"Ogres are like onions..."

OK, so the title of this blog may seem a bit silly BUT as I thought about all the new medical discoveries I've had over the past year and a half I couldn't help but picture Shrek and Donkey walking through the swamp and Shrek explaining that ogres are like onions...they have layers.  My first layer was when my depression was diagnosed and we got the correct dosage of my medicine figured out.  The next layer was when the underlying anxiety, that honestly had been there most of my life, came to light once my depression was under control.  Once that medication dosage was fixed then came the next layer, the one that has been there from birth and honestly could have contributed to the other two...Attention Deficit Disorder.

For several years now my best friend has told me several times that she was convinced I had ADD.  I always thought she was joking and laughed it off.  I mean, I wasn't one to get in a lot of trouble and I had 4.0 GPA in high school and a 3.3 in college.  I'd even become a go-to person in my professional life and had developed a pretty good name for myself which lead to me getting my first promotion I actually had to compete for (intern promotions were automatic) within the first 3 months I was eligible for it.  Now, I realize that these were all great blessings from God and I never could have accomplished any of them on my own, but, in my mind, I wouldn't have been able to do all of that if I had ADD.  After a few years I got curious though and did some research online about the symptoms of Adult ADD.  My reaction to my research was "Wow, I do all of that."  I began to consider the possibility that maybe my friend was right but wasn't convinced enough to follow up on it.

It was odd though, I realized the better I felt, the more under control my depression and anxiety were, the more "scatterbrained" I seemed to get.  It was very frustrating but I kept thinking I just wasn't trying hard enough and that I'd eventually "snap out of it."  Then, as my first session with my counselor was wrapping up, she was talking with me about other things I could try to help with my anxiety.  She told me that I may want to stay away from caffeine because it tends to make people jittery.  Not thinking it meant anything other than I was a caffeine addict, I told her "No, not me.  It actually calms me down."  That's when she said I may need to do some ADD testing because a stimulant having the opposite effect is a sign of ADD (that little bit of information DID NOT come up in my research).  At first I thought, "OK, whatever" but I began to grow more and more agitated with myself for not being able to remember the tasks I was suppose to get done and when I went back to my counselor 2 weeks later I let her know I was ready to get tested.

I set up the appointment for a week ago tomorrow (Sept 19).  I laugh now, but I realize I gave the lady a perfect example of my inattention when, while she was asking a few questions to get to know my background and why I had decided to get tested, I said, "Oh yea that reminds me..." and told her something completely off target and then proceeded to answer her question.  I even shard an anecdote about my boyfriend trying to help me with something at the house and how frustrated he got with me when I kept getting distracted by other things around me and not working with him like he needed me to.

The test was on a computer.  A program was going to flash a white rectangle with a black square inside it.  At times the square would be at the bottom and other times it would be at the top.  I had a clicker in my hand and I was suppose to click when I saw the rectangle with the square at the top.  The lady testing me warned me, "It's going to be boring but it's suppose to be.  Most people can pay attention to something that's interesting."  She had me do a 3 minute trial run so I would know what to expect and my results would not be skewed.  She was right, it was boring, but when the 3 minutes were up I thought, "OK, that wasn't too bad, I can do this."  Then came, if you need to go to the bathroom or anything go now because you're going to be stuck at this computer for the next 30 minutes.  "What?  You want me to do this how long?"  I don't even pay attention to a TV show I really like for 30 minutes at a time and she wanted me to do this crap for 30 minutes!!  I tried to be good.  It started out OK.  Then as time went on I got very tired of the test and eventually started to get annoyed.  I started to notice myself looking around at the stuff on her desk instead of at the computer screen.  Then I had to fight the urge to spark up a conversation.  Finally, in the last 5 minutes I barely controlled the impulse to throw the clicker down and walk away.  Luckily, I realize I wasn't at home and couldn't just walk away because I was tired of something.  I had to finish.  I don't think I've ever been so happy to hear "OK, you're done" as I was that day!

After the test I asked a few questions.  The major question I asked was, "I've done some research and I know that ADD is something you're born with.  You don't develop it in adulthood.  So, how do people go until their grown without being diagnosed."  She said it was because they had been able to compensate up until then.  She said a lot of times they actually taught themselves in school by reading and figuring it out.  I told her that honestly sounded like me through high school and college.  Then she told me that most people eventually reach a point that they can't compensate and hide it anymore. 

It was going to take her til Friday to get my results so I scheduled an appointment to come back and did A WHOLE LOT of thinking this past week.  I had a headache when I left her office and I found it very difficult to think through things that were usually second nature.  It reminded me of the headaches I had almost every day in high school.  I started to realize that those headaches in high school were probably caused by me trying so hard to pay attention.  Then, when I got home, I wanted to take a nap but was afraid to because I didn't want to throw my sleep schedule off (not that I really have one) I had to go to work the next morning.  My mind had other ideas though.  Next thing I new I was waking up 30 minutes to an hour later and realized that I was able to think a little better.  Then it dawned on me, this is why I come home from a desk job so exhausted every day.  My brain has worked so hard to try and focus that I am mentally exhausted.  Sometimes it even takes me the entire weekend of resting to be ready to go for the next week.

As the week went on I found myself relieved at the idea of possibly being ADD.  That meant there was a reason for many of these weird things about myself I never could figure out and just chalked up as personality flaws/quirks.  It meant there was a reason I had never felt like I had truly reached my full potential, there was a road block there I had never dealt with.  Most of all, it made me realize that I wasn't just a screw-up that would just never quite get it together to achieve my goals and aspirations in life.

When I left Monday the lady pretty much left it that she was fairly certain I had it, she was just curious to see how severe it was.  On the test I took (T.O.V.A) a score of -1.80 or below was considered an indicator of ADD.  My score was -4.45, nearly 2.5 standard deviations from the "norm."  I'll translate for my non-mathematical thinkers, my ADD is REALLY bad, lol.  I go back to my psychiatrist Monday (Sept 26) Originally it was just to follow-up on how my medication is working but now we will be discussing the possibilities for ADD medication and other options to deal with it.  I plan to set up a few more sessions with the lady who did my testing as she is also an ADD counselor.  I'm doing research and have ordered a book about dealing with ADD (got several more on my list to get later).  Through working with her and researching on my own I hope to find ways to cope with my limitations of my ADD and utilize the strengths that also come with it.