Stories of an ADD Adult

When I feel well-rested, I concentrate much better than when I’m tired.

Don’t underestimate the effects that sleep has on concentration. A severe deficit in sleep can make anyone appear to have ADD.

It’s hard for people with ADD to get enough sleep. Often, I have so much to do, and I still get distracted. It can leave me with no choice but to stay up late to finish things.

When staying up late to finish things becomes a habit, though, it can eat into concentration severely. So I try to avoid it.

My concentration was improved for about two and a half hours since taking the generic Sudafed. It’s now back to the way it usually is, where I can’t focus on anything.

My sinuses are feeling much better, at least. I can even breathe through my nose a little.

I guess that’s why pseudoephedrine isn’t suggested by doctors as a treatment for ADD or ADHD. It works a little, but it doesn’t last very long. It might also be bad for you to take it constantly, possibly. That’s just a theory; I don’t know for sure.

About 45 minutes ago, I took some cold medicine to help with my stuffy nose and sinuses. It was just over-the-counter medicine: Target brand “Non-Drying Sinus”, which is the generic equivalent of Sudafed Non-Drying Sinus.

I noticed that it actually did help with my concentration a little. I was able to write a couple of posts without too much distraction (though I did get distracted here and there).

Looking on the back of the package, the active ingredients in each liquid cap are:

• Guaifenesin 200 mg
• Pseudoephedrine HCl 30 mg

Aha, so the pseudoephedrine is what’s helping me concentrate. It’s a mild stimulant, I believe, and it’s in cold medicine because it dries out the sinuses. The guaifenesin is supposed to be what makes the congestion more fluid and liquid, like the effect when you eat spicy foods or chicken soup.

I took 2 capsules as recommended on the back of the box, so I’m on a normal dose. I am somewhat surprised that it improved my concentration, seeing as from my entry a little while ago, I didn’t think anything could help me concentrate because I am feeling so sick.

The sinus medicine also contains FD&C blue #1 granular, which annoys me because I have tried so hard to stay away from all artificial colors in my diet. I guess that the stimulant effect overpowers the artificial coloring effect.

I will keep track of when the effect goes away and post it here, if I can remember to post.

I have been feeling sick with the flu for the past few days. Last night, I slept for eleven and a half hours straight, which is out of the ordinary for me. I’ve been so tired.

Having the flu makes it extremely difficult to get work done, for anyone. It makes your head so foggy, so you just cannot concentrate no matter whether you’ve had coffee (or taken your ADD meds). It is like having double ADD if you already have ADD.

My stomach has been turning too, making it even more difficult for me to want to take my supplements or eat anything. But it’s good to do both so I should probably fight my feelings and fears.

I can’t believe I’ve been able to keep up this blog for so long. I start so many projects but have a hard time keeping up my interest in each one for more than part of a day.

My house is a mess because there are materials from unfinished projects all over the place. I rarely wrap up my work and clean up when I’m done working on a project.

Instead, what determines whether or not I am done with a project is distraction. It may be in the form of another project that I’m in the middle of, starting a new project or task, or even just wandering off. When I get distracted, that’s the end of whatever work I had been doing previously.

I don’t like being distracted from projects, and I try not to get distracted. I try to see how much I’ve accomplished every five minutes in order to keep me on task.

Inevitably I end up getting distracted and beginning something else. It happens every 10-15 minutes when I let myself work on projects without paying attention to the clock, and every half an hour when I’m conscious of time.

I was watching one of the Strattera videos where they mentioned this exact problem with focusing on projects. That’s what inspired this post, really.

Children with ADD/ADHD and adults with ADD are pretty similar. This is probably surprising to most people, including doctors, but it isn’t surprising to those of us who are adults and who have suffered from ADD/ADHD throughout our own lives.

It seems hard to believe that the adult ADD diagnosis is so new. I can’t imagine how doctors and researchers could have believed for years and years that all children with ADHD would grow out of the illness by the time they reached adulthood. To me, that’s completely absurd.

