Velocity of Mind

Hello all I'm brand new here. It's late (early) and I'm up (big surprise.) My mind is always in motion... constantly processing, thinking, creating, problem solving(or attempting) and reviewing events past and present. I'm always on the go morning to evening and rarely ever notice fatigue until I force myself onto the pillow(whenever that might be on a given day/night.) I work alot of hours and read everything I can get my hands on to keep my mind occupied. I usually have a zillion projects and tasks in the works and even manage to complete some of them. (he he) I enjoy most things that involve being active and do not have much use for "relaxing". (wasting time) I definately am guilty of answering questions before individuals have the opportunity to complete them. My energy level tends to grate on my partner, who frequently asks me to "settle down". I have been accused of being "intense" more than a few times. While most of the time enjoy the velocity of mind and its creative potential, sometimes I exhaust even myself. It may be nearing the time that I seek a doctors opinion about my situation so I may learn of ways to reign in this hi-octane mind of mine. Don't think my lady can or deserves to deal with me "as is" forever.

G'nite all

I've been browsing this site and others and have been really excited to find many resources on the topic of adult add/adhd. Several years ago after seeing that commercial on TV that said " ...is your mind like a television set where the channel is constantly changing..." I leapt out of my seat having just heard the most telling metaphor about my mind and felt strangely validated that apparently I was not alone or terminally unique after all! I went online and was disheartened that when I googled adult add/adhd only one page came up and it was "in progress...coming soon."

It appears that over the past few years adult add/adhd has really been explored in the psychiatric community.

I went for years silently dealing with symptoms and conditions and made many efforts at self diagnosis before I got up the nerve to will myself into a psychologists office. I described at length my non-stop thought process and my inability to be "idle" for any extended period of time. I expressed that my mind just never seemed to shut up and sometimes drove me quite mad.

To my dismay he described medications as a "crap shoot" (very clinical terminology) that varied by the individual. I protested as he prescribed me an antidepressant (Lexapro) and sent me on my way. I briefly took it "just to see" if he might be aware of something I was missing but quickly discontinued it , noting no effects good or bad other than an odd feeling of euphoria accompanied by deep, frequent yawning....

....to be continued.

G'nite all.

Hey, breezer, thanks for breezing in. Yes, this is a great site to learn stuff on. Too bad the psych you saw didn't get you personally. I'd maybe try again with someone else?

There are some good adult ADD/ADHD sites out there these days:

http://www.add.org/

http://www.livingwithadd.com/

Yeah, now that adult add/adhd seems to have attained a degree of relevance in the psychiatric community, I may indeed actually maybe perhaps follow through and see a new Doc. Just posted on "feel like complete crap" for more on that.

Nite.

Hi Breezer and welcome to PC:

Ironically, your behavior describes ME to a 't'. But I'm not the one with ADD -- my husband is. I have a hard time getting him to START anything, as opposed to doing a million things at once.

I've been joking lately that together, my H and I have ADHD. He has ADD, and I have the H.

Hope you enjoy it here

I visited the"living with add" site that Perna listed and from its contents it seems as if these folks must be monitoring me and compiling my behavioral biography for posterity... (just kiddin")

Seriously, though, this is a great site and I instantly identified with the subject matter. I'm heading over there now... Cya next time.

Helloooooo....

Wow, not alot of traffic @ here maybe everyone's busy with the holidaze well I forced myself to make an appt with a new therapist and made the appointment yesterday for today only to realize today that I had completely over-scheduled myself and had to call and reschedule for Monday. The gal on the phone informed me that in the event of a cancellation they require 24 hours notice and I said I understood that that is the norm but I had made this appt only 19 hours previously and therefore this abstract circumstance must render the appt lost in the vortex of some time-space crescendo...

So Monday it is. Haven't entered into the psychiatric setting for almost 2 years now and I'm going into it with an open mind and without a definitive agenda. I plan to do some "major mental house cleaning" and lay my cards on the table with little or no reservation (provided I deem this individual capable of wrapping their professional expertise around my intellectual complexity... )

Okeee let me reel in the grandiosity just a little but seriously as some of you can probably relate to making that initial appointment can sometimes be a major accomplishment and even be rediculously overdue.

