For Adults with ADHD
Past Letters #1
Letter from the ADD Adult Support Group Leader:
ADD Adults and Adult Support Group Members,
Adults with ADD often face particular challenges. Often times they were diagnosed late in life, and may have spent part of their lives wondering why they were not able to achieve the same thing that "other people" seemed to be able to. The joy of finding out there "is actually something wrong with me" can often be accompanied by the feeling that part of life was lost in not being able to achieve all that you could have - if you had only known what the problem was. Diagnosis and what you decide to do after diagnosis is really about what do you want for your life. Some adults with ADD are able to achieve great things because they found the niche in the world that suited the strengths of their ADD. If you find that your job doesn't lend itself to the ADD, that doesn't mean that you can't achieve in this job. It only means that now you have found out what was preventing you from being all that you wanted to be. You can use that information to shape your life in a new way.
The first step is kindness, be kind to yourself. As people who have ADD we tend to be much harder on ourselves then anyone else could be. In part, this stressing ourselves has helped us achieve because of a fear of failure giving us some adrenaline and therefore needed stimulation. But once we discover we have ADD a entire world of techniques and methods become available to us to learn how to achieve, without coming from a negative self talk place.
The second step is to learn what your strengths and weaknesses are. Important message - yes ADD gives you strengths! Creativity, an ability to hyper-focus, as well as many other gifts that are too numerous to name. By actually looking at where we are helped by our ADD we can learn how to assist the areas that have caused us problems in the past. In many cases you may have developed extraordinary techniques to cope with the demands of your life and you might find that diagnosis was the last key to the puzzle. You might find, that you can now really begin to achieve all that you stopped short of in the past.
The third step start to implement small changes, to begin to help yourself. Try to avoid the ADD pitfall of "I will move this mountain and build a great empire!" We are good at thinking big, we get excited by the possibilities and want to throw ourselves in with a great rush of excitement. This is a strength of ADD that must be kept in check, don't try to move mountains right off the bat. Start with something small so that you don't feel failure and give up when you don't get done with your great and magnificent goal in 10 microseconds. For instance if you want to improve your use your time, you need to first get an idea of how you use it, and then move start implementing small changes. Or if you constantly lose things find places "homes" for them in your home so you always know how to find them. By implementing your changes slowly you will achieve large results in the end.
Come to a support group meeting if you can. Its remarkably helpful to hear that other people have had the same experiences as you, and to listen to their solutions for how they work with their ADD,
I was diagnosed with ADD in college. I know that I would not have graduated if I had not been diagnosed. Try not to look at the past and see "failures." If you can, look to the future. I have to tell you I had no idea before I was diagnosed that I was even capable of achieving the things I have since then. Knowing where I've come from, I know that you too can achieve marvelous things. So look to the future as much as possible and know that you will be able to do what you have dreamed of. Knowing that you have ADD can help you achieve marvelous things.
In the future I will try to update this adult page with interesting and useful information about ADD. I hope that you will find your journey from diagnoses as positive and fruitful as I have found mine. I also hope to see you at one of our future Adult Support Group Meetings!
Sincerely,
Lauren Torres
Adult Support Group Leader
