Women with Attention Deficit Disorder
This was cross posted on punkymoms
Okay this is really wordy but I'm excited about this.
Yesterday my mom gave me this book to read. Never in my life have I felt so understood no...never in my life have I understood myself as much as I'm starting to. Seriously I'm not done with it yet but every time I read it, it makes me realize so much more about myself and just makes me want to cry. Parts of it are written like a story and it follows the life of two different girls with ADD one with the hyperactive part and one without. It talks about how often young girls go undiagnosed or get diagnosed with depression instead because of the stereotypes that people put on girls. The girl with the hyperactive part may just be thought of as a tom boy or a typical chatty little girl and the girl without may just be thought of as a shy daydreamer.
I swear, when I read the story about the girl without the hyperactive part it's totally my life. Growing up I was always the sweet shy girl with the messy handwriting, desk, backpack, room.......everything. I started out with straight A's and as I got older and the classes involved more studying, preparing, organization....my grades got worse and worse. I'd always hear "she's not living up to her potential" and I was always trying to come up with some sort of system to stay organized but I could never stick with it. I'd take notes in class and go back to them later and they would make no sense because I'd write abbreviations or one word thinking that I'd know what I meant when I go back to read it later. Nope. I'd self medicate with coffee thinking that it was helping because it was keeping me awake, not realizing that it was really helping me focus. There are so many things in the story that she wrote about the girl without hyperactive that just sent my mind back to certain times in my life. I could replace my name with that girl's name and every word of it would be true.
It's a weird feeling...it makes me sad and angry that I didn't know about this until I was in my twenties. It makes me wonder if I would've done better in school if I knew and everyone else around me knew that it was ADD and not just me being a slacker. I had good intentions...they just never ended up working out the way I wanted them to.
On the other hand, it's kind of a relief to read that the things that I hate the most about myself...are caused by a neurochemical disorder and it's not just me sucking at life. Okay I do suck at life...but I at least know why now...
There are certain things that I've done that I can say ugh that's the ADD. This book has told me so many more things that I never even realized were part of it and it really makes sense. Plus...the book is written in short sections so it's not hard to read rofl.gif
I'm not done with the book yet. I guess she goes on to talk about ways to live successfully with ADD which I'm really looking forward to reading. I have the meds, now I need to start working on the behavioral aspect of this. Once I'm done reading it I'll write more if anyone is interested...even though this is super fricken long....I'll try not to write this much lol
I do recommend this book for women that are ADD or women who are disorganized and depressed and think they may be. So many women say "I can't be, I'm not hyper" but not everyone with it is hyper. It's two extremes. In the book she calls the kind I have "ADD without" meaning without the hyperactive aspect. The book was written a while ago and now I think that the kind I have is ADHD inattentive. It makes me lethargic. Not hyper.
Okay this is really wordy but I'm excited about this.
Yesterday my mom gave me this book to read. Never in my life have I felt so understood no...never in my life have I understood myself as much as I'm starting to. Seriously I'm not done with it yet but every time I read it, it makes me realize so much more about myself and just makes me want to cry. Parts of it are written like a story and it follows the life of two different girls with ADD one with the hyperactive part and one without. It talks about how often young girls go undiagnosed or get diagnosed with depression instead because of the stereotypes that people put on girls. The girl with the hyperactive part may just be thought of as a tom boy or a typical chatty little girl and the girl without may just be thought of as a shy daydreamer.
I swear, when I read the story about the girl without the hyperactive part it's totally my life. Growing up I was always the sweet shy girl with the messy handwriting, desk, backpack, room.......everything. I started out with straight A's and as I got older and the classes involved more studying, preparing, organization....my grades got worse and worse. I'd always hear "she's not living up to her potential" and I was always trying to come up with some sort of system to stay organized but I could never stick with it. I'd take notes in class and go back to them later and they would make no sense because I'd write abbreviations or one word thinking that I'd know what I meant when I go back to read it later. Nope. I'd self medicate with coffee thinking that it was helping because it was keeping me awake, not realizing that it was really helping me focus. There are so many things in the story that she wrote about the girl without hyperactive that just sent my mind back to certain times in my life. I could replace my name with that girl's name and every word of it would be true.
It's a weird feeling...it makes me sad and angry that I didn't know about this until I was in my twenties. It makes me wonder if I would've done better in school if I knew and everyone else around me knew that it was ADD and not just me being a slacker. I had good intentions...they just never ended up working out the way I wanted them to.
On the other hand, it's kind of a relief to read that the things that I hate the most about myself...are caused by a neurochemical disorder and it's not just me sucking at life. Okay I do suck at life...but I at least know why now...
There are certain things that I've done that I can say ugh that's the ADD. This book has told me so many more things that I never even realized were part of it and it really makes sense. Plus...the book is written in short sections so it's not hard to read rofl.gif
I'm not done with the book yet. I guess she goes on to talk about ways to live successfully with ADD which I'm really looking forward to reading. I have the meds, now I need to start working on the behavioral aspect of this. Once I'm done reading it I'll write more if anyone is interested...even though this is super fricken long....I'll try not to write this much lol
I do recommend this book for women that are ADD or women who are disorganized and depressed and think they may be. So many women say "I can't be, I'm not hyper" but not everyone with it is hyper. It's two extremes. In the book she calls the kind I have "ADD without" meaning without the hyperactive aspect. The book was written a while ago and now I think that the kind I have is ADHD inattentive. It makes me lethargic. Not hyper.