I KNOW, beyond a shadow of doubt, I've had ADD almost my entire life. I hate to brag but I'm an intelligent, creative, sensitive person and I can definitely and sadly say my life has been one of repressed emotions that continue to a great extent today.

I actually live a very productive and generally positive existance except when it comes to o-n-e relationship - mine with my 90-year old mother. I don't know how many people could or would remember a childhood and teenage years that grew into adulthood where they were emotionally/mentally and sometimes physically dominated to the point where their emotional feelings had to stay repressed in order to survive.

I've seen psychiatrists off and on for probably 25 years and none have ever mentioned bipolar. I was first diagnosed with chronic depression approximately 40 years ago...yet not one antidepressant I've taken in all that time has ever helped one iota. In 1998, I was diagnosed (after extensive testing/interviews, etc.) with ADD. Stimulant drugs make me feel calm, content, I can focus, I finish tasks, etc.

This theory, something I've never heard of nor considered before, might answer a lot of things that haunt me still - I've known for most of my adult life what my upbringing did to me in the past and that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try...the fact of the matter is my mother's dominating personality still impacts my life. I'm 65 years old. I never feel comfortable being who I really am when I'm with my mother.

I find the possible correlation interesting. A child raised by an overbearing parent or in any circumstances where they instinctively shutdown emotionally as a way to make their loneliness and inability to be themselves less painful is bound to damage or compromise the way their minds function. What is one of the major things we always hear about children - "their impressionable young minds". We all know what stress does to an adult, doesn't it stand to reason that unending, immeasurable stress, demands, and pressure to repress their true emotions would do irrepairable damage to a child's mind?

My brother was diagnosed as ADHD as a child - I've never had a "hyper" day in my life. I've always been the daydreaming, quiet child lost in some other realm of existance, some imaginary place where I felt happier and less fearful. Maybe a child figures out or maybe it just happens but the mind has to find an alternative safe harbor when it cannot express natural emotions...then, in time, it becomes almost impossible to escape the daydream, switch gears and focus on the real world.