Read You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder Online

Authors: Kate Kelly,Peggy Ramundo

Tags: #Health & Fitness, #Diseases, #Nervous System (Incl. Brain), #Self-Help, #Personal Growth, #General, #Psychology, #Mental Health

You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder (8 page)

BOOK: You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder
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Another manifestation of this generalized irritability has less
to do with pessimism than with a feeling of being constantly annoyed by other people and events. The ADDer may be sarcastic,
rude or abrupt with others because they have overstimulated him or interrupted his train of thought.

Affective Disorders?

The symptoms of affective disorders (such as bipolar disorder, dysthymia and depression) and those of ADD can be remarkably similar. Mental health
professionals sometimes have difficulty distinguishing among these disorders.

Sometimes the various affective disorders and ADD occur together in the same individual. Dysregulated emotions can also appear to be symptoms of, say, depression when they’re not. The symptoms can mask underlying attentional problems. It isn’t uncommon for a mental health professional to make a diagnosis of depression
and totally miss the ADD.

The depressionlike symptoms of ADD adults might be part of the neurological dysregulation that causes the disorder. They might be part of an emotional response to repeated failure. Likely, the moodiness of many ADDers is a little of both. Differentiating ADD from other affective disorders can be difficult but very important. The emotional piece of ADD is often just the
tip of the iceberg of other problems that must be addressed.

Bottomless Pit of Needs and Desires

“I want … I need … I must have …”

On any given day, parents everywhere hear these immortal words! In the grocery store checkout, the begging can be for a pack of gum or candy; at the toy store it’s for the latest, greatest water pistol. Although it isn’t easy for children to learn that they can’t
have everything, they usually grudgingly learn to accept the deprivation. For many ADDers, the intense feelings of need continue forever. It’s part of the dysregulation of ADD.

An insatiable ADD adult experiences ongoing problems with his appetite for many things—sex, alcohol, excitement,
etcetera. He is a bottomless pit of needs, always looking ahead and never feeling satisfied. The simpler
pleasures of life are too mild. Intense experiences must match his voracious appetite.

This insatiability can manifest itself in varied ways. Inside, it feels like an overwhelming craving. The craving is often nonspecific—it’s for
something
but not for anything in particular. An ADDer might use food, sex, liquor or shopping sprees to appease the greedy Needs Monster. Unfortunately, feeding the
monster makes him grow larger and more insistent, so the ADDer sets a vicious cycle in motion. He can exhaust friends and lovers with demands for attention and affection because
no amount is ever enough
.

Some ADDers develop patterns of behavior that include habitual overeating or binge drinking. It is likely that a significant percentage of the members in the Anonymous groups—for alcoholism,
codependency, sex addictions and others—also have ADD. For a wealth of information about the connections between ADD and addictive behavior, read Wendy Richardson’s excellent book
When Too Much Isn’t Enough
.

With hard work, an insatiable ADD adult can learn to say “No” to the nonstop “I want, I need, I must have” message of his Needs Monster. He might quiet his restless cravings by dabbling in sports car racing or bungee jumping. He might assuage his need to shop till you drop through a strategy an acquaintance of ours has designed. She goes on periodic shopping binges, frantically charging hundreds
of dollars’ worth of merchandise. Having happily fed her Needs Monster with all her packages, she heads home. But wait a minute. Doesn’t that make him grow even larger? In her case, it doesn’t because there’s a second part of her strategy. The key is that she has taught herself to bring the packages home and
never open them
. She has learned that within a few hours or days, the cravings for her
purchases will have subsided. Then she goes on another shopping trip to return everything she bought!

Of course, what the Needs Monster is really looking for is more brain juice. Enough stimulation to wake it up in order to simply feel
alive
. Food, sex, shopping, substance abuse, etcetera are ways that ADDults attempt to self-medicate a sleepy mind.

Activity Levels in Flux

Some ADDers are hyperactive, though not all the time.
Some ADDers are hypoactive.
Most ADDers are hyperactive and hypoactive.

Literature frequently refers to ADDers as
hyperactives
—a reference to excessive activity levels. This reflects a viewpoint that is both controversial and somewhat outdated. Although some professionals still focus on high activity levels in diagnosing ADD, we prefer to consider the issue of hyperactivity
as one piece of a
more generalized
dysregulated activity level
. This dysregulation can include
too much
action (hyperactivity),
too little
action (hypo-activity) and
fluctuations
between the two extremes.

Some ADDers know something that many professionals don’t understand: Hypoactivity can be a troubling part of ADD. A hypoactive ADDer moves in slow motion and often hears “Get moving.” If only
he could. It would take a bonfire beneath him to cause any movement at all! He may envy his hyperactive counterpart.

A hyperactive ADDer’s differences are most noticeable when he has to sit still. That’s when he starts swinging his leg or gnawing on his pencil. If his job permits physical activity, the hyperactive adult can be indistinguishable from his non-ADD colleagues.

Traveling salespeople
cope with restlessness by staying on the road and on the move. Nurses joke about needing roller skates to get from one end of the shift to the other. Likewise, the construction worker has a job that lets him expend physical energy. The level of activity required in these jobs can provide a needed outlet for hyperactivity.

Many ADDers are both hyperactive and hypoactive. It seems that activity
levels fluctuate between extremes, much like the other dysregulated symptoms of ADD. Sometimes the ADDer moves and talks at mega-speed, only to flip to a state of inactivity that makes him appear nearly comatose.