Do try to have a nice weekend

... and if you're lurking feel free to tickle those keys

I just took the ADD/ADHD quiz on this site and came out with a score of 82. I am looking forward to my appointment on Monday and will probably bring along a copy of the quiz as a reference as it seems to address many of my concerns and characteristics.

The first glimpse of snowflakes this evening accompanied by that crisp scent of winter on the wind was exhilarating. Santa Claus is comin' to town and it's a wonderful feeling to share the Christmas' with your children that you always longed for in your childhood.

HO HO HO

Peace to you

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E i E i O

Wow. Just reading this thread is makin' me dizzy and exhausted! (I'm very dramatic and sensitive, so every word is felt in the context of what is being written). I thought my mind raced, but reading your thread (first time I've been in this forum), I am finding out that I'm really just a "pacer car" compared to ADD/ADHD's!

What caught my eye was your subject heading - "Velocity of Mind."

This sounds like it should be a title of a book or a movie or a poem!

What a great expression, breezer!

Altered State

So do tell on the 11th how it goes?

My sister-in-law claims my brother (65) has ADD :-) I'm pretty scattered sometimes myself, my husband laughs at me (or gets impatient) because I appear to be going in circles every now and then. It is hard when you get one thought then that's interrupted by another equally good one which leads down this road over here to a third one, etc. My therapist and I had to work on that, keeping me on the "path". Sometimes she'd forget and tell me to "free associate" and we'd both be lost before I'd uttered 3 sentences :-) My T felt I had trouble with relative "weights" of thoughts. I still am struck by her comment, "A wet towel on the bed is not a murder." You know how you can get pissed by small things? They can be equal to large things to me, all events/thoughts seem "equal" at times. My T said I had emotional "thermostat" problems :-)

Scattered thought patterns... I refer to mine as tangentville. When I was going through intake with the new therapist ( yes I actually kept the appt ) I think I managed to squeeze 10 sessions of material into 50 minutes. When I left I think I noticed that his ears were smoking...

I start out trying to speak on one subject or another and wind up being inspired within a few sentences by a reminder of something else I want to touch on and before I know it I'm way off track and can hardly remember my original point I wanted to discuss.

My new T isn't a psycotherapist so there is no chance of being prescribed meds by this individual, but none the less it is providing me with a forum to begin dialogue and get some feedback on myself.It's nice to have someone to bounce things off of again.

Well, my mind is slow, dreamy and easily AND constantly distracted. I nap with great enthusiasm. I have great difficulty starting projects and more difficulty finishing them. Probably will take me a long time to complete that test.......IF I can find it and IF I can finish it.



So I sound a lot different from Breezy, but I'm sure I have ADHD.

Looks like this is a pretty complex disorder.

My mind is like the sluice-gates wide open after a heavy rain...

Everythingisalwayshappeningallatoncerightnow and I've got to maintain...

Incessant psychic banter and Hydra-headed inspirations formulate endlessly and propel me...

Distractions side-track actions often left incomplete...

Chocolate Chip Cookies All Day Long.

lol about the smoking ears

I can just imagine you talking so enthusiastically it makes me giggle a little. Sometimes I've felt that way too, when I have so much to say and so much to cover, especially when I'm trying to make sure I include all necessary parts but end up going all over the place just trying to remember them.

I don't have the hyperactivity, so in some references I've read, we're considered to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. Some of my problems have improved drastically with my medication but especially in the evening when it begins to wear off for bed time, I talk almost exactly like you were describing. Actually, last week when I was talking to my brother I was like that. I just talked to one of his girliefriends (he's 13 and is just starting to like girls, but he's so confused with them lol) because she tends to confide in me and tell me gossipy secrets. After the conversation ended, my brother eagerly wanted to know what was said and I kind of played with him a little because I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell him everything. He must have asked me like 50 times, and in the beginning especially I would purposefully go off on a tangent (to tease him a little) and then he would continue that subject (maybe to try to butter me up?) until my mind was lured to another even more distant tangent. Then he would ask something like "Oh, so you and her talked about that, huh".
And dumbfounded I'd be like "Who?"
It generally takes me around 5-10 seconds to come back to reality and out of "tangentville" and at that point we both laugh and try to start again. He did get the info he was looking for in the end, although it took quite a few of "wait, what were we talking about again"s.

