Stories of an ADD Adult

I’ve been off the Ritalin for two months now. I get distracted like crazy and often just can’t get myself to work.

I have been unbelievably creative, though. I have been painting and making things during every free moment. I never realized that I had such a strong creative spark. I wonder if I am more creative now than I was before I had taken any meds.

I keep starting new projects and leaving everything unfinished, but I feel more comfortable with it now.

Half the time when I read articles about adult ADD, I end up disgusted with what the writers have to say.

An article in Wired Magazine by Evan I. Schwartz describes adult ADD:

Adult ADD is marked not only by a short attention span but also by a multitasking mind. Anxious to avoid boredom, those afflicted are constantly scanning their environment, searching for all things captivating.

I am completely disgusted with this characterization.

I am never anxious to avoid boredom. In fact, I am rarely ever bored. Most things are fascinating and interesting to me. I don’t remember the last time I was bored because it was probably sometime during middle school, many years ago.

If I don’t have things in front of me to think about, I have millions of ideas in my head to play with. I have so many ideas for projects that I don’t have time to even start all of them.

I constantly think of business ideas and companies to start. If I could only settle on one or two ideas and make them work, I would probably be a millionaire.

My problem is that I jump from idea to idea. My problem is NOT that I suffer from extreme boredom and need interactive media coming at me from every direction to satisfy my bored mind.

A lot of articles and websites seem to claim that Bill Gates has ADHD or adult ADD. I’ve never heard him admitting the accusations. I’ve never heard him rejecting them, either. Probably because there is some truth to the rumors.

I have gone to hear Bill Gates speak a couple of times. He always amazed me with his creativity and insight. I am no Microsoft devotee by any means; in fact, I get annoyed by people who follow Microsoft in a cultlike fashion.

Bill Gates has a very energetic, uninhibited way of thinking. Although sometimes you can see through his words and understand that he’s just trying to push his company forward, other times you can really sense his inspiration and creativity.

I have seen this type of thinking in myself and others with adult ADD. This is not to be taken as a purely egotistical statement, although I can imagine how it might sound that way.

I am just saying that I think there is truth to the claims that many famous people and great achievers have adult ADD, and that many adults with ADD are capable of achieving a lot with their creativity.

If you work with someone like me who has adult ADD, there can be some challenges but for the most part it’s a workable situation. In some cases it can even be a better-than-normal situation, surprisingly.

I think that if the coworker is taking medication for his or her ADD, you won’t have any real problems with their distractability. The meds make such a huge difference, transforming the most distracted person into someone who is generally focused on their work.

You might have problems with the coworker’s impulsiveness, irritability, anger, and frustration. Those are common parts of the disorder. As someone who has struggled with these traits, I can say that they will come up from time to time. The meds also help with these though, in particular the irritability.

If your work has a creative or decision-making aspect to it, working with someone who has ADD can make things interesting for the better. People with ADD tend to come up with unusual, often random-sounding ideas. Your strange ideas are also more likely to be supported and believed in. That is because people with ADD tend to be less inhibited in their thinking.

If your work is administrative or requires a lot of planning and organization, it can be difficult to have a co-worker with ADD. The best way to make things go smoothly if you’re sharing planning & organizational duties with an ADD person is to try and handle more of the detail-oriented parts while letting him or her handle more of the person-to-person interaction or the thinking & deciding parts.

I’m not saying that this is exactly what you have to do, but it’s more of my list of suggestions if you’re already having a hard time working with your adult ADD co-worker and want things to go a little more smoothly. But if things are working out and you’re doing exactly the opposite of what I suggest, there’s no reason to change them.

I am not completely sure on this one. I want to say yes, but then I think of all the times that ADD has gotten me in trouble, made me lose jobs, and turned my life into a difficult mess.

I recognize, though, that ADD has helped me in many ways. It has given me many very creative ideas, some of which have gotten me public recognition.

(I won’t give specifics here because I’m trying to maintain at least some anonymity. I wouldn’t want to get rejected at a job interview, for instance, because they Googled me and found out that I had ADD.)

However, none of that public recognition has turned into anything more for me. I still struggle with money, and although I do have a job, it’s not a very good one and doesn’t pay much at all.

The day that my ADD helps me become secure financially and emotionally will be the day that I consider my ADD to be a gift. Until then, it’s mostly an annoyance.

There has got to be some connection between having ADD and being a creative person.

I always notice that I’m much better at brainstorming than other people. I come up with all the random, odd ideas that end up getting used.

I hope I’m not sounding too egotistical here. I am just being honest. It’s the truth.

I think that people with ADD tend to be more creative because they allow so many distractions into their thoughts. Most people would just tune out all distractions and focus in on the main topic, which limits creativity. People with ADD can’t tune out distractions, but it’s not always a bad thing.