About Adult Attention Deficit / Hyperactive Disorder 02, 12, 06

Yes, more and more they are saying we adults may well carry over the affects.  I’m positive that I’ve had AD / HD for my life time, and have passed it down in my genes to Sarah and Victoria.  This article

has a lot of interesting points to it.  I’ll just start by saying that I can recall clearly, at a private school, being told I wasn’t trying hard enough, and didn’t apply myself well enough.  I can remember on my report card the words “Debbie has let us down rather badly on more than a few occasions.  Now, to pinpoint some of the article.

AD/HD in adults can significantly affect their relationships with others, particularly a partner, family, friends and work colleagues. They may see the adult with AD/HD as unreliable, or become frustrated trying to understand or help. Research has found that the most common behaviours that have a negative impact on relations are:

• doesn’t remember being told things
• saying things without thinking
• “zoning out” in conversations
• problems dealing with frustration
• trouble getting started on a task
• underestimating time needed to complete a task
• leaving a mess and being disorganized
• forgetting special dates, meetings or always being late
• not finishing a project.¹⁸

For both members of a relationship, it is important to recognize these behaviours. That’s why any education about AD/HD needs to include the family and friends. Several interventions or strategies are available to deal with these difficulties. For example, if saying something without thinking is a problem, the adult with AD/HD should try to be aware of how his or her verbal impulsivity can make other people feel uncomfortable. People with AD/HD often enjoy vigorous conversation as a source of stimulation. But they should understand that others may not share this enjoyment and know how to tone down the argument and move onto another topic.¹⁹

Similar strategies are available for the other problems. Working with a counsellor or using self-help techniques can help adults with AD/HD improve their relationships.

AD/HD with Work or Studies

If you have AD/HD but didn’t know it for a long time, you may have been misunderstood at work, at university or college. Your behaviour—whether you are restless, impulsive, disorganized or easily distracted—can be seen as being purposefully disruptive and unreliable. People with AD/HD may be seen to be unmotivated, lazy, self-centred or even slow learners. AD/HD may lead to a lifetime of underachievement, falling short of goals at work and complicating relationships with co-workers. Since AD/HD symptoms are usually not visible, co-workers may also have difficulty understanding and accepting the limitations they create.

A poor person–job match may also exist. Sometimes, a person needs to choose a place of employment or type of work that makes the best use of particular strong points and minimizes weaknesses. At times, success may be achieved with the help of the employer by disclosing your AD/HD in order to receive job accommodations. These must be tailored to meet the person’s specific needs. Some examples of accommodations in the workplace include extra clerical support, access to audio and video equipment, job restructuring, reassignment to a different position that better matches strengths, modified work schedules, computer with reader and voice-activated software, and filing systems that meet your needs.

I know that my husband says I never finish very much at home, in terms of “jobs”.  I’ve never been good at school or work, working under a deadline.  But when I do get a task done, I feel a great sense of accomplishment.

Hopefully, in continuing to educate myself about it, I’ll be able to help Sarah out.  Maybe.  Let’s hope for the best.

Listening to Neil Young and “Don’t Need More Lies”.  Yeah right, George.  We don’t.

Email Etiquette 02, 12, 06

Did you know that there is an article here on just that subject? About the “SAP’s”, and the “SOP’s”? SAP = Sought After People, and SOP = Silent Other People Yes, for some it is saturation of emails. Who, after working a 40 hour week on the computer, wants to have dozens of emails to read, and respond to? Not many, because it’s not fun, at all.

It’s really not fun. I’m guilty of being a drain on my friends (some of them) when it comes to over-saturation of email. It becomes a real drag to them to get out a reply because as they are thinking of one, another one, with new ideas and words arrives. What to do now? Delay more, and digest the new info, or ignore the new one, and just continue with the thoughts?

I guess it’s like face-to-face communication where you can’t over telephone someone. One phonecall is lovely, two is a bit overboard but ten phonecalls in a day or a week? That’s absurd. Same idea, however. See, I’ve reinforced some learning. Putting myself in others shoes.

Excerpt from the article below.

A great divide is growing between the people who receive large amounts of email and those who don’t. The increase in email volume particularly affects famous people, politicians, and professionals who provide helpful information on the Internet, including computer techs. To make things easy, let’s call them “the sought-after people”(“SAPs”) as opposed to everyone else, the “silent other people” (“SOPs”) who surf the Internet in relative anonymity. SAPs are finding that increasingly their free time is spent reading and responding to emails, and they are having a difficult time figuring out how to juggle emails. Whereas SOPs do not comprehend this new phenomenon, resulting in needless feelings that they are being snubbed or ignored. It has created more suspicion in marriages that spouses are purposely ignoring each other – when it’s nothing more than email saturation.

Before email, in order to contact someone famous, particularly if they did not live in your town, it was necessary to call 411 or other phone directory service and hope that the person didn’t have an unpublished number. Or, if they were listed, print out a letter and mail it to them. The only other option was to send a letter to the company or organization the person was affiliated with. Most people didn’t make the effort to do any of that.

Now, anyone famous can be found with a simple Internet search from a home computer, and an email can be sent off within seconds. Famous people are flooded with emails from people all over the world on every subject fathomable – requesting their time at an event or interview, asking for a contribution to a charitable or political cause, requesting their advice, proposing business deals, asking them to put something on their website, long-lost relatives contacting them, fans or enemies harassing them, etc.

There is simply not enough time in the day for one person to respond to hundreds of emails. Most people work 40+ hours a week, and have barely enough time outside of work during the workweek to get much done except make dinner and watch the news, or maybe take the kids to an event or go out to dinner with friends. On the weekends, most people like to work on home improvements and get out of the house to do errands, attend church, or engage in leisure activities like boating. Increasingly, more people have jobs requiring them to sit in front of a computer screen all week long. The last thing they want to do is spend their entire weekend in front of a computer. The number of people suffering backaches from sitting at work too long in front of their computers has been increasing. Consequently, one way that is emerging to distinguish SOPs from SAPs is the presence of back pain.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away – Henry David Thoreau
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