It's too bad you don't have anyone to prescribe meds for you or to figure out what meds would work for you. I have a hard time helping people with finding a psychiatrist/etc because I found mine through my mom's doctor connections. But I searched the web the other day and found this directory of AD/HD coaches that might be helpful to you.

http://www.adhdcoaches.org/

Hope that helps!

Happy New Year Everyone

Oh I've DEFINITELY got the hyperactivity... but I must confess that I am almost always OK with it. I am just in wild wonder of the world and want to fill my days with as much as is humanly possible. A guy back in Oregon used to describe himself as a "Stimulus Junkie" and I've as yet to hear a better description of my persona.

I've always been a "Thinker" of sorts and don't get me wrong I haven't always been the model for positivity and well-being...

I've spent my lifetime seeking the elusive connection with friends imagined of easy mindedness and effortless compassionate interaction. My seeking has taken me down many roads and throughout our fair continent. The only thing that was able to affix me to a given geography was the birth of my daughter...

I am still a Dreamer and an Aggressive Optimist. I know well who I am and I'm not afraid to let anyone know it. I did not reach this point magically or without much self-seeking. I am still capable of having a bad day. I do, however, refuse to allow myself to stay down for long.

...'til next time

Peace to You

Happy New Year to you too, Breezer

lol yes, I'm not surprised, sometimes I wish I had the hyperactivity too because my hypoactivity can be so depressing.

I, too, share in this wild wonder of the world, and wish to do the same. My problem seems to lie when I get these overwhelmed moments where my ambitions and interests seem to take the form of little gremlins. Then they chatter in my head all at the same time and I feel like I have to lay down just to understand each one. When I get a headache from trying to understand them all, I end up having to sleep, and that ends up making me sad that I couldn't do more. But I have less of that with my meds luckily.

I've always been a thinker too and I see that as a positive attribute myself. The only problems with that arise when people can't seem to connect the (widely spaced) dots that my thinking followed. But luckily, I have my mom and my little brother who try very hard to understand, and often do, or if they don't, they at least find it funny. (For example: when I was younger, I used to say "Laundry's done!" and then laugh hysterically to myself at random moments with my mom. Eventually though, she figured out that I was telling her that what was in the microwave just beeped. It hardly makes sense even writing it now lol. But in my head I thought that that weird beeping that the microwave made was just like the beeping that the washer made, especially in movies and such. I don't think anyone else ever quite understood, but I thought it was especially funny and witty lol)

Hm, I think I quite like that term Aggressive Optimist, as it describes me too. I didn't know that I was for a while, but my mind has the kind of buoyancy that pulls it up from the sea of pessimism almost immediately most of the time. Sometimes people don't understand why something does not make me upset. When actually, it really did, but I've already realized something positive out of it and gotten over it. And I don't know about you, but I tend to confuse people when that happens, especially because my emotions show *All Over* my face. I'm like an illustration in a picture-book. I've gotten in trouble with teachers for "Thinking with my face" lol, when they see it as disrespectful somehow. Oi vey.

I've got an appt with my T tomorrow and I'm backing up the dumptruck.

I KNOW I'm ADHD and it's time for some treatment. No more trying to convince a therapist that I'm this or I'm that.

My agenda is crystal clear.

So "everythingishappeningallatoncerightnow" for certain.

Appt. with T the other day was great. If you are one of those individuals who can "unload" at the "office" (T's) then you know the value of this ...

Job of 4 years came to an abrupt and welcomed conclusion. The company is moving part of its operations to Canada, which in turn allows"displaced" employees to receive extended unemployment benefits while they go back to school to acquire a new trade.

So this guy is heading back to college...

WEIRD...

...and beyond amazing. I am thrilled.

Taking a pay downgrade but I will adjust. I ALWAYS do.

So my new T has no problem recognizing my ADHD and that is so encouraging. I am grateful because I was not mentally prepared to play psychological chess with another doc in the hopes of convincing them of an already self-affirmed diagnosis. Hey...

If it walks like a duck...

He has suggested that I try Adderall Xr and has said he will work with my regular Doc to facilitate this.

'bout time someone listened .

steadily seeking clarity..........

-Breezer