Stories of an ADD Adult

The first “do it yourself” EEG biofeedback machine that I found online was called Play Attention. They call it “edufeedback” actually.

They hide their prices on their website, but after calling them I was quoted $1795 for a 2-user home version or $2495 for an unlimited user professional version.

Their website is playattention.com.

From what I understand, the Play Attention system consists of a bicycle helmet lined with sensors and an interface box. The interface box hooks up to your computer. You put on the helmet and play very simple video games using your brainwaves.

One of the video games involves steering a race car by concentrating. But their website was extremely vague about what types of video games are actually included.

They recommend using Play Attention twice a week, 30-40 minutes per session. After 40 to 60 hours of use, they say your concentration will be improved for the long term.

It sounds good but I think there are many cheaper machines out there that may be better. I will list some other ones soon.

I’ve started to look into EEG Biofeedback, which seems to also be known as Neurofeedback.

I inquired about it at a local clinic yesterday. It sounded promising. But it’s so expensive! They quoted me $4500 for 40 treatments. They offered me a payment plan through a Capital One medical loan. More debt is the last thing I need right now, though.

The clinic’s program sounded suspiciously like a scam. Why couldn’t they just let me pay for one treatment at a time? If I had signed up and didn’t like it after a couple of treatments, I would be stuck with the commitment to pay for the whole treatment program.

Now I’m looking on the internet for an EEG biofeedback machine that I can use at home. I read somewhere online last night that it’s actually much more cost-effective to do my own neurofeedback on my own machine than to go to a clinic.

There’s so many EEG biofeedback machines for sale on the internet. I’ll try to post a list of all the ones available, because I’m losing track of all of them.

I believe that childhood ADHD may very well be overdiagnosed. However, adult ADD is another matter altogether.

In my mind there are two main groups of people who get diagnosed with adult ADD. The first group consists of adults who had the ADHD diagnosis when they were children and are now grown up. They are the ones who didn’t outgrow their diagnosis. That is, they are the ones who genuinely suffered from ADHD as children and were more likely not to be part of the overdiagnosis trend.

The second group consists of adults who have been hearing about ADHD and adult ADD in the news, in magazines, and in commercials. They see it on TV or read the articles and say to themselves, “Hey, that’s me! That describes exactly how I’ve suffered all these years.” They then go online to find whatever other information they can find about adult ADD, including this website if they are lucky. They really do their research well, and if they are sure that they fit the symptoms, only then do they see a doctor about their problems.

Like the second group of adults, the first group is also extremely knowledgeable about ADHD and ADD, due to all the years of being labeled with the disorder. They know all the details by heart, both because they have gone through therapy and because they have been reading about ADHD and ADD for years and years.

Anyhow, both groups of adults have one thing in common: they themselves identify with the adult ADD diagnosis, including most or all of the symptoms, and they feel comfortable that it’s not a misdiagnosis. They have done their research. They differ from the children who get diagnosed with AD(H)D in that not all of those children can comfortably say that they identify with all of the expected symptoms. Many of those children have the diagnosis imposed upon them by a teacher, school administrator, doctor, or parent. Few children received the AD(H)D diagnosis only after doing their own independent research (though it may be true in some cases).

Self-diagnosis is probably quite accurate in the case of ADD. The symptoms are pretty simple to understand, and you either relate to most or all of them, or you don’t. Since the majority of adults with ADD either self-diagnosed themselves or are sure that their symptoms from childhood are real and have carried over into adulthood, the diagnosis is probably accurate for most ADD adults.

Furthermore, doctors tend to be especially careful in prescribing ADD medications to adults. Adults are also the ones who abuse these controlled medications, so doctors know to take the extra effort and care to be sure that the adult ADD diagnosis is correct.

Based on all these facts, adult ADD must not be overdiagnosed. It is a completely different scenario from childhood ADHD, which has great potential for overdiagnosis.

I don’t have any children right now.

But when the time comes for me to have children, one of my biggest fears is that they will suffer from ADHD.

I am definitely not ready to have children because I don’t know what I would do when they received the diagnosis. Would I take them to a psychiatrist early in life and have them go through therapy? Would I subject their developing little brains to harsh stimulant medication?

I do know that I would try to spend as much time with them as possible. I would want to give them every possible advantage of having a loving parent to help them with their classwork and homework.

I would buy many educational toys to help them with their concentration and memory. I would give them all the art supplies they wanted in order to encourage their creative thinking.

I guess I probably wouldn’t medicate them until they reached late high school or college. It would break my heart to see them struggle through school the way I did, though, so I don’t know if I could sit back and watch them suffer with their illness, knowing that medication existed and was available.

I knew I wasn’t normal when I was young, although I didn’t know what ADHD was until I was in middle or high school. Therapy might help my children understand the differences in their brains, but having the ADHD label might hurt their self-esteem.

Until I have a better idea of what I would do for my kids, I will not have children. I am not ready to bring up children and watch them suffer in the same way that I have always suffered.