Please help!!!! I am trying to understand ADD?

I think I might have ADD and that I had it my whole life. I did few tests and all of them say I do. At the same time when I read books, I am sometimes not always convinced that this isa seperate Disorder. They say ADD people have a tendency to be addictive, they have low
self-esteem, disorganized, impulsive... That could be anybody with another mental illness. I mean bipolar, Borderline Personalities.... can also have addictive tendencies, act on impulse, lack judjment... Many so called "normal" people are messy, lack organization... I am quite familiar with mental illness since I have few of them. I am just trying to understand when you have ADD, in what way your brain functions differently. What makes it so that you consider this a disorder. I am a bit confused. I would really love to hear from people who have the illness/insiders rather than to try to understand or interpret books on ADD. Please share your own experiences, I already have checked all the ADD websites. Thank you all.

I was diagnosed with AD/HD a few months ago and like you I was skeptical. I have a few mental illnesses as well so many of the same questions were running around in my mind as well. I think it's when you have a lot of the symptons. I know people who are lazy and disorganized but that is because they choose to be. AD/HD people just can't grab the concept. We try our best to do it and it's a real struggle. The one that hit me was the concentration one. I say ignorance is bliss! I could do three things at once and easily jump back and forth, if I got distracted I just happily went off to what ever distracted me and came back to what I was doing, if I couldn't remember what I was doing oh well! After I was diagnosed I was trying really hard to write an email and was concentrating so hard to make sure I got everything in there that I needed too. The phone kept going off and my YM messenger kept blinking and I was distracted and couldn't remember what I was doing! It is frustrating when you know you have to try really hard to concentrate and you still can't!!

I realized I self medicated in school and still do! (In college) I take a big soda with me into classes so I can stay focused. If I don't have that caffeine I am fidgety and am unable to focus on what I need to. My mind wonders.

The way I understand it, so far since I am still learning, is that our brains don't have the stimulators that everyone else does, at least not as many, and our minds are searching for outside stimulation to get what it needs. That's why stimulators such as caffeine and ridolin have the opposite effect they give our brain the stimulation it craves and we are able to focus on what we need to other than it reving us up.

I haven't recieved any medications for AD/HD yet because I'm slightly apprehensive about it making me drowsy and I love the high energy that I have. I believe that the high energy is just who I am as a person and the AD/HD just adds a little something to it.

I know many AD/HD people are highly creative and they go off their meds when they need to be creative. I'm also afraid my creativity will suffer from it.

Hope this helped! Feel free to contact me :)

I was diagnosed with clinical depression by my regular doctor, and he prescribed me Prozac...the catalist being i was having anxiety attacks. The Prozac was effective, but only to a point. The doc reccomended a therapist, and through much talk, he determined it was ADD....he had me do these same charts and tests you were refering to, then had me present this to my regular doctor for diagnosis. In addition to the Prozac, i'm now on Concerta as well for the ADD.
ADD people all seem to share the same kind of history through childhood...bad grades in spite of reasonable intelligence, you're "lazy", social problems with peers (and many others), a tendency to attempt "self-medication", which is NOT the same thing as having an addictive personality, but frequently looks like it. Lack of organization.
The Concerta did wonders...I am now 41, and I sure do wish it was around when i was in school.
Good luck...the meds should do you a world of good.

ADD is a pain, but for me at least it is a real thing with a real effect on my life. There is a lot of speculation that it is over diagnosed, although psychiatrists would say that it is under diagnosed! I think there is a tendency to try to make anyone who is not quite normal officially mentally ill. This means that the psychiatrists have more patients, even if some of those patients don't really need help.