never could she have accomplished this without the neurofeedback.  The whole training series took about 4 months  and she’s never regressed.

Carol’s Mom

Thanks again to all who participated! Submit more stories. Get a hold of us and we’ve got a list of books/CDs about ADD for you to choose from.

In a recent survey given to over 1,000 adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), near 70% of all respondents said other than using medication they used music, planners & exercising as ways to help manage their ADHD symptoms.

Source: National Survey of Adults with ADHD

Personally, I’ve found all three of these tools very positive in helping me to thrive in the face of ADHD.

I music in conjunction with planning to help me organize my thoughts & to give me a focus/direction throughout the day. Typically classical or instrumental music works best for me. Music with words or a catchy popular beat tend to have the opposite affect when I’m trying to focus and/or study. I’m not saying that Jack Johnson’s not good to pop in the stereo, I’m just saying that he has his time & place. This is usually when I’m trying to relax…or wanna dance because I just went on a good date ).

Here are several things that I’ve learned about planning as someone with ADHD. I tend to get super into details when I plan and end up spending a LONG time. Therefore, telling myself that I’m going to revisit my plan a little each day lets me give up the expectation that I have to plan everything perfectly. I spend a little longer on one day and then am able to just whittle away at the long list throughout the week it’s very helpful. When this strategy is working for me, each day I’ll check the list and just choose ONE thing to focus on. When I finish it, I can go to another.

Because I work on computers all day, it’s also important that I often bring myself back to reality and close a handful of tabs in my browser to make sure that I’m focusing on that one thing I’ve chosen to focus on. If I don’t, it’s really easy for me to travel between one task and another. Because this often leads to not feeling accomplished, it’s easy to then feel frustrated.

Exercise…wow, I can’t even explain how much this helps when I’m feeling all pent up inside. I like to run, it raises my heartrate and gets me all sweaty. Pretty sure that it’s the sweat that does the trick ).

Lastly, I don’t think that it was mentioned, but getting good sleep really helps me too. When I wake up in a daze, it’s easy for me to just jump into the day without setting a strategy, without planning, etc. THIS can be disasterous!

What do YOU do to help with your ADHD?