You can’t just suddenly wake up one day and discover that your concentration and attention span are suddenly normal. It takes practice, coaching, and/or medication to get to the point of being normal.

I always hoped that one day I would grow out of my restlessness and lack of focus. Once I knew about childhood ADD, I was sure that my symptoms would be gone by the time I was an adult. I was sad to discover that the myth wasn’t true.

Yesterday I had to drive to an appointment. My mind was feeling cloudy, and I knew I would have trouble watching the road, so I took one of my Ritalin tablets. I’ve been trying to avoid taking Ritalin, but in this case I knew the risk of having an accident was too strong.

I swallowed the little tablet before leaving home. Then I drove off. I noticed that while my concentration was improved in a much smoother way than it had been the previous day, when I had drank a cup of coffee containing a high dose of caffeine.

Since I haven’t been taking much of my Ritalin lately, I figured that only one tablet would be enough. And I was right today. It boosted my concentration just enough to help without overpowering my own abilities. It was sort of like having training wheels.

I felt pretty confident while driving and did not come anywhere near having an accident. Which is the opposite of what happens when I don’t take Ritalin or anything else before driving! Usually I have a few “close calls” and almost end up hitting someone, only to be saved by my very quick reflexes.

Today I drank a small cup of strong cappucino at an Italian coffee shop. It must have had much more caffeine than an ordinary cup.

I had to drive home after going to the coffee shop, which was far away. I was worried about driving because I hadn’t taken my Ritalin, but it turned out not to be a big problem.

I concentrated pretty well while driving home. I felt a little weird because the coffee was so strong, but I could definitely concentrate. It was sort of like being on Ritalin, but it felt stronger and rougher.

It’s odd how caffeine can be stronger than Ritalin sometimes, yet Ritalin requires a prescription and coffee can be bought anywhere, even in places other than pharmacies.

I haven’t gotten any work done all week!

I know it’s because I haven’t been taking my Ritalin. I don’t want to take it anymore! But it seems like I have no choice if I don’t want to get fired.

Why is life so hard?

I have an unfortunate history of getting bad performance reviews when I have worked for companies in the past.

It makes me especially resentful because I try harder than anyone else. I stay long hours to get the work done, and I feel like I care more about my work than other people. I think I also have a gift of enhanced creativity, which my coworkers often notice, but never my boss.

Companies measure performance in terms of results, and I guess that I just don’t produce results that are as good as the results of other people. I can’t figure out why.

Is it because of my ADD? Partly, but I don’t want to blame it all on ADD. Some of it must come from myself.

I know that my mind tends to wander during meetings. I can’t always pay attention, even though I try, and sometimes I get put on the spot. When I’m put on the spot during one of my daydreaming moments, I get caught not paying attention.

I know that I get distracted by little details. I try to see the big picture, but it’s hard when all the little details are so interesting. Maybe I see things that others don’t see. Maybe I just have more hope in certain little things that my manager can’t understand.

I know that I’m disorganized. My email inbox is a mess. Sometimes I lose emails and forget to reply. Sometimes I miss appointments, which is much worse.

I know that I’m hopelessly late to meetings. I plan to be there 10 minutes early, but I always end up walking in late and disrupting.

Finally, I know that I have trouble socially. Often I have trouble keeping up a conversation because I get distracted and my mind wanders. I lose interest in what people are saying, not because I am selfish, but because my attention span is so short.

When I’m at the computer sometimes, I hyperfocus in on what I’m doing so strongly that I forget about time. Hyperfocus (or hyper-focus) is an extremely intense period of concentration.

It is what I wish I could do in situations where productivity is needed the most. I would like, for example, to be able to hyperfocus on my work so that I could get things done in half the time. Unfortunately, hyperfocus tends to occur for me during the least stressful times, when I’m caught up in something that’s interesting but has nothing to do with work.

You could say that right now I am hyperfocusing. I have no trouble writing this entry without being distracted. It helps that I have a deep interest in talking about ADD and spreading my experiences so that other adults with ADD or ADHD can benefit from them. It just feels so natural and completely captures my attention, somehow.