Some ADDers report that on a given day, their activity levels seem to build from morning to evening. They are slow-moving and thinking in the morning, functioning well only if they can
carry out routines without interruption. Early morning conversations with family members can consist of grunts and one-word answers. These ADD adults describe themselves as operating on “auto-pilot,” capable of little more than routine, automatic functions.

Nothing helps to speed up this process. These folk begin to gain alertness by midmorning, which is a problem when they work standard daytime
hours. By noon, they’re going full tilt, using their energy to talk nonstop to coworkers over lunch. With energy reserves drained by midafternoon, the big slump often hits with a fight to stay awake. The cycle often continues with a late afternoon shot of newly found energy when they start revving up again. For many, the evening hours are the most productive—late afternoon or evening shifts enable
them to work at peak efficiency.

This pattern is certainly not unique to ADDers. After eating, in particular, many people suffer from a slow down as their bodies mobilize for food digestion. The practice of the siesta in many countries is related to this normal physiological cycle.

An ADDer’s cycles, however, seem to have more intense peaks and slumps. As a group, ADD adults tend to be night
owls. Many have trouble getting started in the morning and display irregular patterns of hyperactivity and lethargy throughout the day.

Although many experts regard hyperactivity as a primary symptom of ADD, others hypothesize that it’s an attempt to compensate for underarousal. Likely, both theories hold parcels of truth. At times, the ADDer seems to be frantically trying to keep himself going
by being physically active. Instead of taking Ritalin to maintain focus and regulation, he might use strenuous exercise to boost his flagging energy and attention level. At other times, he seems frantically driven by his hyperactivity, a force over which he has limited control.

People with high energy levels can accomplish many things in a short time. While others complain that a twenty-four-hour
day isn’t long enough to get everything done, an ADDer might search for extra things to fill up the unused hours. Hyperactivity can be helpful. Unfortunately, many ADD adults energetically
spin their wheels, go in circles and get nowhere. The goal of treatment or self-help can’t be just to slow the ADDer down, but to help him learn to use and direct his energy more efficiently.

Thrill Seeking

Lack of restraint can cause an ADDer to risk life and limb in pursuit of excitement. As a group, we tend to be thrill seekers, minimizing inherent risk and danger. As children, we fell out of trees and dove from great heights. We have made frequent trips to the emergency room to have our bruised and battered bodies patched up. As adults, we’re on our own without anyone to remind us of the dangers.
We may still be making emergency room visits for far more serious injuries. Instead of climbing trees, we are climbing mountains or skydiving.

An ADDer isn’t the only adult who enjoys activities with a high element of risk. But he may approach these activities without sufficient planning. His behavior can be more risky because he engages in thrill seeking without recognizing the inherent risks
involved. He fails to pay sufficient attention to register them. Since he doesn’t register or process the information about risks, he doesn’t really believe in them. Fuzziness about the external world makes him feel invincible and gives him a false sense of safety.

The Intractable Time Tyrant

Time is an elusive entity to many of us. Sometimes we feel as if we’ve entered a time warp—a twilight
zone where we tread water, get nowhere and accomplish nothing. Our sense of time is elastic, and we characteristically underestimate the time it will take to do anything.

As children, we’re late for school, stay out beyond our curfews and miss homework deadlines. As adults, we might be late for work and have trouble completing projects on time. Teachers, bosses and coworkers often misinterpret
the tardiness as laziness or an indifference to their needs. In reality, our behaviors can result from an altered time sense and an inability to plan.
An unscientific diagnostic tool could be to count the items on a person’s “to do” list for a given day. In Chapter 11, we’ll offer a “test” we’ve developed to diagnose ADD as a measure of disorganization! The daily list of an ADDer usually includes
far more than any human could accomplish in three or four days. A professor friend planned to write three articles, a book and two grants over the summer months. His unrealistic goals were quite typical for an ADDer!

Perhaps there is a brain function called “Time” that doesn’t operate efficiently in an ADDer’s brain. More likely, his time troubles are caused by various deficits and his failure
to factor in their impacts on his life. He figures that it shouldn’t take more than two hours to prepare a small dinner for friends. So he decides to add a few extra things to his afternoon plans. Regrettably, he fails to plan for the inevitable distractions that will derail him. Preparing the meal always takes much longer than he thinks it will.

Time troubles play out in other ways as well,
with time passing both more quickly and more slowly than it should. When an ADDer is lost in his own compelling thoughts, the hours fly by in an instant, whereas routine work hours inch along at an excruciatingly slow pace.

Sometimes even unpleasant tasks can grab the ADD adult. Most people don’t think of housework as their favorite activity. Then why does an ADDer who hates housework spend hours
“spit-shining” his house while other chores remain unfinished? The answer lies in overpersistence. It’s not uncommon for him to become locked in, obsessively attacking tiny specks of dirt. The day evaporates as he scrubs a small portion of a room into antiseptic perfection. This would be okay if he had the time or inclination to spend his life pursuing the elusive dream of a spotless home. Of
course, his time is limited and must be divided among a variety of chores.

The time he never accounted for is eaten up by lists that are too long: Another day is gone … It’s three o’clock in the morning … The alarm will go off in three hours … Doesn’t the Time Monster ever sleep???

Space Struggles

An ADD adult can also have a distorted sense of space and problems with directionality. As an
adult, he might still rely on the visual clue of his wristwatch to identify right and left. He might have difficulty following a road map or understanding the compass settings of north, south, east and west.

He can also have a distorted sense of how his body moves in space in relationship to other objects. As a consequence, he bumps into people or furniture. He might be unable to gauge the speed
and direction of a ball in tennis or baseball games. Sports that demand finely tuned spatial abilities can be particularly difficult for him.

BOOK: You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder
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ads

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