Adults with ADD/ADHD

This may be long. I've got a ton on my mind!

I am 31yrs old and have just 'gone back' to college. I am a SAHM and doing online classes. I have really been struggling. I am getting good grades, but it's taking me three times longer than it should to do my work. I lost it last week and broke down crying after I had been working on ONE essay question for about 5 hours. I called my sister and she said I sound exactly like her when she was diagnosed. (My brother, my sister, and my son have all been diagnosed.)

Since then, I have done a lot of reading and self-quizzes online. The biggest thing for me is I don't think I really had any issues as a kid! My mom said that the only issue she can think of is I would get frustrated easily because I was a perfectionist. Most of the symptoms I can think about have effected me in high school or later. I am scared the doctor will turn me away because of this.

Question- Did any of you have issues with falling asleep at inappropriate times? I remember in high school it was a struggle to stay awake during lectures. I had the same issues when I went to college for a semester right after high school. Now, it seems I can go from being wide awake to having to prop open my eyes with toothpicks within minutes of opening my textbook.

Here are some issues I have struggled with. Some may or may not be symptoms:
- Reading comprehension. I have to read and reread things before I even 'hear' what it is saying. I have this problem with school, instructions, and recipes.
- I will ask someone a question and not hear the answer. I feel bad having to ask it again
-When talking to people, I jump subjects very quickly. It makes sense in my head, but not to the person I am talking to.
-When talking to people, my mind wanders and I don't hear what they are saying even though I am looking right at them.
-When cleaning the house, I get VERY overwhelmed. For example, if I am cleaning the kitchen, I start thinking how on top of the fridge needs cleaned...how the dining room is a mess...how laundry needs folded...etc. This just puts me in a really bad mood and it happens almost every time I clean. I wish I could just pick up without stressing about how the ceiling fans need cleaned and the vents vacuumed.
-Thank God we have a DVR because I am always having to rewind it because my mind wanders and I miss parts of my favorite shows
- Most of the time, I don't have trouble falling asleep at night. However, if I wake up, my mind starts wandering and I can't go back to sleep.
-I get really tired driving long distances. I can't even drive 2 hours without needing a break.
-When we decide to go somewhere, I want to leave right then an there. I know it's unrealistic to expect everyone to be ready to walk out the door the second a decision has been made. I even get anxious if IIII am not ready to leave right then and there.
-Along the same lines, if I ask my husband to do me a favor, it stresses me out if he doesn't do it right then. In my head I know that is unrealistic, but I can't turn off the stress!
-I am the queen of having great ideas for a project, buying the stuff for it, and barely starting it before I am onto the next thing.
-If a bunch of stuff that has to be done comes up at once, I shut down...as in laying on the couch stressing over it.
-I feel like I always have the best of intentions to get things accomplished. I am motivated to do them. Things don't get done and I feel lazy. :(

I am pretty happy with my life and my marriage. I don't feel I have a lot to stress about except for getting my schoolwork done in a timely manner. I am only taking 2 classes yet it takes up most of my time during the weekdays to do it. :( Those are what I can think of right now. Can anyone relate to any of it? If you don't think it might be ADD, do you have other ideas?

Edited 10/21/2009 2:08 pm ET by jenericral

You sound a lot like me. :)

About the sleep thing... here's my take on it.  I get overwhelmed very easily.  It's like sensory overload and sleeping is an escape mechanism.  Keep in mind I'm not an expert.  This is my own interpretation of what is going on.  When I'm overwhelmed either by spinning thoughts and no clear direction, or a mind that doesn't want to be where it is supposed to be, or anything else, I get sleepy.  I think it's my mind trying to escape from what it doesn't want to deal with.

I was never diagnosed as a child.  I did well in school... in most subjects.  I've always been able to pull things out of my bum at the last minute.  I don't know how I did it! 

My first doctors shied away from a diagnosis because of this, but yet there I was unable to function effectively in my adult life.

Luckily they did humor me and allowed me to be treated, but I didn't have much luck the first time around.  I gave up for three years.

After I lost two jobs and was trying to start a new career, I vowed to not let my wandering mind interfere.  I went back to a new doctor this time and she has been a God send!  She tried a different med than I tried the first time around and it's been an amazing turnaround for me.  It's not perfect and has side effects that I'm not thrilled with, but my focus is much better.  A good side effect is the stimulant help prevent the sleepies when I am stressed too! 

I still take a very very small dose of Adderall, because it's all I can tolerate. 

I, too, am confused & need help.  How can i go most of my life (i'm a senior citizen) without a doctor (at my age I have seen many) & none of them suggest that I might have ADD.  Not ADHD.  As I understand it, ADHD is where you are "hyper" and have ADD.  I certainly am not hyper; I can sit for hours & daydream, thinking about what I want to do, projects that  I would like to to, but never doing them.  If I do start them, that is all I do, just start them but never finish a task.  I will start another task (and for sure this is the one I really do want to do, & will surely finish completely & successfully) and never do - same as the others, never finishing.  When my son was only around 8 years old, he noticed this about me, he once remarked - "Mother, you just don't have any 'stick with it power'", at that age, that was they only way he knew how to express himself.  He recognized it at that early age.  I have started several college courses (after the children got older) not sticking with one subject & getting a degree but whatever seemed intresting to me at the time.  I have ever started courses & because I didn't do as well as the standards set up for myself, just dropped out.  I will start reading a book, & never finishing it, instead buying or ordering another one, this one, of course this was THE ONE that was going to be the one that I couldn't wait to read, & finish, but didn't.  Housekeeping is really a problem for me, again, starting something & never finishing anything.  Consequently, I end up "resuffling" things, probably leaving more of a mess than when I started, & certainly more frustrated & overwhelmed.  I think that is the word, I feel so overwelmed; it is hard to make a dicision as what to do with the reorganization.  I do take an antidpressiant, but that doesn't seem to help.  Is there a certain medication that adults can take to help ADD? 

It's comforting to read about people like me, as I never have met anyone face to face like that, and sometimes start feeling like I'm the only one.  I'm a senior too, and think maybe some of the problems we struggle with in some types of ADD are rooted in the low brain energy that is part of the condition, according to sources I've read. We don't have enough of this energy to stay interested in projects, etc.  I even feel sort of "wacked out" or foggy sometimes just doing simple things, like moving a table to the right place.  I feel extremely ashamed when this happens; yet, I can do well in my field at college because abstract ideas are very easy for me to understand and stick with for hours.

The focus is the other big problem I experience like Jenerical, or the one that had the long list of focusing problems.  I have to reread constantly too, can't listen well to directions or conversations, must ask someone else about movie parts I miss, or rewind them too.  Just about everything you say applies to me too.  Except I don't think of other things that need cleaning while I'm doing something else.  I just plod along in the same old routine of cleaning in order, but I try not to notice or think about anything extra like vacuuming vents.  I'm not that thorough for sure and sometimes clean when I finally notice something has been filthy all this time.

Well, I guess I'm not offering much help for anyone, but just commiserating a bit, I guess.  So onward we go, comrades!

Mig58