Adult ADD: Who Do You Trust?
Is your partner's forgetfulness, scattered attention, or mood swings a little too much to handle? It may be that he/she suffers from adult ADD. The symptoms of adult ADD are very similar to those of ADHD, but the two disorders are not the same. Find out how you can tell the difference and what you can do about it.
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/s0000991_adult-add-who-do-you-trust-.htm
Dr. Margaret Wehrenberg: Author of the books The 10 Best-Ever Anxiety Management Techniques , and The 10 Best-Ever Depression Management Techniques . Join her weekly newsletter for tips, articles and free eBooks. Over 350,000 subscribers worldwide.
Adult ADD: Who Do You Trust? I wrote this article for MindTools because there is some confusion in the field between ADHD and adult ADD. In my experience there are very few adults with Attention Deficit Disorder who do not also suffer with anxiety, depression or both anxiety and depression (not necessarily at the same time). Those people are usually adult ADD, and not ADHD. I have found that the most successful ADHD treatment programs include three pillars: 1) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), 2) Controlling one's anxiety and depression, and 3) Exposure or phobia training. In my experience, many people with adult ADD can benefit from training in CBT, cognitive restructuring, recognition of "shoulds," learning to ask for help in difficult situations, exposure to challenging situations and even learning how to control their intrusive thoughts. (These are all commonly taught in some form or another in CBT programs.) http://www.drwehrenberg.com/anxiety-phobia-adult-add.html
If you suffer from adult ADD, then whether or not you have ADHD, there are many insights you can gain in order to reduce your anxiety and improve your life. You might be just like I was years ago—not able to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes before you become distracted by an intrusive thought that pulls your mind away from what you were trying to accomplish. Your inability to concentrate and stay organized has created problems in your work and home life, as well as problems with relationships. It can also interfere with your ability to decide what course of action would be the healthiest or best one for you at that moment.
An adult ADD person might have difficulty identifying what triggered his or her anxiety in the first place, but a child is usually able to explain what happened in the moment that caused him or her to get anxious. For example, an adult ADD person with anxiety might become angry during a job interview. The person may blame themselves at first and then come up with all sorts of reasons why they should have been able to do well at the interview—but they weren't able to do so. The result is that they may feel weak and ineffective. And, before long, the self-blame has transformed into self-hatred and depression.
When I discovered adult ADD, I was in the midst of a bout of severe depression. As soon as I became aware of it, I began to see how much my anxiety and depression were interlinked. For example, one day when I was at work, the telephone rang. My office is on the second floor and when the phone rings in my office we have a system. We always have an assistant screen people first by asking them to say "one" or "two." That way we don't end up answering the phone while we are talking with someone who wants to speak to us. My boss usually picks up the phone but he is sometimes busy. It was my day to answer the phone so I ran upstairs to answer it.
When I got there, the phone was still ringing. It rang for a long time, but instead of picking it up and saying, "Good morning, this is Dr. Wehrenberg's office," I stood there thinking. Why am I here answering the telephone? What should I say when someone says, "This is so-and-so" and asks for Dr. Wehrenberg? Is this the beginning of someone trying to tell me something important? If it is, then I need to listen. But if it isn't, then I'm wasting my time standing here and answering the phone.
Even though I was listening intently, waiting for the caller to say his or her first name, I still heard voices in my head asking these questions over and over again. Suddenly, a wave of anxiety swept over me and caused me to feel overwhelmed by confusion. All these thoughts flooded my mind at once—the only thing that distinguished one from another was the speed with which they moved from one subject or thought process to another.
You see, when I was at school, my teachers and others would tell me to "get rid of those intrusive thoughts." It took me many years to realize that my thoughts weren't doing any harm. They're just part of being human.
As a person with ADD, it is difficult for me to grasp the concept that once something is happened it's over. The past is the past, and there is nothing I can do about it. If someone has already printed off a document for me by mistake, I can't un-print that document. Getting upset about what has already happened only increases my anxiety and can't change anything. While the thoughts were occurring in my mind, I did my best to concentrate on what I was doing at the moment—answering the phone. It is so easy to become distracted by our own thoughts and let them pull us away from what we're doing at that moment in time.
Despite knowing this, it is still easy for me to be pulled into a thought process that feels as if it is dragging me down and making me feel anxious or depressed.
A person with adult ADD can see things that are out of place, but sometimes we can't organize them. We can't organize our workspace, and we often feel disorganized when it comes to our thoughts. I always seem to be thinking several things at the same time without being able to sort anything out or put one thought or idea in front of another. For example, if I'm reading a book or talking with someone on the telephone and he or she says something important, I keep that in the back of my mind while I continue on with what I was doing.
When my therapist taught me how to do exposure therapy and work on reducing my anxiety, he showed me how to create an index card file system for keeping track of people who want an appointment with me, so that I could schedule them at a specific time each month.
Conclusion:
I have described the way I feel, how my ADD makes me feel, and described some ways that it affects my life. I hope that my experience can help you learn more about yourself and how you experience anxiety. Even though adult ADD creates many problems for me, I hope that you will see that just because something is difficult for you doesn't mean it's impossible to overcome.
Although I have no medical background, I have learned a great deal about anxiety and depression through self-help books and experiential therapy. The advice in this article is not meant to be limited to those who suffer from adult ADD (ADD combined with ADHD), but also applies to those with other types of ADD who might not have any significant learning disorders.