ADD Symptoms

Here are the major symptoms for Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. The ones that strongly apply to me will be in bold and the ones that at least partially apply will be italicized:

1) A sense of underachievement, of not meeting one's goals (regardless of how much one has actually accomplished). The person may be highly accomplished by objective standards, or may be floundering, stuck with a sense of being lost in a maze, unable to capitalize on innate potential.

2) Difficulty getting organized. Without the structure of school, without parents around to get things organized for him or her, the adult may stagger under the organizational demands of everyday life.

3) Chronic procrastination or trouble getting started. Adults with ADD associate so much anxiety with beginning a task, due to their fears that they won't do it right, that they put it off, and off, which, of course, only adds to the anxiety around the task.

4) Many projects going simultaneously; trouble with follow-through. A Corollary of #3. As one task is put off, another is taken up. By the end of the day, or week, or year, countless projects have been undertaken, while few have found completion.

5) Tendency to say what comes to mind without necessarily considering the timing or appropriateness of the remark. Like the child with ADD in the classroom, the adult with ADD gets carried away in enthusiasm. An idea comes and it must be spoken, tact or guile yielding to child-like exuberance.

6) An ongoing search for high stimulation. The adult with ADD is always on the lookout for something novel, something engaging, something in the outside world that can catch up with the whirlwind that's rushing inside.

7) A tendency to be easily bored. A corollary of #6. Boredom surrounds the adult with ADD like a sink-hole, ever ready to drain off energy and leave the individual hungry for more stimulation. This can easily be misinterpreted as a lack of interest; actually it is a relative inability to sustain interest over time. As much as the person cares, his battery pack runs low quickly.

8) Easy distractibility, trouble focusing attention, tendency to tune out or drift away in the middle of a page or a conversation, often coupled with an ability to hyperfocus at times. The hallmark symptom of ADD. The "tuning out" is quite involuntary. It happens when the person isn't looking, so to speak, and the next thing you know, he or she isn't there. The often extraordinary ability to hyperfocus is also usually present, emphasizing the fact that this is a syndrome not of attention deficit but of attention inconsistency.

9) Often creative, intuitive, highly intelligent. Not a symptom, but a trait deserving of mention. Adults with ADD often have unusually creative minds. In the midst of their disorganization and distractibility, they show flashes of brilliance. Capturing this "special something" is one of the goals of treatment.

10) Trouble in going through established channels, following proper procedure. Contrary to what one night think, this is not due to some unresolved problem with authority figures. Rather, it is a manifestation of boredom and frustration: boredom with routine ways of doing things and excitement around novel approaches, and frustration with being unable to do things the way they're supposed to be done.

11) Impatient; low tolerance for frustration. Frustration of any sort reminds the adult with ADD of all the failures in the past. "Oh no," he thinks, "here we go again." So he gets angry or withdraws. The impatience has to do with the need for stimulation and can lead others to think of the individual as immature or insatiable.

12) Impulsive, either verbally or in action, as in impulsive spending of money, changing plans, enacting new schemes or career plans, and the like.

13) Tendency to worry needlessly, endlessly; tendency to scan the horizon looking for something to worry about alternative with inattention to or disregard for actual dangers. Worry becomes what attention turns into when it isn't focused on some task.

14) Sense of impending doom, insecurity, alternating with high risk-taking.

15) Mood swings, depression, especially when disengaged from a person or a project. Adults with ADD, more than children, are given to unstable moods. Much of this is due to their experience of frustration and/or failure, while some of it is due to the biology of the disorder.

16) Restlessness One usually does not see, in an adult, the full-blown hyperactivity one may see in a child. Instead, one sees what looks like "nervous energy"; pacing, drumming of fingers, shifting position while sitting, leaving a table or room frequently, feeling edgy while at rest.

17) Tendency toward addictive behavior. The addiction may be to a substance such as alcohol or cocaine, or to an activity, such as gambling, or shopping, or eating, or overwork.

18) Chronic problems with self-esteem.

19) Inaccurate self-observation. People with ADD are poor self-observers. They do not accurately gauge the impact they have on other people. This can often lead to big misunderstandings and deeply hurt feelings.

20) Family history of ADD or manic- depressive illness or depression or substance abuse or other disorders of impulse control or mood. Since ADD is genetically transmitted and related to the other conditions mentioned, it is not uncommon (but not necessary) to find such a family history.

Childhood History of ADD - It may not have been formally diagnosed, but in reviewing the history the signs and symptoms were there.

*It cannot be stressed too firmly how important it is NOT to diagnose oneself. From the information and examples presented here it is hoped your suspicion may be raised, but an evaluation by a physician to rule out other conditions is essential!

For more info go to the website where I got this list or any other website about Adult ADD.