Ever feel your ADD/ADHD is used against you!

[Shelley]

Ever feel like people 'use' your ADD/ADHD, to their advantage??

Has being open about ADD/ADHD just back fired in ur face?

If any of these seem familiar, how could someone possibly get past it and not take the ignorance personally?, (even if they are 15).

broken hearted, Shelley

 

[jacqueline holmes]

Hey Shelby, I am sorry to hear that people in your life are using your ADHD to their advantage. I guess I would  be curious to know how they are doing this. My sense is that it wouldn't matter if it was ADHD or some other area that presents challenges or has percieved weaknesses  as people who lack knowledge ( ignorance) or  are insecure in themselves  do this. I think what is most important is for you to understand your ADHD and the strengths it brings you, that without it would not be you, For example, if you are very creative, artistic, thinks outside of the box, intuitive, or what ever positive characteristics of ADHD you hold, focus on these versus those aspects that challenge you.  When you focus on your strengths, and increase your own self worth and embrace this, what other's say won't have the same effect effect on you and often times they stop saying these things as your strengths that are you will overshadow any challenges of ADHD you hold and often times you just won't care what they think. Everyone has challenges, it is just part of life. How you deal with them is a measure of who you are. Again the focus is on your strengths. Good luck and many blessings.

[Shelley]

They are doing this due to insecurities alright. they are educated but, only use that when they want to be right about something. ADD-Inattentive has made me who I am. Diagnosed in 83 and until 2yrs ago I have found it to be what makes me and has made me strong. I have recently had self compassion added to my daily life and having been a parent since I was 17, didnt even knew it existed. I have done for others my whole life and lost 'my' self in the meantime. 

I am an Autobody tech, a Certified chainsaw operator owner of Danaher Tree Care, Registered Yoga Teacher...........etc

So what is it about the people in my home that make me want to move to the mountains..........cuz the harder I try to make things move fluently the harder they try not too

    and the only reason Ive not gone to the mountains is cuz one of them is 6 and he cant help what he does most of the time, considering he learns from the people around him.

Thank you wise woman I await your response...

Shell

[Josef Hoffman]

Definitely, yes. I was asked in a job interview for a teaching position how I would be able to keep track of all the job requirements. I told them it was being effectively treated by meds. The interview team (all teachers or principals) just looked incredulous. I didn't get that job. Now I just make sure I'm heavily medicated before interviews so I don't impulsively mention things like being ADD.

I've learned just not to tell people--even other teachers who should KNOW better--unless I have to, or I'm sure I can trust them.

Sadly, it does matter what other people think, at least at work, so keep those stupid f***ers in the dark unless they need to know!

If you are generally regarded as intelligent/creative/talented on top of being ADD this is doubly true, as jealous and mediocre people will, without exception, try to sabotage and destroy you. Your lack of impulse control will at some point give them the opportunity they've been looking for. Trust no one, I've been surprised by who's stabbed me in the back before. Now I NEVER let my coworkers see me off medication.

[Dlizard]

I try not to say anything about my ADHD in a work setting, I do amoung my church friends. When I do say something, they had already figured it out. Caffine especially coffee drinking it slowly through out the day does keep me preaty focused and relaxed. I don't take ADHD meds. At the same time I have surprised people too when they know I have ADHD and I turn around and handle it when they thought I couldn't.

[Shelley]

You say, "jealous and mediocre" people will, without exception, try to sabotage and destroy you" Aint that the truth I believe you about that!!!

Can you say threatened, I know I know I dont care what other people think in that sense, but i do have a prob with the actions of ignorant people....

tks J

[Greg t]

@ jacqueline holmes...very well written, I couldn't have said it any better...that is exactly what I do...reinforce the talent I have is my way of doing things

[Hawcat]

Hey Shelby, sometimes people say things they dont mean about ADD/ADHD. This week i was in the hall in my house and my dad didnt know and was trying to explaine something to my little sister and said that its a disease and i got very upset. He didn't mean it like that though. Also my mom is rading a book about ADD and people with it are more sensitive, creative, and can see things other people can't.

