User Profile

I am a 38 year-old male who was diagnosed with Adult ADD in March of 2004. I live in North Carolina in the United States and work for the local government as a computer programmer. I am married to a wonderful woman and we will celebrate 16 years of marriage this July. We have two sons, ages 5 and 8. Alex is my older son and he has been diagnosed with ADHD and Jarrett is my younger son. I am a strong Christian and this viewpoint will show in my writings. I'll try not to be confrontational though :) I have used the pseudonym MrPerky on the internet for the last 5 years or so. While it is currently severly underdeveloped, I also own the domain MrPerky.com. Sometime I may link that domain name to this blog if everything pans out.

I have had ADD all of my life. This is critical to being diagnosed with Adult ADD. If your symptoms have started recently, indeed, if you can remember them starting at all, then you most likely are suffering from a different illness or disorder than ADD. I was not diagnosed as ADD or ADHD as a child for lack of testing and lack of understanding in the medical profession. During this time I really could have benefitted from that diagnosis. I did not receive counseling or treatment for this condition as a child or young adult.

It wasn't until we began learning about the ADHD symptoms that my son Alex has that I began to look at myself. This is common for us adults with ADD. Frequently the condition is unmasked as we recognize in ourselves the symptoms that our children have. Still, I did nothing. I thought that Adults with ADD just had to deal with it. We have learned some coping strategies as adults, and some have even gone the extra step of self-medicating with alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, or worse drugs. I've never been a substance abuser and currently don't even drink because of my Christian convictions.

After treating my son's ADHD with a variety of medications, we have arrived at a happy configuration. He is taking Concerta and it has made all the difference. While not taking away his personality, curiousity, good nature, or good mood, it has allowed him to concentrate, to perform better academically, and to have good self-esteem.

It was easy to look at Alex's improvements and wonder... What would my life be like if I were on medication. If Alex was at "A" performance level before medication, and at the substantially higher "B" level after medication, then where is my "A" level and where would my "B" level be if I were on medication? This thought started me on the path to getting diagnosed with ADD and to begin treatment if I was diagnosed.

I had been recognizing the symptoms of ADD in myself and began wondering what positive effects medication would have on me. Would I also have as positive an experience as my son, Alex, has?

We have Alex working with a local Christian counseling group that has much experience with ADD on both the personal and professional level. After a session with our counselor, I casually asked if the counseling group worked with Adults who had ADD as well as with children. The counselor said yes and gave me some material to look over, some initial tests to review, and recommended the book Driven To Distraction by Hallowell and Ratey. I began to do some intensive internet based research on Adult ADD and had some family members and friends look over the surveys and fill them out for me. These surveys are brutally direct. It pays to have them filled out earnestly. Are you lazy? Do you have difficulty staying on task? Do you interrupt others when they are speaking? Many socially inacceptable qualities are examined and applied to ADD in Adults.

When I had the questionaires completed, I arranged for a session with a counselor, who then became my counselor. She spoke with me at length, evaluated the questionaires, and together we arrived at the ADD diagnosis. Key points were that the symptoms had been present _all_ of my life, that I was very inattentive, that I likely had self-esteem issues through dealing with this for my entire life, and that I could receive medication as a treatment for the condition.

I felt as if I had arrived at a major junction point in my life with a door newly opened and ready for me to step through.