What Is Adult ADD?
Have you ever asked yourself, "What is Adult ADD"? It was once thought that children with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) grew out of it by adulthood, but research indicates this is not always the case.
Some children with ADD will grow into adults with ADD, but with greater life experience and development of skills, adults often learn to mask ADD and manage in spite of it.
Since this neuro-biological state did not have a name until about 20 years ago, any person older than 20 will not have been detected as having ADD, either by parents or teachers, nor received the special support or understanding that can make life a little easier.
The name Attention Deficit Disorder is a misnomer.
Firstly ADD is not about attention deficiency, it is about attention inconsistency.
Secondly, it is not necessarily a disorder, but can become one if the person has problems with work, social relationships, or functioning in daily life.
ADD is rather a set of characteristics and traits of behaviour resulting from a brain that is working differently to the "normal" brain.
Usually the symptoms are passed off as "Oh, that's just Brenda" and the traits are seen by others as Brenda's idiosyncrasies.
ADD is not actually a condition - it is who you are! The person with ADD feels as though there are 100 thoughts bombarding his or her brain at any given time.
The thoughts never stop and can feel like a constant whirling in the brain.
One can access these many thoughts, giving rise to many different ideas and often extraordinary creativity.
However, the same thoughts can also distract the person from ever getting around to carrying anything through.
Others will complain.
"There is never any follow through" or, "He never finishes what he starts".
Yet the same person, if doing a task or involved in an activity that is especially interesting to him, can hyper focus to the point of being unaware of what is going on around him, as he gets totally absorbed.
Both these traits cause loved ones to complain.
The ADD will often intend to do something but simply never gets around to it, and this is especially so if the task is mundane and boring.
The person's own thoughts or something else that occurs along the way will totally distract the ADD from the task he intended to do.
One saying that describes the ADD aptly is: they end up doing what they do not mean to do, and not doing what they mean to do.
Some children with ADD will grow into adults with ADD, but with greater life experience and development of skills, adults often learn to mask ADD and manage in spite of it.
Since this neuro-biological state did not have a name until about 20 years ago, any person older than 20 will not have been detected as having ADD, either by parents or teachers, nor received the special support or understanding that can make life a little easier.
The name Attention Deficit Disorder is a misnomer.
Firstly ADD is not about attention deficiency, it is about attention inconsistency.
Secondly, it is not necessarily a disorder, but can become one if the person has problems with work, social relationships, or functioning in daily life.
ADD is rather a set of characteristics and traits of behaviour resulting from a brain that is working differently to the "normal" brain.
Usually the symptoms are passed off as "Oh, that's just Brenda" and the traits are seen by others as Brenda's idiosyncrasies.
ADD is not actually a condition - it is who you are! The person with ADD feels as though there are 100 thoughts bombarding his or her brain at any given time.
The thoughts never stop and can feel like a constant whirling in the brain.
One can access these many thoughts, giving rise to many different ideas and often extraordinary creativity.
However, the same thoughts can also distract the person from ever getting around to carrying anything through.
Others will complain.
"There is never any follow through" or, "He never finishes what he starts".
Yet the same person, if doing a task or involved in an activity that is especially interesting to him, can hyper focus to the point of being unaware of what is going on around him, as he gets totally absorbed.
Both these traits cause loved ones to complain.
The ADD will often intend to do something but simply never gets around to it, and this is especially so if the task is mundane and boring.
The person's own thoughts or something else that occurs along the way will totally distract the ADD from the task he intended to do.
One saying that describes the ADD aptly is: they end up doing what they do not mean to do, and not doing what they mean to do.
Source...