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The Adult with ADD:
- May lose things such as keys, important papers,
phone numbers etc on a regular basis.
- May be forgetful in daily activities “I know there was something
I was supposed to do!” or consistently forget to take
out the trash, instructions from your partner, or picking
the kids
up from
an activity.
- May consistently begin a task and not complete it. Maybe you
start to cut the grass, go inside to get a drink, answer
the phone, see
there is a sporting event on TV, sit down and watch it
and leave the lawn mower in the middle of the yard. Maybe you
have a “workshop” with
projects began with good intentions, all half finished.
- May have a problem following conversations. Maybe your wife/girlfriend/partner
talks to you and always complains that you never listen.
Maybe you are always wondering when someone told you
something when
they say “Don’t
you remember I told you about this last week.” Maybe
you miss deadlines at work or hand in something irrelevant
because
you only
heard half the conversation.
- May be difficult to motivate yourself to begin a project. “Oh
sure, that sounds great, I’ll get started on it, well, maybe
tomorrow!” A project that doesn’t instantly
sound great and exciting may continually be placed
on hold, making
you look lazy.
May have difficulty following a timed schedule. Misjudging
time can create havoc in any schedule. Either you begin
with an unrealistic
schedule, allowing too much or too little time for
each activity, or you can’t follow the schedule
because you forgot about the time and just spend 3
hours on an activity that should have
taken
20 minutes.
Hyperactivity
- Okay, so you don’t bounce off the furniture any more,
(or maybe you do) but the hyperactivity is still present, it just
shows up
in different ways as you grow into adulthood.
- You may be in constant movement. You play with your
pencil all during a meeting, or tap your foot
on the floor.
You doodle on
any piece
of paper that is around, including those important
statements you just received in the mail.
- You may get bored easily. Boredom begins to set
in about 15 minutes after you begin a project,
or a
few months
after you
begin a new
job. You find TV boring, the computer is
better, a little more interactive, but still becomes
boring. You have
an intense need to make everything
in life a little more interesting. You food
contains more spices,
your desk contains toys, your life is filled
with gadgets
that looked great at the store but you lost
interest when you got
home.
- You may become restless after a few minutes of
inactivity. Time to sit down to a relaxing
evening with your
partner and 15 minutes
later
you are ready to go and do something, or
you begin to fade in and out of the conversation,
planning
what else
you
can do. You spend
your day at work walking around and talking,
getting coffee, making phone calls or anything
else you
can do to relieve
the restlessness
from sitting at a desk.
You may have a great desire for active,
risky and fast paced activities. Basketball
is great,
baseball
much
to slow, you
start counting
grass blades while standing in the outfield.
Driving 20 miles over the
speed limit makes that boring road so much
more exciting and gets you off it quicker.
Hang gliding;
jumping
from airplanes, racecar
driving, and other such sports exhilarate
you. Riding a bike is great; riding down
a steep
mountain on
a bike is
even
better.
- You may interrupt others or answer a question
before the other person is finished.
Entering in a conversation
in
the middle
of someone
else’s sentence can be embarrassing
and lead to others thinking that you
are rude and inconsiderate.
- You may blurt out your thoughts without thinking
first. Do your friends and family know
you for your “bluntness” or “complete
honesty?” Do your thoughts jump out of your head before you
even have time to decide if it is an appropriate response? Do you
tend to hurt other people’s feelings
with your remarks, even though you never
intended to be insulting?
Emotional Turmoil
- You may become easily angered. Do you find
your temper rising over the smallest
incident? Does
your family
and friends
wonder why
you can get angry so quickly? At the
same time, are you able to release
your anger quickly, left wondering
what all the fuss is about?
- You may have a low tolerance for frustration.
Without instant success, do you
find yourself become frustrated
with a
project and leaving
it alone? It is possible that consistent
failures in the past due to ADHD
(diagnosed and undiagnosed)
may
have left
you with
a bad
taste for “failure” and
your frustration with not being
able to complete a project successfully
can create stress
in your
life. You may have unpredictable
moods. Instability in moods, happy
one moment, frustrated the next;
depressed the next can
create havoc
in social relationships.
Low Self Esteem
- You may have the ability to appear
confident to others. Previous
failures and frustrations
can
cause your
confidence to waver.
On the outside, you might appear
a confident outgoing individual,
while
you secretly
fear your “imminent” failure.
- You may avoid new situations.
To avoid the fear of failure,
do you
avoid entering
into
new relationships,
or into
situations involving
something new in order
to avoid possible failure?
Other Resources:
Adult
ADHD.com (website containing general information and resources)
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