I have ADD but so does everyone (952 hits)
Category: Politics -> LibertariansRating: 1.85 on 45 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Hookhand (View user info) at 2007-03-28 08:12:01 EDT
After being the only student to get a "D" in my Research, Writing and Advocacy first-year law class, I took a step back and did some serious introspection.
Were the other students smarter than me?
Probably not.
Were they better prepared for Law School by being Pre-Law while I was Chemistry?
Also doubtful, considering Prelaw teaches you how to take the classes which prepare you for the bar whereas my undergrad major taught me how to write tedious reports. Chemistry taught me to pull an all-nighter 3 nights in a row. I doubt the rest of my contemporaries can boast the same baptism by fire.
I'm the first to admit I'm pretty lazy. But in reviewing how I had spent my time writing the papers where I never felt like I had enough time (The time I spent in the chair at my computer and not playing Command and Conquer or some 1998 shit) I noticed a trend.
It is one thing to say "Fuck this, I'm taking a break" and flip on the tv, have a snack, take the Browns to the Superbowl, etc.
It's quite another to be dutifully writing a legal brief one minute, and the next to glance down at your hand and see that you are holding nail clippers and that you have spent 20 minutes giving yourself a manicure and you never even were fully concious that you had stopped working.
Is it possible to be a A student in High School, a B Student in college in a challenging major and not realize you had an attention deficit? Was this some sort of late-onset thing, or did I manage to make it this far by coasting by sheer virtue of being a GENIUS?
I decided to find a doctor who could help. When you're dealing with such a problem, there are 2 kinds of doctors. One will make you go see a counseler for months, take a $250 diagnostic examination and then use all of this to decide whether you need DANGEROUS AMPHETAMINES to treat your illness.
The other will listen to you describe your impromptu manicure experiences, your self medication with Red Bull ("I found I concentrated better if I had 4 cans on an empty stomach, and when I had 5 cans on an empty stomach I stared at the ceiling, weeping, trying to will my heart to slow down before it raced out of control and started pumping air if the blood couldn't keep up") and he will laugh at you for the fact that as you sit in the chair and describe youyr problem you come up with more and more and more warning signs that should have alerted you. Declining grades on lab reports. EXTREME procrastination. People commenting that you fail to maintain eye contact. People taking your failure to maintain eye contact as a sign of hostility and challenging you to a knife fight with broken beer bottles. The 1981 Cincinnatti Bengals.. SEE! That's what I'm fucking talking about.
The second kind of doctor was the one I went to see.
I have been awake for the passt 48 hours. My brief is due in 9 hours. I have been "working" on it for 2 days. I have accomplished precisely jack. The adderall I take manages to keep me awake, but I am coming to grips with the fact that, like my father, I am a clinch performer. I can sit down days in advance of a deadline, intending to spread it out so I can do the work at a leisurely pace. I am even taking a pill that, when I am working hard like I do when a deadline looms, makes me a fucking MACHINE, focusing like a laser, tackling tasks like...some sort of...task-tackling apparatus. But when it comes down to it, I kick into "work" mode when it's time to race the clock. I don't turn in my best possible work, but I get it DONE.
Do I have ADD? Maybe. Maybe not. Do the pills help? Not really. They help me focus on whatever I am doing when they kick in, which is not always working. They keep me from "finding myself" doing things I didn't remember starting when I should be working.
The point is, they're not a magic bullet. They're a supplement to discipline. I have...some discipline. The deadline is looming. Of a 20 page brief I have what I would argue are the "easy" 10 pages done. Will I do better this semester than I did last semester? Let's hope so.
I guess what I want out of all of you is, do you think you might have ADD? Do you think I'm lazy? Do you think you're lazy? I don't mean to deligitimze what I feel is a real medical issue. However, I think it's more relevant in elementary school kids. I don't feel like I'm abusing Adderall like a lot of college kids tend to do (going so far as to crush and snort it. WTF? They're extended release; you can't fool the blood/brain barrier THAT much). I think I am trying to manage what may be a combination of a brain chemical imbalance and personality. Nature + Nurture. Peanut Butter + Jelly.
-2 away; I wanted to reserve the comments section for as serious a dialogue about whether you think "ADD" is bullshit, or whether you think it can be a problem for adults who have problems on top of being lazy.
Or, let me know if I should stick to poems about abusive husbands.
User Reviews
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2007-04-02 20:55:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I was just looking add up last night.
Submitted by sideshow (user info) at 2007-03-29 10:28:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't think that is ADD. I think our society makes everyone believe that laziness combined with being easily distracted means you have ADD.
When I was in school, studying for finals, I would find every excuse possible to avoid studying.
Example: I sit down to study, all my books ready to go. After staring at the books for a few minutes, I decide I'm hungry. I go and make some food. Then I decide that the kitchen is dirty and needs to be cleaned....after all, how can anyone study with the kitchen being all messy? So after I get back to the books, it is an hour or two later. And then I see my dirty laundry pile, and decide that needs to get washed. Eventually, I've wasted 4 or 5 hours, made a trip to the store, and the textbooks have not even been opened.