[Shelley]

Huggs too you!!!!!! and mom dad will come and he prob feels bad?!

[Dr Robert Tym]

What you MUST understand is that there are huge advantages, too, to having the ADHD-type brain - and - that ADHD is NOT a disorder in itself, merely a slightly different type of brain. Please see the section "Time to Take the 'Disorder' Out of ADD" on a href="http://www.ptsd.net>" target="_blank">www.ptsd.net>;

Alas, the nine out of ten of the people in the world who don't have the ADHD-type brain either don't know about ADHD or don't care.  That goes from top people all the way down.

Many top people who are amongst the one out of ten of the people in the world who DO have the ADHD-type brain wouldn't be at the top if they didn't have it.

[Josef Hoffman]

Dear Dr.

You wrote on This page that, This ‘smartness’, especially if the solution is ‘impulsively blurted-out’, may well be taken as a challenge to the non-AD-brain teacher or boss and thereby provoke hostile retaliation, much to the amazement of the ‘all-so-innocent AD-brain just trying to be helpful’

And this, dear sir, is why my ADD/ADHD students respond better to me than other teachers. The stress level is usually lower in my classroom than other teachers' because I'm not constantly escalating kids' comments into conflict by responding as if they are direct challenges; I recognize the intent of their behavior and respond appropriately. But I can't seem to get other teachers to understand this. It's like they are willfully, obstinately ignorant and refuse to understand or acknowledge that these kids are not trying to oppose them. Every kid with an AD type brain who graduates school without bitterness and resentment is a miracle, because teachers usually go out of their ignorant, backwards way to make life difficult for these kids.

In fact, my own resentment and bitterness led me to go back into secondary education as a teacher to try to combat this from the inside, even if only by displacing one slow witted idiot. The biggest challenge for me is hiding from my colleagues the utter contempt with which I regard some of them.

[Dr Robert Tym]

You are clearly a God-send to education on behalf of that particular one in ten of pupils world wide. Is there ANY way that the Ministers of Education or even their Prime Ministers or whatever  (who always purport to be interested in education) to understand the decimation of a country's talent brought about by information on ADHD-related difficulties being routinely omitted from all curricula of primary and secondary Teacher Training Colleges-let alone the same being true of Psychiatrists' (AND Psychologists') degree courses. You may well have trouble with most of your fellow teachers; I certainly have with most of my fellow Psychiatrists (AND wirh Psychologists) - and please tell me how to hide my contempt for my colleagues, I'm not good at it.

[Josef Hoffman]

Where do you practice? I'm working in the states, on the west coast. In the schools I've been in the school psychologists and learning specialists (special education) are usually the only ones who 'get it' regarding atypical learners. In fact, this year I'm adding a special education endorsement because learning specialists are the only teachers I don't have contempt for. The biggest problem I see is teachers and parents who think ADD/ADHD can be "treated" without medication, that if the kids just "tried hard enough" then they could function better in school. That bulls**t is just not true. Just for the record (I'm sure you already know this) CBT is not, has never been, and never was meant to be a "cure" or even a direct treatment for ADD/ADHD. I'm sick and tired of these quacks out there wasting precious learning years in these kids' lives pushing their completely unvalidated agenda. Show me the peer reviewed, validated, and specific to the condition research!!! Listen to the school psychs and the learning specialists who actually work with these kids every day: they need medication in order to adapt to the environment they live in. I'd love to live in a world where they don't need pills, but that world doesn't exist, so quit blaming the environment and give the kid the tools they need to adapt!!!! Seriously, this puritanical attitude toward pharmaceutical intervention and practical approaches that are proven to work screws up entire lives that don't need to be ruined.

Stop showing contempt when your colleagues stop proving themselves to be incompetent.