Onedia in the Ozarks

Lots of people have no idea what life is for an adult with ADD /  ADHD.  It is an invisible disability to the world because people who have it are labeled as lazy, irresponsible, spacey, clumsy, messy, poor communicators, dumb, tactless, and many other derogatory remarks.  People with ADHD  frequently feel that way about themselves even when we know that we have ADHD.  Below are a few experiences that a person with ADHD might have relatively frequently.  It is not a complete or exclusive list simply one that comes to mind from my own experience.

• You arrive at your appointments  fifteen minutes early and one week late
• You put things in a safe place never to be seen again
• Your office, house, or car is messy twenty-four hours after you organize it
• You miss your exit and do not realize it for 100 miles
• You hand in your Probability and Statistics final exam scratch paper and throw out your exam solutions
• You go home regretting something you blurted out in a meeting
• You arrive at work with mismatched earrings and shoes or your name tag upside down
• You fidget your hands and feet and shift in your seat  constantly when at meetings or events
• You cannot remember what you stopped at the grocery store to buy
• You get stopped for speeding frequently
• You have had several fender benders
• You majored in Art, English, History and finally Science ( or fill in the majors) before graduating college
• You have been married more than two times
• You miss your international flight because you confused the flight number with the flight time
• Your five year old daughter regularly stops you from going into the men’s bathroom by mistake
• You put hair spray under your arms and deodorant on your hair style
• You leave your keys in the front door overnight
• You have overdrafts because of arithmetic errors
• You have unpaid bills because you put the checks and bills into the wrong pre-printed envelopes
• You think about your shopping list or to-do list during sex
• You eat when you are bored
• You “loose your thought” easily
• You talk and talk and talk till you see people’s eyes roll
• You are clumsy, have accidents and are  always bumping into things or people
• You change jobs or careers frequently
• You are easily distracted from one thing to another
• You leave a burner turned on high on the cooking range until your spouse or child finds it after dinner
• You constantly lose your glasses, keys, phone, remote, etc.
• You lock yourself out of your car, house, office
• You get half way to the place where your sister’s wedding will be and realize you left your hanging clothes bag in the front hall of your house
• You leave the eggs out of the cake or add pepper instead of cinnamon
• You put the lettuce in the freezer instead of the fridge

I could go on but I think you get the idea.  It is invisible but if you compare an MRI of a “normal” brain to an “ADD/ADHD” brain you will be able to see an obvious difference.  More on that in another post.