Procrastination doesn't mean you have ADD.....it just means that doing everything else is much more appealing that actually doing your homework, writing your paper, studying, etc.
I also need the pressure of the deadline to get my ass in gear. That is why I read uber when I should be writing a technical document....but I'll get my reports done, just not this far ahead of the deadline....
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2007-03-29 00:14:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I refuse to rea this
Submitted by Progr3ss (user info) at 2007-03-29 00:00:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Sometimes Anne will be talking to me and I'll start staring at the ceiling fan and counting it's revolutions per minute or something like that. Is that ADD or is it because women talk all the time and it's mostly about nothing?
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-03-28 23:19:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, this post was a piece of shit and I don't remember writing any of it. I think everyone gave it +2 to piss off Darko.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2007-03-28 22:53:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I think it's more that I annoyed him once, and then he just forgot about me.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2007-03-28 22:10:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Still no ratings huh?
You musta done pissed of da boss real good like.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2007-03-28 22:04:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Damn you 12-6, I saw the rating changed an got my hopes up that my comments counted
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2007-03-28 21:46:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
SRSLY, What the fuck happened here?
Submitted by MidnightToSix (user info) at 2007-03-28 21:44:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
> guess what I want out of all of you is, do you think you might have ADD?
You might, or you might just not really be into law. I'd say if you are having these kinds of problems I don't want you as my lawyer!
> Do you think I'm lazy? Do you think you're lazy?
Laziness is just an excuse for a deeper issue.
> I don't feel like I'm abusing Adderall like a lot of college kids tend to do (going so far as to crush and snort it. WTF? They're extended release; you can't fool the blood/brain barrier THAT much).
Jesus, are you sure you were a chemistry pre-major? Definitely not bio-chem. Extended release has to do with the coating on the pill that gets dissolved in the stomach, releasing the drug into the intestines to be absorbed over time. So that is exactly what they are doing, bypassing the extended release. It's their choose, still drug abuse.
Submitted by Dolson (user info) at 2007-03-28 20:58:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-03-28 17:17:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Michigan State University college of Law.
Also, Zebra, way to be a Darko
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I see. I'm at University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law. Good times.
Submitted by PrescriptionX (user info) at 2007-03-28 20:50:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm supposed to be writing a 20 page virology paper on phage latency (don't worry about it, you don't need to know) and have done as much as you: Jack shit. Lets hope my prof will still count 23:59:59 as march 29th instead of demanding it at 8:30 tomorrow morning!
Best of luck with that brief.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-03-28 17:23:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have enough of the symptoms that I suffer from it, but not enough that I qualify for it.
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-03-28 17:17:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Michigan State University college of Law.
Also, Zebra, way to be a Darko
Submitted by Zebra (user info) at 2007-03-28 16:38:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Mental disorders are difficult to diagnose properly.
I think it can take much more time and observation than most patients receive from an increasingly overburdened medical system.
The brain is so complex one is lucky to get it exactly right on the first try.
And there is often only that first diagnosis/treatment because it seems to at least partially address the problem.
Plus, our society is slowly nurturing us to a shorter attention span while making it easier to procrastinate.
Submitted by Dolson (user info) at 2007-03-28 16:25:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Which law school do you go to?
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-03-28 15:53:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
wtf im not reading all that
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-03-28 13:14:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-03-28 10:23:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No more poetry.
What you've got is more than ADD, which doesn't actually exist, you've actually become so fucused or involved with what you're doing that the rest of the world ceases to exist, and merely happens as an indirect result of an overfocused mind needing some outlet.
I suggest you calm down on the red bull and the pills, get a few hours of sleep, get somethign to eat, then have a little fun. That will avoid the meltdown and/or freakout you'll eventually have.
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Meh, I can handle a few sleepless nights. I actually feel better after staying awake for more than 24 hours than I do waking up after having slept a full night. I think flunking a law school class is more depressing than not spending a wednesday night at the bar because I had to make a responsible decision. That's not to say I don't value the feedback; quite the opposite.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2007-03-28 12:16:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I thought this post was .... hey, wanna ride bikes?
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2007-03-28 12:13:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have no idea what's going on
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2007-03-28 11:59:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i'm sorry - where was I?
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2007-03-28 11:27:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The Sad Tale of Hank Pitsfield
Hank woke up with a boner. He peed and went to work. There, a desk stood. It smelled of sex. He inhaled another man's ass and died.
BOOL! THE END!
Submitted by Teephphah (user info) at 2007-03-28 10:25:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hey, LOOK! It's ME! Eight years ago. (Good GOD! EIGHT?! Cripes.)
Dear Hookhand (i.e. n00b)
You don't know me but I used to hang out on Uber all the time. I'm currently a lawyer and also an incredibly swell and good looking dude. Not only that but, I ALSO HAVE RAGING ADD! How weird is THAT?!
We're like BROTHERS or something! (Wait. You're a dude, right?)
Anyway, law school was absolutely brutal for me but then I didn't get diagnosed with teh ADD until I was out in the real world and being in "work" mode from 6:30 - 4:30 wasn't really happening for me.
If only I had adderall back in school . . . oh what might have been. . .
Where was I?
Oh yeah, you are absolutely right, you've still got to have discipline to get the shit done you need to get done. But the drugs DO, absolutely make it easier.
Shoot me an e-mail sometime or something if you want. Teephphah.at.gmail.com
I can't check it at work anymore though because the commie bastards shut down g-mail access.
Bastards.
Okay. Gotta run. Must work.
kthnxbye
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-03-28 10:23:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No more poetry.
What you've got is more than ADD, which doesn't actually exist, you've actually become so fucused or involved with what you're doing that the rest of the world ceases to exist, and merely happens as an indirect result of an overfocused mind needing some outlet.
I suggest you calm down on the red bull and the pills, get a few hours of sleep, get somethign to eat, then have a little fun. That will avoid the meltdown and/or freakout you'll eventually have.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-03-28 10:19:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
UBER causes ADD.
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-03-28 10:19:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I think this innocent little thread may have resulted in many late diagnoses. Either I was right and EVERYONE ALIVE has ADD, or uber attracts a certain crowd. I lean now toward the latter.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-03-28 10:00:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Hilarity_Ensues (user info) at 2007-03-28 10:00:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wait, strike that, I have all the impulsivity ones too. I didn't read all the words there, and I'm not even kidding.
Submitted by Hilarity_Ensues (user info) at 2007-03-28 09:58:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dude, I have ALL the symptoms in #1 and most in the impusivity catagory of #2. Looks like I'm fucked....
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2007-03-28 09:54:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
ok...
so according to that i have add. GIMME MAH SPEED NOW!!!
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-03-28 09:52:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Criteria needed to meet a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD:
A. Either (1) or (2)
(1). 6 (or more) of the following symptoms of inattention have persisted for at least 6 months to a degree that is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level:
Inattention
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(a) often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities
(b) often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities
(c) often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
(d) often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish
schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behaviour or failure to understand instructions)
(e) often has difficulty organising tasks and activities
(f) often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework).
(g) often loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g. toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools)
(h) is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli
(i) is often forgetful in daily activities
(2) 6 (or more) of the following symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity have persisted for at least 6 months to a degree that is maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level
Hyperactivity
----------------
(a) often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
(b) often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected
(c) often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate (in adolescents or adults, may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness)
(d) often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly
(e) is often "on the go" or often acts as if "driven by a motor"
(f) often talks excessively
Impulsivity
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(g) often blurts out answers before questions have been completed
(h) often has difficulty awaiting turn
(i) often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g. butts into conversations or games)
B. Some hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms that caused impairment were present before age 7 years.
C. Some impairment from the symptoms is present in two or more settings (e.g. at school [or work] and at home).
D. There must be clear evidence of clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.
E. The symptoms do not occur exclusively during the course of a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Schizophrenia, or other Psychotic Disorder and are not better accounted for by another mental disorder (e.g. Mood Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, or a Personality Disorder).
Wait, what was I posting about again?
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-03-28 09:38:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
For me, what should have set off bells and whistles was that I wasn't getting at least a B in my labs. For my synthesis labs, the grades were mostly yield-based so I always did well in them since my lab technique is well-refined. But in my analytical labs, the entire grade was based on these long, ridiculous 25 page reports due every other week. And the worst part was, usually there was one due in each of the two labs we had to take concurrently. I gave myself a week, but I was always starting them around midnight after a night at the bar and turning them in at 8 am. I literally couldn't make myself start earlier, and most of those 8 hours were wasted dicking around. Like I am right now. I don't WANT to be unproductive. It kind of....happens. Maybe I rack a disciprine
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2007-03-28 09:32:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have ADD and bad grades. I don't understand it. I can concentrate on two or three courses, and do well in them, then in the others no matter how easy they are I do poorly. I have a D in western civ right now. I'm good at history, I really like it, so I think something is terribly wrong if I don't have an A. The grading system must be flawed.
In developmental psych. I got a C. I think I lost interest- the teacher was so horrible that even though, again, I love psychology and am good at it, he just made it unbearable.
I don't think this ran together very well.
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2007-03-28 09:23:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
You guys are the shit.
I wonder if there is a correlation between Attention problems and whether you identify as left-brained or right-brained. Whenever I take tests to determine that I am in the 1% of people that gets nearly identical scores. Either I am both brained....or neither.
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2007-03-28 09:09:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i think anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence has attention problems. if you have a fully functional brain you just get bored easily.
Submitted by Void_Where_Prohibited (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:46:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DancingOtter (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:44:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hmmm sounds familiar...
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:41:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:38:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's lovely and warm here today; anyone up for a beer garden day?
This is find a friend.com right?
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:34:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I understand exactly what you mean.
Submitted by scum101 (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:27:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Hilarity_Ensues (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:26:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm fairly sure I have ADD, but will I go to a shrink? No.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:23:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I forgot what I was rating.
Submitted by Timmaaaaah (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:21:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hehehe pretty bird
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-03-28 08:14:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I only read the first 2 paragraphs and then my ADD kicked in.